General MIDI Standards

TABLE 3  -  General MIDI Minimum Sound Module Specifications
 
Voices:
A minimum of either 24 fully dynamically allocated voices available simultaneously for both melodic and percussive sounds or 16 dynamically allocated voices for melody plus eight for percussion.
 
Channels:
General MIDI mode supports all sixteen MIDI channels. Each channel can play a variable number of voices (polyphony). Each channel can play a different instrument (timbre). Keybased Percussion is always on Channel 10.
 
Instruments:
A minimum of sixteen different timbres playing various instrument sounds. A minimum of 128 preset for Intruments (MIDI program numbers).
 
Note on/Note off:
Octave Registration: Middle C(C3) = MIDI key 60. All Voices including percussion respond to velocity.
 
Controllers:
Controller #

Description
1 Modulation
7 Main Volume
10 Pan
11 Expression
64 Sustain
121 Reset All Controllers
123 All Notes Off
   
Registered
Parameter #

Description
0 Pitch Bend Sensitivity
1 Fine Tuning
2 Coarse Tuning
 
Additional Channel Messages:
Channel Pressure (Aftertouch)
Pitch Bend
 
Power-Up Defaults:
Pitch Bend Amount = 0
Pitch Bend Sensitivity = +-2 semitones
Volume = 90
All Other Controllers = reset
RELATED TOPICS: TABLE 1 - GM Instrument Patch Map
  TABLE 2 - GM Percussion Key Map
   
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