Control Fantom-0 Organ Drawbars with midi controller?

[Cabijista]

I’m wanting to control the drawbars of the Virtual Tone Wheel Organ on the Fantom-0 via the sliders on my A-800pro midi controller. Is this possible?

[xp30]

I’m wanting to control the drawbars of the Virtual Tone Wheel Organ on the Fantom-0 via the sliders on my A-800pro midi controller. Is this possible?

I have a A-300pro, and it works well. You can either send CC messages or SysEx messages. I recommend using the latter, because CC messages might have surprising effects if something else is in zone 2.

The SysEx messages look like this:

Code: Select all

F0 41 10 00 00 00 5B 12 - CSS -  04 40 01 0n - dd - CS1 F7

0n is the draw bar from 00 to 08. The value range is 8 to 0 (7bit).

[Cabijista]

I’m wanting to control the drawbars of the Virtual Tone Wheel Organ on the Fantom-0 via the sliders on my A-800pro midi controller. Is this possible?

I have a A-300pro, and it works well. You can either send CC messages or SysEx messages. I recommend using the latter, because CC messages might have surprising effects if something else is in zone 2.

The SysEx messages look like this:

Code: Select all

F0 41 10 00 00 00 5B 12 - CSS -  04 40 01 0n - dd - CS1 F7

0n is the draw bar from 00 to 08. The value range is 8 to 0 (7bit).

Hi XP30, thanks so much for the reply. I did manage to figure this out with CC but you’re right, I had another sound on channel 2 and moved a slider on the A-pro and it totally stuffed up that tone, so I think SysEx is the way to go. I have, however, never worked with SysEx and I must confess don’t really understand it.


If you wouldn’t mind could you maybe give a step by step example of how to implement this in the A-Pro editor?

[Cabijista]

I’m wanting to control the drawbars of the Virtual Tone Wheel Organ on the Fantom-0 via the sliders on my A-800pro midi controller. Is this possible?

I have a A-300pro, and it works well. You can either send CC messages or SysEx messages. I recommend using the latter, because CC messages might have surprising effects if something else is in zone 2.

The SysEx messages look like this:

Code: Select all

F0 41 10 00 00 00 5B 12 - CSS -  04 40 01 0n - dd - CS1 F7

0n is the draw bar from 00 to 08. The value range is 8 to 0 (7bit).

Ok, I just read over this again trying to get my head around it. Please tell me if I have this right:

select “slider 1” in the A-pro editor / choose SysEx from the drop-down menu / paste the SysEx message you listed above but change the word “on” to “00” (00 denotes the first drawbar?) / set minimum range to “8” and maximum range to “0” (I assume these are reversed so that the drawbars reverse as in a real Hammond?) / repeat steps for “slider 2” *except “on” is now replaced with “01” / etc..

[xp30]

select “slider 1” in the A-pro editor / choose SysEx from the drop-down menu / paste the SysEx message you listed above but change the word “on” to “00” (00 denotes the first drawbar?) / set minimum range to “8” and maximum range to “0” (I assume these are reversed so that the drawbars reverse as in a real Hammond?) / repeat steps for “slider 2” *except “on” is now replaced with “01” / etc..

Yes, that is it. See also the following screenshot of the editor that shows the settings for the 3rd slider:

harmonic-bar.png (55.38 KiB) Viewed 2464 times

[Cabijista]

select “slider 1” in the A-pro editor / choose SysEx from the drop-down menu / paste the SysEx message you listed above but change the word “on” to “00” (00 denotes the first drawbar?) / set minimum range to “8” and maximum range to “0” (I assume these are reversed so that the drawbars reverse as in a real Hammond?) / repeat steps for “slider 2” *except “on” is now replaced with “01” / etc..

Yes, that is it. See also the following screenshot of the editor that shows the settings for the 3rd slider:

harmonic-bar.png

It worked! Mate.. thank you so, so much!!

Just a small question, so I understand: the code in the photo doesn’t quite match the code that you originally posted, that one said “- CSS - ” in the middle and “- dd - CS1” towards the end, and did not say “DT S1”, for example. Just wondering why that is?

[xp30]

Just a small question, so I understand: the code in the photo doesn’t quite match the code that you originally posted, that one said “- CSS - ” in the middle and “- dd - CS1” towards the end, and did not say “DT S1”, for example. Just wondering why that is?

My mistake. For my first post, I copied the information from the VIEW ASSIGN LIST function in the software editor. And I did not double-check that the format that is used in the editor dialog.

