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MIDI Designer
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LAYOUT: Editor for Yamaha Reface DX - MIDI Designer Q&A

Rating: PlatinumLAYOUT: Editor for Yamaha Reface DX
by
helfried

+3 votes
Rating: Platinum
Platinum
asked Sep 22, 2015 in Community Shares by helfried (260 points)
edited Aug 2, 2016 by MIDI Designer Team (Dan)
Really cool, man. I don't have a Reface, but that doesn't matter. Credit where credit is due.
thank you very much !
Amazing, thank you!!! Also be aware of these other layouts for the same MIDI target:

http://mididesigner.com/qa/search?q=reface
some of your hacks are extremely creative on the design side. Hopefully we'll be able to give you better, more straightforward solutions in the near future!
Thanks for posting the warning, we're working together on figuring out what's up with this. Thanks!
Dan
Hey there, we were uploading some screenshots but got cut off by our own upload limits... we'll be resuming this soon. Crazy use of bank switching in this layout. Definitely out-of-the-box thinking, brilliant!

2 Answers

+1 vote
Congratulation! That looks pretty awesome! I love the way you used (mis-used) characters in labels for graphic purposes, especially on the "scale" page - very creative!

The algorithm section looks a bit weird, but I think it is understandable, just needs a bit of practice. Anyway I think you made the most out of it and it is a very space-saving way. In my layout I made 12 large buttons (with underlaying multi-line labels for the graphical representation), but that requires a whole half-page alone. Similar to how I did it in my DX21 layout.

The LFO wave selector is great, makes it easy and visible.

Just be careful with that "midi ctrl" button: once you switched it OFF, Reface won´t respond to any MIDI control any more, means you can´t switch it back to ON from the iPad, am I right?

What I love most is the "request all" button: how did you do that? It´s fantastic to bring over the currently selected sound from Reface to the app and then further work on the sound from there. I know that there must be such kind of message, because the app (and the Soundmondo website soon) do it the same way, I just could´t find it in the documentation.
answered Sep 22, 2015 by ibo-kai (2,600 points)
By the way I am away from home the rest of the week, will post my full editor (hopefully) early next week.
Oh, and I just stumbled across the voice naming function. Now this is great, how you made that look and work. In my layouts this is still a bunch of rotary knobs... ;-)
thank you for the compliments !

btw. i just fixed a bug with the midi ctlr, spkr etc.. buttons, they shared some subcontrols - its working now.

I'm not quite happy with the algorithms section at the moment, maybe i'll find a better way soon,

the voice naming is easy, just little knobs with named ticks - and black panels above to hide the rest of the knob ;-)

The midi-ctlr parameter doesn't affect sysex, just controllers - so no problem.

Request ist a lot of subcontrol-buttons (hidden) - one for every parameter - that send sysex parameter requests to the DX. Every control has "MIDI receive" turned on - so it reacts to the incoming midi from DX. In fact really easy - but a lot of typing...

I found another strange problem with the reface: if the global parameter "transpose" is set to something other than zero - the DX will store it and the next time you turn it on it will be transposed ! Unfortunateley this parameter is only available via midi - so you can't set it back to normal pitch if you don't have an ipad available ! (edit: i had this problem - but now i cannot reproduce it - maybe it was stored by accident and is not supposed to be stored ?)

Similar with master tune - but this is not stored after turning off.
I hope a further firmware-update will fix all this stupid stuff - and will implement controls for these parameters in the function menu of the reface - that would really make sense.
I found the "request" buttons in Design mode, this really looks like a lot of work. But the idea is great and the result is so helpful, that I consider this for some of my layouts, depending on whether it works on each synth. And it won´t be possible for my TG77 layout, just because that´s far too many parameters... because it doubles the amount of controls...
The master transpose behavior looks a bit odd in fact, but obviously it is on purpose: Yamaha consider transpose change as something, which might be permanently valid, while master tune is needed only for a single occasion. I am not sure if this is true, I would also expect master transpose to reset after a restart. On the other hand the solution is simple: just keep in mind that when you change it, change it back before you switch off the synth or have the iPad at hand again next time ;-)
This request-method only works for synths, that have the ability to send a single parameter sysex-dump by request. I know a lot of devices that can only send dumps of full patches - in this case there is no chance to request and send anything to MD.
As i said, i could not reproduce the strange master tune behaviour - i had it just one time - i switched the DX on and it was transposed, even on and off switching didn't help, i had to send a new transpose value of 0 to bring it back to standard pitch.
The transpose was stored, but all the next times i tried to force this effect - the DX switched on with with normal tune and forgot the transpose.

I managed to get a higher resolution for the master tune slider - i used the method described here in Q&A with the "named ticks list" for 2 byte nibbled data. I removed all 1st byte values higher than 1024 from the list, used 2 byte V in sysex, set default to 512 - and it worked.

Yamaha uses 4 (4bit only) bytes for for encoding the master tune - that's only two in my layout. But the 1st bytes seems to be always 0, and the 4th is not necessary IMHO - resolution is really fine enough.
I finally managed to upload my editor: http://mididesigner.com/qa/4363/layout-another-editor-for-yamaha-reface-dx
From the graphical layout it is much simpler than yours. By the way, how did you make that envelope graphics on your EG page? I always dreamed about an option to drag envelope points in a graphical representation in MD, this is at least something.
Oh, and that copy/paste idea is great, I have to check out your latest version!
hey - perfect visualisation of algorithms !  - although a bit space consuming.  i wish MD had the ability to use graphics for named ticks or to switch between graphics.
maybe in the future?
Your design looks very well organized and easy to handle, mine is not so good for people with big hands ... I tried to put all in 6 pages.

all the envelope graphics are labels with some "/" "-" and more (oops, can't find the character on my apple keyboard).., just a simple fake envelope ;-)
There is no chance at the moment to display real envelopes on MD.

a next version is coming (tomorrow?) with better patch name input method, help text, and some more improvements.
0 votes
I dont'  find algorithmus section and I misses pictures of those.

Suggestion for new update: Random function !

So it's possible to create a new sound without parameter select.
answered Nov 4, 2015 by flyer44 (140 points)
there is no dedicated algorithms section with pictures etc. in my layout for now - my comment above regarding visualisation of algorithms was related to ibo-kai's layout.

the algorithms can be edited with the controls on the first page,there is a simple ASCII-visualisation for the 4-page design.

maybe I will add an algorithm-select-page in one of my next updates - similiar to ibo-kay's layout.

In fact i already had the idea for a randomize-button, but at the moment i still have no idea how to do this in MD.

the next version will be ready soon - it will include a new feature i personally find very useful while patch-programming - some simple envelope templates (piano, gate, pad).
edit: now (v.0.9.9.c) there is a dedicated graphical algorithms page (see screenshot) :-)
0.9.9b - i added a new page with buttons for "randomizing" groups of parameters individual or all at once. The randomizing process is not perfect, because MD has no module (at the moment) to create random values - but i found a way with some chaotic operations that gives a random feeling :-)

Longer presses on the buttons at the randomizer-page are sending more random values to the DX than shorter presses.
To reflect the new sounds in the editor it is necessary to press "req all".
There are also some nice R2D2-FXs while playing notes during the randomization-process ;-)
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