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CC data. A little help for the midi noob?


nerol1st

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Here is the deal.

 

I'm reading "The midi manual" by David Miles Huber (sorry Craig, I did look into buying your book but ended up selling on this since I already used one of his other books for a text book in college). I'm about 1/3 of the way through this book. So far a lot of technical stuff that I am pretty clueless about :lol:.

 

I understand what MSB and LSB type messages are. If I understand correctly MSB is your standard 0-127 messages and LSB is where more steps are needed like pitch bend mod wheel etc...

 

What I don't understand is program messages.

 

I'm not in the hardware world at all so loading a patch usually means mouse clicking. I would LOVE to be able to just program it via CC message.

 

Now I am pretty sure that Bank Select is set to MSB cc message 0 right?

 

But how would I change patches/programs/preset/whatever within the banks themselves?

 

Also: does most software instruments respond to this type of message or is the old "mouse click to the next one in a file menu" the most common way to go?

 

If it matters I have a korg nano key and a m audio keystation 88 pro (that is a little overwhelming but I vow to tame that beast into something super usable).

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So hunting around about this, it seems that a lot of virtual instruments just don't support program changes because it's makes more sense to have more instances than dumping program changes everywhere.

 

My thought though is "what a pain to have to mouse over presets to find something good."

 

It would be nice if they accepted bank and program changes for that alone.

 

I only came across this with expand 2 though (just googling around). Maybe other programs use program change messages?

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:lol:
Also: excuse my ignorance, but is a program change message a CC message or is it some other type of message? I'm not even sure if that question makes sense.

 

I rarely use program change messages, so I don't know all the nuances of program change messages, but no they are not Continuous Controller messages. CC messsages are like the mod wheel, messages destined to modify some aspect of the sound you're currently using.

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One quick way to get going sending actual bank and program change messages is just to use the buttons on your Keystation 88. In the line of function buttons you've got a Program button - just press it and type in the number you want with either the keypad, or just increment/decrement with the +- key.

 

If you want to change banks, it's a bit more complicated - you'll use either MSB or LSB depending on the requirements of the piece of gear you're hooked up to. But you can always just try trial and error....

 

Really, the M-Audio keyboards nowadays make it pretty unnecessary to have to learn all the geeky ins and outs of the MIDI messages for simple stuff like program changes, channel changes, zones, and all that.

 

You can downloand the manual at the M-Audio site if you don't have one.

 

nat whilk ii

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I have the manual and the quick start book that came with the keystation.

 

It seems my problem is those messages actually getting used :(.

 

 

It just seems like it would be easier to send a program change when you wanted to change presets (again I have no hardware modules, I only run software). I'm sure there has got to be a way, maybe sysex or something? Anyhow, I will continue reading the book and see what I can see. :lol:

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The fallowing commercial ones:

 

Kontact player (this is for Steven Slate drums so I don't really think bank/patch changes are necessary since they take some time to load).

 

Reason 4 (I would love it if you could in reason 4 in any of the modules, but have yet to figure it out).

 

Arturia analog factory LE (this would be awesome if it worked with bank/program changes).

 

Any of the digidesign ones from pro tools 8 (the organ ones, xpand 2, structure LE, etc...)

 

That's it aside from some free ones hanging around the net. But I'm not so concerned with them since they were free. :lol:

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VSTi & DXi that don't accept midi prgarm change messages are usually the

ones that use samples as the main sound source.

 

Like Dimension Pro and Rapture.

 

Some of the patches associated with these take quite a few seconds to

load, so switching patches on the fly is not feasible.

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