[sdiy] MIDI CC LSB as another controller

[ASSI]

On Thursday 15 August 2013, 12:32:12, rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk wrote:
> Does anyone know if it is acceptable to use MIDI CC numbers 32 to 63
> (decimal) as additional normal-resolution MIDI controllers?

Everyone and their grandmother is doing it since MIDI existed.  The heavens 
haven't fallen down to earth yet, so it must be acceptable (for some 
suitable definition thereof).
 
> The MIDI standard says "Controller numbers 32 through 63 are reserved
> for optional use as the LSB (least-significant byte) of MIDI controllers
> 0-31."

They are reserved only in the sense that changing the MSB is expected to set 
the local copy of the LSB to zero (which I posit is the wrong thing to in 
any actual implementation, as if anything you'd need to set it either to 
zero or 7f depending on which direction the MSB changed if you want to 
smoothly change through the MSB/LSB boundary).  If the target in question 
doesn't do that, then for all intents and purposes these controllers are 
independent.

> I know that their use for adding resolution to CC's 0-31 is optional
> and understand how this works, however, I would rather use these numbers
> as 32 seperate additional single-byte controllers in my project.
> 
> Is this practice...
> 
> 1. Acceptable under the MIDI standard?
> 
> 2. Likely to work most of the time, but not recommended!?
> 
> 3. Likely to cause sequencers to balk as they frantically try to pair
> up MIDI CC's that they think represent low and high bytes of the same
> variable? :-(

See above.  Change the LSB, then change the MSB and see if the LSB was 
reset.  If not, then you're golden.  I seem to remember a sequencer program 
(Cubase, probably) where you could switch the controller between 7bit and 
14bit resolution (and presumably if you switched CC#13 to 14bit the 
corresponding CC for the LSB was dropped from the list of available 
controllers).

> 4. Implemented by any mainstream manufacturers?  Like Novation MIDI
> control surfaces, etc.?

Waldorf has always used them as independent controllers for instance.  I've 
never heard that some of them were inaccessible because they were on the LSB 
part of the MIDI CC map, not for software nor hardware controllers.

> My project potentially has a lot of tweakable parameters, and I'm sure
> things like this are really meant to be controlled via NRPN's or SysEx.
> However, I can't help feeling that just using a whole bunch of MIDI CC's
> would transfer the control movements quicker, and would be easier for
> the end-user to edit control automations in a sequencer package?
> Am I right?

If you expect that much sophistication from your users, you could leave the 
choice to them, i.e. always provide a sysex implementation (since it doesn't 
collide with anything by definition) plus a handful of standard controllers 
and optionally have (different) extended controller mappings, maybe even via 
NRPN.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

SD adaptation for Waldorf rackAttack V1.04R1:
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