Korg Forums

Hi – I would be very very grateful if anyone could help. I have been struggling to get my head around the Padkontrol active mode – Once I get just an indication that something is happening I think I’ll be OK to sus programming a meaningful dialogue with it. But so far – doodly squit – Not one light on and off to indicate something might be happening. I am hoping to use Bome translator to communicate it as I already use Bome to extensively control the functionality of Abelton Live.

I have followed the suggestion and used “MIDI-OX” to send the sysex to the Padkontol to test it out – I have also used Bome to do this.

I have Midi out set to “Padkontrol cntl” and Midi in set to “port A”.

I have sent all the sysex strings described in Fat Elvis’s post – But not a flicker of a light to indicate I was on to something.

1. I wondered if perhaps there should be some handshaking process going on to communicate – But I figure that wouldn’t be possible anyway with MIDI-OX ?
2. Is there something I need to do to the Korg to initialise it ?

If anyone can help with this I would be happy to share all my Bome programming (comprehensive looping interface for Abelton) – I realise that it would really enhance my live improvisation with Beat-repeat to be able to see at a glance what’s going on – Rather than try and remember what I have and haven’t pressed.

I have even shared the information about Native Mode with the UK Korg Technical support – who didn’t seem to be award of it.

All the best

Richard (www.soupsounds.com / www.myspace.com/soupsounds)

Maybe try Bome's SendSX program (http://www.bome.com/midi/sendsx/), it doesn't get much simpler than this program.

After you launch it, select the MIDI Out and In ports on the menu. I have the PadKontrol (PK) connected by USB, so I select 'PadKontrol 1 CTRL' for MIDI Out, and 'PadKontrol 1 PORT A' for MIDI In.

Then all you do is paste the Sysex code into the left side text box, and hit F4 to send. And anything that you do on the PadKontrol (PK), press pad, turn knob, etc. will send PK SYSEX to the right panel.

First, Put PK into Native Mode, by pasting these three lines into the left box and hitting Send/F4. Per FatElvis's post, these 3 lines basically initialize the PK into Native Mode:

F0 42 40 6E 08 00 00 01 F7

F0 42 40 6E 08 3F 2A 00 00 05 05 05 7F 7E 7F 7F 03 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 0A 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 10 F7

f0 42 40 6e 08 3f 0a 01 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 03 38 38 38 F7

When I send this, I get some sysex feedback from the PK, all lights are on, and LED reads 888).

At this point, try hitting some pads or whatver on the PK, and you should see some SYSEX coming back to the Bome program. So now you can send some more SYSEX to PK to change the light states. Clear the text out of Bome SendSX, and try sending any of these codes to the PK:

Turn All Lights Off:
f0 42 40 6e 08 3f 0a 01 00 00 00 00 00 03 29 29 29 F7

Turn Pad 2 On:
f0 42 40 6e 08 01 01 20 f7

Make Pad 2 Blink:
f0 42 40 6e 08 01 01 63 f7

Turn Pad 2 Off:
f0 42 40 6e 08 01 01 00 f7

Set LED to '123', solid lit:
f0 42 40 6e 08 22 04 00 31 32 33 f7

Set LED to '321', Blinking:
f0 42 40 6e 08 22 04 01 33 32 31 f7

Turn LED Off:
f0 42 40 6e 08 22 04 00 29 29 29 f7

Return PK to 'Normal' mode:
F0 42 40 6E 08 00 00 00 F7

Hope that helps!

Pretty Dumb of Korg to make the product work like this, if you ask me. However once you get the hang of it, you can do so much with it. I have programmed myself a MIDI / SYSEX translator, so that the pads/buttons/knobs on the PK send MIDI, and MIDI sent to the PK controls the lights.

My first tests have been with Ableton Live 6, using the pads to launch clips, and the pad lights to indicate audio clip status. For example, I map Pad 1 to an audio clip, so that pressing Pad 1 sends a Note On message to launch or stop the audio clip. Ableton responds during playback by sending midi back regarding the audio clip status... Note On at Velocity 127 lights Pad 1 to indicate the clip is playing, velocity 126 to make the pad blink to indicate pad is about to start or stop, and velocity 0 to turn the pad off when the clip stops.

Which is exactly how Korg should have made it work in the first place!

Much appreciated - I will give that a go

i just posted this, maybe it will help also:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/10/1/ ... e-mode.pdf

h2a2p wrote: I have programmed myself a MIDI / SYSEX translator, so that the pads/buttons/knobs on the PK send MIDI, and MIDI sent to the PK controls the lights.

Any chance of sharing this translator?

i would like to but it still needs a lot of work to get it so others can install/use it easily. i'll post it here if i get finished enough.