Is Zynthian a good choice for custom live soundfont presets?

Hi. I am currently using a modified version of squishbox/fluidpatcher in my live setup. My basic needs are: the ability to define presets that play different soundfonts in response to receiving different midi channels. So basically one song will have piano on channel 1, and violin on channel 2, and then I switch to the next song/preset (via a program change message) and now I have clarinet and organ (for example). Additionally, I can split my soundfont sounds across the keyboard, and adjust their octave and volume. It seems like Zynthian can handle this functionality, but I was wondering if someone could confirm this before I start down the path of trying to get it to work? Or if you think I might run into issues? Zynthian seems to have a lot of other things that I’d like, so I think moving over to it would be worth my time. Thanks for any insight from those of you with Zynthian experience.

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Hello @equant and welcome to zynthlan land :slight_smile:

I can reassure you that Zynthian fulfils perfectly your use case, I use it exactly for the same case and you can rely on it 100%. Moreover, you can even change presets in the middle of a song and all will be ready instantaneously.

There’s a feature called ZS3 subsnapshots that, very briefly, assigns one configuration of presets and midi routing to a Midi Program Change command. So, if you send the program change zynthian will recall your preset configuration in no time and you’ll be ready to play. And you can repeat it with as many Program Changes as you need,

Check this link to read about it. It’s in the V4 User’s Guide but the definition is appliable to V5 too.

https://wiki.zynthian.org/index.php/Zynthian_UI_User_Guide_-_V1/V4#ZS3_.28SubSnapShots.29:_MIDI_Program_Change_Learning

I hope you enjoy your time with zynthian.

Pau

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Awesome, thanks so much for your answer, I really appreciate it!

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We have a mechanism to deal with such eventualities…

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