Drum pad midi note to start/stop sequencer

Hi nix,

From looking at their description, I would say almost certainly yes. I'm not familiar with the app but it says it supports MIDI clock sync and virtual MIDI. What we need to find out is whether it is possible to control the transport with a simple start/stop message or if it requires a full clock signal to control the transport (in which case you can use the new MidiBus app to do that for you). It may also respond to MIDI CC messages for transport control. I couldn't find any MIDI implementation reference on the web for this app - maybe that is published in the manual with the app (or not).

The first thing you need to do is to determine the MIDI events that your external pads generate when hit, since these will be the key to setting things up. You can use one of the free Midi Monitor type apps or my own (not free) app MidiVision which will spit out the magic codes in the correct format for the Stream Byter, which you will need to map the pad hit to start/stop. I assume you want to hit one pad to start and another to stop. If you want the one pad to do both, then this requires the 'eccecello' scene gymnastics. I suggest you just do two pads to start with and leave that complexity for later if you want it.

Let's assume that your start pad sends a MIDI note E3 (hex 40) and the stop pad an F3 (hex 41), here is the ruleset you will need:

# remap pads to MIDI start/stop
9X 40 01-7F = FA # start
9X 41 01-7F = FC # stop

You add the above rules to the Stream Byter either on your physical CoreMIDI input (on left) where the pads are connected, or to Beat Machine's virtual destination (on right) assuming it has one. You then connect your CoreMIDI physical input (left) to Beat Machine's virtual dest (right).

When you hit the start pad, the note event gets converted to MIDI start and sent to Beat Machine and maybe it will start its transport. Same for the stop pad.

I have no idea whether this will work, but if the above gives you no joy, post back here and I will download the app and see what crazy incantations are needed.

Regards, Nic.

Hi Nic,

After a long night of tries here what I understood.
Considering that it was the first time i connected the drum pad through the iphone camera connector and that you have to take with a grain of salt what I'm writing because it's the first time I'm approaching to these arguments, I've found 2 kinds of issues:

1) It seems that Beat-Machine has a strange behavior with the Note on and Note off MIDI IN messages, meaning that the samples are played when a note on message arrives and stopped with a note off. So when I hit the pad sending quickly a note on/off sequence, the Beat-Machine doesn't generate any sounds (But i think you have to try it by yourself because I'm doing something wrong quite probably  ).
Anyway (for you little pleasure i suppose ) i bought MidiVision so attached to this post I send you the MidiVision logs of the Pad hits.

2) I added the rules you suggested placing it in the Stream Byter (in the left midibridge or in the right virtual midi Beat-Machine or in the left core midi usb in), trying also some variations without success:


a) # your suggest
9X 50 01-7F = FA # start
9X 45 01-7F = FC # stop

b) # from channel 10 cause the pad sends MIDI messages from channel 10
99 50 01-7F = FA # start
99 45 01-7F = FC # stop

c) # sending both note ON and OFF (is it right or should I write 8-9 instead of N?)
NX 50 01-7F = FA # start
NX 45 01-7F = FC # stop

d) # sending a note OFF (is it right?)
8X 50 01-7F = FA # start
8X 45 01-7F = FC # stop


I've also tried to send start and stop messages to Beat-Machine through a software midi controller like MIDI DESIGNER and it works fine.


Thank you for your patience and sorry for my english 
Nix

UPDATE:

Hi Nic,

after some other tries seems that the problem is in the CORE MIDI IN.
I'm a bit confused about it. My basic configuration is an iPhone camera connector  connected with an iPhone 4S.
Reading around the web it seems that this connector is not compatible with the 4S but honestly what I see is that it works because, quite apart from the fact that the CORE MIDI IN is recognized as a device by Midibridge, if I open programs like for example SampleTank or MoDrum or DrumJam, it works  pretty fine at least for note on and note off messages.
But monitoring the hits on the pad with MidiVision I've noticed that any kind of variations made in the Midibridge filters like for example midi note remaps or splits, are not visualized in the Event View... i can see always the same note on and off messages for D1 and A1 like in the report i sent you.
I've tried to apply the filters both in the core midi in and in the Midibridge devices but always with the same result. 

Hope this will help.

Bye
Nix.

P.S. I will have back my SynthStation25 this weekend.. as far as you know, is it possible to connect a midi usb device like a drum pad to the SS25 mini usb midi connector and acting like a core midi in device?

Great!

I will try this evening and let you know if it works.

thank you
Nix.

Hi Nix,

Thanks for reporting back. I have a couple of refinements for you to consider.

I was using a keyboard to test, so you are right because the pads are sending a note off almost immediately, it is probably cutting off. Rather than block the note offs, maybe it would be better to delay them for a second? (should be long enough for drums unless some samples are longer than 1 sec)

I'm not really sure why moving the remap rule to the top made things work better for you, though.

Some devices send a note ON with velocity zero as note OFF (obviously your pads don't), so for completeness I have added that in too.

# Beat-Machine/Pads - nix
X9 = XA # remap CH 10 to 11
8A XX = XX +D1000 # delay note off
9A XX 00 = XX +D1000 # delay note on zero (off)
9A 31 01-7F = FA # remap pad to start
9A 33 01-7F = FC # remap pad to stop

There will not be any performance improvement with my suggestions, so probably best to leave it all if it is working.

Regards, Nic.