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Harware Legacy versions => KeyLab => Topic started by: MarquisVonLion on April 20, 2018, 06:02:00 am

Title: Keylab manual
Post by: MarquisVonLion on April 20, 2018, 06:02:00 am
Why is Keylab manual so difficult to understand? with terms that are directed towards  a computer science major or programmer ?
  Example, The available messages are as follows:
 Program: Program Change, from 1 to 128.
 Bank MSB: Most Significant Byte for the Bank number (0 to 127).
 Bank LSB: Least Significant Byte for the Bank number (0 to 127).
 Reset: you can choose to reset a GM1, GM2, GS, or XG devices, or send an All
Notes Off command,
so now I have to learn what MSB and LSB are...???
so is GM1,GM2 etc...
After some research I came up with this page:
About MIDI Bank Select Messages

The basic MIDI message used to select different sounds on your keyboard or synthesiser is called the Program Change. Like many MIDI messages, the Program Change message has a range between 0 and 127, giving 128 different sounds in total.

Modern keyboards typically have many more than 128 sounds, so additional messages, called Bank Select, are used in conjunction with the Program Change to give a range of over 2 million.

The MIDI Bank Select message is split into two parts, called the Most Significant Byte and Least Significant Byte (or MSB and LSB for short). Each of these messages also has a range between 0 and 127.

Bank Select messages are also called Control Change messages, so sometimes the Bank MSB message is called Control Change 0 (or CC#0 for short), and the Bank LSB message is called Control Change 32 (or CC#32 for short). The names mean the same thing.

So, in some keyboard manuals, you might find the values for Bank MSB and LSB are listed separately. QWS combines these two messages into a single number. To do this, use the following simple formula:

bank = MSB × 128 + LSB.

For example, the first bank of GM2 sounds has Bank Select MSB set to 121 and the LSB set to 0. So, applying the formula, in QWS you'd use a bank number of 121 × 128 + 0 = 15488.

Please be aware that some synthesisers might only make use of the MSB or LSB, but not both. If this happens, you can normally ignore the other one and set it to 0. So, if your synthesiser only uses the LSB, then the bank numbers for QWS would be 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., 127. If instead your synthesiser only uses the MSB, then the bank numbers in QWS would be 0, 128, 256, 384, 512, ..., 16256. The formula still applies.

Note also that each synth will respond to different values of bank messages. The only real way (apart from experimenting) is to consult the manual for your synthesiser.

That's about it: so consult your MIDI instrument manual to find out what bank numbers your keyboard or synthesiser accepts, and if they're listed separately as MSB and LSB, then use the formula bank = MSB × 128 + LSB to find the number to use in QWS.

 

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Not a very friendly approach to electronic music...
Title: Re: Keylab manual
Post by: LBH on April 20, 2018, 09:07:17 pm
GM = Generel MIDI. There are different generations - thats marked with numbers.
GS and XG is versions Roland and Yamaha used for there synths.
Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI
and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI
Here is List of Standard MIDI Continuous Controllers (CC's): http://www.nortonmusic.com/midi_cc.html
It's possible to find more info about MIDI on the web. You have found info on a QWS product page.

The Generel MIDI standard was developed for hardware synths, and started around 35 years ago. With softsynth not all standards is used by default.
You can assign lots of CCs to different parameters after your choice.

For Arturias softsynths the ProgramChange work for playlists only - each containing up to 128 presets.

If you dont use hardware synth, then many things is more fleksible, but many common controls and functions are still using GM CCs.
Manuals can tell about how that unit is working. Perhaps you will never use everything a controller actual can do.

How to be more friendly?

Hope this helps.
If you have specific MIDI questions, then feel free to ask.