        *****************************************************
        *                 ®Patmenu  v0.7¯                   *
        *             by Eero R„s„nen (C) 1995              *
        *****************************************************

Purpose:

  A program for managing custom patch sets, especially Pro Patches Lite patch set.
  You can start patmenu without any parameters and do the work easily with
  a menuing system. However, some times it would be handy to manage the patch
  set also from command-line, for example, optimizing the patch set for
  some game in a batch file. Next section describes the command-line parameters.

Note:

  When started the first time Patmenu creates a directory called "backup" under
  your \ultrasnd\midi directory. Patmenu uses this directory to backup the
  original patches which are replaced by some custom patches. So DON'T
  EVER remove this directory !!!

Usage:

  PATMENU [s|p|q|r|X Y]

  Parameter  Meaning
  =========  =======
     s          Full mode - uses all the Pro Patches Lite patches. 

     p          Game compability mode - for games which use a lot of patches.
                *** Works only when in "full mode" ! ***

     q          For megaem 3.xx - makes patch set for megaem 3.xx. With
                this command, you can build 1024.bnk file with megaem 3.xx.
                *** Works only when in "full mode" or
                    in "Game compability mode" ! ***

     r          Restores all orginal patches. You Shouldn't have to use this.

     X Y        Command line version of the user interface of the patmenu.
                Same as starting patmenu without any parameters and pressing
                key "X" and after that pressing key "Y". For example, restoring
                original drums could be done with command "patmenu i 0" and
                with command "patmenu i 1" would vopy the Pro Patches Lite versions
                back. 


INI - files:
  
    You already may have noticed that there are some .ini files included
    with the patmenu program. These .ini files describe the cathegories
    of patches used in the program. For example, when you are in the main
    menu of the patmenu and you press key "0" then what ever you decide
    to do, settings in the "0pats.ini" will take effect. Likewise, "1" for
    "1pats.ini", "2" for "2pats.ini" and so on... The last ini -file which
    can be used is "opats.ini" because the "ppats.ini" is already used
    for game compability mode. So, you still have five free ini -files to
    use after that "ipats.ini" used by Pro Patches Lite drums. You can make
    new ini -files to have more cathegories patches.

    If you would like to have more options in some of the existing
    cathegories ( like "808 drums" in the "drums" menu ) check out
    the next section of this file and study the format of the ini -files.
    
        INI file   Description
        ==========================
        0pats.ini  Acoustic pianos
        1pats.ini  Electric pianos
        2pats.ini  Chromatic percussion
        3pats.ini  Organs
        4pats.ini  Acoustic guitars
        5pats.ini  Electric guitars
        6pats.ini  Basses
        7pats.ini  Strings
        8pats.ini  Ensemble
        9pats.ini  Brass
        apats.ini  Reed
        bpats.ini  Pipe
        cpats.ini  Synth lead
        dpats.ini  Synth pad
        epats.ini  Synth fx
        fpats.ini  Ethnic
        gpats.ini  Percussive
        hpats.ini  Sound effects
        ipats.ini  Drums

        ppats.ini  For playing games  - do not change unless you know what you
                      are doing !
        qpats.ini  For megaem 3.xx - do not change either unless you try to
                      make patch set for 512kB GUS ( could be possible ) !


Format of INI files:

   It's essential to know the format of the INI- files, if you want to
   use also some other custom patches. This version of patmenu doesn't
   have any editor included, so you have to do it manually by editing
   the files with some nice editor, like the on which came with DOS :).
   Well, the format is quite simple. Mostly it just looks very cryptic
   because of the "*" and "#" characters.

   Let's take a look into file 0PATS.INI

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
(1)     #0*ACOUSTIC PIANOS*ORIGINAL*Pro Patches Lite

(2)     0*acpiano**_*
        1*britepno*_*
        3*honky****_*
        6*hrpschrd*_*
        7*clavinet*_*
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------


(1)  First character of the first line of the file is a "#" char. That
     character describes that the line is the header line of the cathegory.
     So, then comes number "0". Right now, it has no meaning. There could be
     any other number.
     After that comes the first "*" character. As you already may have
     noticed, "*" characters are used for string separators in the file
     because strings can also include spaces. So, there must be at least
     one "*" character to separate two strings. This also means that
     there can be many "*" chars beetween to strings...
     The string "ACOUSTIC PIANOS" describe the option in the main menu
     of the patmenu.
     The strings "ORIGINAL" and "Pro Patches Lite" describe the options in
     the menu under the option "ACOUSTIC PIANOS"...got it ?

(2)  The second part of the file describes the patch files used in the
     section. As before, the first number could be anything. I have used
     it as patch number.
     The second string describes the original patch file name.
     Don't change these !!! 
     The third string ("_") is a special case for Pro Patches Lite patch.
     It means that the patch has same file name as the original one but
     it resides in the Pro Patches Lite directory. So, the "_" char in the
     "0*acpiano**_*" means same as "0*acpiano*acpiano*".
     It's just a way to make the lines shorter.

     In other words, the second column in the file describes patches for the
     "ORIGINAL" option in the menu and third column describes the same
     thing for the option "Pro Patches Lite".


Changing INI files:

     After you have understood the format of the INI -file described
     above it is a good time to know how to make changes to them.
     For example, lets assume that you have two new pianos under
     directory "C:\PATCHES\BIGPIANO" and your Pro Patches Lite resides
     under directory "C:\PATCHES". These two files are "BIGACPNO.PAT"
     and "BIGBTPNO.PAT" and they are both very nice sounding, but
     both are over 500kB in size. So, you would like to use them
     in time to time for playing some midi files played with a solo
     piano.

     First thing to do is to add a menu option for the pianos. It
     can be done as follows.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

     #0*ACOUSTIC PIANOS*ORIGINAL*Pro Patches Lite*BIG PIANOS
                                            
     0*acpiano**_*BIGPIANO\BIGACPNO*
     1*britepno*_*BIGPIANO\BIGBTPNO*
     3*honky****_*_*****************
     6*hrpschrd*_*_*****************
     7*clavinet*_*/*****************

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

     As you can see, the changes consist of one more string in the header
     line to describe the new option in the menu and a column of text
     in the second part of the file to describe the new patches.

     When the "BIG PIANOS" option is chooced from the menu "Acoustic pianos",
     files acpiano Patmenu copies file "C:\patches\bigpiano\binacpno.pat" to     
     file "C:\ultrasnd\midi\acpiano.pat" and file "C:\patches\bigpiano\binbtpno.pat" to
     file "C:\ultrasnd\midi\britepno.pat".

     The next two lines are processed as decribed before and then comes
     the last thing to wonder about - "/" character. This character is
     invertion of "_" character. In this case it would restore the
     original version of the "clavinet" patch. In other words, it
     makes sure that original version of the patch is used when
     "BIG PIANOS" option is chooced from the the menu "Acoustic pianos".

                                                    


BE SURE THAT YOU TAKE BACKUPS OF THE .INI FILES BEFORE CHANGING THEM !!


Changes in version 0.7 (compared to v0.6)

     When the mode is changed to Game Compability mode, patmenu can
     not only restore, but also copy some instruments.
     This is useful if there is some "middle quality" patch, which is
     small and sound better than the original and sound, but does not sound
     as good as some other bigger replacement.


Changes in version 0.6 (compared to v0.5)

     There was a minor bug in the user interface. When one pressed
     "r" button, wrong line was highlighted.

     Changed the name to "Pro Patches Lite menu" 


***End of File***
