Korg Poly800/EX800 Users

It's so quiet around here...

Well, I spent most of today working on MIDI controllers for parameter
editing.

I've had some success and also run into some new gotcha's but all in
all  I'd say I was about half way done.

So look out for full control of your original and extended parameters
via MIDI controllers real soon now.

Mike.

wow man, this is the stuff wet poly 800 dreams are made of!



--- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, "korgpolyex800" <korgpolyex800@...>
wrote:

>
> It's so quiet around here...
> 
> Well, I spent most of today working on MIDI controllers for parameter
> editing.
> 
> I've had some success and also run into some new gotcha's but all in
> all  I'd say I was about half way done.
> 
> So look out for full control of your original and extended parameters
> via MIDI controllers real soon now.
> 
> Mike.
>

Well, I hate to ruin a good wet dream but the velocity response might
be one of the last features to be implemented in the software.

Don't hold your breath too long waiting for that feature.

Mike.

--- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, "David Mochen" <davidmochen@...> wrote:
>
> Yes... and imagine when we have Velocity response... that will
prompt me to get my own Hawk kit immediately... kinda waiting for the
time being...
> 
> dave
> 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: bys_jhn 
>   To: korgpolyex@...m 
>   Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 12:03 PM
>   Subject: [korgpolyex] Re: Parameter editing via MIDI controllers
> 
> 
>   wow man, this is the stuff wet poly 800 dreams are made of!
> 
>   --- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, "korgpolyex800" <korgpolyex800@>
>   wrote:
>   >
>   > It's so quiet around here...
>   > 
>   > Well, I spent most of today working on MIDI controllers for
parameter
>   > editing.
>   > 
>   > I've had some success and also run into some new gotcha's but all in
>   > all I'd say I was about half way done.
>   > 
>   > So look out for full control of your original and extended
parameters

>   > via MIDI controllers real soon now.
>   > 
>   > Mike.
>   >
>

Hi Poly fans,

I've finished the first of two major stages of the MIDI parameter
control which is the mechanics of receiving and appropriately dealing
with and displaying MIDI controller messages for parameter editing.

As previously discussed, the MIDI parameter control uses 9 undefined
MIDI controllers. Controller 22 is used to select the parameter bank
to be edited. There are 16 banks. The first 8 are for the original
banks and the following 8 are for the extended parameter banks.

To control a parameter bank you send MIDI controller 22 to set the
parameter bank number. The range for the controller is 0-127 (as
normal) but only the top four bits are used to set the parameter bank.
Thus, 16 banks split into the eight original and then followed by the
8 extended parameter banks.

Once you've selected the wanted parameter bank you use MIDI
controllers 23 through to 30 to control the eight parameters that are
within each parameter bank (EG: 51-58 for parameter bank 5). This
means that if you have nine sliders on a hardware MIDI controller then
you would assign one of them to be the bank parameter selector and
then set the remaining eight to control the individual parameters.
This allows you to control the EG's very nicely indeed.

When the Poly or EX receives one of these controller messages from
MIDI it briefly changes the display to show the bank and parameter
number and the data for it. If you are sending a bank message then
only the bank number is shown.

For example, if I sent a parameter bank 5 (EG1) selector message then
the display would briefly change to "CC 5-" where CC means a
controller message was received and we have selected the original
parameter banks and the actual selected bank is 5, the dash is shown
to indicate that no parameter has actually changed - only the bank has
been selected at this point.

Then, if I were to send a message on controller 24 (the first of the
eight parameter editors) the display would show CC 51 XX where CC
means controller message received and 51 means we are editing original
parameter 51 and XX would actually be the parameter value itself.

If you select an extended parameter bank then the CC display changes
to CE to indicate editing extended parameters.

If you try to edit a parameter that is not implemented at all such as
57 and 58 (since the EG banks only use 1-6) then the controller
message is still displayed but the data displays will remain blank.

The end result is actually quite elegant and user friendly. The
incoming MIDI messages quickly update the Poly display and you can
easily select the parameter banks with a slider or knob. And it is
particularly nice to be able to easily edit the EG's with 6 sliders in
a row.

It took quite a bit of work to get this right because the code has to
be able to handle many fast incoming MIDI controller messages while at
the same time returning the display back to its original state after
the messages stop streaming in to the synth. Also, a major obstacle
was ensuring that no function or keypad keys would interfere with the
MIDI controller handler. So to ensure that is the case, all front
panel buttons are disabled while the display shows the MIDI controller
parameter messages.

