Emax

Hi all and special greeting to Rob Keeble and John Silveria,

After downloading the Emax midi sysex PDF 

http://www.emulatorarchive.com/Manuals/ManualsEmax/manualsemax.html 
(thanks Rob)

and scrutinising it thoroughly, I thought I should be able to control 
my Emax SE and Emax II using my Peavey PC1600 controller (it's the 
original not the X version).

http://www.peavey.com/products/shop_online/browse.cfm/action/details/i
tem/18017860/wc/1A1D1/fam/1D/tcode/1/1600x.cfm

(you will probably have to rebuild the link into your browser with 
cut and paste a few times)

I bought the Peavey nearly a year ago but hadn't got around to 
programming it or using it until last night so I had to learn that as 
well!

I picked on just one control as a try out - the Filter Cut Off - a 
good one in my opinion :-).

I programmed the fader to send a MIDI string with the values all in 
hexadecimal:

F0 18 02 1A 00 57 02 1F pr F7

F0 - system exclusive
18 - E-mu id
02 - Emax id
1A - exclusive command to change voice parameter
00 - the lowest key number
57 - the highest key number (87 in decimal)
02 - affect both voices, primary and secondary
1F - Filter cut-off parameter
pr - Value from the fader (0 to 120 in decimal)
F7 - end of sysex message

I then connected the MIDI out of the Peavey to the MIDI in of my Emax 
II, loaded a Minimoog bass sound and...........

It worked!!!!

I could control the bass sound filter cut off just from the Peavey 
fader.

However, there are some limitations.  Just like editing the sound 
from the Emax data slider and buttons, the update doesn't happen 
unless you release the key and press it again.  If you play quickly, 
this isn't much of a problem. Also, if you have an arpeggio or 
sequence playing, then as soon as you touch the fader to alter the 
filter cut off, the playing stops.

I know I have assigned the right wheel to control filter cut off in 
the past and that changes the cut-off whilst a note is still held or 
if a sequence is playing.

Therefore, I need to assign my fader as a continuous controller to 
achieve this if I want or I can still use the wheel - shouldn't be a 
problem.

Furthermore, I shall now assign the rest of the faders, maybe 
tonight, for Filter Q and VCA AHDSR and VCF AHDSR, LFO rate, Vibrato 
and LFO to Fc and Env amount - yep that's 16 faders!  Most of the 
controls of an analogue synth.

I'm thinking what to do with the 16 buttons?  Seq stop/start?  Play 
drum samples from them...?

Hope this is useful to some of you out there.

Best regards

Chris