GR-55 Bidirectional SysEx

Started by ForestCat, January 31, 2015, 06:57:58 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

mbenigni

#50
QuoteI actually mourned him, after the fact.  It's very difficult to describe.

Sorry about that.  Sometimes exposure to someone's work can be as affecting as exposure to the person.

QuoteIt is a constant struggle to keep from thinking about the hard, physical realities re: work to do, time available to do it, even without the drill breaking, lol.... 
I guess what I'm saying is that the internet, youtube, et al, have offered our generation a unique, if odd, form of immortality, that historically would only have been available to those lucky enough to have have reached escape velocity in Hollywood or the music industry.  Strange times we live in...

Good stuff.  It reinforces my sense that agonizing over the perfect recording or whatever (except as time/resources permit) is sort of passé.  The death of the album format is old news, of course, and the coming (and going?) of the lo-fi/indie aesthetic just underscores the fact: very few people care about recordings as enduring products the way they once did.  Success is absurdly fleeting: a "rock star" is someone whose agent got their song on an iPhone commercial this week.  ::)  All of which feels a bit deflating at first.... but then suddenly liberating.  The internet is effectively a non-stop, self-documenting performance venue.  Nothing has to be perfect; it only has to be what it is.  And it can always be improved.  Or not.

Big words.  Maybe I'll record something tonight.  Or not.  ;)

supernicd

Good discussion - perhaps should be its own topic.  This is actually an ongoing mental battle for me - when and if to share my work.  I'm typically reluctant to share something that I think I could make or do better.  But then I always think everything I do could be better.  With just a little more time, skill, practice, new piece of gear,  <fill in the blank>, I could improve it - regardless if anyone else would ever notice.  Regardless if it's currently "good enough" to be enjoyable.

And so it often leads to a project getting back burnered before it's ever heard, until said time, skill, practice, gear, <fill in the blank> is available, which may in fact never come.  And so the need for elusive perfection defeats the whole purpose of starting it in the first place.

When to say "its good enough" - that is a million dollar question. :)

Part of what draws me to playing live, I guess.  You just have to do what you can in the moment with available resources, and there it is.  No punch-ins, no second guessing, no overdubs.
Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

supernicd

Just finished watching your video links. ForestCat.  I am pretty much blown away!

Great sounds and great playing.  You have controllers on that LP that I didn't even realize were there from looking at the picture.  I'm not sure how you keep them all straight.  I think most folks here would freak out (in a good way) watching these vids.  Nice work!

PS - love your studio. :)
Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

Elantric

I suffer the same issues of "attempting perfection".

The converse is joining a new original band where the leader claims to have composed 300 original songs, but upon learning all of them. you discover its really the same 4 songs with slightly different arrangements

But that never stopped Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley! 

mbenigni

#54
QuoteGood discussion - perhaps should be its own topic.  This is actually an ongoing mental battle for me - when and if to share my work.  I'm typically reluctant to share something that I think I could make or do better.  But then I always think everything I do could be better.  With just a little more time, skill, practice, new piece of gear,  <fill in the blank>, I could improve it - regardless if anyone else would ever notice.  Regardless if it's currently "good enough" to be enjoyable.

And so it often leads to a project getting back burnered before it's ever heard, until said time, skill, practice, gear, <fill in the blank> is available, which may in fact never come.  And so the need for elusive perfection defeats the whole purpose of starting it in the first place.

I guess many of us are in the same boat here.  For me it gets pretty extreme, sometimes with years and years ticking by with no discernable output.  All process - much of it dysfunctional - and no product.  I finally arrived at a place a few years ago where I realized that I'd been improving my musical and technical skills, but so much time had passed that my entire identity had changed.  I knew how to play etc. but no longer knew why or what to play.  Still a problem.  My idea of being a musician with something distinctive to say is tenuous at best, so I take on little projects:  jazz studies, a Police tribute band, whatever comes along.  Sometimes I joke that I might as well be doing needlepoint or whatever.  :)

But even peers who I think of as successful and productive complain of these pitfalls:  e.g. starting songs and then judging them too harshly before completing them; getting stuck in that cycle of birthing and then killing half-formed ideas.  People have written a lot of good articles about getting into the practice of working consistently, quickly, and without judgement.  (Steve just posted one such link here VGuitar last week I believe.)  All good advice, and every year I hope I'll start taking it.

