Sysex question and multi select switch Roland Gaia

[Synthtoast]

Hi, I’m very new to this, starting to grasp SysEx and getting some things on my Roland Gaia to communicate from Ctrlr which is great. i sold a lot of synths in the past because of the pain in programming them and storing patches as opposed to VST instruments it became a really nightmare, and after using the Virus TI Snow ctrlr panel which has turned my snow into a fancy paperweight into almost the only synth i use at the moment i wanted to create a panel for my Roland Gaia sh – 01 that i bought based on its ease of programming and fun factor, the problem with the Gaia is that i enjoy it far more than i thought i would and i actually want to start integrating it into my work with the same ease i do the virus TI (after being spoilt with such integration i can’t go back to saving my patches with limited space and then having to find and make sure they sound right all over again every time i start up my different projects)

i have a few questions though:

when using the midi monitor and viewing the input messages, if i turn the master tune of the oscillator via the synth i get this

[07:07:45:000041]: No:[ 71] Val:[ 0] RAW:[b0 47 00]

the value at the end changes from 00 to 7f which i understand when displayed normally is 0-127 – this make complete sense to me.

but when i hit the oscillator mod button which switches between “off”, “sync” and “ring” i get this:

[07:12:49:000575]: No:[—-] Val:[—-] RAW:[f0 41 10 00 00 41 12 10 00 00 1f 00 51 f7]

or

[07:13:28:000157]: No:[—-] Val:[—-] RAW:[f0 41 10 00 00 41 12 10 00 00 1f 01 50 f7]

or

[07:13:28:000157]: No:[—-] Val:[—-] RAW:[f0 41 10 00 00 41 12 10 00 00 1f 01 4f f7]

depending on which mode is selected.

so my question is why does the second control (“mod”) give me what appears to me to be a full sysex line whilst the first thing i tried (master tune) only send this

[07:07:45:000041]: No:[ 71] Val:[ 0] RAW:[b0 47 00]

or rather: b0 47 00

I hope my question makes sense.

it will help me in understanding which parts (bytes?) of the sysex do what and where and how to change it based on which parameter i want to create a control for.

another thing i do not understand how to do is how to recreate that mod button in Ctrlr.

i can create a combo switch and give it the 3 required labels but how do i add the 3 required sysex lines for the three different states that correspond to the labels.

if i add one line to the “Sysex Formula” input box in cntrlr I’m only going to end up with a combo selector that gives me one and only one “mod” option regardless of which label i select.

basically how do i set a different sysex line to send from cntrlr for every label in the combo box?

like this

label 1 = f0 41 10 00 00 41 12 10 00 00 1f 00 51 f7

label 2 = f0 41 10 00 00 41 12 10 00 00 1f 02 4f f7

label 3 = f0 41 10 00 00 41 12 10 00 00 1f 01 50 f7.

any help will be much appreciated.

• This topic was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Synthtoast.

[Synthtoast]

Ok i figured some things out on my own

b0 47 00 this is CC i think.

i created a cc slider in ctnrlr with the Sysex value of “b0 46 xx”

its working as a cc controller but unfortunately its controlling the mod wheel and not the intended parameter (master tune)

the midi monitor confirms this as it shows i am controlling “b0 01 xx”

why is this happening now?

i see now that most of my controls will likely be cc but many will be sysex which i still have not fully grasped. i am closer now as i did not understand that you need a variable value for your controller (with all the other info i didn’t see that so clearly)

however i am still completely stumped as to how to create a button that flips between 3 distinct sysex formulas to select 3 different modes…

been doing lots of reading though and I’m getting closer.

how do i make controls bi directional? take the cc output for the mod wheel for example? i can verify that it is sending the same cc number as my slider in cntrlr but it is not affecting the position of that slider in cntrlr at all.

will keep rambling to myself here so maybe someone else with similar questions can see how\if i find answers to these basic questions.

UPDATE

Ok i figured out that this “b0 46 xx” is in fact hexadecimal values and that i needed to convert “46” into decimal values to get the cc number for that parameter, then i took that decimal number and instead of putting it into the “sysex formula” box i put it in the “midi controller number” box as a decimal value (70) that is why i was getting the default midi controller number of “0” before and it was controlling my mod wheel.

i now have the 3 parts oscillators fine tune and master tune mapped correctly and can control them from cntrlr quite nicely without any feedback from the synth though, its just unidirectional right now.

still confused as to how I’m going to work out the sysex stuff but its entirely necessary as not all of this synth can be controlled via CC.

Still looking for absolutely any info someone can pass my way.

UPDATE:

ok by looking at the “mouge Big Skinny” panel i can see for what i believe to be oscillator 2’s octave selector component, a “combo contents” box with

16”=16
8”=32
4”=48
2”=64

in it. I am starting to get the picture about the combo select switch. in this case each selection equals a corresponding midi cc value. the question is how to do this with sysex. should be easy enough.

i also require a toggle on\off style switch which I’m guessing can also be done similarly.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Synthtoast.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Synthtoast.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Synthtoast.

[Synthtoast]

Ok so there is where i have gotten so far:

tone 1 (osc1) wave shape selector combo ui with sysex – unidirectional control
tone 1 wave shape variation selector combo ui with sysex – unidirectional control

tone1, tone2, tone 3 semitone pitch and oscillator fine pitch for all 3 with cc control using sliders – bi-directional!!!

tone 1 filter cutoff slope selection with combo ui and sysex (did not know how to send two messages with a toggle switch for 12dB and 24dB even though this would make more sense.

T1 cutoff, resonance and key follow amounts with cc using sliders.

everything working, bi directional control on the cc controllers and uni directional control with sysex.

not sure if i did the combo ui boxes correctly, some of the sysex values used two hex bytes and therefore it was very hard for me (i don’t know much maths) to match up the output of cntrlr with the input from the roland gaia but all messages are identical now.

perhaps there is an easier way? this is what i have been doing:

combo contents

Sawtooth=111
Square=238
Pulse=365
Triangle=492
Sine=619
Noise=746
SuperSaw=873

and this is in my sysex formula: f0 41 10 00 00 41 12 10 00 01 00 MS LS f7

as i said i am getting identical messages going to the roland gaia as the ones that are being received when i toggle these switches on the synths interface but getting these numbers was difficult and time consuming as i had to estimate and then fine tune these values until the hex value going to the synth was identical (some close numbers were not correct values but still triggering the correct parameter to change i noticed)

as this stage, besides any beautifying of the interface i am confident i can finish the cntrlr panel, at least without any sysex dump\receive functionality for now.

I really really NEED to know two things, i have spent the last 2 hours trying to work this out

number 1

How do i figure out the decimal value of 2 hex bytes that seem to be functioning as MSB and LSB combined together. or is there another way of inputting values into the combo box contents?

number 2

the cc is bi directional which means to me that even if i don’t have complete patch saving and sending features i will be able to use the panel as a “current patch” storage facility but i desperately need the addition of bi-directional communication with not only cc messages but sysex too. how is this done? just point me in the right direction here and i will read the rest.

thank you. loving ctrlr btw 🙂

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