Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "sexontony" <sexontony@...> wrote:
 > Ok, the original Behringer BCR software might suck, but who uses it 
> in the age of BC Manager?

THAT's what I like to hear!

> If possible I would try to use the combination of BC Manager + MIDI-
> OX only. For editing the sounds I don't need any (additional) 
> software, I tweak anyway the Pulse sounds all the time on the BCR2000 
> and if I get some "Aha" or "Wow" feeling while tweaking (e.g. in the 
> context of the rest of the music) I should have the option to save 
> this preset/sound on my computer for later reuse. This is mostly true 
> for special bass sounds which should keep more or less constant. This 
> would mean I should also be able to send this sound parameters back 
> from my computer to Waldorf Pulse again. (Maybe again using MIDI-OX?)

> My plan is to look more in detail to MIDI-OX and it's sysex handling 
> features, extracting the right dump request information from the 
> Waldorf Pulse manual, getting it work for one sound, testing it if 
> the sound is saved really 100% correctly, then if everything is ok, 
> trying to automate everything midi + key + menu use with the 
> automation tool AutoHotkey (for Windows XP), writing a simple summary 
> what I did to make it work, packing everything into a zip and sharing 
> in the files directory of this yahoo group.

IMHO, in principle there is no reason why you should need MIDI-OX to
save a particular setup:

Using the BCR Pulse preset, you can save a Pulse setup from the BCR by
executing "snapshot" (press EDIT + "< PRESET" on the BCR, or press the
"Snaphot" button in BC Manager): this sends all the current positions
of the BCR knobs (at least those defining Control Change messages
etc.) to the computer (in particular: to BC Manager).

BC Manager can capture such a sequence of CC messages, and you can
then do various things with this sequence. e.g. you can save it as a
MIDI file. (Go to the "MIDI input messages" window for this.)

Even better: using BC Manager you can put such a sequence of CC
messages in the definition of one BCR button, so that you only have to
press this button to send all those settings to the Pulse. That way
you can create whole banks of favorite Pulse setups. (You could put
them under free buttons in the same preset as the one containing the
individual parameters, or dedicate separate presets to them.)

To do this via BC Manager, in the button dialog box (of a free BCR
button), go to the "Custom output" tab and press the "Record MIDI
messages" button (it's the round red button on the toolbar). This
opens a dialog box saying "Record MIDI messages". Then press the
"Snapshot" button, wait for the BCR to send the data, and press OK.
The CC messages are then assigned to the BCR button of your choice -
all you have to do is send this button definition to the BCR.

At the moment there's only one practical problem with this procedure:
I've noticed that the BCR preset for the Pulse
(BCR2000WaldorfPulse.syx) defines so many BCR encoders/buttons that
the amount of data sent in a snapshot from the BCR is too large for
inclusion in a BCR button: the maximum is 125 bytes, whereas a Pulse
snapshot contains 206 bytes.

There are two reasons for this "overflow":

Numerically the main reason is that the "Record MIDI messages" button
in the button dialog box in BC Manager currently doesn't "compact" any
received messages (by applying what's known as "MIDI running status").
I'll see if I can offer this feature in a future version of BC Manager.

For now, your way around this is to copy the recorded snapshot from BC
Manager's "MIDI input messages" window instead (because this DOES
compact the messages):
Press the "Record" button from the MIDI input messages window, then
press the "Snapshot" button in the "B-Controls" window, then in the
MIDI input messages window select all recorded messages (e.g. via
Ctrl+A), copy those to the MIDI message clipboard (e.g. via Ctrl+Ins),
and on the "Custom output" tab in the button dialog box paste these
messages via the "Paste MIDI message clipboard" button (or press
Ctrl+Shift+Ins).

However, in my experience you then still have too many bytes, so you
have to compact them further. This can be done as follows:
The BCR preset for the Pulse uses several duplicates. I.e. several
buttons use the same CC number: unfortunately the BCR's snapshot sends
ALL these buttons' values. To arrive at a number of "Custom output"
bytes under 126, you have to remove some of these duplicates. There
are several ways to do this: the best thing to do is probably to adapt
the BCR preset for the Pulse so that a snapshot from the BCR simply
doesn't include these duplicates any more. Alternatively you can
remove them manually in BC Manager (but of course that's laborsome in
the long run).

Mark.