Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

'How do other people work if they use the combination hardware
synthesizer + BCR2000? Which tools are you using? (Are you using some
synthesizer specific sysex tools or some general software which can
deal with 100s of synthesizers which you don't have anyway?)'


I use BC Manager (with a BCR2000) and MIDIOX to control patches that I
program on a Kurzweil K2000. The Kurzweil is nice because you can
create with it an almost infinite variety of "synths" that respond to
CC messages. I currently use an M-Audio Keystation Pro 88 keyboard as
my master keyboard. This particular keyboard has a "snapshot" feature;
you press two buttons simultaneously and the current state of all
knobs/sliders/buttons that are assigned to CCs is transmitted on the
MIDI out port. The snapshot can be recorded using BC Manager or MIDIOX
(with its excellent "MIDI Snapshot" window/editor) and then resent
later to recall the "preset". In my case the state of the KSP 88
happens to be under 125 bytes, so I can also assign all of that data
to a button on the BCR2000. 


For example, I have a "synth" that I programmed which uses four voices
with variable wave shape (between sawtooth and sine) and detuning, a
global ASR envelope, a "mix" level knob for each voice along with an
enable/disable button and a global modulation envelope that consists
of the ASR and an LFO which can be independently assigned to each
voice (to control volume). The CC mapping is as follows:

CC Num	Function
------  --------
3	Voice 1 waveshape
9	Voice 2 waveshape
12	Voice 3 waveshape
13	Voice 4 waveshape
14	Voice 1 Volume
15	Voice 2 Volume
16	Voice 3 Volume
17	Voice 4 Volume
18	Voice 1 Detuning
19	Voice 2 Detuning
20	Voice 3 Detuning
21	Voice 4 Detuning
72	Attack
73	Decay
74	Release
76	LFO Speed
77	ADR Env Amt (global mod source)
78	LFO Amt (global mod source)
82	Voice 1 global mod assign
83	Voice 2 global mod assign
84	Voice 3 global mod assign
85	Voice 4 global mod assign
86	Voice 1 Enable
87	Voice 2 Enable
88	Voice 3 Enable
89	Voice 4 Enable

So I can go to the K2000, load up this "synth" (which is just another
patch on the K2000) and fire up MIDIOX and open the "snapshot" window.
I can tweak the controls that I've assigned to these various CCs until
I find a sound I like, then hit "send snapshot" on the KSP 88. I can
store the snapshot in MIDIOX and resend it later to the K2000 to
recall it.

Further, I can capture the same snapshot via BC Manager and create a
new BCR preset that a.) has knobs assigned to control all of these
parameters, and b.) uses the push knobs or buttons to recall the
"presets" I stored previously in MIDIOX. One neat trick you can do to
speed up importing presets from MIDIOX to BC Manager is to send the
MIDIOX snapshot to the BCR (which has previously been set up with
knobs assigned to these CCs) and then use BC Manager to request a
"snapshot" from the BCR. This isn't necessary, of course, if you
capture MIDI snapshots in BC Manager in the first place.

I own MidiQuest but don't use it very much for patch editing on the
K2000  -- for some reason it doesn't work very well with my K2000. I
like the concept, though, and plan on using it as I expand my setup to
control other things. One useful thing it does is provide all the
sysex data you need to understand how other pieces of gear work. I
just bought an Ensoniq DP/4 effects processor, for instance, and I
plan on creating some BCR2000 presets for it. Among other things I'll
use MidiQuest and MIDIOX to figure out its sysex data format so I can
do those presets since I didn't get a manual with the DP/4 (and the
DP/4+ manual that's available online just happens to be missing most
of that info).