GM Tone Map

This page lists, for every one of the 128 General MIDI programs, the data-free fallback voicing NativeSynth uses when no SoundFont covers that program: instrument name, synthesis engine, and voicing notes. It is the one per-program table; the bank behind it (GS variation tones, drum-kit variants, SoundFont fallback routing) is on GM and GS Fallback Bank. Canonical instrument names are also available at runtime from Project.gmInstrumentName(program). Program numbers here are zero-based, as they are on the wire: a manual that counts from 1 lists each program one higher (Counting from 0 or from 1).

Calibration status

Only the acoustic piano (programs 0-3) is calibrated against a reference recording. Every program on another physical-model engine, including the harpsichord, modal and percussion engines, is provisional and can change across patch releases. The subtractive, FM and additive programs are signal-based and carry no calibration status.

The demo below plays any program in this map through its fallback voice: pick a family, then one of its eight programs. The tables after it say which engine each one uses.

GM · FAMILYIDLE

GM families — the data-free fallback

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Pick a General MIDI family, then one of its eight programs, and hear a middle-C note through the built-in fallback voice with no SoundFont loaded. The English names are the engine’s own. Each program in a family has its own voicing. A SoundFont that covers a program plays its own recording instead.

Family

Program

Programs per engine

Engine	Programs	Count
subtractive	38-39, 44, 50-51, 55, 80-91, 93-97, 99-103, 120-127	36
karplus-strong	7, 15, 24-37, 45-46, 105	19
modal	8-14, 92, 108, 113-114	11
reed	64-71, 109, 111	10
flute	72-79	8
bowed-string	40-43, 48-49, 110	7
percussion	47, 112, 115-119	7
brass	56-61	6
fm	4-5, 62-63, 98	5
piano	0-3	4
free-reed	20-23	4
additive	16-18	3
plucked-string	104, 106-107	3
vocal	52-54	3
harpsichord	6	1
pipe-organ	19	1

Piano (0-7)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
0	Acoustic Grand Piano	piano	shared modal soundboard
1	Bright Acoustic Piano	piano	the same grand, voiced hard
2	Electric Grand Piano	piano	the acoustic waveguide, not FM
3	Honky-tonk Piano	piano	unisons pulled apart until they beat
4	Electric Piano 1	fm	tine/bell FM
5	Electric Piano 2	fm	its own fit: a deeper body modulator that falls over 12 s
6	Harpsichord	harpsichord	jack and plectrum; three bank-selected registrations
7	Clavi	karplus-strong	tangent-struck steel string read by a pickup near its end; a bright strike over a dark ring

Chromatic Percussion (8-15)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
8	Celesta	modal	soft felt-struck steel bar
9	Glockenspiel	modal	uniform-bar mode ratios
10	Music Box	modal	twin-tooth beating for tine shimmer
11	Vibraphone	modal	motor tremolo (LFO → amplitude)
12	Marimba	modal	deep-arch bar, wood-tube body
13	Xylophone	modal	short, dry deep-arch bar
14	Tubular Bells	modal	struck bell whose perceived pitch sits below its strongest partials, long ring
15	Dulcimer	karplus-strong	hammered (struck) string

Organ (16-23)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
16	Drawbar Organ	additive	nine-drawbar tonewheel organ
17	Percussive Organ	additive	percussion tab down; the first three drawbars only
18	Rock Organ	additive	fuller drawbars and a key click
19	Church Organ	pipe-organ	multi-rank plenum
20	Reed Organ	free-reed	harmonium: mellow plate, soft tongues
21	Accordion	free-reed	the reed-organ reed on a narrower slot; three-reed musette, bellows swell
22	Harmonica	free-reed	small, bright, stiff tongues + hand vibrato
23	Tango Accordion	free-reed	bandoneon: one reed line per note, no musette; a darker plate and a harder bellows than the accordion

Guitar (24-31)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
24	Acoustic Guitar (nylon)	karplus-strong	softer pluck, no dispersion
25	Acoustic Guitar (steel)	karplus-strong	steel-string dispersion + sympathetic strings
26	Electric Guitar (jazz)	karplus-strong	near-bridge pickup, no body
27	Electric Guitar (clean)	karplus-strong	the same solid-body string as the jazz guitar, fitted separately against a direct-out reference
28	Electric Guitar (muted)	karplus-strong	palm mute: a break in the harmonic series and a choked decay
29	Overdriven Guitar	karplus-strong	the electric string, heard through an amplifier just into its power stage
30	Distortion Guitar	karplus-strong	the electric string, heard through a cascaded, scooped preamp
31	Guitar Harmonics	karplus-strong	touched node, not the open string

