Possible to select FanX Performances from another keyboard?

[Arjan]

Hi Phil,

Sounds nice. I'm an EE too btw but in my day job I'm most busy programming on Windows systems. I have done some stuff with microcontrollers but I have limited time for this sort of thing (it's hard enough finding the time to actually play my instruments) so I was hoping that perhaps you had used some sort of kit like the MidiBox project (which also uses a Pic btw but they are also completing the design of an ARM based box).

By all means, post some pictures, inside and outside if you will. Sounds like you did a great job and would love to see them for inspiration!

Another option I've been thinking about is getting one of them small Netbooks, maybe one with a touchscreen, equip it with MIDI and pedal interfaces and use XP embedded to make it reliable by disabling al writes to the SSD in normal use mode. That way I could easily program an actual GUI instead of dealing wth the low-level stuff.

If Roland could just fix what I think is wrong with the G I wouldn't have to think about stuff like this.

[Andy Keys]

Arjan, what do you mean by "XP embedded"? Is it some sort of emulator for Vista?

Andy

[Arjan]

Arjan, what do you mean by "XP embedded"? Is it some sort of emulator for Vista?

No, it's a 'componentized' version of WIndows XP which allows you to leave out things that you don't need on devices such as GPS navigaton and other devices:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/standar...

For me one of the most interesting aspects is the EWF which allows you to completely protect the hard drive or part of it from writes. This ensures that the state will always be the same when you power on the device so that whatever happens while it's running will not prevent it from booting correctly after cycling the power:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms838511%28WinE...

[realconcept]

To the ones that wanted to see pics of my patch change box, here they are:
http://www.box.net/shared/rz1gavosgc

You'll see my whole studio, my drums, my gear rack, my patch change box (different views, I did my best for the pictures), my custom ribbon controller and my pedals to change patches.

Let me know what you think!

[Arjan]

Nice. I'm really torn between a nice controller with a small LCD display or a full-blown netbook. The latter would get me results faster I'm sure but it's bigger and clumsier than a controller dedicated microcontroller solution.

Yesterday evening I realized that it should be possible to make a live seamless switching device or Netbook application that has a 'learn' mode for Lazeeboy's SysEx method. Simply push a button and the Netbook could request the keyboard state for the current performance and store it.

That way you can easily setup multiple 'versions' of a single performance with different parts active without having to program those SysEx sequences in the Fantom X itself. You also won't need to load a song, it would work with a regular performance. And the Netbook could respond to PC messages from the Fantom to automatically select the proper 'bank' of live settings.

I think I'm gonna do some experiments with MIDIox to see how easy it is to get that information out of the Fantom. It's all in the manual ofcourse but with MIDIox I could emulate this method without even having to program anything.

If it wasn't for the fx cutting out when you change a performance there would be no need for this SysEx trickery since Patch Remain works quite well. But if you want that to work seamlessly you need to disable _all_ fx.

[DanS]

Hi all, further to my first post.
I am able to select Patches and Performances from the Yamaha if I'm alreadu in that mode & patch bank. but If I want to switch from Performance mode to Patch mode, or select different banks, or select anything off a memory card, it doesn't make any difference which MSB/LSB I input, nothing changes on the Fantom.
Any tips?
Thanks,
Dan

[realconcept]

Hi Dan and to all who are watching this thread,

With my module, I'm able to do all these things so here goes (All in decimal numbers, convert to hex if neccessary).Note you must send the patch number like this:
Send the actual patch number for all patches below 127.
Send patches number - 127 to all patches above (and including) 128

For the following, Bank MSB = 87
USER: BankLSB: if patch > 0 and 0 and <128, = 32 else = 33
Preset A: BankLSB = 64
Preset B: BankLSB = 65
Preset C: BankLSB = 66
Preset D: BankLSB = 67
Preset E: BankLSB = 68
Preset F: BankLSB = 69
Preset G: BankLSB = 70
Preset H: BankLSB = 71
Preset I: BankLSB = 72

Preset GM: BankMSB = 121, BankLSB = 0

The following needs to be sent to channel number 16 (or different if Performance Ctlr Channel is set to something different). This is zero based so you need to send 15 for channel 16.

Performance User: BankMSB = 85, BankLSB = 0
Performance Preset: BankMSB = 85, BankLSB = 64
Performance Card: BankMSB = 85, BankLSB = 32

To switch to performance, you must send the following SySex sequence first:
0xF0
0x41
0x10
0x00
0x6B
0x12
0x01
0x00
0x00
0x00
0x01
0x7E
0xF7

To switch to Patch, you must send the following SySex sequence first:
0xF0
0x41
0x10
0x00
0x6B
0x12
0x01
0x00
0x00
0x00
0x00
0x7F
0xF7

I hope this will help you to do what you want!
Let me know if you need more info,

Phil

[DanS]

Thanks very much Phil, but how do I send a sysex string from a keyboard?

Can I not even change Banks using MSB/LSB messages?
Thanks,
Dan

[realconcept]

I don't know about your keyboard, but I know I could not do it the way I wanted with my M-Audio Oxygen 49 controller. This is why I built my custom patch change box. And unfortunatly, the only way to switch from patch to performance and vice versa is to send a sysex command. I tried everything else and this is the only way.

So good luck!

Phil

[DanS]

Thanks Phil.
Seems hard to believe in this day & age that you can't switch modes without sysex.
In any case, I've got a Yamaha product specialist helping me out over on the S90 forum, so hopefully this will be settled shortly.
Thanks very much for the explanations & code.

[DanS]

Thanks Phil,
If I'm already in Patch mode, should I be able to switch banks (ie: A to C, or E, etc) just by using MSB/LSB-PC numbers?
Because I can't even seem to do this, all I seem able to do is change Patches, not the Banks for the Patches.

[Arjan]

If I'm already in Patch mode, should I be able to switch banks (ie: A to C, or E, etc) just by using MSB/LSB-PC numbers?

Yes, but perhaps you need to send a Program Change after the Bank Selects to effectuate. Also if you use the wrong values for the Bank Selects (like reverse MSB/LSB) it won't work at all.

Regarding SysEx, perhaps you could use a little box like this to translate a specific BankSelect sequence from your Yamaha to SysEx code for the Fantom:

http://www.midisolutions.com/prodevp.htm

[DanS]

Thanks Arjan.
The Yammie forces you to do the MSB/LSB & PC numbers in the correct order, and I've been over the Roland numbers countless times.

I've been told I can setup a sysex string in Cubase, then save it as a SMF on a USB stick and then load it up in the S70XS and send the info from the Sequence player.
I'll have to give that a shot first, neat little box though.