From: mrk@gvgspd.gvg.tek.com (Michael R. Kesti)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers,rec.music.synth
Subject: Re: Programming Boss SE50 SysEx for the gig
Date: 24 Jan 93 22:04:47 GMT
Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: gvgspd.gvg.tek.com

In article <C12p0D.IwH.1@cs.cmu.edu>
                             aki+@cs.cmu.edu (Yoshiaki Ohshima) writes:

>I studied the JLCooper FaderMaster manual a bit, and realized it only
>provides one memory bank for programming a SysEx message. This doesn't
>sound like useful. Am I mistaken?

Perhaps the following will help you understand the FaderMaster's SysEx
transmission facility.  Whether the FaderMaster will satisfy your need
to control your SE50 I cannot say, as I have no access to the latter's
SysEx format.

The FaderMaster provides, in addition to its "regular" programmable banks,
a single bank, called "P1", that facilitates programmable SysEx message
transmission.  For each of the eight faders available while this bank is
selected, one may program:

	1) minimum and maximum values,
	2) speed, or the rate at which the fader is sampled, and,
	3) a "parameter" number (see below).

One also programs a single SysEx message string of up to 13 characters
that is to be transmitted when motion of any of the faders is detected.
This message will always be prepended by the SOX (0xF0) and followed by
the EOX (0xF7) characters.  The message may consist of:

	1) arbitrary constants in the range 0 to 0x7F, and,
	2) any of the following meta-characters:
		A) 0xF1 - substitute corresponding fader value,
		B) 0xF3 - clear checksum (used to indicate that only the
			  subsequent characters are to contribute to the
			  message checksum),
		C) 0xF4 - substitute Roland style checksum,
		D) 0xF5 - substitute "other" style checksum,
		E) 0xF6 - substitute parameter number (this is the number
			  that was programmed in item 3 of the individual
			  fader values),

It is not clear from the documentation what exactly is meant by "Roland" and
"other" checksums, and suspect that some experimentation would be required
in order to determine how those checksums are computed.

One potential difficulty with using this FaderMaster facility is that it is
not programmable from the unit's front panel, due, I am certain, to user
interface limitations.  Instead, programming is accompished via SysEx from
another device, typically a computer.  JL Cooper sells Librarian/Editors for
the Mac and Atari that facilitate this, or, one could perform this via a
sequencer that supports arbitrary SysEx message building (Cakewalk, for
example) or any other program that provides this capability (such as the
popular shareware suite GETIT).

Another approach to this problem of stage programming of the SE50 would be
the use of the Alesis DataDisk.  One would build the required SysEx messages
that are to be sent to the SE50 on a computer, again using a sequencer or
other program, and download them to the DataDisk.  Then, in performance, one
would select the desired message and transmit it to the SE50 when appropriate.

-- 
============================================================================
Michael Kesti  Grass Valley Group, Inc. | "And like, one and one don't make
    mrk@gvgspd.GVG.TEK.COM              |  two, one and one make one."
    !tektronix!gvgpsa!gvgspd!mrk        |         - The Who, Bargain