***************************************************** * ®Patmenu v1.0¯ * * by Eero R„s„nen (C) 1995 * ***************************************************** Purpose ------- A program for managing custom patch sets, especially Pro Patches Lite patch set. You can start patmenu without any parameters and do the work easily with a menuing system. However, some times it would be handy to manage the patch set also from command-line, for example, optimizing the patch set for some game in a batch file. Next section describes the command-line parameters. Note ---- When started the first time Patmenu creates a directory called "backup" under your \ultrasnd\midi directory. Patmenu uses this directory to backup the original patches which are replaced by some custom patches. So DON'T EVER remove this directory !!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Usage ( Currently works only with DOS version of Patmenu ) ----- PATMENU [s|p|q|r|X Y] Parameter Meaning ========= ======= s Full Pro Patches Lite mode - Installs all the Pro Patches Lite patches. p 1024 KB GUS Game compability mode - for games which use a lot of patches. - Use with 1024 KB GUS q MegaEm and 512 KB GUS game compability mode - For rebuilding 1024 KB MegaEm 3.xx bank. - Removes patches that cause problems also with MegaEm 2.xx. - If you have 512 KB GUS, use this mode when playing games. r Restores all orginal patches. You Shouldn't have to use this. X Y Command line version of the user interface of the patmenu. Same as starting patmenu without any parameters and pressing key "X" and after that pressing key "Y". For example, restoring original drums could be done with command "patmenu i 0" and with command "patmenu i 1" would vopy the Pro Patches Lite versions back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ INI - files ----------- You already may have noticed that there are some .ini files included with the patmenu program. These .ini files describe the cathegories of patches used in the program. For example, when you are in the main menu of the patmenu and you press key "0" then what ever you decide to do, settings in the "0pats.ini" will take effect. Likewise, "1" for "1pats.ini", "2" for "2pats.ini" and so on... The last ini -file which can be used is "opats.ini" because the "ppats.ini" is already used for game compability mode. So, you still have five free ini -files to use after that "ipats.ini" used by Pro Patches Lite drums. You can make new ini -files to have more cathegories patches. If you would like to have more options in some of the existing cathegories ( like "808 drums" in the "drums" menu ) check out the next section of this file and study the format of the ini -files. INI file Description ========================== 0pats.ini Acoustic pianos 1pats.ini Electric pianos 2pats.ini Chromatic percussion 3pats.ini Organs 4pats.ini Acoustic guitars 5pats.ini Electric guitars 6pats.ini Basses 7pats.ini Strings 8pats.ini Ensemble 9pats.ini Brass apats.ini Reed bpats.ini Pipe cpats.ini Synth lead dpats.ini Synth pad epats.ini Synth fx fpats.ini Ethnic gpats.ini Percussive hpats.ini Sound effects ipats.ini Drums ppats.ini For playing games with 1024 KB GUS - do not change unless you know what you are doing ! qpats.ini For MegaEm 2.xx and 3.xx and 512 KB GUS with games - do not change either ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Format of INI files ------------------- It's essential to know the format of the INI- files, if you want to use also some other custom patches. This version of patmenu doesn't have any editor included, so you have to do it manually by editing the files with some nice editor, like the on which came with DOS :). Well, the format is quite simple. Mostly it just looks very cryptic because of the "*" and "#" characters. Let's take a look into file 0PATS.INI ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) #0*ACOUSTIC PIANOS*ORIGINAL*Pro Patches Lite (2) 0*acpiano**_* 1*britepno*_* 3*honky****_* 6*hrpschrd*_* 7*clavinet*_* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (1) First character of the first line of the file is a "#" char. That character describes that the line is the header line of the cathegory. So, then comes number "0". Right now, it has no meaning. There could be any other number. After that comes the first "*" character. As you already may have noticed, "*" characters are used for string separators in the file because strings can also include spaces. So, there must be at least one "*" character to separate two strings. This also