Cubase Magazine 52

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Welcome to the Midi Quest Demo ============================== This demo is a fully functional version of the software exept for the following exceptions. The demo can't perform bulk dumps. You can load data from the instrument, save it, reload it, and edit it. However, attempts to send an entire patch or bank to the instrument will fail. The demo runs on a 15 minute timer but you may run it as many times as you like. Finally, this is a demo which is intended to allow you to get a "feel" for how the program operates, as such in some instruments we have not included all of the editor windows you would find in the complete package. When you first load the program, you will see a message saying that there is no driver list found and would you like to build a new one. If you say YES then MIDI QUEST will build a Driver List containing ALL of the instruments. To build a list with just your instruments, reply NO. Once the program is loaded, Choose "Add Instruments" from the "Drivers" menu and select each of your instruments. The following information is drawm from the Tutorial in Midi Quest's manual. It should help you to get started with the demo. If you have received the demo on CD ROM then you can also make use of the video tutorials to assist you in becoming familiar with the software. We hope you enjoy the program. Tutorial ======== The tutorial will take you through a number of the more common procedures in Midi Quest. The intent is to get you comfortable with how the program operates along with some of the features you will use most often. After this, you can begin to explore the program more fully. The following is a basic outline of what we will be doing: 1. Load your instrument into a Group 2. Understanding the Midi I/O Window 3. Errors and Communications problems 4. Saving your first instrument Group 5. Saving each instrument Group 6. Loading a Group from disk 7. Editing a Bank in a Group 8. Auditioning Patches in a Bank 9. Editing a Patch from a Bank 10. Creating a new Library 11. Storing a complete Bank in a Library 12. Adding keywords in a Library 13. Searching a Library 14. Auditioning a Library 15. Creating a DBase 16. Creating a Custom Set Load Your Instrument Into A Group ================================= We will begin by loading the contents of one of your instruments into the program. This will not only give you your first view of how data is stored in Midi Quest, it will also allow you to verify that the Driver List has been properly configured to speak to your instruments. Drv List Win ============ For the first test, you should begin by choosing the Instrument Bar for a full synthesizer that Midi Quest has editors for. Try not to select a drum machine, effect box, patch bay, or other MIDI device. If you have a number of different brands of instruments to choose from, try choosing an instrument not made by Roland. If you have only Roland products, choose the newest instrument you own. We are not anti-Roland here, however, Roland does have substantially more bugs in their instrument ROMs than any other manufacturer and we would prefer that you get Midi Quest up and running as smoothly as possible. Now that you have selected an instrument, double click on its icon in the Instrument Bar or click on the 'Edit' button and the Midi I/O Window will appear. Understanding the Midi I/O Window ================================= The Midi I/O Window will appear in the program whenever SysX data is requested from an instrument. This window shows which type of data is being requested, along with the Comm Channel, and MIDI IN and OUT ports that are being used for the data transfer. If you have set all of the parameters in the Instrument Bar correctly using the Settings dialog and you have properly set up the instrument to receive and transmit SysX data, you will see the bar at the bottom of the window fill as data is received from the instrument. Congratulations, you have communication and can go directly to Saving Your First Instrument Group. Errors and Communications Problems ================================== If there is a problem communicating with the instrument, the Midi I/O Window will sit and flash the "Waiting" message. If you wait for more than 30 seconds, you can assume there is a problem somewhere in the system which needs to be corrected. I'm not getting any SysX Data ----------------------------- Following are some of the more commonly encountered problems when first trying to receive data from an instrument. Work through each of the listed problems and follow the recommended suggestions. Retry the dump after each change you make, 1) If you have a patch bay, it may not be configured properly. For the moment, remove your patch bay from the loop and connect your instrument directly to the MIDI insterface. Once you have the program talking with the instrument you can reattach the patch bay and configure it. 2) The MIDI cables between the computer and instrument are not connected properly. Ensure that the MIDI OUT cable from the instrument is connected to the MIDI IN of the computer and the MIDI OUT of the computer is connected to the MIDI IN of the instrument. Your reaction may be "of course they're connected" but over the years we've talked to many MIDI savvy people who have forgotten to connect the output of their rack instrument (or module) back to the computer. 3) The Comm Channel set in the Instrument Bar is not the channel that the instrument is currently listening to for SysX commands. Verify that the instrument's Comm Channel is the same as that set in the software. Read the instrument's Fast Tips to find your instrument's Comm Channel. 4) The instrument is currently ignoring SysX dump requests because SysX recognition has been disabled on the instrument. Read the instrument's Fast Tips to determine how to enable SysX reception, if necessary. 