Sad Skelton

I’ve always had a hard time with overwriting presets on any of my instruments.  “What if I need that one!”.  Like I’m actually going to need a

Seeing MIDI hex code made me think about Reboot

synthesized birth chirp sound.  And yet I still can’t bring myself to overwrite them.

It has become standard with virtual instruments, DAWs and everything computer that you can save pretty much everything.  However I still lament the prevalence of the MIDI standard of 25 some odd years.  But there is hope even with that.

It seems my Nord Lead 2x has the ability to dump all settings as a MIDI system exclusive message.  I just need to find a way to store that data.  Enter MIDI-OX.

MIDI-Ox eases the pain of working with MIDI, if only slightly.  It at least gives an insight into what is going on as well as tools to modify and conform MIDI to do your bidding.

To capture a MIDI SysEx message:

1. Open MIDI-Ox
2. From the View menu select SysEx. This will open a window with 2 panes.  The top one for entry (if your so daring as to actually write or modify SysEx HEX code) and the bottom for receiving.
3. From the SysEx menu select Receive Manual Dump
4. Send SysEx message from the keyboard.  On the Nord Lead 2x you do this by holding the shift button and clicking Dump One for one program or performance, or Dump all for the entire bank.
5. Click done.  Your program info should be now displayed in the bottom pane.
6. Select Command Window > Save to save to a text file.

It’s amazing how little amount of data there is to make up the settings for a single Nord Lead 2x program.  Now I finally can save an unlimited number of sounds.  Here is the sound I saved.  Looks grand!

F0 33 0F 04 00 00 08 04 04 04 07 04 0A 03 00 00 04 02 00 00 00 00 06 04 0E 04 01 04 0A 05 00 00 06 03 0E 07 06 03 0C 04 04 06 00 00 0E 01 05 04 0F 02 03 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 01 00 01 00 03 00 02 00 02 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 03 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 F7

MIDI has been with us as a standard since 1983 controlling synths and various other related musical gear.  It created a whole new way to make music in ways that were previously impossible or extremely difficult.  However it amazes me in this world of fast paced technology changes, how it has survived so long.

In recent weeks and months, MIDI has become the bane of my existence.  Normally when creating synth parts we record the MIDI data into Ableton live with a keyboard.  Have the various tracks of the song in MIDI makes it super simple to edit.  However often commands that you didn’t want recorded somehow get embedded in the tracks that you don’t want.

Last night I fought forever with why my bass track routed out through my Nord Lead 2X synth was fading in as if I had programmed in a volume envelope.  After much banging of my head and yelling at the computer, antagonistically named “Toe-she”, I finally realized somehow in Ableton Live I had mapped the volume control of another track (which was muted I might add) to the output volume of the synth.  Don’t ask me how.

Unfortunately I can’t do without MIDI, it’s too important in the production of electronic music.  But how do you replace a 20+ year old standard?  Well there are efforts being made, the most significant of which is OpenSound Control.

OpenSound Control is a protocol, much like MIDI, designed to send messages between digital devices.  However unlike MIDI, OpenSound Control is far more versatile.  To best illustrate this you can actually download a freeware app called lanniX.  With lanniX you can build virtual controls that send specific messages, much like MIDI.  However the messages carry far more versatile information at greater speeds.

For instance, with MIDI you designate a channel to send on then pass various messages.  An example would be a volume controller.  The MIDI message would have a CONTROL message along with which controller (volume is controller 7 normally).  With OpenSound control you would specify a readable text name instead of a controller number.

The other huge advantage is the speed at which OpenSound Control operates at.  Using UDP as it’s main transport protocol, the bandwidth and speed it operates at far exceed the old MIDI standard.  This just translates into no more midi delay.

I really hope this technology catches on and at some point in my lifetime we can say goodbye to MIDI forever.