ForestCat

Great stuff.  Feelin' it all here, too.  It is the age-old Engineer vs. Manager mentality.  The engineer strives for perfection.  The manager strives to "get it out there" before it rots on the vine.  When both of those exist in the same human, and they typically do in "successful" people with talent as opposed to blind ambition, it is a rocky, rocky relationship.  But it does produce beautiful babies :-)

Marc, personally, I find tremendous inspiration when exploring new toys(before the "what the hell were they thinking" moment arrives...).  You may be playing "professionally", w/ a cover band, etc., I don't know your circumstances.  But many of the working cover musicians I know seem to have lost their love of music for its own sake.  That really surprised me.   
Re: worthiness, there's stuff I threw in the towel on years ago, because I thought it wasn't worthy of any further development.  Years later, I listen to it and it isn't nearly as lame as I remembered. 

Now, I record a quick cell phone video of EVERY SINGLE IDEA I come up with.  This is my "Dry Spell Insurance".  If I ever run out of song ideas, I'll just put on my Producer Cap, lol.

I think an an artist has two primary objectives: 
1. To create things that they themselves find pleasing and
2. To create things that the consumer of that art will find pleasing. 
That second part includes a concept of "target audience".  In the best case scenario, your target audience will be folks with similar tastes to your own, so that if you nail Objective One above, then Objective Two falls nicely into place.  Commercial, or working musicians don't often have that luxury, and hence, a conflict arises.

re: shitcanning stuff that isn't perfect/finished, if you shoot for the sun, and hit the moon, that's not such a terrible thing.  Excellence is not overrated, but it can quickly lead to only fulfilling Objective 2. Always remember why you first picked up a guitar, look where you were, and where you are now and give yourself a big pat on the back.  You developed skills you would have killed for back then.  There's no way to see yourself today through the eyes/ears of your teenage self, but my guess is that you'd be impressed.

supernicd

ForestCat, you had posted this question, and it got moved into a different thread, which is probably an appropriate thread for it.  But unfortunately that thread is locked and I can't reply to it, so replying here.

QuoteWasn't sure whether to post this in the forum, since it may be a bit much for most. 


Colin, I hope you, Marc, Elantric, etc., will weigh in on this. You guys know more than anyone re: the GR-55 sysex format.  I use the floorboard extensively in debug mode to gather strings, etc.

I'm trying to write some fairly highly abstracted(for me, anyway, lol) code in Lemur, to achieve a degree of portability between modules/maintainability, etc.

Have you found any rhyme or reason w/ the sysex implementation re: everything east of "f0 41 10 00 00 53 12 18" (seems like the start address, 18, is the same for all params?)? 

Here's what I mean:  Say you want a function, we'll call it SendSyxEx(Addr, Data) whose purpose in life, is, strangely enough, to send a sysex string to the GR.

I'm writing "pseudo-code" here for readability/simplicity, not real Lemur code, etc, but programmer types should be able to follow it.  So the function might contain something like:

*****************

DataVal = Fader1.x        //grab the value of a fader or other control
SyxString = "f0 41 10 00 00 53 12 18" + Addr + DataVal + "01 F7"  //seems like the checksums aren't mandatory, ok to just use "01"?
SendToMIDI(SyxString)    // dump the (hopefully) properly formatted sysex string to the GR

*****************
Is there some sort of rule of thumb/conversion function that could make this kind of approach work across all available params?  Or, are there major "groups" of params that share a common sysex format?

It seems to me like the values of everything between the f0-18 "header" and the checksum change in strange, mysterious ways that are tough for a dummy like me to fathom...

Can this be done with one clever function?  Five? Ten?