Now I just have to write the code in the background that will actually
change the parameters in real time. Should be only a few weeks more.

Mike.

For those of you who have the HAWK-800 kit, I've uploaded the latest
firmware files into the files section on this discussion group.

This BETA firmware will allow you to look at the way the displays
behave when receiving MIDI controller parameter editing messages. Send
messages on controllers 22 through to 30 to see the displays change.

I would very much appreciate feedback from at least some of you. This
is because it took a great deal of work to get the displays to work as
they do now and if there are any changes that you would like to
suggest regarding the display behavior then now will be the time to
let me know. Otherwise, if I go too far down this track it will be
very hard to make any changes.

Please do download this firmware and let me know what you think.

And please, backup your patches first.

Mike.

Hi Mike,

parameter editing display looks (and works) just fine for me. Nice work! 

I tested with Edirol digital mixer (M-16DX) configured as control
surface. MIDI-OX Data Mapping function was used as the router.

So, I would only want the displayed parameter values to be limited to
max 99, since now when I send the controller value greater than 99 the
display shows P0, P1, etc. But this is not a problem at all since I
can translate the values from 0-127 to 0-99 in MIDI-OX Data Mapping.

Best, Saulius


--- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, "korgpolyex800" <korgpolyex800@...>
wrote:

>
> For those of you who have the HAWK-800 kit, I've uploaded the latest
> firmware files into the files section on this discussion group.
> 
> This BETA firmware will allow you to look at the way the displays
> behave when receiving MIDI controller parameter editing messages. Send
> messages on controllers 22 through to 30 to see the displays change.
> 
> I would very much appreciate feedback from at least some of you. This
> is because it took a great deal of work to get the displays to work as
> they do now and if there are any changes that you would like to
> suggest regarding the display behavior then now will be the time to
> let me know. Otherwise, if I go too far down this track it will be
> very hard to make any changes.
> 
> Please do download this firmware and let me know what you think.
> 
> And please, backup your patches first.
> 
> Mike.
>

Great to hear that it looks good.

You don't need to worry about data mapping to adjust values because I
have already done it in the firmware. All of the parameters use the
full 0-127 range and the software adjusts the ranges for the
parameters automatically.

The ranges of all parameters map precisely except for VCF cutoff,
detune and interval. In those cases, the range is cut off at the
highest value but in the next largest possible binary power.

So for VCF cutoff the range goes from 0 - 99 and since the next
largest binary power would be 128 so then any MIDI data value above 99
sets the VCF to 99.

For interval the range is 0 - 12. So the MIDI data range is 0 - 96 and
any value above 96 sets the interval to 12.

What you get is a perfect slide for almost all of the parameters and a
couple have the end of the MIDI data value range cut off so to speak.
But the dead end of the range is really not noticeable.

I am hoping to have the extended parameters finished this evening. And
if I do then I'll post the new firmware as well.

I played around with the original parameters last night and it was
amazing how fast and quickly I could program new patches. In fact, I
felt like I was discovering new sounds because I was able to tweak and
edit much faster.

And I came up with a new idea for saving patches too. I'll save that
for my next post.

Mike.

--- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, "saulius_pocevicius" <saulius@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi Mike,
> 
> parameter editing display looks (and works) just fine for me. Nice
work! 

> 
> I tested with Edirol digital mixer (M-16DX) configured as control
> surface. MIDI-OX Data Mapping function was used as the router.
> 
> So, I would only want the displayed parameter values to be limited to
> max 99, since now when I send the controller value greater than 99 the
> display shows P0, P1, etc. But this is not a problem at all since I
> can translate the values from 0-127 to 0-99 in MIDI-OX Data Mapping.
> 
> Best, Saulius
> 
> 
> --- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, "korgpolyex800" <korgpolyex800@>
> wrote:
> >
> > For those of you who have the HAWK-800 kit, I've uploaded the latest
> > firmware files into the files section on this discussion group.
> > 
> > This BETA firmware will allow you to look at the way the displays
> > behave when receiving MIDI controller parameter editing messages. Send
> > messages on controllers 22 through to 30 to see the displays change.
> > 
> > I would very much appreciate feedback from at least some of you. This
> > is because it took a great deal of work to get the displays to work as
> > they do now and if there are any changes that you would like to
> > suggest regarding the display behavior then now will be the time to
> > let me know. Otherwise, if I go too far down this track it will be
> > very hard to make any changes.
> > 
> > Please do download this firmware and let me know what you think.
> > 
> > And please, backup your patches first.
> > 
> > Mike.
> >
>