How do we send Midi program change messages with the Tracker, again?

Tracker
1

Hello,

Back with more questions. I’m trying to wrap my head around sending program change messages via the Tracker.

I’m taken to understand its by using a combination of two of the MIDI CC [A-F] FX commands but the finer details are alluding me.

This is what I have cobbled together:

~ assign an INSTRUMENT to the appropriate MIDI channel

~ use a cryptic combination of the MIDI CC FX options to delineate the desired program change message (?)

I’m sure if I understood MIDI better this would probably be glaringly obvious but as it stands I’ve spent a few hours learning a bunch of interesting things about MIDI but havent cracked this code yet- so here I am asking for some hand holding.

I’ve read a post on here that speaks of MSB/LSB values but I’m not understanding , any help would be lovely.

Thank you,
Ian

2

It really depends on what the other gear wants you to send for a “program change”.

  • There is the classic Program Change message which you can find and set as one of the MIDI CC FX
  • And then there is those devices that want you to send a combination of the MSB/LSB values.

What device are you trying to send messages to?

3

thanks for response,

Multiple devices but beginning to work this out with a Roland MX-1. The MX-1 receives Program change messages 0-64 (65 to 127 are not received). The MX-1 also receives Control messages 1-127.

I understand that these messages can be sent via the MIDI CC FX, however can you explain how it is I can designate a message as a Program Change as opposed to a Control Change?

Is one or more of the MIDI CC FX [A-F} assigned to send either PCM or CCM ? In short- which of the MIDI FX lanes do I use for PCM’s and which for CCM’s? Do I need to use a combination of MIDI CC FX’s to do so?

What I mean to ask is how do I determine what message to send on from the Tracker? On most of the devices I will be sending to I believe i have that information on hand.

Lastly, and sorry for all the questions- I really appreciate the response- can you explain what a MSB/LSB is?

Thank you so much,
Ian

4

Sure, happy to help. :blush:

First of all i think it’s important to understand how sending MIDI CC from the Tracker works:

  • When you have a MIDI Instrument selected go to the Instrument Parameters
  • You’ll notice that you can define what type of message to send for each midi step fx (A - F)
  • You’ll also notice that F is by default set to Prg Chg. This is the Program Change you are looking for.

So once you use F on a step you can define the value (from 0 - 127) that it’s supposed to send. This way you should be able to send the right message to the MX-1.

If you need to send a different CC message, just change the type/number for one of the 6 available step fx in the instruments parameters page and use it as explained above.

Haha, no worries :blush: .

A standard CC message can only carry a value between 0 and 127.

MSB (most significant bit) and LSB (least significant bit) are a way to send midi values that are greater than 127 to a device. For this to work you have to send a MSB message AND a LSB message to a device. Which value to send, will depend on each device.

  • MSB is usually sent via CC 0
  • LSB is usually sent via CC 32

Depending on the hardware this might be different though, but you should be able to find the appropriate CC Number (and the values to send) in the documentation of the hardware (hopefully :laughing: ).

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5

OK! So it’s group F- sweet, that’s much easier than I thought it was going to be. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this and thanks for the MSB/LSB explanation. I was looking at the MIDI implementation chart for an old Korg ER-1 and my head was starting to swim as soon as the charts started to show these values, but that makes perfect sense.

cheers.

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