#PatchMeister
12 messages in this thread
I've been having LOADS of fun trying to create a driver for the FBO1 on the
Patchmeister. Quickly and easily, my foot!! What this program needs is a disk
full of drivers. After all, if it IS quick and easy as the manual says, then
one of Blue Ribbon's crack programmers should be able to create ten drivers in
a day, easily. So, in ten days, we could have a disk of 100 drivers. A few
disks like that and almost everyone would have the drivers they need OR, is it
harder to write a driver than the manual suggests? Hmmm-m-m-m? This IS a fine
program, but the manual's section on drivers is not intuitive, and the driver
creation screen is confusing. Also, it won't let you save a driver until you
have at least one working SEnd/Receive SYSEX type. I've had to type in the same
fields over and over as I've tried to crea te a driver. Not very user
friendly…!!
Michael,
Sorry you feel that way. If we had access to 100 synths and docs for them we
would create drivers for them, but we don't. I don't know anything about the
FB01's sysex capabilities but I was able to create two drivers (for my Kawaii
Spectra and my Ensoniq SQ-R+) each in under an hour. Admittedly I have the
author next door that I can ask questions to, but I wrote the drivers before
the manual was even written. Try using the help feature, it's really very
complete.
DM
Dave-
Pass on a couple of things to Annette for me:
(1) I needed a "one's complement" checksum for an MX-8 (patchbay) driver, but
had to go with no checksum instead. Add one, please?
(2) The same box has the ability to download the "active" setup- which has no
name. The current approach seems to interpret "noname" as indicative of an
invalid patch, and doesn't let you save it. In most cases, yes, BUT…
Thanks-
Bob
P.S.: Melissa mailed me a number for your BBS which ends up connecting me to
your "Synthetic Sally" voicemail system. If you *do* have a BBS number, please
post it so I can upload several problem files.
Hi, Bob! How's it going?
Dom Fontana
–> Sent from NY via AP <–
Dom-
Between busy business, a long-lasting award winner of a bronchitis, and an
until-lately-down Amiga… aw, not so bad, I guess. Finally got 2.0 Bars&Pipes
up, and waiting for time to send Blue Ribbon a new "rap sheet" on it (though it
is generally "good stuff!").
Good to "see" you again-
Bob
Bob,
I already sent them a list of bugs and suggested improvements and I'm
happy to report they are implementing them for V2.0b. Maybe you should
EMail me your "rap sheet" first and I'll tell you which items are already
being taken care of.
Bye and I hope you feel better.
Dom Fontana
–> Sent from NY via AP <–
Bob (& everybody),
We have just started up our BBS at (404) 315-0211. This is a 24 hour BBS
devoted to all our products, customent support, updates, etc.
DM
Dave,
Thanks for the BBS notice. Please provide the usual BBS info for us.
That is, is it 8N1F and what baud rates are supported?
Thanks.
Dom Fontana
–> Sent from NY via AP <–
The Blue Ribbon is 2400 baud, full duplex, 1 stop bit.
DM
Thanks, Dave. For anyone else reading, The Blue Ribbon is also 8 data bits
and No parity. In sum, it's the standard 8N1F at 2400 baud.
Dom Fontana
–> Sent from NY via AP <–
Dave-
Thanks, I'll try to get my "problem files" uploaded. Gotta say, though, it's
hard to believe that the problems I found aren't easily reproduced, as for me I
can't *not* reproduce them. Just for yuks, here's a quick rundown:
(1) PostScript printouts are solid black.
(2) Ledger lines don't appear above the treble staff until notes are 3 or 4
lines above the staff.
(3) Standard MIDI files of format 1 produced by SMerFf are bogus (according to
the "opinion" of both Encore and the Windows media player). MuFFy still seems
to work for me.
(4) The process of exporting a MIDI file causes notes which start after the
last beat of a measure to be cut off at the measure's end. (I just spent a
*LONG* time patching a file I transferred to Encore in order to notate it.)
(5) Many edit operations produce gobs of new information after the actual end
of a song. A 169-measure song I have routinely becomes around 232 measures on
editing it.
(6) With an editing session of any length whatsoever, sooner or later pressing
the "audition" button in a track edit window starts the sequence playing from
measure one, rather than the starting note of the window.
I've spoken to Mark about most of these. From my perspective, the MIDI file
bugs are mission-critical.
Thanks-
Bob
Dear Dave: Don't get me wrong. I think that Patchmeister is a great idea, and
for the most part, well-implemented. BUT, nobody ever complained about having
too much information in a manual, and I think a couple more tutorial examples
would be welcomed by most users of the program. In the driver creation section
of the manual, a whopping 1 line is devoted to the 'Bank:Size' field. It
doesn't appear in any tutorial examples, and gives no example of an appropriate
entry. There are a number of similarly vague areas in the driver creation
window. I will try out the help feature more thoroughly as you suggested, but I
still don't have a satisfactory answer as to why I can't save an incomplete
driver.
If I don't enter anything in the sysex types window, (because I haven't
written a successful "request"for sysex data, there seems to be no way of
saving my work in progress. The next time I try to work on the driver, I have
to start all over again, tediously entering the same data in the same fields
that ARE correct, just to get to the part that ISN'T correct yet. BTW, maybe a
more complete tutorial file could be created and uploaded to some of the more
popular nets. It might save some wear and tear on your tech assistance line ;).
*s