README for sfvbm-017 (SoundFont Virtual Bank Manager version 0.17)
What is sfvbm?
sfvbm is a virtual bank manager for the AWE32/64 (Linux X) using the fine FKTK toolkit. It can load instruments from sbk, sf2 and bnk files to make new bnk files.
It also includes my soundfont editing tool (sfedit). This is called from a menu item in sfvbm, it is not another binary.
Both these programs are very early BETA code and pretty messy at the moment. They are the result of three programs cobbled together and need quite a bit of cleaning up before I can be sure they interact correctly.
Note: Individual key mapping is not implemented (so you can't build those custom drum sets yet :-( ), but is NUMBER ONE priority.
Please send comments, bugs, ideas etc. to ijp@floot.demon.co.uk or the linux-awe mailing list if it's worth sharing.
What you need.
You'll need a fairly recent FLTK. Version 1.0.3 is recommended.
You can get FLTK from
Also you'll need libawe.a, from the awesfx library, installed. But you should have this anyway if you're playing with an awe32/64.
You can get awesfx from
http://bahamut.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~iwai/awedrv/
I'm using awesfx-0.4.2c which is pretty old now, but 'works for me'. I'll be going to a 2.2.x kernel soon, so I don't see the point of possibly breaking my current drivers, or at least causing a lot of work.
Compilling and running.
To compile sfvbm just
make
There's no 'make install' (yet) so move it where you like, it's just a binary called 'sfvbm'.
Preferences, such as the path to your soundfont directory, are configured at run time and stored in a file called $(HOME)/.sfvbmrc as is customary.
I hope it's pretty obvious how to use it (I'm counting on beta testers to know enough about the way soundfonts work). The only non obvious part, AFAIK, is right clicking on the filename boxes in the main window. This will popup a menu so you can, for example, delete that entry.