Where the hell is my coffee...

If I'm understanding your question right, the 0x18 is the offset for the temporary patch area, so you'd use this offset to make adjustments to the current patch - mostly the things you'd do to change the sound during patch creation tweaking process.  There are some other offsets at this level but I think 0x18 is the one you'd mainly use unless you're really designing a full-fledged editor like Floorboard.

I think that you can use a generic function in Lemur to help make this more manageable.  Take a look at the attached template.  This might be one way to approach it.  Note that I put a //midiout command in but it's commented out.  But you should be able to see the SysEx messages being generated on the monitor as you move the sliders.  I am also using 0x01 here for the checksum.  The 55 doesn't seem fussy about that and frankly I'm not sure how to calculate them for the 55. Maybe someone else can help here.

So basically I set up a few global expressions that give friendly names to vectors of SysEx codes.  There is one global script that is called to assemble the various pieces together and send them.  Each slider has an on expression script that sends the correct address (friendly name from global expressions) and its message (fader value) to the global script when the fader is moved.  The global script assembles the full message and sends it (or in this case writes it to the screen).

Is this along the lines of what you're asking?  Hope it is helpful.
Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

ForestCat

#57
Heh, heh, I actually just shot off a pm to Steve, I don't think that thread is supposed to be locked, but I could be wrong.
I'm gonna check out your template now, thanks a million. 

I should probably clarify my (moved) question a little.

When you want to have a single function to send sysex data, both on/off ( a single byte of either 00 or ff) as well as varying (usually 00 thru ff, and any value in between), that's pretty straight forward, if you're only dealing with one data byte, and the total sysex string(and any indices into that string) are a fixed length.

The problem for me is when the data spans multiple bytes, either LSB/MSB, or whatever scheme. 
These are your delay times & such, that have more than 127 discrete values.  These were the bytes that behave in "strange & mysterious ways" when viewing Gumtown's output in MIDI-Ox, etc.

I see in Marc's TouchOSC template, he uses separate Coarse/Fine controls to get around the problem.

I need to unify those kinds of parameters into one Lemur control, because this will be primarily used expressively, in live performance, so I need smooth(well, as smooth as the technology will allow...) "sweeps"

I did look at the Floorboard sourcecode for a clue, and all I can say is "Horay Shet!".  Dude, you're like Sheldon Cooper, that level of coding prowess is slightly beyond my comprehension.  I learn fast, and forget faster, lol!

How are you guys handling this?  I know this is probably a generic coding question at this point, involving bit-wise logical operations, etc (which cause curls of smoke to emanate from my ears...), but I'll bet it will be useful to some travelers down this road later.  And thanks for responding to my "closed" thread.  I didn't realize it was actually locked, and when there were no bites, I thought nobody loved me :(  lmao :) :)

ForestCat

#58
Since someone will invariably ask, here's the application(well, one part of it, anyway):

The simplified version-
A multi-page tabbed container w/ an XY Pad on each page.
Each page also contains  "AssignX" and "AssignY" buttons
The AssignX button jumps to another tabbed interface with pages of labeled buttons linked to various GR-55 params.
Clicking a button assigns that parameter to the XYPads x axxis, and returns to the calling XY Pad page. AssignY works the same.  I obviously do NOT want to store the entire sysex string in each "button"(there will be hundreds), just the relevant, changing parts.  Seeking a generic "SendSysEx" function that will work across all XYPads, for all parameters, regardless of the number of data bytes in the string.

I've got a fair bit of this working, but I need to abstract the code to make it "portable", ie, the ability to store the various x-y assignments to presets that can be linked to specific GR-55 patches.

And so much more, lol.  Anyone have a spare lifetime they want to sell me cheap?

supernicd

Back to the previous topic (writing, completing, producing music) which I didn't intend to derail as it's a good one...

I think another obstacle for me is having no clear vision of what I would do with a finished product. For the projects that I have finished, yes, I've shared them with friends/family, posted some on the internet, even played a few out live at clubs.  But largely they are now collecting dust (digital or otherwise).

