Decrypting MIDI SysEx messages within Cubase piano roll?

penguinpolice · Post by **penguinpolice** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 7:58 am

I am in love with using the Kronos's sequencer capabilities as an external multitimbral synth within Cubase, and when I'm laying down MIDI data, I love using the control panel's Tone Adj/EQ setting to make tweaks to the individual MIDI programs, which send SysEx MIDI data into the program. While when I play back the tracks, I can see the knobs and sliders moving in automation on the LCD screen, I was wondering if there was any way of possibly labeling or decryption the messages that get sent into Cubase so that I could have an easier time making edits to them. I know that the picture doesn't look too intimidating, but there are some tracks that I edit multiple parameters within the Tone Adj/EQ context, all at the same time, which makes it impossible to do anything productive with at that point, because all of the SysEx messages are overlapping. Does anyone have any possible solutions that could work, or any other kinds of workarounds? Has anyone else encountered this problem, and even if you haven't, what would you recommend?

Thank you very much!

pedro5 · Post by **pedro5** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 5:54 pm

Would you believe...I'm going to give a similar suggestion as I made in another post,to you.....

Reading about controller info in the manual may help.....under Key Editor(scroll down to the relevant part).
As I'm using cubase elements,the page references would probably be different,so I can't quote them,but the information should be near enough the same.

No doubt someone else will provide a better guide at a later time.

Best Wishes.

watermelon · Post by **watermelon** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:57 pm

Hi,give a try with midiox,it's freeware and it shows anything that goes on
midi and you have the possibility with tweaking all these messages

penguinpolice · Post by **penguinpolice** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 5:53 am

Pedro5, thanks for the advice! I've been reading through the manuals rather slowly since I got the software, but I've tried to read through all of the MIDI-related sections that I could find. I hate to say this, but I don't think that Cubase can do what I want it to do with the SysEx messages.

Here's what I was hoping - I use the Kronos completely for production, and never for performing, so working with the DAW is my only concern, and when I use the Tone Adj/EQ setting for the control surface while I'm in the sequencer mode, I hoped that there would be a way that in which after I recorded the SysEx data, I could easily edit it within Cubase - but it's difficult because the messages show up as the rather arbitrary numbers that they really are, and they all show up in individual messages (as shown in the picture), so if two or more knobs or sliders are moved at the same time, their automatons are stuck together, and it's impossible to separate them.

Watermelon, thanks for the tip! I downloaded the application and set it up while I was in Cubase, and I was actually able to figure out that there were several common patterns that the MIDI SysEx messages from the Kronos followed - I'm not at my computer with Cubase at the moment, but I can remember that three of the values in the same spot in the SysEx chain for all of the controls on the control surface were 04, 05, and 06, one for all of the sliders, one for all of the buttons, and another for the knobs.

Do you know if there is any way to actually assign names to the individual messages, or perhaps make it so all messages of a certain type show up in a manner other than the individual messages? Because I would really like to tweak the data just like I tweak any other information in Cubase, but it's difficult when the messages are arranged as such.

Thanks!

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pedro5 · Post by **pedro5** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:19 am

It's dissapointing to learn that the info you're looking for isn't in the manual.....
Perhaps someone on the cubase forum could help (if you've not already tried that,of course).

I'm not entirely sure of what you're trying to acheive....(my fault,not yours) and am stuck with thinking that it may be to do with "controller" data rather than sysex directly.
Editing sysex,in my mind,is pure number crunching and is far too deep for me....sorry,my friend.

Good luck with finding a solution.

Best Wishes.

watermelon · Post by **watermelon** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 5:17 pm

H penguinepolice,
I just found some old midi softwares freewares,and there is an editor for
sysex here:

http://www.patchmanmusic.com/SysexUtilities.html

I you know how to "midi machine control the kronos" with nanokontrol2,
i'll tip my hat for you!

Cpilot · Post by **Cpilot** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 7:40 pm

Kronos sysex is in a special format. You need to consult a document entitled "Kronos_MIDI_sysex.txt" for the format as well as the particular sysex files for each synth. You should be able to find them on the DVDs that came with the Kronos. Also, after much badgering, they published the latest sysex doc on their website. The format used for the sysex dumps is arranged to get around the fact that if the upper bit in a byte is set, MIDI assumes that this is a control message, so the Kronos transmits messages in an 8 byte format where the first byte contains the upper bits of the following seven bytes. So you have to reconstruct the transmission to get the data. I wrote a little program to translate Wave Sequence dumps and the following Pascal code should show you how to unravel each eight byre sequence:

k := 0;
for j := 1 to 316 do
begin
for i := 1 to 8 do read(sfile,b);
for i := 8 downto 2 do
begin
b[1] := b[1] shl 1;
c[k+i-2] := b or (b[1] and $80);
end;
inc(k,7);
end;