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Max MSP and Midi System Exclusive (SysEx)

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17 views5 pages

Max MSP and Midi System Exclusive (SysEx)

Max MSP tutorials

Uploaded by

NickOl
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Max and Sysex

Max and Sysex


One of the joys of Max is that it gives easy access to the hidden commands of
your synthesizer, those that are only reachable by system exclusive messages.

System exclusive MIDI messages are those that are defined by the manufacturer
of the instrument rather than the MIDI association. Usually sysex is very specific
to the function of a particular instrument or family of instruments, although
there are such things as "universal system exclusive"1 messages.

You can't assume sysex is working for a particular instrument, or that an obvious
feature exists. Since sysex is expensive to implement, manufacturers often leave
if off of the budget instruments. You have to look in the fine print in the back of
the manual to see what's available. Yamaha, Korg Roland and Emu generally
have very complete sysex features. And I'll warn you right now- that fine print
often contains mistakes and omissions. Doing sysex often involves some serious
detective work.

The Standard
Sysex messages always starts with F0h2 in the status byte. The next one or three
bytes are the manufacturer's ID, which is assigned by the MMA. A good one to
know is 7Dh, which is non commercial, and should be used by any home brew
devices.

Sysex messages almost always end with F7h. The exception comes with very
long messages that some manufacturers break into chunks. In a few cases only
the final chunk is terminated with F7h.

What's in between is up to the manufacturer. Typically there will be:


• Model ID, so a Korg NS5 doesn't try to use Trition settings. Sometimes a
whole series of instruments, such as the original Proteous family share the
same ID.
• Device ID, which the owner sets to distinguish between identical instruments.
For many the ID 7Fh means any unit. The ID may be 0 when the user sees 1.
• Command code, or what this message is about.
• Data length, how many bytes to expect. Figuring out exactly what is included
in the byte count can be a trick. For instance, is the length itself counted?
• Checksum, a code byte for error correction. Exactly what is included in the
calculation, and how the calculation is made can be further mysteries.
Sometimes 7Fh is used for "don't worry about the checksum".

1
One of the better oxymorons. MIDI time code is an example.
2
That's hexadecimal for 240. If you don't know hexadecimal, look at Max and Numbers. Get used
to it, because that's how the specs are written. On the bright side, you seldom have to actually
calculate in hex, just recognize some key values.
Peter Elsea 9/29/07 1
Max and Sysex

Sysex in Max
The midiin or sysexin objects will supply sysex as a series of bytes. Generally, I
use [Lchunk 247 255] to gather the message into a single list. After that, I drop it
into a capture (with a previous clear) if I expect long messages or a message box
for short ones. Capture will show data in hex if you add x as an argument. For
messages in hex, I use Lhex.

This works for messages up to 255 bytes. If you expect bigger ones, or multi part
data dumps, you need to use Ldumpster.

Sending
To send sysex, I prefer to use Lsx instead of sxformat. It has some important
features that make life easier:
• You can specify arguments in hexadecimal (as F0h) and they stay that way.
With the 0xF0 system, the numbers will revert to decimal when the patch is
saved. I seem to make most of my errors while translating decimal to hex and
back. (Or more precisely, not translating)
• It handles nibbleization for me. The data bytes must be 0-127, but many
parameters need more precision. Then the data is sent as two or more bytes,
with 7 or 4 bits of the value in each.
• It handles negative numbers, converting to 2's compliment.
• There's no limit to the number of changeable parameters you can have.
Changeable parameter are specified by symbols as args, such as pp. These are
replaced with a value input with the symbol. If the symbol appears twice, the
value is nibbleized into place.

Here's how I send a parameter value request to a Procussion:

Peter Elsea 9/29/07 2


Max and Sysex

There are two common ways that instruments refer to data, one is by direct
memory addressing, the other is via parameter numbers. The Procussion uses
parameter numbers, which you get by reading the documentation. Then the
message F0 18 06 id 02 pl pm F7 will cause Procussion to return the current value
for the parameter. The bytes in that message mean:

F0 System exclusive
18 Emu corporation
06 Procussion
id Device Id
02 Parameter Request
pl the parameter number least significant3 7 bits
pm the parameter number most significant 7 bits
F7 End of Exclusive

I can use pp twice in lsx to get the nibbized numbers. There are various ways to
nibbleize, with the most significant bits first or last, and with 4 or 7 bits per byte.
Lsx has commands to set these modes.

Decoding
To decode the value, I use a patch like this:

The format for the return message is F0 18 06 id 03 pl pm vl vm F7, where pl and


pm give the parameter number as before, and the vl and vm are the current
value. The Like object will pass lists that start with the arguments4. Like also
recognizes hex in the 00h format, and will consider any other symbol a wild card,

3
Last is least in this case.
4
Due to sloppy typing, I've shown the ways hex numbers can be entered into Like. A big H or
little h after a number will do it. With numbers lower than 10 it doesn't matter. Lhex converts lists
of numbers into this form, and llong converts them back.
Peter Elsea 9/29/07 3
Max and Sysex

so you can type id in where the device id is expected. The advantage of using
Like here is I can sort incoming messages by their headers. Like sends
unsuccessful list out the right outlet, so you can cascade them to reduce the
number of objects that look at a message.

Lswap will extract the interesting bytes, which can be unpacked and converted
back to a normal value.

Tricky Instruments
There are other factors that turn up in various sysex implementations. For
instance, the Korg NS5 has modes which must be set before you can get at certain
values. If you are editing effects, a particular request will set effects values, and if
you are editing programs, the same command would set some program value.
The message F0 42 30 42 00 02 F7 will put the instrument into program edit
mode, and you can set program parameters. That message parses like this;
F0 system exclusive
42 Korg
30 the device ID + 30h (don't know why)
42 NS5 type
00 mode change request
02 Program edit mode
F7 EOX

Once the mode is set to program edit, the message F0 42 30 42 21 F7 will get all of
the parameters of the current program. The Korg doesn't have a single parameter
request, so you have to sift through the whole works to find the number you are
interested in. The easiest way to do this turns out to be changing parameters and
then getting a dump to see what has changed.

The parameters are listed in a big chart, showing the parameter msb (which is 0
for common, 1 for oscillator 1 and 2 for oscillator 2) and the parameter lsb.
There's also an offset number, which I would expect to show the number of
bytes into the dump to find that value, but it's wrong. What's really happening is
truly bizarre- the sign bits for various parameters that run from -128 to 127 are
gathered together into bytes that are scattered through the dump.

Peter Elsea 9/29/07 4


Max and Sysex

Direct Address Mode


Some of the features of the NS5 are reached by memory address rather than
parameter number. This is not much different, in this case you just specify a 3
part address (address high, address mid, address low) to reach something. The
tables are a bit harder to read, but on some instruments you can set a series of
values with a single message.

System Exclusive implementations vary widely from instrument to instrument,


so there's not a lot of advice I can offer beyond these basic techniques. But by
reading the manual carefully and experimenting with these tools, you should be
able to access a lot of new features in your instruments.

Peter Elsea 9/29/07 5

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