Korg Forums

[strider93]

Hey guys!
I own a X5D and I had to replace the battery today. Naturally, the sounds got re-set to the factory ones. My band is playing live this Saturday so I want to put back some of the old sounds. I have the .sysex files and I have hooked my keyboard via a USB/MIDI cable to the PC tho apparently I'm having some software problems (using Windows 7 x32) I tried the Korg official X5 sound editor but it gave an error (dump receive is not available). Afterwards I installed Midi-ox but it is also giving me an error whenever I'm trying to select the output device - it says "not enough memory" :/
Could someone possibly tell me a programme which is easy to use for transferring and organizing .sysex files to and from the X5D? Or maybe a solution for the problems mentioned above?
The post is probably very dumb but I'm more into the guitar thus I haven't really tried establishing a connection between my PC and X5D before and I don't really know much about using MIDI editing software ^^"
Any help will be very much appreciated since I have to fix this problem asap!
Thanks in advance! (:
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[xmlguy]

There's no such thing as a USB to midi "cable", because it's impossible to convert from USB to midi with just a cable. It a USB-midi interface. If it calls itself a cable, it's lying to you. It has electronics inside. The distinction is important and not just a matter of semantics, since cables don't generally need driver software while interfaces do. The problem is that many of these USB-midi "cable" products are very cheap and poorly made, with drivers that barely work, if at all. There are a few that are OK, but most of them, particularly the ones purchased on ebay, are terrible.

The primary situation in which these products fail is when you try to use midi sysex. You need a quality midi interface of some kind with known-good drivers from a reputable manufacturer. Then MIDI-OX should work, although you'll probably need to increase the default buffer sizes and the delays for sending SYSEX. The key to getting it working is to setup MIDI-OX so that you can see the return messages sent by the synth in response to sysex commands that it receives. It will send success or failure codes for each command it gets. If the sysex is sent too quickly or the buffers overflow, then it will send error codes. If all is OK, it will send success codes. If you can't run MIDI-OX at all, that's a separate problem that needs to be addressed by a computer tech that knows the operating system you're using.

[ozy]

WHICH is the "output device" you are trying to select?

[strider93]

@ ozy - the output device is the same as the input one of course - the programme calls it VIEWCON..
@xmlguy -- okay, it's an interface, not a cable xD I said I'm a guitarist so I don't really know much about those things haha. Anyways, I increased the buffer and delay sizes and at first it worked and Midi ox finally connected the X5D!!! Tho after that I tried to send a .sysex file to the keyboard, nothing happened, tried changing the parameters again, the programme stopped responding so I had to restart it and as a result it's giving me the same error O_o (despite the fact that the parameters are the same as the one time I succeeded in establishing a connection between the midi ox and the X5D)
agh, I know it's probably something really dumb but I just can't put my finger on it D: does someone know how to fix this damn problem?
thanks in advance for the help and thank you for the above 2 replies too!
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[ozy]

Hi.

0) does midiox see the interface both as midi-in and midi-out?

1) slow down midi-ox (allow for longer pauses)

2) check the following settings in the keyboard:

global midi channel: must be the same as midiox's

external out select: midi out

memory protect: off, everything

midi filter: allow sysex AND program change. Allow everything, just in case (write ENA an all parameters)

try, and report error messages or success.

rgds

[strider93]

Hei again!

Thanks for the fast and helpful reply!
I did everything as you said -- the programme is working once again and it's recognising the device correctly BUT! this time it's giving me an error when I'm trying to send the .sysex file - it says "no buffers available: there is not enough memory for this task"
Perhaps the problem can be fixed via tweaking some parameters? What settings are you usually using?
Atm mine are :


regards!
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[ozy]

try setting both buffers at 2500

delay 500ms

and

Ms between buffer delays = 120

These are the preferred settings for M1 8a very slow machine), so they should be slow enough for the X5

[strider93]

Thanks a bunch!!! Those worked like a charm I managed to send the .sysex file to my X5D without any errors but! is it normal for the keyboard to take so long "processing" the file? It's been 30+ minutes since I sent it from midi ox... I know the model is very old and yet the file is only 35KB big
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[ozy]

dunno. 35 minutes looks like an eternity, but the m1 takes 7/8 minutes, so...

[strider93]

Ugh, I went out and when I came back home 2 hours later the keyboard had processed the files tho nothing seems correct - some banks don't make sound at all, other are distorted as hell AND on top of that instead of just going to the next number when I click the YES/NO buttons the X5D randomly selects a bank (i.e. instead of going to A03 it goes to A48)
what happened?! O_o is anyone familiar with this problem
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[xmlguy]

Thanks Ozy for picking up where I left off. Yes, it can take a while to send the sysex. You can reduce the time it takes by optimizing the delay parameters until the sysex commands stop working again. You can monitor the success/failure of the sysex return codes to know when the delays aren't long enough. You do that by checking the "Fill Display Windows As Bytes Come In", as I recall. You also need to look up the midi sysex return codes in the docs, so you can know which sysex return codes means success or failure.

It's a good idea to monitor these codes in any case, because you might not realize that only some of them have failed while most have succeeded. Otherwise you might only discover the problem when certain patches don't sound right.

[strider93]

Agh, I hadn't checked the "Fill Display Windows As Bytes Come In" option - I'll try sending a different .sysex file with this option checked and hopefully I'll understand why this is happening
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[xmlguy]

When you send the sysex commands, you need to look for the following responses the device sends back.

It should return one of the following responses for each sysex command sent:

FunctionID (hex value)
26 | DATA FORMAT ERROR
23 | DATA LOAD COMPLETED
24 | DATA LOAD ERROR
21 | WRITE COMPLETED
22 | WRITE ERROR

So, the full return code should be something like:

For Data Load Completed:
F0 42 3C 36 23 F7

For Write Completed:
F0 42 3C 36 21 F7

F0 indicates a sysex return code
42 indicates a korg device
3C indicates the midi channel (it might be 3x, where x is a different digit)
36 indicates the X5 series (that's actually for the X5DR, which I'm assuming is the same for the X5D),
then next value is the return code, and F7 is the End of Sysex code (EOX).

The process is that the sysex file contains commands that load a buffer in one or more of a series. You'll get a Data Load Completed on success.

Then there will be a sysex to write the sysex to memory. You'll get a Data Write completed on success.

Then this will repeat for each program.

[strider93]

Ookay... now that's odd
I tried uploading a different .sysex file at around 9 PM last evening and left the PC and X5D on for the night. When I woke up in the morning the code in the midi ox monitor output window was exactly the same as the one from right before I went to bed at around 2.30 AM (the programme hadn't generated any new code during these 6 hours) but the keyboard was STILL processing I restarted the x5d and a few of the first A-banks didn't work at all but after A07 it all goes back to the factory sounds which work perfectly fine ugh.
this is what the programme showed in the monitor output window:
http://i56.tinypic.com/2mynim9.jpg
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[xmlguy]

There seems to be a problem with the sysex file. You're getting a data load completed code, but no write command seemed to be sent. You do have write protect turned off, right? Where did you get the sysex file? If you created it, what method did you use?