by minorguy » Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:20 am
I was one who lobbied for SysEx as opposed to NRPN. Solaris has a lot of parameters and if you look at other keyboards that have a lot of parameters such as Kronos and Motif/Montage they also use SysEx and do not use NRPN. At least you have to use SysEx for transferring entire presets because it’s impractical to use individual NRPN messages for that. Then also keep in mind that some Solaris parameter values don’t even fit into 14 bits (like they do in most synths). But I realize people want to use CC/NRPN because it can be easier and because a DAW can edit those values whereas it cannot edit SysEx.
With Cubase, for example, you can record and playback Solaris’s SysEx messages for parameter changes. But you can’t edit them or draw them on an automation track. For this, Cubase has Device Panels. But the last time I tried to use Device Panels to control SysEx it was flakey and didn’t work consistently. Although Steinberg has kept Device Panels in Cubase, they no longer include the relevant SysEx information in their more recent documentation and they seem to have abandoned any further development of it.
Perhaps the most useful thing to do is have a way to map several CC or NRPN messages to parameters. There are multiple ways to do it, so that would be one thing that would have to be decided. What’s the most number you would need? Should it be a set of hard-coded parameters that people are likely to use, such as filter cutoff, or should you be able to assign any parameter to a CC? Should you be able to set up the mapping using the Solaris UI? If so, how would that be done? Should the mapping be per-preset or global? When you adjust an encoder such as filter cutoff, does the Solaris send out CC or SysEx over MIDI for that parameter change? (I assume there would need to be a switch to select one or the other.)
I was one who lobbied for SysEx as opposed to NRPN. Solaris has [i]a lot [/i]of parameters and if you look at other keyboards that have a lot of parameters such as Kronos and Motif/Montage they also use SysEx and do not use NRPN. At least you have to use SysEx for transferring entire presets because it’s impractical to use individual NRPN messages for that. Then also keep in mind that some Solaris parameter values don’t even fit into 14 bits (like they do in most synths). But I realize people want to use CC/NRPN because it can be easier and because a DAW can edit those values whereas it cannot edit SysEx.
With Cubase, for example, you can record and playback Solaris’s SysEx messages for parameter changes. But you can’t edit them or draw them on an automation track. For this, Cubase has Device Panels. But the last time I tried to use Device Panels to control SysEx it was flakey and didn’t work consistently. Although Steinberg has kept Device Panels in Cubase, they no longer include the relevant SysEx information in their more recent documentation and they seem to have abandoned any further development of it.
Perhaps the most useful thing to do is have a way to map several CC or NRPN messages to parameters. There are multiple ways to do it, so that would be one thing that would have to be decided. What’s the most number you would need? Should it be a set of hard-coded parameters that people are likely to use, such as filter cutoff, or should you be able to assign any parameter to a CC? Should you be able to set up the mapping using the Solaris UI? If so, how would that be done? Should the mapping be per-preset or global? When you adjust an encoder such as filter cutoff, does the Solaris send out CC or SysEx over MIDI for that parameter change? (I assume there would need to be a switch to select one or the other.)