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Topic: Sending SysEx and MIDI on Program Change (Read 1169 times) |
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Larry Salomon Jr.
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On a quest to play like I had 10 arms
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Sending SysEx and MIDI on Program Change
« on: May 25th, 2005, 12:49pm » |
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First off, amazing program!!!
Secondly, I sent you an email this morning. Damned Earthlink spam blocker doesn't leave me feeling confident that you got it. 
Here's my live rig:
Roland XP-50
Roland D-50
Roland PK5a (food pedals)
Roland XV-5050
M-Audio 49e Keystation (MIDI controller)
(I have a bunch of other stuff in my live rig, but they aren't relevant to this posting.)
All of these are connected via a MOTU Extreme XT (MIDI patch bay). MOTU creates 1 WMD IN and OUT port for each of its 8 pairings on the device.
Some of the songs my band plays live requires sequences to be triggered by MIDI key events. However, only the XP-50 has a built-in floppy drive that I can use to load the sequences from when the song comes up in the set list. In order to use the sequences, I either have to have Local On in the XP-50's MIDI preferences or Remote On.
The first is unacceptable because I may be using the XP-50 to control the XV-5050 and the 49e to control the XP-50 (or any other permutation) and don't want local sounds being emitted.
The second behaves as if the person were sitting at the XP-50 even though they are controlling it from another MIDI controller. This isn't bad, unless the MOTU has the XP-50's OUT routed to its IN. (This is required if I want the XP-50 to play sounds from events generated on its own keyboard and Local On isn't set.) If this happens then an endless MIDI loop happens for some reason, eventually causing MIDI buffer overflow and never playing any of the notes besides.
(Also, this entire notion is a pain since I have to either setup Chain Play sequences on the XP-50 or manually load each song's data as the previous song ends.)
So, I had MIDI-OX installed from some time ago and decided to revisit it. I acquired an old laptop (650MHz, W2K) and installed the latest version on it. What I would like to do is have a Program Change event send multiple SysEx files out, one per device, to setup Performance Data (see below). Then either send out MIDI files that are port-specific to setup RPS (see below) or (and this would kick ass) have MIDI-OX playback a MIDI file on a Key Down event to simulate RPS in software.
Performance Data is Roland's concept of setting up one patch per MIDI channel on a device along with effects settings, etc. You can dump this to the MIDI OUT stream using SysEx messages.
RPS is Roland's "Realtime Phrase Sequencing" concept. Basically, it is the ability - in the device's hardware - to record a sequence and have that sequence played back whenever a key is pressed. The playback can stop when the key is released or continue until the key is pressed again. Or, it can simply play a number of times and stop on its own.
In a nutshell, I'm looking to have each song's patchs, RPS, etc. setup for each of my devices automatically based on a Program Change event.
MIDI-OX can do a lot of this already: I can use the Clone feature of Data Mapping to setup Patches in each channel, but I am not able to tie a Data Map to a specific port. In order to setup each device, I'd have to create a Data Map for each device and chain them together using Patch Mapping and some quick fingers to traverse the chain when my band switches songs. This isn't an inviting idea, in my opinion, especially when you realize I'd have to create 1 Data Map per sound-generating device (4 currently but I could easily add other devices) for each of the 60+ songs the band has in its reportoire (and growing each month).
Optimally, it would be nice to be able to send SysEx data from the Patch Mapping function as well as .MID files. This way I can send one SysEx file to all of my devices to setup the patches (using device IDs obviously to tell each device which dataset is theirs) then follow it through with MIDI data to setup the RPS.
Ideally, MIDI-OX would provide the RPS functionality so that the devices that do not support RPS in hardware (all of my devices except the XP-50) can get this much needed functionality. I'm dying to try some Depeche Mode or other electronica-based music live and should be able to do it.
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| « Last Edit: May 25th, 2005, 12:56pm by Larry Salomon Jr. » |
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Jamie OConnell
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Re: Sending SysEx and MIDI on Program Change
« Reply #1 on: May 27th, 2005, 1:00pm » |
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I did get the email, but appreciate the fact you posted here, which has the potential to help other users. It can take me weeks to work through my backlog of email even when I don't have anything particularly promising to say.
I have noted your wish request to have the capability to send multiple SysEx files.
Quote:| MIDI-OX can do a lot of this already: I can use the Clone feature of Data Mapping to setup Patches in each channel, but I am not able to tie a Data Map to a specific port. |
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Actually you CAN tie a Data Map to a particular Input-Output port connection using the 'Routing view'.
As noted elsewhere, the other requests might be satisfied by using a capable Sequencer in conjunction with MIDI-OX. MIDI-OX does not have the capability to natively playback MIDI files, and adding that would be a pretty big effort -- moving it into the sequencing arena. We have purposely stayed away from those capabilities.
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--Jamie
Music is its own reward.
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