Hi Ceresa
Many thanks for your notes - much appreciated...
Ok, with a bit of experimentation, I'm now able to control the volumes of the individual instruments (channels) within a synth... so basically that means my program can now connect/disconnect the keyboard to up to nine individual synths - each of which can have up to eight instruments defined (the first eight channels) - once connected to an individual synth it can then control the volumes of those eight channels... so basically I can create different presets (synths) and once selected I can then control the volume mix within that preset... (hope that makes sense).
Why use different preset synths? - as mentioned, I'm playing live on stage so I don't have time to make major adjustments to volumes on multiple channels, so it'll be easier to just swap to a different synths that have different setups, which means the volume sliders allow me to fine tune while in a song - e.g. have a piano on channel 0, and be able to bring in strong or soft pads etc...
A slightly different question, leading on from the above - is there a way to read the names of the instruments from the synth, also read the current volume controls? So basically I'm thinking when I switch from one synth to another my program can read the current settings from qsynth/fluidsynth - my alternative is that when I switch my program re-sends all the volumes and instruments (I've yet to work out how you send select instrument commands to a channel...)
Hope that all makes sense...
Cheers
Carl.