Setting up a pa700

[timtrax]

I have just acquired a pa700. I am populating it with midi-kar files from a Roland BK9. (I am removing all Roland sysex stuff and 'sequencer specific' and dumbing the files down to pure GM files. - (because I am happy with the 700 Gm sounds) I'm finding that the LYRICS are messed up in about 10% of the files - some files have transferred perfectly - some are missing lines, missing line breaks, and some have mixed up the order of the lines. If it helps, the files were created in Cubase on a Mac. I am generally pleased with the transition - but the BAD files work fine on all midi player and programs - but not on the ps700 If it helps - the files are in English! The bad files all play the music correctly but not the lyrics.
Can anybody tell me anything I need to know about mid-kar files? I have a hunch that the problem has something to do with the FONT I used in originally creating the files. ....or some Language setting on the 700?

....and I am having the duplicate ._name problem on every file - which I need to deal with at some point. (eg. .Yesterday also shows up as ._Yesterday)

[duby2]

No I cannot help you but post one or two of the files that you're having trouble with and I would like to try it in my PA 1000 or my PA 4X just wondering why

[timtrax]

A knowledgeable local friend has solved my problem. When creating scrolling lyrics you must use fixed width fonts. In 20 years of creating midi files with lyrics, I have never encountered the problem. Now I will have to check every file I bring over from Roland for proper scrolling.

[siebenhirter]

... has solved my problem. When creating scrolling lyrics you must use fixed width fonts .....

For the correct position of lyrics and chord names, the displays of MIDI players have always required SMFs with metadata (text, lyrics) using MONOSPACED fonts, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or NON-PROPORTIONAL fonts, whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space.

As described in Pa700 manual
- creating text files requires to choose the right language in Pa700 and save the txt.file with the correct text encoding (ie that is with Notepad++ English Western European > Windows-1252, with Macs TextWrangler Western Windows Latin 1)
- to correctly read text on your Pa, be sure to set the Language parameter to your language, that can be done in the Global > General Controls > Interface page
For Pa-Series instrument text files must be formatted with non-proportional fonts (like Courier, Courier New, Letter Gothic, Lucida Sans, Menlo, Monaco,
Vera Sans or any other monospaced font). Up to 41 characters can fit a single line of text when using the smaller font size and 24 when using the bigger font size.

The keyboard will read MIDI meta data (FF 01 len text, FF 05 len lyric) in same manner as it does for correct position with note events. So it positions and shows chord names (text) and lyrics on the display if such a non-proportional font is used.

Song texts sometimes are saved as Word documents using a non-fixed width font and that is meaning lyrics and chords are 'out of sync' (converting might be tedious, maybe text formatter software will do the job).

[timtrax]

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I don't exactly comprehend everything you are saying but I think the bottom line is: I have to re-do a few files , using fixed width (I use Monaco)
I don't know if the problems are related in any way but my ._name problem has disappeared

[timtrax]

A month later, having transferred almost 400 midi files from my Roland BK nine to my PA 700. I can say that I had to redo the lyrics of approximately 50 of the songs, changing them to fixed with fonts.