5) You are sending the dump request to the wrong MIDI port. Verify that the MIDI Out port selected on the Instrument Bar is the same port that the instrument is actually connected to. 6) Try the request again and while the Midi I/O window is waiting, go to the instrument and manually dump the data to the computer yourself. If SysX data is received by the program, you are still having a problem sending the dump request to the instrument. If the computer displays a "SysX Missing Bytes!" error message then the program did not receive exactly the SysX data it was expecting. The problem, however, is basically the same. You need to determine why the instrument is not receiving or acknowledging the dump request message from the computer. Recheck the Fast Tips.. 7) If the program does not appear to receive any SysX data in step 6, cancel the Midi I/O window and go to the Utilties menu and choose Midi Monitor Window. Once the window is open, choose Monitor/Switch to Text Mode. Return to your keyboard and begin playing notes. You should see numbers displayed in the window which correspond to each note you play. If you see numbers, proceed to the next step, otherwise you have some sort of hardware/software problem and the program is not receiving any MIDI data. You should shut down Windows and power down your computer. Turn the computer back on, run windows, then run Midi Ques. Make sure that there are no other MIDI applications running. Next make sure the necessary MIDI port is open in the program by choosing Midi/Midi In Ports. Retry step 7 from the beginning. If the program still fails to receive data, try a different MIDI cable. If you continue to have problems, try working with a different instrument. If that fails as well, it is time to contact Sound Quest for tech support by phone, fax, or BBS. I always get "SysX Missing Bytes" Errors ---------------------------------------- If you are receiving data from your instrument but are frequently receiving "SysX Missing Bytes" error messages the problem can be due to one of the following: 1) You are using a patch bay that is echoing the SysX dump request that is intended for the instrument back to the program. <$R[V*,Product]Midi Quest>'s receives its own dump request and interprets this as an error. The Midi I/O window will usually show that it has received a small number of bytes, usually less than 15. To fix this problem, you will need to alter the programming of the patch bay so that it does not route SysX coming from the computer back to the computer. Try bypassing the Patch Bay and connect the instrument directly to the computer's MIDI interface. 2) You have a MIDI instrument which is capable of echoing data that arrives at its MIDI IN port out its MIDI OUT port. An example of this is the Oberheim Matrix 1000. This problem is similar to that listed in problem 1 only this time it is the instrument which is echoing the dump request back to the program. To correct the problem, you will need to change the instrument so that it no longer echos MIDI events arriving at the MIDI IN port and out the MIDI OUT port. 3) If you own a Patch Bay, try connecting the instrument directly to the computer and bypass the Patch Bay. We have seen a substantial number of cases where a Patch Bay will loose part of the dump while it is being transferred. If this fails to fix the problem then continue. 4) Try the suggestions in the online help. Choose <MI>Help/Contents<D> and pick MIDI Commonication errors to obtain additional help. The program crashes only on large SysX dumps -------------------------------------------- If you are successfully receiving smaller SysX dumps from an instrument but not large Bank dumps then the actual problem is an incompatibility between your MIDI hardware, MIDI driver software, and your computer hardware. You should make sure that you have the latest Windows MIDI drivers for your interface and if the driver allows you to set the size of the SysX buffer, increase this buffer size substantially, by as much as ten times. Additionally, there are a few other tricks you can try to get the program working. 1) Open the "Midi/Midi In Ports" dialog and change the SysX "Buffer Size" from 2000 bytes to 5000 bytes. Retry the dump. 2) If step 1 is not successful, return to the "Midi/Midi In Ports" dialog and substantially increase the "Buffer Size" to 50000. You should also reduce the number of buffers to 1 instead of 15. Retry the dump. 3) If step 2 fails, it is time to contact Sound Quest's tech support. From time to time manufacturers will change the format of their SysX dumps. It may be necessary to obtain new drivers for the instrument. Saving Your First Instrument Group ================================== If you have reached this portion of the tutorial, we will assume that you have successfully received a Group from your instrument. Congratulations. You should have a window similar to the one displayed to the right. To save this Group, you can either choose "File/Save As..." or click on the Save icon in the mini icon bar. A Save As dialog box is displayed so you can enter a name for the file. You might want to call the file ORIGINAL so that you will know that this file contains your original instrument settings. Notice that your File Selector has automatically opened in the instrument's data directory. If you put all of your files for this instrument in this directory, you will find it much easier to find your files in the future. After entering the file name, press the OK button to save the file. You have successfuly saved the contents of one of your instruments. You will now be able to restore your data at any time in the future. This is important should you make a mistake while learning Midi Quest and inadvertantly loose part or all of the contents of the instrument. You can now close this Group by double-clicking on the close icon in the upper left hand corner of the window. Saving Each Instrument Group ============================ Now that you have saved the Group for one instrument, you should work through each of the instruments and save their Groups as