'Sysex' is short for 'Pooh Sysex'*

An activity which requires folk to drop new fangled Behringer synths into a deep, fast flowing river from one side of a bridge and quickly run across to the other side to see how fucked up they are if they reappear.

*This isn't true, but if you don't know what sysex is short for, it does mean you're probably out of your depth.

 

The only reason I never responded to fiction's question 2 years ago about sysex is because I didn't believe that a member since 2011 wouldn't already know, or know how to use Google. So I assumed fiction was being funny.
As a live player since the 80s, firing out sysex was originally the only way to have all your keyboard patches set up for a track in one go, and had to be used throughout the set.
@DoubleTake I just cleared the Dislike from your first comment!

 

Last edited: Jan 29, 2021

fair enough.

yep, and sysex for saving sound module voice info in sequencers in the studio (atari st, cubase, header at start of sequence before song start for example), chaining devices, sync info from tape, Roland NRPN settings, Korg drum voices, etc and so much more.

I definitely have to use it less though these days. Damn these KomPooters have gotten clever!!

 

Well, that's the same as what I was doing live! So is it really an "and"?
I only ever need to use sysex now to have more presets for my controllers during a heavy gig.
Oh and for my D-50!

 

fair point again.
D-50... nice.
I don't gig nowadays, I have to store settings for some of my older stuff via sysex. roland guitar synth GR-50 for example (I have no memory cards). It's the most convenient, if not the only practical, way to do it. dump and restore. done.

 

Very cool you held on to the GR-50!
Yeah I'm not gigging these days either. Lockdown.

 

nah, that´s the Creative Commons version of the adobe stuff.

 

what also nobody knows: "control 0" (bank select msb) does not fall under "CC", despite it is technically the same and, strange enough, controller number 32 (bank select msb/lsb) does count as "CC".

then again, who cares what is "right" or "wrong"?

and why does midi offer a bank count higher than preset count?

questions over questions.

 

I think you already know the answer to this one!

So imo, it is important to realise that continuous controller information are part of the control change messages.
And I mean, just look at the two example screenshots I gave.
The devs are actually talking rubbish! They are incorrectly stating that MIDI CC means continuous controller!
Ugh.

 

i was too quick.

after i wrote this, i rechecked at the midi consortium and in their chart controller 0 is a controller.

other "official" sources say there would only be 127 CCs.

but yes, f*ck this right or wrong nonsense. i rather believe in the easter bunny.

unneccessary to add that MY software can do something like MPE since 2002. they are always beyond their users.

yeah, it is called "continuous controller" in every second printed manual from the nineties - and in 90% of the online magazines.

since it is so common, it is also kind of "right": right is, when it is understood.

however when you are programming midi stuff, you wouldnt call the message a "controller". a mod wheel is a controller.

when i think about it, since MPE you are good adviced to call it "channel control change".

this post was completely unneccesary. time to make coffee.

 

Last edited: Jan 29, 2021

How could I miss this thread?

But now seriously, there's a good reason for calling them "continuous" controllers, even if this isn't the acronym official name. It's just a useful way to describe them.
As opposed to, say, the velocity which only comes as part of the note messages.

So basically agree with @Obineg up there although the ancient definition is not the continuous thing

 

It was my first ever thread, under mistaken duress regarding me taking too literally when we get our first Trophy and a notification TELLING us to make a post! And it was obviously for humour anyway and to be blatant about how my ways are from the start.
But not unnecessary!

No. It is called Control Change since the birth of MIDI, and continuous controller are some of them. And the point of the thread is because of the abundance of wrongness you have just referred to!

No, you call it control change. That is the point of the thread.

It's not an "ancient definition", it is what it is.
You are both wrong if you compare what you have both said with the communications protocol called MIDI.
That's all I will respond to regards the issue in the thread title, because it's fact.

 

Wait...wh..wh..what?
bunny not reals?

 

no, i meant my post. my rant about how midi works was unneccessary. ^^

the reason for all the confusion lies in the nonlinearity of the midi message protocol.

the whole organisation of the channel messages doesnt make sense. today you would do that differently.

that many people use "wrong" terminology is the lesser problem. the bigger problem is that there are 17 different standards how hardware interprets bank select messages.

 

Last edited: Jan 30, 2021

when you think about bank select or footswitch, it is a bit funny that nobody notices how weird it is to think of all control change messages as "countinuous controllers".

otoh you are of course free to implement these same controller numbers to do something else with it.

 

I didn't know that! I knew there are a few, but 17? wow.
Yet really I'm not sure that is the fault of the makers of MIDI?

I LOVE FLUFFY BUNNIES!

 

that is a difficult question whos fault that is. the midi specs makes no restriction to how a device interprets something. in my opinion it would be great if it did.

some DAWs already support various "versions" of program change and bank select. 0, 0 reversed, 0 and 32 together, msb/lsb, lsb/msb, 32 but only using the lsb, there are even manufacturers who are using sysex or reserved CCs.

makes it totally difficult to write apps with a "bank change menu" or whatever.

but the MIDI specs also makes rules that you may not use the voltage current in PIN 5 to power your device, and some people still do that.

 

welcome to MIDI, an industry standard which allows you to control the bank of an instrument using CC 0.

well, except for matrix, K1000, SY 77, JV-8080, all alesis and so like 30% of the most used instruments in 1990.

luckily logic even allows you to construct custom messages yourself.




so now explain a beginner why CC0 is called bank select.

or try to make an app which supports bank select in all future instruments.

*cries*

 

Nothing continuous about a serial protocol running at 30-odd kilobits per second. /pedantry

Besides, CCs are for peasants, gimme NRPNs anyday and none of this modern MPE shit!

*edit:* but seriously, it was good fun dealing with a Juno 106 that did send all of the sliders... but as Sysexes. Good times editing those with Logic, that is to say, not.

A friend of mine has an Alesis Andromeda. A beautiful synth but it does NRPNs and nary a session goes without excessive swearing.