Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "electron8000" <electron8000@...> wrote:
> the keyboard sends $FE and $F8 active sensing signals in idle state.

Just to clear up the difference between FE and F8:

FE (Active Sensing) is a "non-musical" signal; if a device sends it, it is always sent at a fixed rate (something like 200 or 250 msec); the idea is that once a receiving device NO LONGER receives it, the receiver is to assume that the MIDI connection has been lost (e.g. cable disconnected) and the receiver may re-initialize its settings.

F8 (Timing Clock) is a "beats per minute" signal, whose frequency depends on the BPM setting of the sending device (can you set BPM manually on the PSR310 in RC mode?).

A technical MIDI book I've consulted says that FE is only to be sent when no other signals are being sent.
I'm not sure what time frame is intended here (strictly speaking, ALL MIDI messages are sent sequentially!), but the fact that the PSR310 does seem to mix FE with F8 and note events may be formally incorrect, although I can't immediately see how this would mess up the output from the BCN44.

> The LED of the soundcard always flashes at the same frequency of the signals received. Seems as if the BCN44 has buffering problems? Maybe its overloaded and i need to put it into a different state.

I've tried to reproduce your problem using my Roland D-5 synth, which also sends FE continuously:

One thing I noticed is that the dot in the BCN44's display flashes continuously (so for instance in "P- .1") as a result of receiving these FE messages. Does your BCN44 do this as well?

Unfortunately I haven't been able to see any FE messages in MIDI Tools: apparentlly FE is "swallowed" by my "soundcards" (actually devices connected to the computer via USB) or by their Windows drivers.
So I find it rather curious that you can actually see FE.
So which Windows version are you using? (I'm using Windows 7, 64-bit.)

In any case, when I press keys on my synth (quickly or slowly), in MIDI Tools I don't see any hiccups in the MIDI messages (Note On, Note Off, Pitch Bend, Control Change) received via the BCN44.

In fact, when I SPLIT the output from the D-5 to
1. a USB-based MIDI input port on the PC directly
and
2. the BCN44, which then sends this to another USB-based MIDI input port on the PC,
... then both messages arrive in MIDI Tools almost simultaneously: the max. difference tends to be 1 msec!

So maybe there's something wrong with your specific BCN44 - either because it has an older firmware version or a hardware fault.

So which firmware version does your BCN44 have?
You can see this number briefly when you switch on the BCN44.
Mine says "1.02", which is (as far as I know) the latest (and indeed last!) version.

> is there any way to reset the entire thing to default state? From reading the (somewhat confusing) manual i couldn't find out : /.

I don't know a way either, but in any case I can't think of a BCN44 setting that could cause (or correct) this problem.
Of course you could use my BCN44 Manager to modify/initialize all the presets, but I can't see how that could help.

Mark.