means that there can be many "*" chars beetween to strings... The string "ACOUSTIC PIANOS" describe the option in the main menu of the patmenu. The strings "ORIGINAL" and "Pro Patches Lite" describe the options in the menu under the option "ACOUSTIC PIANOS"...got it ? (2) The second part of the file describes the patch files used in the section. As before, the first number could be anything. I have used it as patch number. The second string describes the original patch file name. Don't change these !!! The third string ("_") is a special case for Pro Patches Lite patch. It means that the patch has same file name as the original one but it resides in the Pro Patches Lite directory. So, the "_" char in the "0*acpiano**_*" means same as "0*acpiano*acpiano*". It's just a way to make the lines shorter. In other words, the second column in the file describes patches for the "ORIGINAL" option in the menu and third column describes the same thing for the option "Pro Patches Lite". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Changing INI files ------------------ After you have understood the format of the INI -file described above it is a good time to know how to make changes to them. For example, lets assume that you have two new pianos under directory "C:\PATCHES\BIGPIANO" and your Pro Patches Lite resides under directory "C:\PATCHES". These two files are "BIGACPNO.PAT" and "BIGBTPNO.PAT" and they are both very nice sounding, but both are over 500kB in size. So, you would like to use them in time to time for playing some midi files played with a solo piano. First thing to do is to add a menu option for the pianos. It can be done as follows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- #0*ACOUSTIC PIANOS*ORIGINAL*Pro Patches Lite*BIG PIANOS 0*acpiano**_*BIGPIANO\BIGACPNO* 1*britepno*_*BIGPIANO\BIGBTPNO* 3*honky****_*_***************** 6*hrpschrd*_*_***************** 7*clavinet*_*/***************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As you can see, the changes consist of one more string in the header line to describe the new option in the menu and a column of text in the second part of the file to describe the new patches. When the "BIG PIANOS" option is chooced from the menu "Acoustic pianos", files acpiano Patmenu copies file "C:\patches\bigpiano\binacpno.pat" to file "C:\ultrasnd\midi\acpiano.pat" and file "C:\patches\bigpiano\binbtpno.pat" to file "C:\ultrasnd\midi\britepno.pat". The next two lines are processed as decribed before and then comes the last thing to wonder about - "/" character. This character is invertion of "_" character. In this case it would restore the original version of the "clavinet" patch. In other words, it makes sure that original version of the patch is used when "BIG PIANOS" option is chooced from the the menu "Acoustic pianos". BE SURE THAT YOU TAKE BACKUPS OF THE .INI FILES BEFORE CHANGING THEM !! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Changes in version 1.0 ---------------------- - Few visual changes. - The "RESTORE ORIGINAL GRAVIS PATCHES" line didn't highlite when it was clicked with mouse. Changes in version 0.9 ---------------------- - A major bug was found. If one had FILE called 'backup' in '\ultrasnd\midi' directory, Patmenu couldn't create the directory called 'backup'! Due to this one could loose all original patches ! Now, if there is a file called 'backup' in the '\ultrasnd\midi' directory when '\ultrasnd\midi\backup' is going to be created, the file will be renamed to 'backup.$$'. - Windows version of the Patmenu did not work because it needed a DLL called 'BIVBX11.DLL' to run. It is now included with Patmenu. - Windows version of the Patmemu didn't create the 'backup' directory, if it didn't exist. - Windows version of the Patmenu didn't have any application icon. Now it does. Changes in version 0.8 ---------------------- -Few visual changes. -Now "Game Compability" and "MegaEm" modes work any time. -Windows version included (wpatmenu.exe). Changes in version 0.7 ---------------------- When the mode is changed to Game Compability mode, patmenu can not only restore, but also copy some instruments. This is useful if there is some "middle quality" patch, which is small and sound better than the original and sound, but does not sound as good as some other bigger replacement. Changes in version 0.6 ---------------------- There was a minor bug in the user interface. When one pressed "r" button, wrong line was highlighted. Changed the name to "Pro Patches Lite menu" ***End of File***