Radio Shack FX2 User Manual download pdf (Page 26)

The Interface

Letters for The Interface may be sent to any of the following addresses:

U.S. Mail - The Interface, Transoniq Hacker, 1402 SW Upland Dr., Portland, OR 97221

Electronic mail - GEnie Network: TRANSONIQ, CompuServe: 73260,3353, PAN: TRANSONIQ, Internet (via CS): [email protected].

This is probably one of the most open forums in the music industry. Letter writers are asked to please keep the vitriol to a minimum. Readers are

reminded to take everything with a grain of salt. Resident answer-man is Qark Salisbury (CS). Letter publication is subject to space considerations.

Howdy Hackers:

Having avoided any do-it-yourself projects

in the Hacker for some time, I think it's

t i m e fo r us t o t a k e ano t h e r l o o k at wh at w e

can do these days.

With several very popular machines (notab

ly, the Mirage, ESQ-1, and SQ-80), discon

tinued, it's tempting to see what can be

done to enhance their capabilities, which

are considered somewhat limited in 1991.

There are some relatively simple hardware

mods that could give their owners some

slick new possibilities for very little money

or effort, making it a relatively painless way

of getting more from your present invest

ment.

One example would be to add an audio

input to your axe, allowing you to process

external signals through the instrument's

ﬁlters and VCAs, giving you a hell of a

powerful way to modulate guitar, vocals, or

other sounds under real-time MIDI control!

Signals could be sent through one or all of

the ﬁlter sections simultaneously and the

ﬁlter cutoff, modulation depths, and VGA

gain could be varied via note-on, velocity,

and continuous controller messages. Just

think, with 8 VCFs and VCAs, you would

have the ultimate wah-wah of all time!

That's just one of my ideas. Interested

readers are encouraged to write me with

their ideas and suggestions for ESQ/SQ/

Mirage modiﬁcations and projects. The

most popular and the ones that can be done

for a reasonable amount of time and money,

w i l l b e r e s e a r c h e d f o r f u t u r e H a c k e r a r

ticles. Your input is strongly encouraged -1

want to develop projects that readers will

w a n t t o b u i l d f o r t h ems e l v es !

Please write me at the address below.

Oh, yeah - please include a SASE if you

want me to reply, and thanks to all of you

for writing.

Sincerely,

C h a r les R. F i sch e r

P. O. Box 537 2

Hercules, CA 94547

(510) 724-0804

[CS - Readers, here's your chance. Seems

to me like Mr. Fischer has made a heck of

an offer here — so let's keep those cards and

letters coming!]

[TH - We did manage to slip in a sample of

Mr. Fischer's projects in this very issue.]

Hacker,

I have an SQ-2 interfaced with an IBM

clone (Compaq) and Cakewalk software. I

w a n t t o u s e t h e P C a s a l i b r a r i a n t o s t o r e

sounds and sequences with Sys Ex mes

sages.

I t doe s n ' t w o rk a s a d v e rti s e d .

I've talked with Ensoniq and 1) slowed

Cakewalk way down and 2) split the ﬁle

into two parts as they suggested. The ﬁle

seems to come over from the SQ-2 ﬁne, but

going the other way, the SQ-2 locks up and

erases all its RAM. (Tacky) It reinitializes

okay, but everything is lost. Help! If there is

other and better software for this applica

tion, I'd be interested.

Thanks,

Brandon Ahrens

Albuquerque, NM

[CS - I've talked with Ensoniq and they

know of no reason why your system should

not work as advertised. There's a lot of

Cakewalk users out there, and I've never

heard of a problem either. Perhaps one of

them might be able to shed some light, but

in the meantime, I suggest you re-contact

Ensoniq and go over the situation with them

in some detail. And if you haven't done so

already, it might be a good idea to talk to

Twelve Tone Systems, the publisher of

Cakewalk.]

[Ensoniq - We assume that you are trying

to send sequence data, but you don't specify

that. The problem you are experiencing is

caused by the fact that when sending

sequence data the SQ-2 (as all ENSONIQ

products) sends two messages, a header

description and then the data itself. This is

because of the large size of the sequencer

data transmission, which may be larger

than some devices can receive.

Cakewalk is sending back the data as one

c o n t i n u o u s t r a n s m i s s i o n , s i n c e i t i s a

"generic" recorder. As you were instructed,

separating the header from the data with

w h a t C a k e w a l k c a l l s M e t a E v e n t s d o e s s u c

cessfully correct this situation in all of our

tests.

Perhaps you scrambled the memory of your

SQ-2 when you ﬁrst attempted to download

the data and have not re-initialized the unit

since. Try pressing EDIT Sequence, followed

by Bank button #9 and then Screen button

#9. This brings you to the Reinitialization

mode. If reinitializing fails to correct this,

then you may not have inserted enough time

between the Meta Events.

For users of the Alesis DataDisk just

double-click the RECEIVE button of the

Alesis unit so that it will receive two dumps

of sequencer data.]

Dear Hacker,

Thanks for an excellent magazine that is not

afraid to tackle those problems that are down

to the bits. I'm a serious programmer for

MIDI software (e.g., PM-U20 module for

C-LAB's PolyFrame Universal Editor).

Owning an EPS-16 PLUS, I'd like to give it

some software support for the Atari ST com

puter, which is quite popular in Germany.

I'd like to mention some of the problems

writing MIDI software for the EPS (and

other Ensoniq products like the VFX) that

make editing these devices by an external

computer device almost impossible.

1. The ﬁrst SysEx reception requires the EPS

to load an overlay. The bad thing is that the

EPS returns "WAIT(OI)" rather than the ex

pe cte d " INS ERT S YST EM D ISK (02 )"

response. The user therefore cannot be in

formed correctly of what to do. If it is poss

ible, Ensoniq should think of making

complete MIDI access possible without the

need to load an overlay.

2. When sending additional SysEx data

while previous messages are processed, the

EPS often locks up.

3. The given delay of 2 seconds between two

SysEx commands is unacceptable. It's im-

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