For my non-musical projects (work, for example) I do have a clear picture of what success looks like.  I know how my product will be used, what it will be used for, who will use it.  Even if I can't get excited about that, then I can at least get excited about getting paid for it.  I'm not sure I have a clear picture about what a successful music project completion looks like for me.

I know that I'm not going to be signed by a major record level at this stage of my life, even if I created the perfect commercially viable album.  Best I could probably hope for is to be an internet sensation, or to sell songs to a younger artist, or perhaps sell songs to be used in TV/commercial/film.  Or I can accept that I'm creating purely for my own satisfaction.  But I think that's a bit demotivating.  Music is meant to be shared.  Maybe the middle ground is, as you guys have stated, to get it out there on the internet and get some feedback and get it heard - even if it's only by a few.

Maybe we need a mastermind group. :)
Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

ForestCat

#60
OK, I see I'm going to get NOTHING done today, lol.  But that's OK, I enjoy this interaction more than I'm willing to admit :-)

First, DO NOT test fire your stuff w/ family/friends!!!!  As Jesus Christ once said, "No prophet is without honor, except in his hometown".  True that!   The "locals" are a hard sell.  Then there's the other extreme. Take my wife:(please...).  She's been tremendously supportive of my musical mis-adventures.  However:
A. She loves me
B. She likes disco, and (even worse...) Duran Duran (Duran Duran fans can safely pretend I didn't say that, lol)

So I'm not exactly sure how relevant her opinion about my brand is, other than in a generic way (which, btw, is never a bad perspective to have, so I do jest here...)

But you get my point.

Here is one thing to ALWAYS keep in mind:  The annals of music (and art) are RIFE with stories of the piece that the artist thought was "so-so" becoming their most beloved work.

At the risk of repeating myself, a lot of the stuff I stuck on youtube is "a rush job", or unfinished, in my mind.  But occasionally, someone posts a comment that makes me really, really happy I decided to put it out there.

Every musician has to honestly answer this one question:  Would you rather play for 150,000 "fans" who know nothing about you or the genesis of your compositions, and are mostly there because you're cute and "famous", or would you rather play for 10 people who absolutely "get it" and are there for the same reason that I stood three feet from Steve Morse( my shins were right up against his floor monitor, from the crowd press from behind, I was literally first in line when the place opened) at a Dregs show in a tiny place called Tin Lizzy Garage in Princeton thirty years ago.  I honestly think that if ONE PERSON could hear/see me play and experience what I did "mind-melding" w/ Morse that night, I could die a very happy man.  But it's all about priorities.  Like I said before, there are many motivations to play...

supernicd

#61
To marry the two topics in this thread together - that sounds like a really exciting project, @ForestCat.  In fact, that is exactly the kind of project that would get me excited enough to pull me away from writing and producing a song. Part of me wants to dig in and really help with this and the other part of me wants to run like hell.   ;D

I found this on the Lemur forum.  It is about sending pitch bend, but I would think similar logic/math would work for any two byte MSB/LSB-type message?

http://forum.liine.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2425

I suppose your SysExOut script could accept three parameters:  addr, msg, type.  type could define whether this is an on/off type message, single byte (0-127), or two-byte MSB/LSB type message that would need some additional math to convert the 0-1 decimal value of msg to a two-byte format.  Some if/then logic around type could determine which method to use to create the message?

I haven't really dealt with MSB/LSB type messages yet.  This works in my head. :)



Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

ForestCat

#62
Yeah, we're thinking the same here.  The question (GR-55 specific) is whether there are only two scenarios ( single byte vs MSB/LSB), or are there others?  I haven't spied the output of all 1300 paramters, lol

Yes, the conversion math is the challenging part... unless you're Gumtown, lol

ForestCat

#63
BTW, Bidirectional MIDI (just not sysex) works fine with the Missing Link.  That, along with the advanced scripting capabilities in Lemur, open up mind boggling possibilities re: what could be done w/ custom floor controllers (FC-300, etc) & the GR-55.  At bare minimum, it blows the the ridiculous "8 assigns" limitation to kingdom come :)

Yes, this stuff does give me a chubby, lol


My "perfect" guitar synth would be something similar to a marriage of the GR-55 and VG-99, but with a fully multi-timbral virtual analog GR-700.  The lack of multi-timbrality, pcm tuning per-string, and "standard" (i.e. "Sample & Hold"/Random)lfo waveforms is an unforgivable omission. 

