DX7 controls.

[Jeremy Brookes]

-----Original Message-----
From:	John Speth [SMTP:johns at oei.com]
Sent:	10 October 1997 18:04
To:	Synth-DIY List (E-mail)
Subject:	RE: DX7 controls.

But I DO agree with you.  I think a good middle ground can be achieved in 
the design of a hardware programmer.  My vision is a device that you 
connect to your PC.  The device has maybe 20 knobs with an LCD display 
beneath each knob.  On the PC is a program running that interfaces to the 
20 knob programmer (using MIDI maybe) and also to the synth you want to 
program (also using MIDI).  The PC program would allow you configure the 
programmer and assign the knobs to 20 parameters that you'd want to edit at 
that time.  The LCDs would display the name of the parameters that the knob 
controls.  It's flexible in that it could be used for any synth with sysex 
editing.  All you'd need to change is the PC program.

This would start requiring MIDI drivers on the PC. You would have to merge 
the data from the PC into the MIDI data from the sequencer. This would be a 
bit tricky I imagine. Otherwise you would have to quit the sequencer to 
allow the program to access the MIDI port. (In Windows in a PC there is no 
easy way to send data to one MIDI port from two applications without some 
extra software acting as a merger at a low level device driver level.)