why cant i get a realtime sysex dump into sonar???

damn - i have been testing this for days:
 
i have a blofeld and it can dump single programs via sysex...BUT:
 
1:sonar does not want to record those single dumps in the normal arrange mode (yes- everything is setup properly: sysex active, right i/o, blofeld sends..etc etc..)
 
2: still i CAN record those dumps via the "sysex-editor" but thats not what i want - i want to have those little dumps in my arrangement so that i dont have to use program changes etc..
 
3: funny enough soner DOES record sysex in the arrange window in realtime when its not a "dump" but just a ordinary sysex command (since the blofeld has mor then 127 parameters they are not only sent via cc but also via sysex...and those get recorded ..(???)
 
and 4: (and thats the most important check to verify that there is no "other" error:
i can without any problem record the blofeld dumps in realtime and in the arrange window in my old logic 5.51
 
coud it be that (completely illogically) sonar makes a difference between single sysex chains and a dump???
 
any ideas??? this is making me a little furious :-)
 
thanks
 
 
btw: funny enough i just realized that even in the latest version still sonar messes up midiports when a unit gets unplugged during operation - dont they claim that this was fixed??  midi and sonar is a bit of a pain - cos also in the sysexeditor one has to specify a number for the midiport - but because those numbers dont are reflected in the middevices setup (there they have "real" names) one can only guess (or look into the ttssq.ini) in order to check which numer is which unit... thats all very quirky indeed !!!

thanks for your reply - but isnt that weird???
what if someone used snapshots from digital consoles that are transfered as "static" dumps ???
as up today i had always thought of my way of wanting to use single dumps to ease the workflow as something completely normal (since i used to do it for ages with other apps)
whats even weird is that the sysex dump saved from the (non reltime) sysex-manager within sonar - cant be imported into the arrange window :-) (which would have been at least a little compensation for all the superfluous work)

maybe its me - but its this little stuff and this recurring edginess of sonar that even after 3 years of deep use keeps me from getting "really" happy with it ...

cheers

WOOPS - correction ...
I searched for 'SYSEX" but if you search the guide for "System Exclusive" it has a bunch of info in there.

Hi tomflair,

A Sysex message has to be received complete in one block.

But it is the Operating System Windows that chops it. That's why some system exclusive messages don't get to where they should.

Since a MIDI module receives program changes, I do record them in the MIDI track, and they work perfectly, without the need of a Sysex, because a patch change is a MIDI message that practically all MIDI sound modules accept, except of course, VST's which are not at all GM voice sets as such.

MIDI-Yoke MIDI-Ox can be useful on Sysex passing.

I believe that some programs know about the Windows problem with choping Sysex and somehow work around it.

One way to get around is to have the sysex as a file, and then send the file abroad, which of course windows respects, and maybe some softwares do it that way.

The file solution, at the same time addresses the issue that Sysexes (specially dumps) can be quite large.

That's another reason that Sysex is hard to implement in hardware, becuase how would they set memory aside for it?

I believe Sonar has some facility to send Sysexes, but not from a track,  you want it in a MIDI file.

In the meantime, the basic using of an audio track that includes the sounds exactly as wanted, would be one way out, till you find a MIDI way.

Hope all resolves soon and well.

 

"coud it be that (completely illogically) sonar makes a difference between single sysex chains and a dump???"

Hi Info_Tom,

There is also the possibility that dumps don't fit in the buffers that Sonar has for SysEx. I don't use Sysex as you want to (I actually avoid Sysex), so I have no details.

But I recall reading that there are such Sysex buffers in Sonar parameters. You might want to check into that.

I did take a look at a video on your Blofeld, and it mentions it can hold like 1000 voices or presets. For 1000 voices, it has, and uses Banks. Then it seems to me you can do send bank and patch changes from the Sonar track.

With 1000 voices or places to store your settings, you should easily use a single bank and put there up to 127, I believe, since they very make this device respond to that.

127 custom voices seesm to me like a good quantity of them for most things. You can start with the ones you like, many less even.

I think that would be a lot easier and much more responsive than using Sysex.

I think Sysex's pretty much stop the midi sound modules from any other thing untill the message is received and executed. So if you are playing music, that probably is not desireable.

I wish you better luck on all this.

bvideo


You can transmit a saved bank by a "Sysx bank" event on a track.

