I had made a hundred pieces of music, each starting with a
System Exclusive bulkdump. Recording a bulkdump is a very
short and easy way, to insure oneself not to loose any of
the changed sound canvas parameters. Dis-advantages of working
with dumps are : they consume memory; take a few bars, so a
piece of music cannot start at once; other sound modules cannot
read or receive the information.
In my case only a small percentage in the dump are non-default
values.
The first purpose of this program is to analyse a bulkdump,
look for those non-default values, generate alternative
short messages (= Standard Midi Language) and save them, so
they can replace the old dump.
While launching into the world of midi, I included some more
features like editing parameters, saving parts, print and
display dumps, read midi files...
The drumpatch section of the SC-55 dump isn't addressed by this program for now. When you save edited dumps, the values of a previous opened dump will be used.
For now, the program doesn't look very nice. There's nothing fancy about it. Only the functionality was important in the current (beta) version. Maybe in the future I'll make a version pleasable to the eyes.
Open - This function reads midi files (*.mid). You can use it to check self-made midi files. In this program you can save three kinds of midi files:
They all use Standard Midi specification, FormatType 0, Single Track, any channel.
Play - Play a midi file via html-EMBED.
Open - This function loads a dump into memory. This dump is a single track midi file, recorded with your favorite midi sequencer (Cubase, CakeWalk,...) This is in fact the first thing to do, when your intentions are to edit and save dumps, never bother about alternatives etc. A GSall.mid file is provided containing an initial SC-55 dump with default values.
Save - As discribed above, you should have started by opening a midi dump file, before this function is accessable.
Compare - Compares the content of the current opened dump, with another. The result is a listing of values in the second file, bold, when they are unequal to those in the current opened dump.
Open - Open any HTML file. Here included for viewing previously saved results, namely dump texts.
Save - Save the current HTML content.
Open - Overwrite a current part with the content of a previously saved part.
Save - Save the parameters of one particular part.
When you're done, of course (ent meugd nog espe zie)
Here you can choose the desired midi in/out ports. You should choose MPU-401 ports to access the sound canvas.
The midi-thru, keyboard, mix and micro edit functions can open midi ports. If you opened any of them, they will all be closed at once. Many midi drivers and sequencers won't allow you to open ports while they are active. In this case, before you launch your sequencer program, you close all ports here.
Provides access to an extern piano keyboard. You cannot change the channel this piano will play on, within this program. The only way to change the channel, is the hardware one if your piano has this function.
A software piano keyboard. Here you can play any chosen channel, according to the current selected part (Mix & Micro Edit).
SC-55 Parts & All Editors
If wou want to edit your sound canvas settings directly, check
the 
flag. This editor uses and alters the currently opened
dump values.
If you want to make sure that what you see is what you hear:
Creates a fade in/out sequence, for selected parts only.
Edit and/or save parameters via System Exclusive Messages
(long messages). You can save single SysEx messages in three ways:
as a hexadicamal text, a decimal text (*.txt) or the command as
it is (*.syx). This last format is known by Cubase, CakeWalk
and others.
If wou want to edit your sound canvas settings directly, check
the flag. This editor uses and alters the currently opened
dump values... .
If a midi out port is open a SysEx command will reset your sound canvas to the default values. If no port is open, only a soft reset (the data in our program) will occur.
A few HTML text representations of the current dump can be generated here. Behind the scenes a temp.htm file in the applications directory will hold the last generated text.
Hex - Shows the contents of the dump in a hexadecimal representation. Non-defaults values are marked.
Dec - Shows the contents of the dump in a decimal or proper representation. Non-defaults values are marked.
Enables you to print your dump file. Non-defaults values are marked.
Shows or saves alternatives for the current dump content. A GSreset plus all non-default values, only for those parts you use in the piece of music, is mostly prefered above the huge actual dump.
Direct your questions to the following E-mail address.
I have my own questions too. One is keeping me from going further with this program. It would be nice to find someone who could help. The problem is explained on the SysEx.htm page.
Another question is how to share midi ports between application.
It's a terrible nuisance when you cannot use 2 midi application at
the same time. Can this be solved?