<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Great post Benjamin<div><br></div><div>that is gold... you can tell just how excited they were when they came up with that circular 1 bar write-logic...</div><div><br></div><div><div style="display: block;"><div style="-webkit-user-select: all; -webkit-user-drag: element; display: inline-block;" class="apple-rich-link" draggable="true" role="link" data-url="https://youtu.be/M3GDyZsmUhM"><a style="border-radius:10px;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;display:block;-webkit-user-select:none;width:300px;user-select:none;-webkit-user-modify:read-only;user-modify:read-only;overflow:hidden;text-decoration:none;" class="lp-rich-link" rel="nofollow" href="https://youtu.be/M3GDyZsmUhM" dir="ltr" role="button" draggable="false" width="300"><table style="table-layout:fixed;border-collapse:collapse;width:300px;background-color:#131C1C;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="lp-rich-link-emailBaseTable" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="300"><tbody><tr><td vertical-align="center" align="center"><img style="width:300px;filter:brightness(0.97);height:168px;" width="300" height="168" draggable="false" class="lp-rich-link-mediaImage" alt="maxresdefault.jpeg" src="cid:4665B020-47AA-4BE7-80F5-83ECA209866B"></td></tr><tr><td vertical-align="center"><table bgcolor="#131C1C" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="300" style="table-layout:fixed;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;background-color:rgba(19, 28, 28, 1);-apple-color-filter:initial;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:8px 0px 8px 0px;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStackItem"><div style="max-width:100%;margin:0px 16px 0px 16px;overflow:hidden;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:500;font-size:12px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack-topCaption-leading"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://youtu.be/M3GDyZsmUhM" style="text-decoration: none" draggable="false"><font color="#FFFFFF" style="color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.847059);">Trackformer XW-PD1 Introduction</font></a></div><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:400;font-size:11px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack-bottomCaption-leading"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://youtu.be/M3GDyZsmUhM" style="text-decoration: none" draggable="false"><font color="#FFFFFF" style="color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.54902);">youtu.be</font></a></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div></div><div style="display: block;"><br></div><div style="display: block;"><br></div><div style="display: block;">I suppose, like so many instruments, once a certain amount of the "muscle memory" becomes second-nature, that's when you can start to stretch the possibilities...</div><div style="display: block;">but still... (shudder)...</div><div style="display: block;"><br></div><div style="display: block;"><br></div><div style="display: block;">A</div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage"><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On 29 Jan 2026, at 23:35, Benjamin Tremblay via Synth-diy <synth-diy@synth-diy.org> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><div>Hi, just asking in case anyone knows about how to get sampled sound to play via external MIDI controller.<br><br>I got this Casio “trackformer” thing in hopes I could trigger its sounds with MIDI.<br>I added 5-pin MIDI to it and it works. <br><br>However, its MIDI implementation is sketchy. Very little is written about this thing. I know it neither sends nor receives MIDI clock or SPP. <br>I don’t care. What I care is if I can trigger XW-PD1 sounds with an external device. <br>It seems like it sort of works, but basically I can only trigger ROMpler sounds, not the “XW Synth” mono synth, and not a “bank” with custom sampled sounds assigned to pads. <br>In other words it can trigger “general MIDI / XG” sounds but it cannot trigger “pads” with the settings I assign to them. <br>I will re-read the MIDI implementation page, but I get the feeling that both the MIDI implementation and a dump of MIDI output will not reveal anything about how it works. <br>I do not think I can select a program/bank that is “custom” content via MIDI. I admit I don’t understand if I can even address sampled sound by bank/patten/pad type/ pad in midi at all.<br><br>I can get it to play a bank with a sample if the bank is a polyphonic voice of just one sample. However, if I send a MIDI program change to that channel I can never get that sound back unless I reboot. <br>I cannot select a drum kit where I added custom samples to the kit. It only plays the default sounds of the kit, as if when I added a sample I was simply “covering” the native sound with sample via some kind of internal mapping that is only driven by hitting a pad.<br><br>So, it seems, the XW-PD1 is a sports car red spaceship that when played by an external sequencer, sounds like a multitimbral home keyboard from the mid 2000s. Granted it has some decent synth sounds and a 909 kit.<br><br>I can only imagine what it was like to work on this product. Let me guess.<br>A product spec that was written and then abandoned. <br>An internal team that did the microcontroller and UI coding. <br>A DSP team that included consultants who programmed the Dream chip and did the bare minimum amount of work to take a “tone module demo” repo and make it handle the samples and effect pads.<br>The Dream chip is controlled by a TTL level MIDI pin, and the DSP team pushed back on any feature request that required anything but standard MIDI commands, saying it was “impossible”.<br><br>Benjamin Tremblay<br>btremblay@me.com<br>Carlisle, MA 01741<br>________________________________________________________<br>This is the Synth-diy mailing list<br>Submit email to: Synth-diy@synth-diy.org<br>View archive at: https://synth-diy.org/pipermail/synth-diy/<br>Check your settings at: https://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy<br>Selling or trading? Use marketplace@synth-diy.org<br></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>