Appendix D — General MIDI Program Numbers

The 128 instruments every GM soundfont provides, in the standard sixteen families. Programs are numbered 0–127 here, matching fs.program_select(channel, sfid, bank, program) — some references list them 1–128; if your soundfont seems off by one instrument, that’s why.

Bolded entries are the ones this book’s records actually use.

Program 120 — the joke instrument of the sound-card era — is the fret squeak that carries Chapter 9’s most persuasive humanization. Programs 121–127 reward similar re-examination: Breath Noise is a wind-player’s byproduct waiting for the same trick.

The percussion exception. MIDI channel 10 (index 9) is traditionally percussion: note numbers select drums (35/36 kicks, 38/40 snares, 42/44/46 hats…) rather than pitches, and the program number selects a kit. This book’s records skip GM drums entirely in favor of Chapter 6’s real drum machine samples — but the channel-10 convention explains why a melody accidentally assigned there plays as drum hits, a rite of passage worth having named.

Reality check. GM defines the names; your soundfont defines the sounds. In GeneralUser GS, the bolded instruments above are genuinely good; quality across the full 128 varies. Audition before you trust — a for-loop over candidate programs rendering the same phrase is Chapter 6’s kit audition, transposed.