well. The reason? You always want to have a backup of your instrument's contents should something unexpectedly happen to the instrument. So please, return to the beginning of this chapter, choose your next instrument and save its Group. Once you have saved the contents of all of your instruments, we can proceed. Loading a Group from Disk ========================= Now that you have saved the internals of each of your instruments, let's go back to the Group loaded from the first instrument. You have two options here, your first option is to open the file in the traditional way by choosing "File/Open...". A File Selector dialog is displayed. At this point, you should double-click on the instrument's data subdirectory to open it. In the subdirectory you will find the file you saved with an SQG extension. Double-click on the file name to load it. The second option has the advantage of automatically placing you in the correct file directory when the File Selector is opened. First, select the Instrument Bar in the Driver List Window for the Group you wish to load. Now, go to the menus and choose "Drivers/Open/Group...." This will open a file selector and automatically place you in the instrument's data directory. The file you saved will have the SQG extension. Double-click on it to load the Group. Editing a Bank in a Group ========================= Now that you have loaded your Group, we will edit one of the Banks in the Group. For this demonstration, it would be best to choose the Bank containing the instrument's Sound Patches. This is often called the Patch Bank. Click on the Patch Bank line in the Group and a Bank Editor opens which contains the contents of the Group's Patch Bank. Auditioning Patches in a Bank ----------------------------- Midi Quest lets you quickly listen to Patches in a Bank or Library, we call this auditioning. When you click on a Patch in a Bank or Library, the Patch is immediately sent to the instrument. Midi Quest then automatically plays a chord so you can hear the selected sound. Go ahead, try it. If you would like to play a different chord, you can open open the Tones Window by choosing "Utilities/Tones". From this window, you can define the number of notes to play in the chord, the chord's duration, the pitches, and the velocity of each pitch. Swap a Patch in the Same Bank ----------------------------- One of the more common activities you will be involved in, while editing Banks, is organizing your Patches. This is accomplished by either pasting or swapping Patches within the same Bank or with another Bank. In this example, we will swap two patches in the Bank you have opened to edit: * Cick the mouse on the second Patch in the Bank and release the button * Click the mouse on the second Patch again and hold the button down to begin the drag * Drag the mouse so that it points to the Patch you wish to swap with * Release the mouse and the two Patches are swapped * Creating New Patches with Mix All Mix All is one of five different Randomize functions in the Bank. Each of these Randomize functions processes Patches in a different way to quickly produce a Bank of new Patches. No editing knowledge is required. This is a fast way to create or try out new sounds in a piece of music. To create a Bank of new Patches using Mix All: * Hold down the CNTRL key and select two or more patches to mix * Choose the Mix All button or RMB "Bank Edit/Randomize/Mix All" * The cursor becomes a `Wait' icon * When complete, a new Bank is displayed, like the one below Bank Mix You can now try out the different patches you have created. Clicking once will send the Patch to the instrumentand play a chord on the instrument so you can hear the new Patch. Note: to access menus in the Group Bank us the right mouse button. Swap Patches with Patches in Another Bank ----------------------------------------- Now that there are two Banks, we can swap Patches between them. To swap two patches between two Banks: * Select two Patches in the original Bank (hold down the CNTRL key) * Click the right mouse button and choose <MI>Bank Edit/Copy<D> * Select two Patches to swap in the Mix All Bank * Choose <MI>Bank Edit/Swap<D> with the right mouse button or regular menus * Editing a Patch from a Bank Now, select a Patch from the original Bank that you would like to edit. Press the Edit button to open a Patch Editor for the Patch. The window shows an Emu Morpheus Editor. Each Editor will look different depending on the instrument and type of Patch you are working with. Patch parameters can be edited in any one of the following three ways: * Click on the parameter to edit and drag the mouse left/right * Click on the parameter to edit. Type in the desired value with your computer keyboard * Click on the parameter to edit and use the `<<' and `>>' keys to inc/dec * Try changing a number of parameters in the editor. When you are finished editing, click on the Edit button in the Bank Editor if you would like to close the Patch Editor Window. You can now make the changes to the Group permanent by pressing the Save button or choosing <MI>File/Save Group<D>. Using the Library ================= Creating a new Library ---------------------- It's now time to start creating a Library for your instrument's Patches. Go to the Driver List Window and double-click on the text portion of the Instrument Bar. This will expand the bar so that each of the individual instrument drivers are displayed. Choose the individual driver that represents a <B>sound<D> on your instrument. This may be called a Patch, Tone, Sound, Voice, etc, depending on the instrument. We'll assume it's called a Patch. Now, press the New Lib button at the top of the Driver List Window to create a new, empty Library. Placing an entire Bank in a Library ----------------------------------- Return to the Group and select the Patch Bank; this is the Bank that holds the instrument's sounds. Click on the Edit button to display the bank if necessary. Now, click on any Patch in the Bank. Click again