[Cabijista]

Just a small question, so I understand: the code in the photo doesn’t quite match the code that you originally posted, that one said “- CSS - ” in the middle and “- dd - CS1” towards the end, and did not say “DT S1”, for example. Just wondering why that is?

My mistake. For my first post, I copied the information from the VIEW ASSIGN LIST function in the software editor. And I did not double-check that the format that is used in the editor dialog.

Ah I see, no worries! :)

Sorry to ask your help once more, but I’m trying now to cycle through keyboard switch groups with the pedal of my A-pro. I saw your comment about it on another post and you said you got this working too on your A-300 but I tried to copy the SysEx message you posted and it didn’t work for me. Could you perhaps link a screen shot of your settings in the editor for that too?

[xp30]

I’m trying now to cycle through keyboard switch groups with the pedal of my A-pro. I saw your comment about it on another post and you said you got this working too on your A-300 but I tried to copy the SysEx message you posted and it didn’t work for me. Could you perhaps link a screen shot of your settings in the editor for that too?

See the parameters in the following screenshot. With these options, you cycle through min-value and max-value. Another interesting option is to set mode Button Mode to Unlatch, which switches only momentarily, and which is particularly useful to have on a pedal.

It works best if pad mode is already set to keyboard switch group. Otherwise, the first event will switch to keyboard switch group, however, ignoring the actual event.

apro-pedal-kb-group.png (52.29 KiB) Viewed 2367 times

[Cabijista]

I’m trying now to cycle through keyboard switch groups with the pedal of my A-pro. I saw your comment about it on another post and you said you got this working too on your A-300 but I tried to copy the SysEx message you posted and it didn’t work for me. Could you perhaps link a screen shot of your settings in the editor for that too?

See the parameters in the following screenshot. With these options, you cycle through min-value and max-value. Another interesting option is to set mode Button Mode to Unlatch, which switches only momentarily, and which is particularly useful to have on a pedal.

It works best if pad mode is already set to keyboard switch group. Otherwise, the first event will switch to keyboard switch group, however, ignoring the actual event.

apro-pedal-kb-group.png

It worked! I had to change the value range to 1-16 to get it to cycle through all 16 pads (1-3 just moved through pad 1 to 3 and then cycled pad 2 to 3 for infinity for some reason) but it all seems to be working now. I really can’t thank you enough!

Could I just ask how did you manage to discover the SysEx message in the first place? On the other thread where u spoke about this I think you said that the SysEx messages for the keyboard switch group weren’t listed in the midi implementation chart but you found that the fantom was sending this message nonetheless. I tried running the “midi monitor” app in the hope of discovering some of these messages myself but it didn’t register any message when I pressed the pads in keyboard switch group mode. Strangely enough, it didn’t even register any note on/off messages when I played the keybed either. It did however register messages when I moved the sliders and knobs.

[xp30]

It worked! I had to change the value range to 1-16 to get it to cycle through all 16 pads (1-3 just moved through pad 1 to 3 and then cycled pad 2 to 3 for infinity for some reason) but it all seems to be working now. I really can’t thank you enough!

I think it should be 0-15 instead of 1-16. However, if you really need to switch through so many (different) keyboard switch groups, then maybe scenes (and scene chains) is a better alternative.

Could I just ask how did you manage to discover the SysEx message in the first place? On the other thread where u spoke about this I think you said that the SysEx messages for the keyboard switch group weren’t listed in the midi implementation chart but you found that the fantom was sending this message nonetheless. I tried running the “midi monitor” app in the hope of discovering some of these messages myself but it didn’t register any message when I pressed the pads in keyboard switch group mode. Strangely enough, it didn’t even register any note on/off messages when I played the keybed either. It did however register messages when I moved the sliders and knobs.

The Fantom will transmit the SysEx messages if Transmit Edit Data in the MIDI Settings (System Settings) is enabled.

[Cabijista]

It worked! I had to change the value range to 1-16 to get it to cycle through all 16 pads (1-3 just moved through pad 1 to 3 and then cycled pad 2 to 3 for infinity for some reason) but it all seems to be working now. I really can’t thank you enough!

I think it should be 0-15 instead of 1-16. However, if you really need to switch through so many (different) keyboard switch groups, then maybe scenes (and scene chains) is a better alternative.

Could I just ask how did you manage to discover the SysEx message in the first place? On the other thread where u spoke about this I think you said that the SysEx messages for the keyboard switch group weren’t listed in the midi implementation chart but you found that the fantom was sending this message nonetheless. I tried running the “midi monitor” app in the hope of discovering some of these messages myself but it didn’t register any message when I pressed the pads in keyboard switch group mode. Strangely enough, it didn’t even register any note on/off messages when I played the keybed either. It did however register messages when I moved the sliders and knobs.

