Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

Hello all,

I am considering buying a BCR2000, but it kind of comes down to if the BCL language could do the following.

What I want is to use 3 of the knobs on the BCR2000... the first and the second knob would not generate any midi data... they are simply used for setting values.

What I want to do is have the 3rd knob (when turned) read the current values of the 1st and 2nd knob (as well as the current value of the 3rd knob of course) and generate a single SYSEX message that contains ALL three of those values embedded in it.

For Example:

1) I spin knob ONE to position 45H (in a range 00 to 7F for example)
2) I spin knob TWO position 34H (in a range 00 to 7F for example)
3) I spin knob THREE to a value of 21H ( (in a range 00 to 7F for example)

What I want is the third knob to generate a SYSEX message that is something like:

F0 nnH nnH nH nnH nnH 34H nnH nnH 21H nnH 45H nnH F7

(Assume nnH are some other valid numbers specific to the Sysex message).

As you can see above there is one sysex message that contains all of the value of the 3 knobs but it is ONLY triggered by the action of the 3rd knob.

The question is: Is this possible with BCR2000 using the BCL programming lanuage?

(Please keep in mind that the hardware setup would be the BC2000 connected DIRECTLY to a hardware synth via a 5PIN DIN cable... in other words, there would be NO computer in this configuration at all).

Please note, I am not asking for someone to give me the BCL code to do it (though that would be awesome, LOL) but rather I just want to be absolutely certain that this is possible in the hardware setup I described.

Thanks
PS(I did actually review alot of the BCL docs, but I really could not find any indications of whether the above is possible... I saw alot of ways to set and read a value for a single control (by the same control), but nothing on how to read that values of several controls and wrap them into one sysex message (of a different control)... of course that could certainly be due to my total unfamiliarity with BCL and the device in general...which is the reason for this post).

The sad answer is no..

That's unfortunate, but thank you very much for posting the info...

I have a Novation Remote SL and it cannot combine control values either.

Anyone know of any midi controllers out there that can do it all by themselves? (ie: without a special synth or a computer)

Perhaps you might like to give us detailed info on what you are trying to do.

I agree.

The I research the concept the more I realize that it would have to be something I create myself.

Hi Royce
Merry Chrimbo and all that stuff

I have been using an Arduino Mega 1280 for some years to have kinky man-in-the-middle fun between BCR and (initially) Miniak. Ultimate I was using it to filter out the FE/FF real time heartbeats, to zone and layer so that a simply MIDI keyboard can control different channels etc, as an ARP unit (with the up/down, random, up/down -- infact I implemented same as EMU Emulator II based on their manual) and a primitive sequencer.

Why Arduino?

1] dirt cheap
2] the MEGA [[BE VERY CARFEFUL WHICH ONE YOU BUY - THESE CH340G ones are crap ... I found I needed the 1280 to bootstrap the 2560s via Nick Gammon's excellent bootloaders and you get one chance to program before you do the same thing again!!]] anyhow the MEGA has 4 UARTs of which 3 are usable. Why not all 4? The first is shared with other comms and can mess up the bootloaded.

This allows one to read data in, two to read data in, implement a midi merge and the third to send out the merged (and transformed) values.

Downside is one interrupt at a time, and only 16MHz 128/256k Harvard architecture so a few funny tricks to stop silent stack overflow -- but since I started with ZX81 1K Z80a these things are more than fast enough in plain C.

RPi2

I recently got one of these to try to get my 10 year old daughter interested in programming - it has Minecraft. So far I have failed. However, it is possible to do midi with these things but only one UART. Still, 900MHz per core means you could do quite a lot of stuff in the 324uS you have between each bit of the midi stream. There again you have to mess with the conf to slow the serial comms down (it is setup for the standard, 300, 600, 1200, ... 9600, .. 115200 and none of these fall in the range of tolerance for MIDI).

STILL -- perhaps the BEST reason for buying an RPi2 is WITH an external USB card (the £2 versions!) you can get decent output from ZynAddSubFX. This is an awesome synth. I loved using it on my P4 1.5G 2GHz pc (still infront of me in Miniaktools garage) but now I can run it on a £30 + £2 computer ... freaking awesome.

So for sure when one considered MIDI and computers are made for eachother -- go for it!

I tried to compiler Ctrlr for RPI last week but failed. Still, hopefully more cycles next year.

Regards
Steve H

Hi Steve and a Merry Chrimbo to you. (Why do I get flashes of Lewis Carrol, oh yea, mathematician , logician)