Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

I just bought an Ensoniq SQR for $100 off craigslist. Anyone know if the BCR2000 or maybe some other device can control it?

Thanks.

You will need to consult Section 2 of the manual (available here: http://susia.tripod.com/sqr.pdf)

Great, thanks so much for this. There is so little info on this old synth on the Internet. I appreciate your help/ time.

So does this mean I can use any midi controller, not just a BCR2000? I'm kind of new to this.

Just on the point of using XCtrl: as I understand it, this is a single SQR modulation source which can be controlled by any MIDI Control Change message of your choice (01-95). The example in the manual is assigning Breath Control (02) to set the XCtrl value, then modulating Filter Cutoff via XCtrl.

This has several consequences:-

1) You can only use 1 MIDI CC and assign it through XCtrl, although XCtrl could modulate multiple destinations (eg Filter cutoff + Wave pitch + Amp volume) - although generally you would choose one performance-related option eg Filter cutoff.

2) the Modulation amounts are not saved with the patch - they depend on the settting of the MIDI CC being generated at any moment (eg the position of the CC knob or how much you are blowing into a Breath controller). So this is not a way to create patches as such - just performance options within a patch.

3) You need to set the XCtrl source (MIDI CC) and destination(s) for any patch where you want it to operate, so you cannot say "Breath control (02) will always moulate Filter cutoff - unless you assign and save that setting to every patch.

4) Sysex is still required if you want to use the BCR (or any other capable MIDI controller, eg Novation Remote) to edit the parameter of your SQR.

On the plus side, you can also use incoming Pitch wheel, Mod wheel and keyboard pressure as mod sources, separate from XCtrl - see manual pages 6-2 to 6-6.

On the minus side, half an hour's Googling hasn't shown up any info whatsover on how to edit an SQ-R/1/2, but there are software editors out there like MidiQuest and also this one - http://www.ksedit.com/ "KSeditor is a patch editor/librarian program for the Ensoniq SQ series of synths. This includes the SQ-1, SQ-2, SQ-R, and the KS-32."

So you might be able to read the code (using a separate MIDI utility like MIDI-Ox) generated by the software and figure out how to program the BCR from that... but it may be a struggle if you are new to MIDI.

Please report back to let us know what you find out.

As an owner of MidiQuest, one really nice thing about it is that you can MIDI-Learn any controller knob or slider to any of its editing controls in the software. The program has been well worth the price for me with many hardware synths I own.