“The Fantom will transmit the SysEx messages if Transmit Edit Data in the MIDI Settings (System Settings) is enabled.

”

The SysEx messages are now transmitting. Thanks so much!

Regarding the switch groups, 1-16 seems to work fine. The only issue I have is that it remembers the order even if you jump to a different switch group by hand. Like for example, if I cycle from group 1 to 3 by pedal, and jump to group 7 by pressing a pad, if I then press the pedal again it will jump back to group 4. Ideally, I would like it to just always move up one group from whatever group is currently selected, so if I accidentally hit the pedal twice I can go back a group by hand and not have to keep in mind where the pedal will jump to next, but I fear that’s not possible.

It depends on the song for me which is better regarding the switch groups vs scene chains, but there’s a few advantages to the switch groups that I can see. 1 is that you don’t have to limit yourself to 8 parts via scene remain and can happily have 9 or more simultaneous parts in a group and still have seamless switching whilst holding the sustain pedal. Another is that if you’re triggering anything via the sequencer and need to change sounds via pedal at the same time, this is not possible with scene chains - even with scene remain enabled - as it will cutoff the sequencer. And finally if I can fit a whole song in one scene it just seems a lot neater organization-wise to do that.

The main disadvantage of the switch groups (aside from the aforementioned “remembered order” of the switching on the pedal) is that you can’t change the parts for the A-pro. The A-pro is just always outputting on one or two channels, and group switching cannot change what is outputted on each channel within the scene, so you’re kinda stuck with what you start with with the A-pro, unless you change channels on it by hand.

Another problem I have - and I’m really hoping you might have a solution to this - is that limiting key ranges for doing splits doesn’t work on a connected controller, like the A-pro. For example, if I limit ranges on any zone in the scene on the fantom, and the fantom is being used to play those zones - no problem. But if those zones are not active and are routed to a channel to be used on the A-pro then the limited key ranges don’t engage. So the only way to do a split on the A-pro is to either have the same sounds active at the same time on the fantom - which would defeat the purpose - or setup the split range on the A-pro itself. The problem doing the latter is that you can only setup split ranges across 2 channels on the A-pro with the editor, so you would have to save a lot of setups on the A-pro for each different split range you needed for the gig which is a pain (and of course you only have 20 setups in memory).

[xp30]

Another problem I have - and I’m really hoping you might have a solution to this - is that limiting key ranges for doing splits doesn’t work on a connected controller, like the A-pro.

Consider creating a new topic for this question. The short answer is, there is no simple way of doing it.

[Cabijista]

@xp30 apologies for reviving this old thread. With regards to cycling through the switch groups with the sustain pedal on the A-pro, I’ve found that wherever you are in the series at the end of your song, say switch group 3, when you go to the next scene/song in your setlist, if you press the A-pro pedal again it will move to the next switch group from the last scene, so in this example switch group 4. This keeps tripping me up when playing live, cause if I don’t remember to manually press through all switch groups until I arrive back at 1 before I start each song, then everything is in the wrong place.

So question is, and I know this Is probably wishful thinking, is there some sort of reset SysEx command you can send from the fantom-0 to the A-Pro when you change scenes to automatically set the switch group series back to 1?

[xp30]

@xp30 apologies for reviving this old thread. With regards to cycling through the switch groups with the sustain pedal on the A-pro, I’ve found that wherever you are in the series at the end of your song, say switch group 3, when you go to the next scene/song in your setlist, if you press the A-pro pedal again it will move to the next switch group from the last scene, so in this example switch group 4. This keeps tripping me up when playing live, cause if I don’t remember to manually press through all switch groups until I arrive back at 1 before I start each song, then everything is in the wrong place.

So question is, and I know this Is probably wishful thinking, is there some sort of reset SysEx command you can send from the fantom-0 to the A-Pro when you change scenes to automatically set the switch group series back to 1?

I am not aware of such a reset command. Even if there would be one, I doubt that the Fantom-0 could be programmed to send it.

It is possible to do more complicated stuff with a computer. I mentioned before that I use a 20 USD Raspberry Pi Zero for headless setups.

Without a computer, my best advice is to reduce the rotation size for the switch groups, because if you are in the wrong position, it is easier to go back to the correct position. For example, if you program the pedal to only rotate between group 2 and 3, then you still have 3 switch groups (including the starting position), and you are only 1 tap away from correct switch group.