Bass (32-39)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
32	Acoustic Bass	karplus-strong	large resonating body
33	Electric Bass (finger)	karplus-strong	pickup + two-polarization beat
34	Electric Bass (pick)	karplus-strong	bright near-bridge attack
35	Fretless Bass	karplus-strong	rounder, glide-friendly
36	Slap Bass 1	karplus-strong	thumb slap + fret-slap buzz
37	Slap Bass 2	karplus-strong	sharper pop
38	Synth Bass 1	subtractive	synth bass by design
39	Synth Bass 2	subtractive	synth bass by design

Strings (40-47)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
40	Violin	bowed-string
41	Viola	bowed-string	darker, slower
42	Cello	bowed-string
43	Contrabass	bowed-string	darkest, slowest
44	Tremolo Strings	subtractive	detuned-saw section with an amplitude-tremolo LFO
45	Pizzicato Strings	karplus-strong	short pluck into a violin-body corpus
46	Orchestral Harp	karplus-strong	long undamped ring
47	Timpani	percussion	note-tracked kettledrum

Ensemble (48-55)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
48	String Ensemble 1	bowed-string	ensemble bowing
49	String Ensemble 2	bowed-string	its own fit: slower attack, hyperbolic friction, no keyboard level slope
50	SynthStrings 1	subtractive	the brighter and slower of the pair; an amplitude LFO carries the key-fixed part of the swell
51	SynthStrings 2	subtractive	darker, faster to speak and twice as wide; the width is its whole movement
52	Choir Aahs	vocal	open /a/ vowel, band-limited glottal source + formants
53	Voice Oohs	vocal	darker closed /u/ vowel
54	Synth Voice	vocal	brighter, steadier synthetic vowel
55	Orchestra Hit	subtractive	bright detuned-saw stab

Brass (56-63)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
56	Trumpet	brass	lip-reed waveguide
57	Trombone	brass
58	Tuba	brass	dark, conical
59	Muted Trumpet	brass	physical mute model
60	French Horn	brass	rounder, conical
61	Brass Section	brass	the lip-reed waveguide, in section
62	SynthBrass 1	fm	FM by design
63	SynthBrass 2	fm	FM by design

Reed (64-71)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
64	Soprano Sax	reed	conical bore
65	Alto Sax	reed	conical
66	Tenor Sax	reed	conical
67	Baritone Sax	reed	conical, darkest sax
68	Oboe	reed	conical, bright/nasal
69	English Horn	reed	conical
70	Bassoon	reed	conical, low
71	Clarinet	reed	cylindrical bore (odd harmonics)

Pipe (72-79)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
72	Piccolo	flute	brightest
73	Flute	flute
74	Recorder	flute
75	Pan Flute	flute	breathy vortex
76	Blown Bottle	flute	dark, high damping
77	Shakuhachi	flute	breathiest
78	Whistle	flute
79	Ocarina	flute	closed vessel

Synth Lead, Pad and Effects (80-103)

Programs 92 (modal) and 98 (FM) run on other engines; the other 22 run on subtractive oscillators.

