Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

--- robotchas <robotchas@...> wrote:
> Time for my first serious complaint.
> 
> There's a global parameter (under the ARP button) to determine 
> whether or not arpeggiators are transmitted to external synths.

You're absolutely right.  This wasn't so much as a bad design choice,
it was sort of a lack of a choice at all.  The arpeggiators were
brought directly over from the Audity/P2K series with very few changes
made.  When the box was first being designed, it was more targeted at
the groovebox market rather than the "control everything in your
studio" use.  By the time the focus shifted, I suppose I forgot about
the arps.  The arp transmit was never really designed to control
external gear, it was designed to record *all* the arps from a P2K into
a software sequencer.

That being said, the workaround is as follows:

1 - turn arp transmit on

2 - for any tracks you want to be EXTERNALLY arp'd, set the track to be
INTERNAL (yeah, I know... just think of the arp as a synth feature)

3 - for those channels, create an "external arp" preset.  this will
have all four layers' instruments set to "NONE" (do not just turn the
AmpVol down!!! that will chew polyphony) and set up the arpeggiator the
way you like.

4 - now, the tricky part.  to keep the truly internal arps internal,
you can do one of two things:

4a - if you're only using one MIDI output, put all of your external
arps on the B channels and all of your internal arps on the A channels.

4b - if you *are* using both ports, you'll have to disable those
channels on your external gear.  for example, if you have an internal
arp on channel 3A, make sure channel 3 is disabled on any gear you
might have on MIDI Out A.

4c - if you're REALLY adventurous, you could designate an external
multi track to send volume changes to all the external channels which
should not be arp'd but that have an internal arp going.  In the above
example, you'd have perhaps track 16 be set to MultiA External and make
sure it transmitted a Volume 0 message for channel 3.  This way you
wouldn't have to do anything on your external synths live, as the box
would take care of it upon switching to the pattern.

> tracks set to "EXT" should always transmit MIDI data, and there's
> an Arp on/off/Preset/Master switch on every track already

Not quite.  There's an Arp on/off/M/P switch on each CHANNEL, not
TRACK.  Unfortunately, the arp is a synth feature, not a sequencer
feature, which is why it requires notes to be sent INT.  You're on the
right track though (no pun intended) as this is close to what the ideal
solution would be.

> (While I'm on about it the other settings for keyboard and knob 
> transmission could be a little smarter as well - if the mode 
> is "basic" and the currently active track is assigned to an external 
> synth it would be nice if the keyboard and knobs followed suit. This 
> I can deal with however.)

Since you have 2.0, you already have the fix for this problem.  Turn
"Rechannelize Input" on (3rd screen in the master menu).  Quick edit
knobs, keypads, and even incoming MIDI will be redirected to the
correct channel AND port (i.e. internal/external).

For the programmable knobs and triggers, what you are trying to do is
what the "Seq" destination (instead of "Int") does.  Internal goes
internal ALL the time, external goes external all the time, whereas
"Seq" goes where the sequencer is going.

-Aaron

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com