Yamaha MM6 plus Midi Sequencer (muse, rosegarden)

Support & discussion regarding DAWs and MIDI sequencers.

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

Post Reply
aldous
Established Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 10:53 pm

Yamaha MM6 plus Midi Sequencer (muse, rosegarden)

Post by aldous »

Anyone have a Yamaha MM6? I do, and it seems to be a bit handicapped as a midi controller and playback device, at least when working with Rosegarden and Muse.

I need to be able to record program change and sysex information at the start of the track, which seems difficult with both sequencers. Like many keyboards, the MM6 has a command that will blast all of the system performance stuff (program changes and sysex) for this purpose. With both Rosegarden and Muse, I don't know of a way to record this at the start of the track without rolling the sequencer. Also, on Rosegarden, not everything seems to make it through, or the on-screen configuration options (like choosing your patch) seems to interfere. So I'm unable to close down my system, come back, and have my proper keyboard patches loaded up when I reload Rosegarden. I have similar trouble with Muse. I am able to record a short sequence on the MM6 internally, save the midi file to a flash drive, import it into Muse, and then have the appropriate information saved/played back, so I know it's possible. I just need the process to do this directly through the midi cable, because it sucks having to do the copy to flash drive thing.

Tips welcome! Thanks.
User avatar
rncbc
Established Member
Posts: 1060
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 12:20 pm
Has thanked: 45 times
Been thanked: 256 times
Contact:

Re: Yamaha MM6 plus Midi Sequencer (muse, rosegarden)

Post by rncbc »

what about qtractor? ;)

cheers
Tim E. Real
Established Member
Posts: 660
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 12:36 am
Has thanked: 36 times
Been thanked: 105 times

Re: Yamaha MM6 plus Midi Sequencer (muse, rosegarden)

Post by Tim E. Real »

I can't see a way to do it in MusE without recording it.
After recording it open the Event List Editor and manually change the
captured sysex's event time to 1:0:0 (the beginning).

After that, you can do a few things with the captured sysex:
You could save the project as a Template so that you can quickly create
new songs based on that Template.
You could create an Instrument Definition File (.idf) for your KB either customized
quickly from existing IDFs or from scratch (see the Instrument Editor or the .idf files),
then enter the sysex there. **Some fine print: In our SVN trunk recently I added
a Sysex Editor to the Instrument Editor. However don't enter them there yet
(blush: we're evolving, the intention is to allow the user to choose from that sysex
list later to form highly customized initialization sequences, or quickly place 'legal'
sysexs manually into a song). I mean you could, to stay ahead of the game,
but for now the place you want to enter them is manually in the .idf file, perhaps
simply by copying and pasting the captured sysex.
Please take a look at the XG Instrument Definition File "XG.idf" :

<Init>
<!--
<event tick="0" type="2" datalen="4">
7e 7f 09 01
</event>
<event tick="0" type="2" datalen="7">
43 10 4c 00 00 7e 00
</event>
-->
</Init>

That is a commented example of how to use the Init sequences.
(Remove the <!-- and --> ).
Those are sysexs (event type 2), and the opening and closing bytes
are not required. You can put any type of events in there.
See what I mean about highly customized?
Remember to spread out the sysex event ticks slightly in some cases.
I thought about changing this particular one but left it alone for now.

I haven't enabled this particular Init sequence yet but you can go
ahead and put one in your own. It, em, should work, lemme know...
The trick is, try not to let MusE actually RECORD these sysexs
because they'll obviously interfere with these Init sequence sysexs.
And you may want to ensure that your songs are of Song Type 'NO'
(no song type) because the other settings GM, GS, and XG
automatically send out standard mode-switching sysexs which you
may or may not want if you are fully customizing your Init sequence list.
Actually we're trying to eliminate the Song Type setting with these
changes, that is the Sysex Editor and the Init sequence list and so on.

Caveat: MusE currently does not support capturing sysex chunks
(warnings are printed if chunks are received).
If you are trying to send large sysexs (over 256 bytes I think, or is that 128)
MusE will not capture it :-(
I can capture small single-patch sysexs from my KB but not its complete
bank sending sysexs feature.
However, as for the Init sequence, not to mention song files and other places
where sysexs are found in xml form, large sysexs should be OK :-)
Just, there may be problems actually sending them, as we don't chunk on
sending either. Your best bet may be the ALSA devices there, due to the
fact we just pass the whole thing at once to ALSA, I believe my tests
showed they can handle a fair bit of data before ALSA coughs.
Try 'er out. Good luck. Thanks for using MusE.

Tim.
The MusE project.
stratovarius
Established Member
Posts: 41
Joined: Fri Aug 02, 2013 1:46 am

Re: Yamaha MM6 plus Midi Sequencer (muse, rosegarden)

Post by stratovarius »

I'm looking to buy maybe an mm8 [or surplus mo7, have another post]. I wonder if it'll work with linux at all. I suppose mm6 & mm8 use the same drivers, did you have to install any driver or firmware & if so where did you find it?

thanks
The roses are melodies,
The petals notes,
Cast by The Magician's Selfless hands
To ring briefly
Then freely land
On the luckiest, few and ragged,
Children in the pilgrim audience.
Post Reply