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
80	Lead 1 (square)	subtractive	two squares 8 cents apart through a linear 24 dB/oct filter
81	Lead 2 (sawtooth)	subtractive	two saws 8 cents apart through a 12 dB/oct filter
82	Lead 3 (calliope)	subtractive	steam-whistle rank: triangle-like odd partials under a strong octave, a key-tracked band of breath noise
83	Lead 4 (chiff)	subtractive	a saw whose filter envelope collapses in 60 ms, so the breath edge sits on the onset
84	Lead 5 (charang)	subtractive	hard, guitar-edged lead through a diode-ladder filter
85	Lead 6 (voice)	subtractive	a sung lead: the oscillator runs through the vocal formant body, which is the model; the oscillator only has to be rich enough to feed it
86	Lead 7 (fifths)	subtractive	a saw plus a second oscillator at a fixed interval below it, through a linear 4-pole filter
87	Lead 8 (bass + lead)	subtractive	one still mono saw through a 2-pole lowpass, no layer
88	Pad 1 (new age)	subtractive	5-oscillator saw pad with a slow cutoff LFO for the shimmer
89	Pad 2 (warm)	subtractive	two saws 6 cents apart, one each side of the field, through a 4th-order lowpass tracking the key
90	Pad 3 (polysynth)	subtractive	5-oscillator stack, wide and bright, with an attack short enough to play chords
91	Pad 4 (choir)	subtractive	the same vocal formant body as Lead 6, mixed higher, over the pad's envelope instead of the lead's
92	Pad 5 (bowed)	modal	bowed glass: a held sine over the glass's own inharmonic modes, struck by the onset and dying in two stages
93	Pad 6 (metallic)	subtractive	a chorused narrow pulse through a lowpass on the fundamental, plus an unfiltered second layer
94	Pad 7 (halo)	subtractive	the slowest attack, the widest scatter, the most drift, the top rolled off
95	Pad 8 (sweep)	subtractive	a slow LFO across most of the filter's range
96	FX 1 (rain)	subtractive	high-passed noise wash
97	FX 2 (soundtrack)	subtractive	broad saw stack, long envelope
98	FX 3 (crystal)	fm	a sine under a quiet fourth harmonic that velocity raises, plus an inharmonic glint the strike brings in
99	FX 4 (atmosphere)	subtractive	wide drift, with the breath as a band after the filter
100	FX 5 (brightness)	subtractive	square wave and high-pass edge
101	FX 6 (goblins)	subtractive	a dark square that holds its pitch, over a fixed-frequency hiss
102	FX 7 (echoes)	subtractive	slow LFO gain pulses stand in for repeats
103	FX 8 (sci-fi)	subtractive	an opening resonant band-pass over noise, with a slow sweep

Ethnic (104-111)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
104	Sitar	plucked-string	jawari bridge buzz, long shimmering ring
105	Banjo	karplus-strong	steel strings drained by a membrane head
106	Shamisen	plucked-string	sawari buzz, drier and harder than the sitar
107	Koto	plucked-string	bridge-buzz plucked string
108	Kalimba	modal	plucked steel tine, wood-tube body
109	Bag pipe	reed	conical double reed at fixed bag pressure, no drones
110	Fiddle	bowed-string	violin voicing, bowed the folk way
111	Shanai	reed	double reed into a brass-bell body

Percussive (112-119)

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
112	Tinkle Bell	percussion	the played key and its fourth partial, plus a fixed-frequency inharmonic noise band; a 60 dB fall in about 1.5 s
113	Agogo	modal	two-tone metal bell; its loudest line sits an octave above the played key
114	Steel Drums	modal	a tuned pan: the octave comes out louder than the note
115	Woodblock	percussion	very short, with stick click
116	Taiko Drum	percussion	strong pitch drop + shell boom
117	Melodic Tom	percussion	note-tracked, with shell body
118	Synth Drum	percussion	decaying-sine electronic drum
119	Reverse Cymbal	percussion	long rising swell (simulated reverse)

Sound Effects (120-127)

GM · FALLBACKIDLE

GM Sound-Effects — the data-free fallback

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Audition the built-in fallback for the General MIDI Sound-Effects family (programs 120–127), rendered with no SoundFont loaded. Each of the eight programs has its own noise-based subtractive voice. Load a SoundFont that supplies real effect samples and those addresses play its sounds instead. Press play to hear the current data-free fallback.

Program

The demo above auditions all eight GM Sound-Effects programs. Each is its own subtractive gesture built from noise, a filter and an envelope.

Prog	Instrument	Engine	Notes
120	Guitar Fret Noise	subtractive	short, bright scrape with no pitched body
121	Breath Noise	subtractive	soft low-passed burst with a gradual onset
122	Seashore	subtractive	long noise swell with a receding high-pass edge
123	Bird Tweet	subtractive	triangle swept upward by an envelope
124	Telephone Ring	subtractive	key-following resonant square
125	Helicopter	subtractive	low noise band with periodic amplitude
126	Applause	subtractive	broad bright noise with random scatter
127	Gunshot	subtractive	compressed noise impulse with a bright crack

These are approximations built without samples. A SoundFont that covers these programs plays its own recordings instead.