Set synth.device-id to 16 by default

[spessasus]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

When I first started getting into the MIDI stuff, I found a cool GS MIDI this one to be precise and it sounded amazing under virtualMIDISynth or MSGS, but not in fluidsynth. It used GS to set drums on channel 9 and 11, which didn't happen on fluidsynth as it ignored the sysEx since the device-id was not set.

Only later when I discovered the concept of system exclusives and device id i realized that I had to add -o synth.device-id=16 to make it sound properly.

Now imagine a new user wanting to play a MIDI they found on the internet. They google "synthesizer" and soundfonts and fluidsynth comes up (that's how I found out about this project too!). So they download it, type fluidsynth soundfont.sf2 song.mid and the song sounds wrong. That's why I propose to change the default device-id in the command line to 127 (i.e. accept all sysExes)

Rationale

• it doesn't hurt the existing API (only the command line gets changed)
• it doesn't require setting options for various MIDI song to play correctly
• the MIDI Just Works™
• it doesn't modify synth's behavior itself (again, command line fluid only)
• it can still be disabled

Describe the solution you'd like

Change default device-id in the command line to 127 (i.e. accept all sysExes)

Describe alternatives you've considered

It could also default to 16 since it's the default device-id and most MIDIs call these.

[hikari-no-yume]

Using 16 as the default seems better to me. If a MIDI file actually has several different device IDs in it (which must be very rare), they wouldn't be intended to all go to the same synth.

[derselbst]

I also find fluidsynth's current behavior unintuitive in that regard. I am open to change the default value. Since we are expecting a minor version update 2.4 somewhen soon, I would be open to change the default value of the setting itself. I find that a bit more transparent than changing the default value only for the command line world.

I also have a slight preference to a default value of 16.

[spessasus]

Alright, that's fine too, since all MIDIs I have do use 16 as device id. And setting it as a default in the entire synth is good too (it will enable sysEx support in vlc!!!)