But sysex/Lemur, et al have the potential to bring out more from this little blue box than Roland ever imagined.  It will never be an "ideal" guitar synth.  But I still maintain that as a "one box" solution, it currently has no rivals.  That's why it & the Missing Link are made for each other.  It's a damn shame that both of the developers have lost interest in them...

It's up to us now!!!! lol

supernicd

There are a lot more than two types of messages to deal with.  The GR-55 MIDI Spec is mind-boggling.  There are all kinds of messages.  For example TVF filter type accepts a range of 0-7 (LPF, HPF, etc).  PCM Part coarse tune accepts a range of 40-88 which translates to -24 to +24 semi-tones.  To design something that implements the entire GR-55 MIDI spec would be a tedious, laborious, and time consuming nightmare.  Gumtown is a patient genius. :)  All GR-55 users should all donate generously for his editor, and really I think Roland should send him a check.  I can't imagine the hours he's put into it, nor taking on a project like that pro bono.  I think a lot of the GR-55's success is attributable to him.

I hear you on where your mind starts to go when you start thinking about the possibilities of a powerful device like the 55, it's rich MIDI implementation, and something like Lemur.

Here's a link to my ever-unfinished Lemur/55/99 project, Ice Blue.  I need to get off my duff and upload the most recent version.  Just a little remiss to do it without some kind of video, manual, or at least cheat sheet, as it's grown to be a little much to figure out how it is supposed to work...

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=10507.msg95190#msg95190
Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

ForestCat

#65
Yes, that is what I feared.  But there might be an elegant solution, I hold out hope :)

re: Ice Blue, yes I stumbled on that at some point!  Excellent project.  Arpeggiators, lfo's, beat synced effects, etc, are a huge part of my toolbox, and if I'm in a situation where I can bring out a laptop w/ Live/bidule/Max and my M3 w/ Karma (the last word in intelligent/algorithmic/stochastic arpeggiators), I'm a happy, happy camper.

The lack of an arpeggiator(or a harmonizer) in the GR-55 is big limitation for me.  But the biggest limitation to overcoming that limitation is, of course, lack of MIDI In for Note On/Off data.  Then again, the GR-55's polyphony is nothing to write home about. 

I know it's tough at this point, since most here have moved on to Triple Play, etc (I have one, seemed (and still seems) to be a very unfinished product), but I get the impression that there is enough combined talent in this forum alone to do some pretty cool things with the GR-55. 

Never forget Grey Matter Response, who reverse-engineered the DX-7 firmware in the 80's and provided replacement ROMS which did "impossible" things to the DX

God, I wish there were someone w/ the interest & chops to do custom GR-55 firmware...

One very doable thing it needs is a small, inexpensive true bypass stereo digital delay module that could be soldered in line w/ the main outs, and switched on for 3 or 4 seconds by any program change in the GR.  Solution to sound being "cut off" when changing patches.

Macciza

Ill just say again that perhaps your best bet is to simply use a second iDevice with a midi interface as the receive unit...
Also that doing realtime control using sysex could be problematic due the amount of data being sent.
one option is to simply send sysex to setup control assigns and then send simple CCs to do the control

Pop in to the Lemur forum and you are sure to get some good responses for your Lemur programming problems

MM
'70s Strat, Brian Moore iM, VG-8, VG-99, FC-300, VL-70m, StringPort, SoftStep, Sentient6, iMac QC i7 27".

