setting VCO via MIDI

[Trevor Page]

Hi there,

Can anyone tell me if there is a MIDI controller number reserved (or used)
for altering the VCO pitch? I know this may sound a strange question- this
is of course something you would do with a note-on message. However, I need
to be able to set the VCO to a new pitch without triggering the gate.

The whole idea behind this is so that my sequencer project will be able to
set my TB3030's pitch without triggering a new note. In the original 303,
the VCO tracks the pitch setting for each 16th step regardless of whether
it's a note or rest. It is possible to set the slide on a rest, and
therefore it's possible to have a note sliding from another note that is not
actually sounding. You could not do this via MIDI. It occurs to me that it
is therefore not actually possible to fully replicate certain 303 sequences
using a MIDI'd 303 clone. You would have to use CV/gate and a suitable
CV/gate sequencer.

Therefore, I need to find some way of sending 'silent notes' via MIDI.

This would certainly be pretty straightforward to do, there are a number of
ways I can think of doing it. However, I would like to update my midiDAC
firmware if possible to include this feature, so that other '303 clone
owners (eg. tb3030) using the midiDAC could do the same thing. So, is there
a standard way of doing something like this? I was thinking of doing this:
if a note is received with a velocity of 1, then don't trigger the gate.
This would make it easy to use with an ordinary computer / hardware
sequencer, and should not interfere with normal operation / playing styles.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions on this.

Thanks!

Trev

Some TB3030 'insides' pics now at:

www.resonance.fsnet.co.uk