Midnamaker: A MIDNAM file editor

Overview

It's a pain when your DAW displays things from your MIDI devices that don't match the names in the device itself. It is creatively disruptive to have to remember that the patch select buttons equate to continuous controller 70, or Bank 1 in the DAW corresponds to "User Bank" on your device. Or when trying to set up patch changes and you have to remember that patch change 12 is the drum kit patch. And few things are as frustrating as seeing the piano keys at the left of your drum editor, and instead of displaying "Big Kick", "Gated Snare" etc., you're just seeing pitch names like "D#1". Sure, you can manually type the names in, but what about the other tracks that aren't using that template?

The MIDI Name Document is a standard way of describing a device's particular banks, patches, controller names and even note names. In some DAWs (notably Pro Tools and Digital Performer), these files provide automatic access to patch banks and individual patch names within the DAW. Pro Tools even shows you individual note names in piano roll editors (think drum kits or noteswitches). (Hey MOTU! Get this working again!)

Midnamaker is a comprehensive web-based editor for creating and editing MIDI Name Documents (.midnam files). This tool provides an intuitive interface for managing MIDI device configurations, patch names, controller names and note mappings. It includes a great many commonly available .midnam files for vintage MIDI devices. With this tool you can update and extend existing ones, and customize them to your exact patch names, etc. Then you can generate an updated .midnam file and install it into your DAW.

On this tab you can choose to either upload an existing .midnam file to edit it, or load an existing one from the catalog. You can also create a new .midnam file from scratch by simply defining a new device for a manufacturer, or even an entirely new manufacturer.

Once you've loaded a device on this Load File tab, you can edit the device's patch names on the Device tab. You can add or rename new patch banks, add or rename patches, and specify continuous controller names. You can also add more technical details like Channel Name Sets and MIDI assignments, specify support for General MIDI and more.

The Patch tab shows details about an individual patch, including providing an editor for note name lists for drum kits and the like.

When you're finished you can save your changes to the .midnam file, and download the updated file on the Generate tab to install into your DAW.

The Tools tab has miscellaneous advanced features like a catalog viewer, a note name consistency tool, and a debug console.

This is a Web application that runs entirely in your browser. It does not store any data on the server. All data is stored in your browser's local storage. You can clear your browser's local storage at any time to start fresh.

This application is open source and available on GitHub. You can find the source code and contribute to the project at https://github.com/midnamaker/midnamaker.

This application is not affiliated with any commercial entity. It is a personal project and is not intended for commercial use.