Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

i'm looking at the manual (rev G) and the sysex manual (2.2) and i don't 
see an obvious/simple way to do this: change the pattern via midi.

it looks like this can be done by emulating the front panel knobs & 
buttons via sysex (YECH!).

so... is there a better way to do it?

ideally, there should be a way to enter a bank/preset and instead of 
interpreting it as a patch-change, interpret it as a pattern change.

and yeah, i know i could use the trigger-select-pattern feature, but 
that's limited to 16 patterns per multi-setup.


-- 
         ...atom

  ________________________
  http://atom.smasher.org/
  762A 3B98 A3C3 96C9 C6B7 582A B88D 52E4 D9F5 7808
  -------------------------------------------------

 	"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
 	"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat.
 		"We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
 	"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
 	"You must be," said the Cat,
 		"or you wouldn't have come here."
 		-- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Hmmmm. This is a good question; I am not sure if it has been 
discussed before. I haven't done much with E-Mu sysex in a while, but 
I will take a look if no one else has the answer. Let me make sure I 
understand what you want to do:
You want to be able to switch from one pattern to another via sysex. 
(That is, you don't want to change the notes in a pattern on the fly 
via sysex.)

If I remember correctly, you can simulate XMIX via remote control 
mode using sysex commands, but if I understand, you basically want to 
switch to a different pattern entirely.

It seems to me it should be doable; but I will have to dig oout my 
syex manual.

--Steve

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Atom Smasher <atom@...> wrote:
>
> i'm looking at the manual (rev G) and the sysex manual (2.2) and i 
don't 
> see an obvious/simple way to do this: change the pattern via midi.
> 
> it looks like this can be done by emulating the front panel knobs & 
> buttons via sysex (YECH!).
> 
> so... is there a better way to do it?
> 
> ideally, there should be a way to enter a bank/preset and instead 
of 
> interpreting it as a patch-change, interpret it as a pattern change.
> 
> and yeah, i know i could use the trigger-select-pattern feature, 
but 

> that's limited to 16 patterns per multi-setup.
> 
> 
> -- 
>          ...atom
> 
>   ________________________
>   http://atom.smasher.org/
>   762A 3B98 A3C3 96C9 C6B7 582A B88D 52E4 D9F5 7808
>   -------------------------------------------------
> 
>  	"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
>  	"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat.
>  		"We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
>  	"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
>  	"You must be," said the Cat,
>  		"or you wouldn't have come here."
>  		-- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
>

Ooops. I forgot, the sysex manual doesn't document sequencer patterns. 
Maybe Aaron can help.  --Steve

Here's a link to the discussion related to song select via sysex. 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xl7/message/18919

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, "steve_the_composer" <smw-mail@...> wrote:
>
> Ooops. I forgot, the sysex manual doesn't document sequencer 
patterns. 
> Maybe Aaron can help.  --Steve
>

There might be a way to do this with hidden sysex much like the song change sysex I posted earlier.  It's slightly more complicated though.  There's actually three pattern parameters, one that's playing, one that's next, and one that you're scrolling through with the knob.  Also, worse is that each of those is actually a combination parameter (meaning it's not just one value) so that'll be hard too.  I think if you just set the "next" pattern, it'll work, but I'm not entirely sure.

I'll look up the param and see if there's a way to do it.

-Aaron

----- Original Message ----
From: steve_the_composer <smw-mail@...>
To: xl7@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 6:36:49 PM
Subject: [xl7] Re: sysex pattern change?

Hmmmm. This is a good question; I am not sure if it has been 
discussed before. I haven't done much with E-Mu sysex in a while, but 
I will take a look if no one else has the answer. Let me make sure I 
understand what you want to do:
You want to be able to switch from one pattern to another via sysex. 
(That is, you don't want to change the notes in a pattern on the fly 
via sysex.)

If I remember correctly, you can simulate XMIX via remote control 
mode using sysex commands, but if I understand, you basically want to 
switch to a different pattern entirely.

It seems to me it should be doable; but I will have to dig oout my 
syex manual.

--Steve

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Atom Smasher <atom@...> wrote:
>
> i'm looking at the manual (rev G) and the sysex manual (2.2) and i 
don't 
> see an obvious/simple way to do this: change the pattern via midi.
> 
> it looks like this can be done by emulating the front panel knobs & 
> buttons via sysex (YECH!).
> 
> so... is there a better way to do it?
> 
> ideally, there should be a way to enter a bank/preset and instead 
of 
> interpreting it as a patch-change, interpret it as a pattern change.
> 
> and yeah, i know i could use the trigger-select-pattern feature, 
but 
> that's limited to 16 patterns per multi-setup.
> 
> 
> -- 
>          ...atom
> 
>   ________________________
>  http://atom.smasher.org/
>   762A 3B98 A3C3 96C9 C6B7 582A B88D 52E4 D9F5 7808
>   -------------------------------------------------
> 
>      "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
>      "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat.
>          "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
>      "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
>      "You must be," said the Cat,
>          "or you wouldn't have come here."
>          -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
>



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links




      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

Thanks for the prompt reply, Aaron. If you run into any other 
undocumented sequencer params worth sharing (ie, that won't crash the 
system or eradicate hard work), I'd be interested as a matter of 
curiosity.
--Steve

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Eppolito <synthesis77@...> wrote:
>
> There might be a way to do this with hidden sysex much like the song 
change sysex I posted earlier.  It's slightly more complicated though.  
There's actually three pattern parameters, one that's playing, one 
that's next, and one that you're scrolling through with the knob.  
Also, worse is that each of those is actually a combination parameter 
(meaning it's not just one value) so that'll be hard too.  I think if 
you just set the "next" pattern, it'll work, but I'm not entirely sure.