You can also record and play back sysex dumps of up to 255 bytes.

This is from the "System Exclusive Data" chapter in the manual.

Bill B

thanks - i didnt find taht in the help files and i had no time yet to check in the manual
 
btw...geeee - i think even the single blofeld dumps are just to big (they are 390)
 
thats really a downer ...the workaround with the dump in the sysex-window and the later "import" sysx-bank on a track helps a bit but still costs about 10 clicks mor than it should :-)
 
still its a stranfge restriction to have the dumps limited to 255...
 
regards

info@tomflair.com


thanks for the help

here is the link to the whole "story"
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan05/articles/sonarnotes.htm
i have to say that i am pretty dissapointed that still after 4 new versions such an unpractical restriction has not been eliminated...

as stated above: in other apps it has never been a problem: with ONE clik you record the dump where you want it - with sonar i have to perform (about )TEN TIMES more  steps...actually for me this feels like "that cant be true" especially since dumping a synth preset isnt by any mean an exotic thing within a sequencer :-)

i know every app has its strenght but in my case the deeper i get into sonar (and i use it since veriosn 6) the more i question my decision...

I think you should keep in mind that Syssex is not meant as a substitute for Bank and Patch messages.
A Sysex message, even if you implement it, will most likely create hickups in the palaying, wheter it be realtime, or playback. That's why most utilities use files to send and to receive back data and dumps.

If you use Sysex to initiate a setup of a synth, that's OK, for it's before any playing starts. But in the middle of a performance, I don't think it is practical.

If you don't want to save your presets in the synth, and call them by bank and patch numbers, and insist on trying to use sysex, I do feel that it is more difficult, and when done will likely be impractical.

One thing I've found that when something is way too difficult, it can be because I am in the wrong path. Of course that's not an absolute truth, because the easy way is neither necessarily the best.

I'm sure you'll figure something out that you like.

hi folks and thanks for the further suggestions :-)

actually i never thought of this thing as a "problem" because in the past i worked this way on a regular basis with other apps - i also dont want to diss sonar - but as i described in the first postt for me working this way has several "good" points which i prefer over using memory presets and program changes :-)

and i would have never brought up this "issue" if it was common to all sequencers: but since (and i also checked if cubase has problems doing it - and it hasnt) and logic processes all this without ANY issue . it just felt weird when i (after years) tried to use my old "trick" and i failed within such a powerful app like sonar ...

ps: what is important: even with an old 486 daw running at 40mhz  15 years ago  i had no hickups when sending this mididumps during a runnig project - trust me ;-)   its not that id like to transfer all the 999 sounds of the blofeld in opne project - just single sounds (390byte)

regards

This thread is interesting to me simply because in the 25+ years I've been sequencing MIDI it has never once occurred to me to invoke a sysex dump during playback. Not trying to be contrary, but can anyone explain why one might want to do this?

bitflipper


This thread is interesting to me simply because in the 25+ years I've been sequencing MIDI it has never once occurred to me to invoke a sysex dump during playback. Not trying to be contrary, but can anyone explain why one might want to do this?

hi bit...actually i have explained this right in the beginnig:
 
1: the blofeld has very nice presets (1000) and i dont want to save my sounds in its memory
2: i want the sounds i have edited for a specific song to be only recalled in THAT song
3: i have been using this "way of preset management" since logic audio 3.1  and with many external synths - FOR ME this approach is totally NORMAL - thats why i politely asked to eventually NOT question my motivation for wanting sonar to do what i have explained
4: IF my approach was so absurd or out of the world of pravticability i really wonder why most other big sequencer apps have no problem with MY workflow..
 
pleas dont get my answer as personal attack or rant - but i knew people would start to question the use instead of just accepting that sonar takes 12 steps to do something other apps do in 2 steps!
 
and this sort of comments like: "use control changes", "i never did this", "why would anyone want to do this" just sound a little like "if sonar is uncool in this specific segment its my fault because i want to do something weird"
 
i just can only repaet that i have been successfully working with this method for years and i know quite some other folks who use to do it like that ...obviously longtime sonar users seem to be sceptic because they dont know the use of such an approach...
 
