A Track contains a description of each note to be played by an instrument. Using an orchestra as an analogy, a track is the same as one musician's sheet music.

A channel is a number from 1 to 16 that connects a MIDI controller, and thus, the computer, to a particular instrument on a particular synthesizer. In Anvil Studio, each track is played on a single channel. Using an orchestra as an analogy, a channel is the same as one musician in the orchestra.

Each MIDI cable can carry up to 16 channels of MIDI events. Most synthesizers are Multi-Timbral, that is, they can make sounds for several different instruments at the same time. A MIDI Sequence is a file that contains a song to be played by Anvil Studio, or any similar program. A single MIDI Sequence contains one or more tracks of music; one track for each instrument in the song. Using an orchestra as an analogy, a MIDI Sequence contains the entire orchestra's sheet music for the song to be played.

A Patch, is the information a particular synthesizer needs to sound like a particular musical instrument. Using an orchestra as an analogy, a patch is the same as an instrument. Within Anvil Studio, a patch is usually referred to as an Instrument. Patches can be either Factory Preset or User-Created. Factory Preset patches are read-only patches that your synthesizer had when it arrived from the factory. User-Created patches are patches you create.

A Bank is a set of patches that can be held in a synthesizer's memory at one time. Different synthesizers can hold different numbers of patches at one time. Some synthesizers have only one bank with a fixed set of patches that can never be changed. Others allow new banks and patches to be created. Using an orchestra as an analogy, a bank is the same as the set of all instruments used by the orchestra.

An Anvil Studio Patch Library is a disk file that contains information you want to save for one of your synthesizers, including a set of Banks and Patch for one of your synthesizers, including:

Bank and Patch names,

Controller names

Comments you would like to remember about particular patches,

Which Patches or Channels your synthesizer uses for Drum sounds,

Names of Drum Notes, used when creating Rhythm Tracks.

Anvil Studio automatically assign patches to channels that you have assigned to it on Anvil Studio's Mixer page.
The standard version of Anvil Studio ships with a General MIDI Patch Library that describes patch names and Drum Notes for synthesizers that conforms to the General MIDI standard.
To view or edit the contents of a patch library, select Synthesizers from the View menu. Then, press the button Show Patch Library... button.

To import an industry-standard Instrument Definition from a file with an extension .INS, e.g. MySynth.ins,

select Synthesizers from the View menu,

press the Load Patch Library... button or Existing Patch Library... button,

change the file type field from Patch Libraries to Instrument Definition Files, and

select the .INS file that you want to import.

A new Anvil Studio patch library with the file extension .MLB will be created for this synthesizer.

If you have a Patch Library for a synthesizer, but no Patch Controller, you can only refer to Factory Preset Patches, and not User-Created Patches. A Patch Controller allows you to manipulate and refer to both Factory Preset and User-Created Patches.

An Anvil Studio Patch Controller does everything a patch library does, and in addition, it allows you to use Anvil Studio to:

Create and manage new banks of User-Created patches.

Copy patches between your synthesizer and computer over MIDI cables. This lets you save them in a Patch Library on your computer.

Automatically cause your synthesizer to listen to only those MIDI channels that you have assigned to it on Anvil Studio's Mixer page.

Set the synthesizer's volume for each channel as you have indicated on Anvil Studio's Mixer page.

Split your synthesizer keyboard into different ranges of keys, or split points, each with:

the MIDI channel those keys are to be sent to

the number of semi-tones to transpose keys in that range