Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "electron8000" <electron8000@...> wrote:
> From this result i have to conclude that the BCN44 is working properly and that the reason for my delay-problems must be my Yamaha PSR310. Maybe it sends additional brand-specific (non-standard) messages that can't be processed by the BCN44 and confuse it.

But which messages could those be?
Can you see any messages that could cause this in MIDI Tools' input monitor window?
At the moment I can't think of any messages that would mess up the BCN in this way, and besides: from your test report on 15 Nov. it seems clear that both FE and F8 heavily influence what happens.

My guess right now:
Maybe the PSR sends Timing Clock and Active Sensing messages "within" its other messages (note, controller etc.).
The MIDI protocol allows this, but maybe the BCN doesn't handle this properly.

For instance, a Note On message consists of 3 bytes: a status byte ("Note On" + channel) followed by 2 data bytes (note # and velocity), so e.g. 90 40 64.
Now the PSR could inject F8 into this, so that the sequence becomes 90 40 F8 64.
The BCN then SHOULD realize that the final 64 is a continuation of the Note On message - but maybe it doesn't, so that 64 becomes an "orphan" (and maybe gets held up in a buffer).

"MIDI running status" could be making this problem worse:
the MIDI protocol allows a sender to leave out the status byte of a channel message if it is equal to the status byte of the previous channel message. (Unless a System Exclusive or Common message has intervened; but, in accordance with what I said earlier, a System REAL-TIME message should NOT clear the running status!)
So if your PSR indeed uses running status, an intervening F8 or FE (wrongly causing the BCN to CLEAR its running status) could turn a whole bunch of statusbyte-less Note On messages into "orphans".

The "System messages" window in MIDI Tools only sends complete (uninterrupted) channel messages, so it never injects F8 or FE into a Note On message: this could explain why the F8 and FE sent from MIDI Tools don't cause any of the problems you have with the PSR.
I'm not sure whether the Windows MIDI driver would allow me to inject F8/FE into channel messages. I would have to try...

Mark.