Ignore empty patches when scrolling through voices

[donluca]

Some sysex files have empty patches which you'll encounter while scrolling through the voices on Minidexed and, if normally they are not a big issue, when you have thousands of sysex files they really start to add up.

Can we put a check in place so that empty patches get skipped when scrolling through voices?

Thanks!

EDIT: now that I think about it... this could very well be filed as a bug as there's no good reason why empty patches should be ever shown, maybe I should have opened an Issue instead of a discussion.

[donluca]

This has been done, I've submitted a PR #466

[probonopd]

Do you know what a real DX7 does in this case?

[donluca]

I have no idea unfortunately, but this is more a QoL change I've implemented for myself rather than replicating a behavior of the original DX7.

I've made a PR because I think this would be useful to other people as well.

[BobanSpasic]

How do you define an empty patch? Is it the INIT VOICE patch? INIT VOICE is not empty.
Some banks are using other names for this same voice:

• 10x space
• 10x ~
• etc.

[diyelectromusic]

They are saved in the performance.ini file by putting out of Dexed. So the "live" voice data is saved as part of the performance, but not as a voice in its own right. I was only describing the loading process.

For saving, the data from the textual version: m_nVoiceDataTxt[] is saved in the performance file. But before this, as part of CMiniDexed::DoSavePerformance, it calls Dexed::getVoiceData() to pull out the current state of the "live" voice data for the TG and converts it to "performance text" using SetVoiceDataToTxt. So the bank/voice information is irrelevant really at this point. Even if you've not edited the data and are using a bank/voice "as is" it won't matter what the bank/voice numbers say on reloading it will load the voice data directly. If you swap banks or even delete them, having the bank/voice numbers in the performance is meaningless after a save.

As I say, the performance model has confused the bank/voice model.

More on saving here: #461 (comment)

Kevin

[diyelectromusic]

Anyway, what's the plan then? Just add a "blank" sysex file with voices named USER VOICE instead of INIT VOICE in getsysex.sh?

Given the confusing way saving is handled, I think this is by far the simplest option right now. Maybe we could add saving in the future to a specific bank/voice, but even then having blank voice as the target of the save still feels like the simplest way to go in my view.

As I say, many synths from the time would have preset, cartridge, and "user" banks with only the "user" banks editable, so that feels ok to me. The user just gets to decide which bank is the "user" bank and what to call it :)

Kevin

[diyelectromusic]

By the way, there is a risk here that someone might create a performance, save it, and then change the details in the ini file itself to change the bank/voice number and then wonder why it doesn't work.

Example: I create an 8-layered version of Brass 1 (bank 0/voice 1) and save it. But then decide I'd like a string version to, so copy the performance.ini file to a new one and change the voice number to select strings. However all the voice data in the copied file will still be that of Brass 1 so it will override the bank/voice selection.

The work around would be to remove the voice data in the copied file of course. I don't know what to do about this other than to note it somewhere!

Kevin

[donluca]

Given the confusing way saving is handled, I think this is by far the simplest option right now. Maybe we could add saving in the future to a specific bank/voice, but even then having blank voice as the target of the save still feels like the simplest way to go in my view.

Agreed.
I also think that people using Minidexed have become accustomed to the way it works, so I personally wouldn't touch performances or editing/saving/loading banks/voices.
The best thing we can do is document and then it will be up to the user to follow the documentation and find his way around doing whatever he wants to do with MiniDexed.

@probonopd if you give this solution your blessing, I'll modify the getsysex.sh script in order to add, at the end of the banks, one "user bank" filled with initialized voices named USER VOICE.

This way you can safely merge PR #466 without issues as it will filter empty voices only in "pre-made" banks.

[probonopd]

Also, I've just realized thanks to #461 that MiniDexed doesn't actually write into the sysex files

...yet. I still think it would be welcome if we could write changes back to sysex bank ("cartridge") files. It's just not implemented at the moment.

[Banana71]

I feel like we're talking past each other a bit. There is no clear direction. I think we should first document what we have and discuss what we want to achieve. The miniDexed is a complex instrument and has many areas of application. Whether you want to play a performance alone on the keyboard, you want to play music with a DAW or you want to scroll through thousands of sounds. Each application has its justification and should be considered.

Example of an overview