ForestCat

I'm only modifying individual, or perhaps pairs of parameters in realtime through sysex.  At this point, I haven't seen any bandwidth problems using the Missing Link for this  The issue is that, since bidirectional sysex isn't working, I can't query & buffer those param values before changing them.  RE: the Liine forums, I spend a LOT of time there, and it has been a valuable resource.  There is however, precious little there re: the GR-55, Missing Link, & sysex, or, more generally, sysex & osc.  Re: the 2nd iDevice, I may be headed that way, since communication w/ the Missing Link developers seems to have ceased.  Shame.  It is not an elegant solution, since it cannot be hidden inside the GR-55 like the Missing Link.  And, AFAIK, an ad-hoc network between two iPod Touches needs intervention, i.e., they can't just autoconnect to each other.  That's more hassle & setup time.

Macciza

Hi
if one of the devices is an iPhone or Cellular capable iPad you can create a personal hotspot and connect that way, sorry should have mentioned it earlier . ..
There is a bit of GR55 stuff inn LF, also various sysex discussions , 14bit and nibbled MIDI etc
Start a new thread there for further info

the point with CCs vs sysex is that the messages are far shorter and far easier for the GR55 to process without affecting performance in any real way..

cheers
'70s Strat, Brian Moore iM, VG-8, VG-99, FC-300, VL-70m, StringPort, SoftStep, Sentient6, iMac QC i7 27".

supernicd

Didn't realize you were a member here @ VGF, Macciza, or never made the connection.  I have benefited a lot from reading your posts at LF.

Have you run into problems throwing lots of SysEx at the 55?  In the Ice Blue template I mention above, I am throwing lots of string volume messages at it in rapid succession, and so far it has handled it like a champ.  I have never once seen a "busy" screen on the 55.  Granted though, this is over cabled MIDI, and they are not continuous type messages, but discreet jumps.
Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

ForestCat

#70
Macciza,

Any reliable hotspot solutions for jailbroken non-phone device?

There are two things re: sysex vs cc's:
1. There are parameters in the GR-55 which cannot be assigned to cc's.
2.  There is an absurd limitation of 8 assigns, which has been the topic of ongoing dissatisfaction w/ the GR-55's MIDI implementation form the very beginning.

My thinking was that the solution might involve using sysex to dynamically "reassign the assigns".  This would certainly work for those params that are assignable, as long as it doesn't mute playing sounds, reset values, or not effect already sounding voices until a re-trigger, which, unfortunately, changing many of the parameters does, even via sysex.  Perhaps the most disappointing of that lot are the PCM pitch parameters and the PCM wavesamples themselves.  This precludes any possibility for "round-robin" wavesample allocation, or pseudo-sequencing, or even a nice, fine-grained pitch bend.

Like I said, Roland made a lot of unforgivable feature decisions in this machine, which is why so many here have abandoned it.  I'm just trying to hack it into something less frustrating for me to use when I can't bring out my Big Guns (laptop/Ableton/bidule/Max, Xpander, M3, Supernova, K2600RS, Virus, etc) to a gig.

supernicd

The other problem with CCs and assigns is that it gets tedious to have to set them all up patch by patch, and if you decide to change something, you have to go back and touch each patch.  I guess if you use SysEx to assign the assigns that gets around that somewhat, eh?  I'm thinking maybe Marc used this approach in his OSC template.

Does your "Big Guns" rig also use the GR-55 or does the guitar interface to it with something else?
Strat w/ GK-3, Godin LGXT
VG-99, GR-55, GP-10
---------------------------------------------------------------

ForestCat

That's a good question.  Out of all the guitar to MIDI devices I have (AX100MkII,AX50, GI20, GR50, GR-700, TriplePlay, ad nauseum...), I have found that my trusty old GM-70 w/ the Les Paul has been most consistently able to accurately translate MY playing style into MIDI.  UNLESS I want to play fast.  The GM-70 is the slowest converter of the lot.  The AX-100 is arguably the fastest of the lot if using transient detection, but say goodbye to finger picked stuff (unless you use picks/figernails), and my playing dynamics have always seemed "compressed".