> 
> I'll look up the param and see if there's a way to do it.
> 
> -Aaron

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008, Aaron Eppolito wrote:

> There might be a way to do this with hidden sysex much like the song 
> change sysex I posted earlier.  It's slightly more complicated though. 
> There's actually three pattern parameters, one that's playing, one 
> that's next, and one that you're scrolling through with the knob. 
> Also, worse is that each of those is actually a combination parameter 
> (meaning it's not just one value) so that'll be hard too.  I think if 
> you just set the "next" pattern, it'll work, but I'm not entirely sure.
===============

we've seen two of the three pattern parameters... what about the third..?

what happens if one changes the "now" pattern?

can you explain why it's necessary to send a "select" and "confirm" 
message to select a new pattern, and why they both need to specify the 
same pattern?

thanks...


-- 
         ...atom

  ________________________
  http://atom.smasher.org/
  762A 3B98 A3C3 96C9 C6B7 582A B88D 52E4 D9F5 7808
  -------------------------------------------------

 	"Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever.
 	 You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but
 	 sooner or later they were bound to get you."
 		-- George Orwell, "1984"

So, the hidden parameters aren't supposed to be set via sysex.  The XL-7 just happens to use a system where every parameter in the box is numbered, even if they're not publicly accessible or stored.  The fact that you can set them via sysex is arguably a bug!

And, the reason that there's three parameters, is that all three can be different.  There's the current playing one, the next one, and the one that the user has scrolled to.  The fact that you have to set the same pattern again is because it's not a real sysex message, it's just how the code works.  If you only set "next" and not "selected", you'll get the next pattern, but the UI will be wrong (still will show the last selected pattern).  And if you only set the current one, I don't actually think it'll load anything.  The current one is more for the UI to display (more like a read only parameter).  Since anything that is displayed in the UI has to have a parameter tied to it, there are a lot of parameters that are more like status parameters.

To use these, you'd have to know how the code works (as opposed to the more "sanitized" publicly available parameters).  That's why it's not exactly elegant, and also why I'm not gonna just post all the internal parameters because they behave in very strange ways.  It'd be like poking bytes into random locations in memory - maybe it'd work, but probably not.  You've already seen one example of having to do some strange convolutions to get a simple thing done - and that's one of the simpler ones!

-Aaron

PS. Very good work on the message concatenation!  I figured that with all parameter set messages you might be able to do it, but I wasn't sure if the code would work for arbitrary messages instead of dumps.  I'm glad to see it works!

----- Original Message ----
From: Atom Smasher <atom@...>

we've seen two of the three pattern parameters... what about the third..?

what happens if one changes the "now" pattern?

can you explain why it's necessary to send a "select" and "confirm" 
message to select a new pattern, and why they both need to specify the 
same pattern?



      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

On Mon, 21 Apr 2008, Aaron Eppolito wrote:

> So, the hidden parameters aren't supposed to be set via sysex.  The XL-7 
> just happens to use a system where every parameter in the box is 
> numbered, even if they're not publicly accessible or stored.  The fact 
> that you can set them via sysex is arguably a bug!
================

i'd call it an undocumented feature ;)


> You've already seen one example of having to do some strange 
> convolutions to get a simple thing done - and that's one of the simpler 
> ones!
==============

well, when you release an OS-3 for it, my first feature request is a MIDI 
mode that will reserve a channel to listen for system messages, and 
interpret LSB/PC messages as pattern changes ;)


> PS. Very good work on the message concatenation!  I figured that with 
> all parameter set messages you might be able to do it, but I wasn't sure 
> if the code would work for arbitrary messages instead of dumps.  I'm 
> glad to see it works!
===============

as soon as i saw the hidden parameters that started with 0x01 i was 
confident, based on my reading of the sysex, that it would work. i would 
have been surprised if it didn't work in short form.


-- 
         ...atom

  ________________________
  http://atom.smasher.org/
  762A 3B98 A3C3 96C9 C6B7 582A B88D 52E4 D9F5 7808
  -------------------------------------------------

 	"With sheepish submissiveness the German people accepted that,
 	 as a result of the [Reichstag] fire, each one of them lost
 	 what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by
 	 the constitution; as though it followed as a necessary
 	 consequence.... more than one [of my colleagues] hinted that
 	 they had doubts about the official version; but none of them
 	 saw anything out of the ordinary in the fact that, from now
 	 on, one's telephone would be tapped, one's letters opened,
 	 and one's desk might be broken into."
 		-- Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler: A Memoir