Can Cantabile be used as a sysex librarian

Cantabile
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I want to park my MPK 261 30 or individual patches in a sysex file. Does Cantabile do that? Then load the MPK261 preset config, as well?

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Hey John,

As far as I know this is do-able you can

  • record midi sysex to a midi track using Cantabile recorder set up to record midi from your keyboard

  • play back the midi sysex file using a media player and route it to your keyboard

Dave

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Holy cats! I would love to send individual patches via Sysex to my Wavestations! (I have many old libraries which did not translate well when imported into the Korg Legacy version of Wavestation.)

I also have an AKAI MPK249 AND an MPK225, so this request sparks my interest. I imagine you are (@Howifeel) bringing in different fader and knob settings, arp speeds, and stuff like that for a song? I never thought of it, as I’ve not used all 30 banks of presets yet. But… that day is inevitable!

Now you’ve got me going off on an experimental spree, Dave and John! :smile:

Terry

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I swear, every time I see this thread I see “Can Cantabile be used as a sex librarian”. I suppose that says more about me than anything. Sorry. Carry on.

:smiley:

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A special form of dyslexia. :slight_smile:

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Yes, called “dylsexia”. On purpose.

Terry

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I can’t read Fred’s posts if I am around people. They wonder why I am laughing. I generally reassure them that I am, indeed, laughing at them. The sysex could be a pick up line.

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As bad as this is going to sound, here in the deep south, and especially in “the hills”, sysex is a slurred term meaning an inappropriate relationship with a sibling i.e. " I done had sysex last nite". Similarly, “inbred” means sandwich i.e. “gonna put me some meat inbred wif sum mus-turd”.

I think I have just earned my “first flag” badge.

Corky

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Dang, where do you live, man? Sand Mountain? :smiley: Although you can get more deep south geographically I don’t know if you can attitudinally… (That is so a word.) Hey, who knows where you’d hear this handy phrase? “Yinz jagoffs wanna get sum pierogies??”

(I’ve wrecked this thread good haven’t I.)

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Attitudinally is a word here. I was born and raised in Arkansas, and lived there most of my life, so I am familiar with hillbilly ways, although I didn’t live the lifestyle. Yes, I can get much deeper south geographically, but deep south has been creeping closer every year. AND, YES! You have completely wrecked this thread. My apologies to the OP, but not really. Ooops! Gotta go…more gunshots…Saturday night is always a sleep on the floor night.

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MIDIOX doing the job. Terry, I am just paranoid about losing my setups. With my MPK261 I control Ableton and C3 and other stuff simultaneously. With as much work I put into these configurations, I like to know I can back up the MPK261 configs. Tried recording midi sysex data in C3 with no success. MIDIOX is fine. If c3 could load sysex files on song selection, that would be very nice.

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As it turns out I was wrong, Cantabile does not record all midi events, my tests show only notes and velocity are recorded which is probably why it won’t record your sysex events. Sorry about that … however it would be great if @brad could remind or illuminate as to the way midi record works.

Dave

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I’m wondering, even if C3 doesn’t record sysex data if you had such data recorded already in a file would it send it out? Seems like it should… any existing midi data in a file is going to get sent right? I wonder if the recording of note/velocity info only is the result of a default filter setting.

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Not sure if you are aware that Cantabile allows to send sysex messages via bindings?

  • create a new binding, e.g. Song; OnLoad --> Your Synth - MidiIn; Action: SysEx.
  • click the “(no data)” in the second half of the “Action” column
  • Import any SysEx file, captured e.g. in MidiOx in the dialog that opens

You can encapsulate this in a rack and have individual sysex messages for every state (SongState; OnLoad). Now you can send any sysex patch to your synth by selecting a rack state - that does come pretty close to a librarian, right?

Cheers,

Torsten

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That’s not correct - Cantabile’s midi recorder records all event kinds including sysex.

For sending sysex I’d recommend using a binding rather than MIDI recorder/player although there’s no real easy way to capture a sysex for that using Cantabile alone - you might need to use a third party tool to capture the sysex and then paste it into the binidng.

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Much to my delight, C3 has become a very easy-to-use sysex librarian. Here is how. I will give an example of my MPK261 presets (or favorite presets that I am in fear of losing for some reason like accidental overwriting). This explains how to use C3 to capture a single preset config of the 30 on the MPK261, or all presets for filing (so I can muck up the preset banks again, if needed). Again, this will save sysex to a recording parked in a Cantabile Song File (aka my library) which I can then use via the media player to load my carefully organized library of sysex files/configs.

SYSEX STORE/LOAD SETUP

  1. Add a new input port and check MPK261, MIDIIN2 (MPK261), MIDIIN3 (MPK261), MIDIIN4 (MPK261)
  2. Edit the newly created port; Click MIDI Filters button, Add (drop down), Choose Sysex Encoder - Label Port “sysex store”
  3. Add output port and only check MPK261, Click MIDI Filters button, Add (drop down), Choose Sysex Decoder - Label Port “sysex load”
  4. Config Routing - Source = sysex store and Destination = Loopback - MPK261
  5. Add Object Media Player 1, delete stereo out, Add Route = MIDI Out and Destination = Output Port - sysex load

STORE AND LOAD PROCEDURE
To Store:
A) Prepare MPK261 to Send Program (either all patches or a specified one). Do not send it yet.
B) Make sure “Ports to Record” include “sysex store” (checked)
C) Hit Record in C3 then “Enter to Send” on the MPK261, after sent (like 1 second or less for the MPK) stop recording by hitting the C3 record button again. (Make sure to name it)

To Load:
A) (If you haven’t already) Right click the newly recorded sysex and select Rename. Name the recording with the patch or bulk name you wish
B) Right click the newly renamed recording and select "Add to Media Player 1’s playlist
C) Hit play on Media Player 1 (not the big play button in the toolbar), and let it finish
D) Select another patch on the MPK261 to refresh the patch list, after which you will see your sysex loaded perfectly.

Note: If you don’t take note of the respective encoder/decoder setting in the MIDI filter, you are likely to get a patch that will not be selectable after loading due to data error (scary, but you can write another patch to it to reset the slot).

Why would I do this whole library thing?

I bring 2 laptops to gigs, 2 PA/Power Amps and Speakers (primary set/backup set), and have 2 keyboards (hardware synth/software synth). I am a paranoid back up monger. So this librarian solves the worry that my precious MPK261 configs don’t have a back up, as well.

Thanks to all who shared on this post.

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BTW. All recordings in .mid format are stored in Documents\Cantabile\Recordings. If you delete them from the list, they are deleted from the computer (as opposed to clearing from the recordings list).

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Sorry I was mistaken and have gotten it to work for me, Thanks for the correction.

Dave

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Thanks for your input Dave. I built on your recording idea.

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Hi John,

Excellent work and glad I helped some how. Thanks for posting your solution for all of us!

Dave

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