I'm still waiting for a guitar to MIDI conversion system that doesn't make me nervous every time I use it in a live situation.

What I have found w/ the GR-55 is that it's MIDI out is useable for stuff like locking chords into arpeggiators, slow, deliberate string swells, very cleanly finger-picked stuff where the synth voice ADSR params are closely matched to the playing style.  In summary, the GR-55 has been a useable compromise for a lot of things, and because the internal Grand Piano has been very playable (voice stealing aside), I've incorporated it more & more into my "concert rig".  It would have been awesome and way more playable/accurate if it had a true Mono mode.  Thanks again, Roland!(holding his sore, violated butt...)

But for slower, non-solo playing, the GM-70 is the one I feel most confident about.  Most people are scratching their heads right now, lol

Macciza

#73
Yeah the idea was to dynamically assign, so you could alter either blank slate or setup patches
I've used that approach at times with the vg 99 in various ways, for various purpose
I guess it depends on how complex an operation you want, whether you want the same effect available on any sound or a range of different complex setups. It could certainly help extend the assign options on the gr I think.

Not aware of any issues but sending smaller amounts of data is often a good idea, and for continuously variable inputs CCs are my preference where possible. Things not accessible via CCs obviously have to be done via sysex and I see your point there.

No real experience with jail broken stuff, and it is probably a hardware difference between the cellular / non cellular devices so I don't think it would help. Only one end needs to be cellular to connect.
The other option is to simply do a hard wired connection between the iPod and gr via midi....

I prefer the vg to the gr , there worlds apart, and my main synth is a VL70 virtual wind synth, have a bunch of extra controllers on my guitar via a seven pin cable, prob need to upgrade to a 13 pin soon, and have mucked around with iPhone mounted on guitar as a controller but not committed to anything yet, prob should get an iPod just for that purpose and set something up...
Will check some stuff out and finish some stuff off soon ...
Cheers
Ps one of my faves was the Passac Sentient 6 which had some pretty cool features, like up/down stroke detection, stereo jack connection with multiplexed data sent down, fret based patch selection, and a bunch of other stuff... Should see what condition the old beast is in and whether it can be resurrected ...
'70s Strat, Brian Moore iM, VG-8, VG-99, FC-300, VL-70m, StringPort, SoftStep, Sentient6, iMac QC i7 27".

mbenigni

#74
QuoteI guess if you use SysEx to assign the assigns that gets around that somewhat, eh?  I'm thinking maybe Marc used this approach in his OSC template.

Actually my TouchOSC template is not capable of editing Assigns at all.  That's one of the few things that I need to manually edit on-GR55 (ugh) or pull up Gumtown's Floorboard to do.  You could monitor the SysEx going from the PC to the GR55 while making Assign changes in Floorboard and pull what you need from there.  I considered doing so for my template, but it's just not practical in TouchOSC because there are so many Assign targets.  TouchOSC doesn't have dynamic variable lists, dropdowns, or anything like that, so the only design to accommodate this would be a page with a zillion buttons on it.  (You run into the same problem trying to effectively present PCM voice options.)

It's only tangentially related, but one fun thing the TouchOSC template does is present Assign on/off switches along with XY pads, singly and in pairs.  So if you've set up interesting combinations of Assigns in advance, you can dynamically re-target the XY pad(s) on your iPad by toggling those switches during performance.

QuoteBut for slower, non-solo playing, the GM-70 is the one I feel most confident about.  Most people are scratching their heads right now, lol

I know exactly what you mean.  I'm sure everybody rolls their eyes when I tell them that my favorite guitar-to-MIDI right now is Jam Origin MIDI Guitar and SampleTank over a plain old 1/4" cable - no hex whatsoever.  But as you say, you have to account for the individual's playing style, the targeted instrument and passage, etc.  Everyone is trying to find that elusive "absolute best" in terms of speed, accuracy, etc. but I think in practice you need to consider all of these variables, arriving at different solutions for each.  (Though maybe FTP is the all-around magic bullet, finally - I haven't tried it yet.)