Please Note: SysEx file numbering has changed in the latest builds!

[diyelectromusic]

There has been a fair bit of work on SysEx voice/bank file loading recently, as you might have spotted if you've been following the discussion here: #456, issues #391 #455 #457 #458 #459 #460 #468 and changes here: #461 #464 #466 #473 (I think that is all of them!).

New functionality includes:

• Faster loading of SysEx files by supporting the use of subdirectories (recommend <100 files per directory for fast loading).
• Up to 16384 banks now supported.
• MIDI BANKSEL MSB/LSB now supported to select any of the 16384 banks.
• Empty banks and voices are skipped in the menus,
• "Headerless" SysEx files are now supported too (although disabled by default).
• MIDI Program Change messages can now select up to 128 voices across four consecutive banks if required.

And on top of this there is a huge effort going on to curate a library of known useful voices - watch this space!

Most of the changes are behind the scenes, but one that affects backwards compatibility relates to the numbering of SysEx files.

In order to make sure the number shown on the menu and the number in the filename are the same, yet still support the MIDI standard of 1-indexed numbering for people, but 0-indexed numbering for the protocol, SysEx file number 000000 is no longer supported.

This means that if you have existing SysEx files that have been numbered for you, they will need renumbering starting from 000001 if you want to keep them in the same order. Of course if you don't need them in the same order you can rename 000000 to any other free number between 1 and 16384.

The wiki has been updated, but the provided script to download and name SysEx files currently still starts from 0. It will need to change to start from 1, but there are other changes happening to that script atm, so watch this space on that one too...

But I just wanted to get the renumbering issue "out there" in case anyone updates MiniDexed and wonders why things have changed!

Kevin

[probonopd]

I think this slipped through when I merged the PR. Why don't we want MIDI voice 0 in file 0?

[diyelectromusic]

I know its not the same, but it will also accept single voices over MIDI from a SysEx tool like MidiOx, or even Dexed running on a PC... although there isn't a way to save them at the moment.

[miotislucifugis]

"(did you ever try using a file-based MP3 player before they started to recognise meta data? It was a nightmare!!)."

ha yes. i remember... also SD cards. Fatsort works pretty well for reordering them. just saying it would be cool do dump one of the massive libraries of patches on without curating them one by one...i think most people would just remember the number for the bank they liked, rather than wanting it to be saved as a specific number, if that makes sense.

[diyelectromusic]

It might be possible to have this as an option if it is something people would like I guess... It would be a relatively minor change, but I don't think both schemes should be active at once :)

The only issue I can see is that we now recommend using subdirectories if there are more than (say) 100 files otherwise they are very slow to load, so the ordering of directories would have to be taken into account too. And I think it traverses them "depth first" (trying to remember how I did it!?) so adding new directories could significantly reorder things!

Kevin

[miotislucifugis]

Should be easy to script this. Can you run Python or .sh scripts on your machine?

yeah sure... just thinking about general usability and how it works on other instruments. been playing with a headless M8 setup recently... Samples, instruments, songs, etc can all just be put on the card as-is and when you look at the contents of a file you see the files in whatever order they are in on the card, usually in order they were added. its not that big of a deal and one can reorder the card contents if they like. I realize that minidexed is a different thing and officially DIY, but I can see how being required to rename and organize the files might be a bit of cramp in the work flow.

[miotislucifugis]

It might be possible to have this as an option if it is something people would like I guess... It would be a relatively minor change, but I don't think both schemes should be active at once :)

The only issue I can see is that we now recommend using subdirectories if there are more than (say) 100 files otherwise they are very slow to load, so the ordering of directories would have to be taken into account too. And I think it traverses them "depth first" (trying to remember how I did it!?) so adding new directories could significantly reorder things!

Kevin

one thing at a time. I dont think it a serious issue.. just tossing it out there