#MIDI Advice please!
5 messages in this thread
Hello I'm new to the MIDI world and though I think I have grasped most of
the basics
for the life of me I can't figure one thing out:
I have a Roland SPD8, a drum pad with 112 built in sounds. It of course
has MIDI capabalities. The question is, how do I go about dumping my
settings to my amiga
for storage? I thought a librarian is what I need, but all the Librarians
I see here in the MIDI file library, there descriptions list them as made
for a specific type of MIDI device (keyboards, drum machines, etc.).
Do i have to wait until someone makes a librarian for the SPD8 or is there
some sort of universal MIDI librarian out there that will simply receive a
midi dump from a midi device and save it to a file on my HD and then let me
dump it back in to a device (probably the same one I took it from).
Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially and recommended programs
out there in the public domain or otherwise.
Miguel Chavez
Miguel,
You need a universal librarian. Actually, that's a misnomer because they
are not really universal unless you have a driver for your device. Three
commercial products for the Amiga are: The PatchMeister by Blue Ribbon
SoundWorks (404) 377-1514; MIDI Quest by Music Quest; and X-OR by Dr. T's.
They all come with drivers for different MIDI devices. If a driver is not
included for your device, you can theoretically try to create your own.
However, if you are a MIDI novice, that will probably not be feasible.
So, you can buy a program that has a SPD8 driver or try to bug the company
to create one. However, there is an alternative. If your SPD8 allows you to
initiate a bulk dump from it, you can backup all your data in SysEx format,
and later retrieve it.
I use The PatchMeister which costs much less than the other two programs,
since it's just a librarian and the other two are also universal editors.
The PM allows you to do a bulk dump. It's not as flexible as having a
driver and your device must allow you to do a bulk dump, but it does work.
For instance, with a driver you might be able to save and load individual
sounds. With Sysex you could only save and load all 112 sounds at once, but
you could do it, if the SPD8 allows bulk dumps.
Good luck.
Dom Fontana
THanks for the info. Yes the SPD8 allows bulk dumps… that was my
intention ; to save the entire set of sounds at a time. I guess ROLAND
might have created a driver for this device already but maybe it's in ATARI
ST or MAC format…. mayeb there is a quick and dirty way of porting it
over? I take it that there
is a MIDI forum here in CIS? Maybe they'll have something.
BTW, there's some old file in this library that purports to describe the
MIDI
format and any other pertinent information… is this file still worth
geting?
Maybe it's outdated?
THanks again.
Miguel
Miguel,
Yes, there is a MIDI/Music Forum. I'm one of the Sysops there. Type "GO
MIDIFORUM" (without the quotes) to get there.
Any driver would also have to be in the format of the universal librarian
that you are using.
Sorry, but I'm sure how good the MIDI text file is that you referred to.
Hope to see you in the MIDI Forum. I'm the Amiga Section Leader. Drop into
Section 6 and say hello.
Dom Fontana
Miguel-
It may be worth noting that many sequencers (programs for recording streams
of MIDI messages as a tape recorder records sounds) allow MIDI dumps to be
"recorded" and then "played back." If you own one (or buy one), this would
get you a librarian on the cheap. If not, Dom's recommendation of
PatchMeister is a highly recommended solution to your problem: it's
flexible, but inexpensive, since it doesn't attempt to be a universal
*editor* as well as a librarian.
Bob
– (!) –