one positive thing is also that its much easier to manage and store sounds without any stress in terms of eventualy memory loss inside the synth or in case that one looses the separate sysex files from an external dump...but i reall let it to your imagination to think about why its usefull...i see nothing "mystic" in it ;.-)
 
anyway - for me this thing is done - it doesnt work the easy way so thats it - and its a sonar problem 
 
but dont blame me for opening a thred about it (not you bit .. i am talking in general)
 
 
regards
 
 
 

daveny5

It cannot be done from the Sysx window because when you're in play mode, the send button is disabled. You can only send while its not playing or at the very start of a track when you hit play. That's it. Game-Set-Match.

btw: this is also wrong because it can be done (the way i described in the other thread i posted a link above)  also within a running track and over and over again in any midtrack in a song (so it cant be that "useless" if its implemeted - BUT its implemeted pretty badly compared to othe apps - THATS MY POINT

 

Randy, another excellent post sir. I had fun reading it.

Why can't you people just acknowledge that Tom tries to use a method which was used since MIDI recorders saw the dawn of light? It is a perfectly normal use of single patch dumps and might even be the reason this flavor of small SysEx dump is implemented in hardware devices in the first place.

The main weight here doesn't lie in sending the dumps in the middle of the song (though if you are careful that the receiving device doesn't need to actually play stuff on any channel while the dump and patch change is executing it is perfectly valid procedure to do so). It is just recording small dumps on a track and fire them off during playback. In most cases you'd send them in the first measure(s) before the song actually starts, leaving them enough time to be received and executed.

The benefit is obvious. Instead of handling large dumps of whole banks or the entire patchlist of the device you only deal with reasonably short dumps which are much less prone to fail. The advantage in using SysEx dumps instead of Bank/Program is that you can come back anytime and need not care about whether you maybe have changed the patches in the meantime.

You can now say that it is possible to do so in Sonar via the SysEx window and are right. But the point is that you have to go through a big list of things to set, check and confirm, instead of just doing what a sequencer is built for:

*record the data that you throw at it.*

Heck it's just the same sort of MIDI data as all the rest, just in a larger contiguous chunk instead of the usual three-byte messages.  A MIDI recording device should be able to pull it off. If Sonar's restriction would be slightly higher than it currently is there'd be no problem and it would be the far less clumsy method (set up to record MIDI and fire the dump, done) compared to using the SysEx window.
That's all Tom is saying (I believe).

Edit: To be honest, I find it rather impolite to put Tom's mental state or his intentions in question or ridicule the topic via funny pics (which is in my opinion much more fitting to the SysEx window compared to just recording the data). The SOS article Tom linked should be prove enough that not only Tom would benefit of a raised track buffer limit and not only he uses the method he proposes in this thread. Why? Because it is convenient, not because of a "writer's block on Tom's part or something.

One other thing that for some hardware synths and equipment, sending a sysex actually CHANGES the patches and leaves them as such. Thus the idea of not changing original patches by using sysex may not be too valid.

I know one of my older Yamaha synths came with factory presets plus "user presets"....The users presets were actually just copies of factory presets. But once one changes the user presets, in any way, there was no easy way to set them back to "factory condition". So with the module in the discussion, it seems to me that once a sysex is sent that modifies the preset, it pretty much stays that way, even if turned off and back on? So to put it back to factory condition, a sysex needs to be sent to it to put it back to zero time...And with the aproach of changing presets from songs, the module becomes "song-dependent", meaning one never really knows its state. Sounds to me a difficult way to handle it, but I am not the owner, just saying my thoughts.

However, and for whatever reasons, Info-Tom, I will say again that I belive that there likely are Sysex buffer adjustments  in Sonar that could be  preventing  what you want to do.  I recall reading about. Maybe it was for older versions, but it does not mean that the newer Sonars do not have that option.

The other thing I am still unclear on is that dumps are mentioned, along with preset changes via Sysex, and that's because dumps are usually done by a command type or file script, and is not necesarily put in the middle of a MIDI song or MIDI file..Dumps are usually a one shot, independent operation, to prepare a MIDI module or to save its data. So if that's confirmed in other softwares, I am not clear if exactly what is intended is also possible and easy to do in those other softwares.

Anyhow, Tom, if you still want to do it in Sonar, you might want to check to see what options there are for Sysex buffers.

Good luck.