on the same Patch, hold the mouse button down, and drag the mouse towards the Library. You will see the mouse change to a Drag display. Drag the mouse over the Library Window and release the button. A message will be displayed asking whether you wish to move all of the Patches in the Bank or just the currently selected ones. Choose to move all of the Patches. Midi Quest will move all of the Patches from the Bank into the Library. Adding Keywords in a Library ---------------------------- One of the major advantages of organizing your instrument's Patches in a Library is that each Patch can have descriptive keywords assigned to it. In the future you will be able to search for only those Patches which have matching keywords. For example, if you code all of your bass Patches with the keyword BASS, later when you are looking for a BASS sound, you can search for and display only your BASS patches. While it may take some time to initially set up each of your Patches, in the long run, the time will have been well spent. Now that you have a Library with some Patches, select the first Patch and press the Patch button in the Library's icon bar to display the Patch Update dialog to the right. The Patch Update dialog allows you to change the name of the Patch, assign a comment and add keywords to the Patch. To add a keyword: * Click the left mouse button in the raised area beside Keys "1." * A pop-up menu appears with a list of the keyword categories * Select a category and choose a keyword from within the category When you release the mouse, the selected keyword is added to the keys. Even if the Patch you have selected is not a bass sound, pretend it is for this portion of the tutorial. Add the Bass keyword by clicking in the raised area beside "1." to display the pop-up menu. Move down the menu to "String-Pluck", highlight "Bass" and release the mouse button. Bass will be added as the keyword for this sound. Press the OK button to accept the changes. Choose two or three Patches and repeat this process so that you have several Patches coded with the keyword "Bass". Note: Up to eight keywords can be assigned to a Patch. Along with an indication of the type of Patch, keywords can be used to describe the type of sound such as "Slap" bass, or "Fender" bass. We strongly suggest that you must keep the descriptions of your sounds simple and consistent or you will not be able to effectively search for sounds in the future. Searching a Library ------------------- The Choose dialog is used to select Patches from the Library based on the criteria you select. For the tutorial, we will show you how you can find Patches. The other most frequent use for the Choose dialog is to find duplicate sounds so you can expunge them. Imagine in the future, you have built up a Library of 5000 sounds and you would like to find all of the "bass" sounds in your Library. Follow these steps: * Press the Choose button in the Library Window * Check "Keys that match the Keywords" * In Keyword Select, click in the first raised box * A popup menu listing of keywords is displayed * Move down to "String-Pluck", and highlight "Bass" * Release the mouse button to select "Bass" * Press the OK button in the Choose dialog After the program has finished processing, only Patches with the keyword "Bass" are displayed in the Library. Auditioning a Library --------------------- You can now audition each of the Bass Patches in your Library. Similar to the Bank Editor, clicking on a Patch in the Library automatically sends that Patch to the instrument and plays a chord. If you would like to play a different chord, you can open the Tones Window by choosing "Utilities/Tones". From this window, you can define the number of notes to play in the chord, the chord's duration, the pitches, and the velocity of each pitch. To redisplay all of the Patches in your Library, choose "Library/View/Show All". Saving the Library to Disk -------------------------- To save your Library, choose "File/Save As...". A File Selector dialog is displayed for you to enter a name for the new Library. Creating a "Snapshot" DBase =========================== As discussed in the Introduction, the DBase is most frequently used to create a "snapshot" of your MIDI system. In the future, this will allow you to restore your system to today's set up. To save your system "snapshot" follow these steps: * Activate the Driver List Window * Choose <MI>Drivers/Select/Group Banks and Patches<D> * This will select each Group driver for each of your MIDI instruments in order to create and store a MIDI system configuration * Press the Driver List DBase button * Midi Quest will proceed to load the SysX data for each selected driver into a new DBase Window * when Midi Quest has finished receiving the SysX data * choose File/Save to save your DBase Providing that everything proceeded without problem, you have now saved a system "snapshot". To send this snapshot from disk back to your instruments, simply choose "Midi/DBase/Group to Instrument". Note: Creating a snapshot DBase as described above will only work properly if you have enough MIDI ports so that each of your instruments can connect both its MIDI IN and MIDI OUT ports to a MIDI interface. If you have more than one instrument, you can accomplish this by using a multi-port MIDI interface or a patch bay. Creating a Custom Set ===================== If you find that you are frequently creating DBases using a particular combination of drivers, you can save this list of drivers as a Custom Set. Any time you need to create a new DBase with the drivers, select the Custom Set and it will automatically select the drivers for you. All you need to do is press the DBase button. * Select the drivers for the data to load into a DBase * Choose "Drivers/Select/Make Custom Set" and enter a name for the Set * To use a Custom Set, choose "Drivers/Select/Custom Set..." * Press the DBase button to create the DBase Congratulations, you have reached the end of the Tutorial. It's time to explore.