Can you add an option to send multiple MIDI events from one control?

Question

The background is the following: For initialization of a patch, MIDI provides (if implemented) the option to request parameters from a synth. However, in order to properly initialize a patch, it would be necessary to request all parameters and initialize the corresponding controls in MD. Currently, this would require to duplicate all controls in a patch, i.e. add for each control a sibling that serves to request its value. 

My suggestion is, to add a new type of control that can sequentially send multiple MIDI/SysEx events. Like this, a single control could be programmed to sequentially send all parameter request commands for a patch, which would in repsonse initiallize all controls of the given panel.

More info in this discussion: http://mididesigner.com/qa/4128/layout-yamaha-tg77-voice-editor?show=5004#c5004

Thanks, Florian

Comments

Thanks. So: In this specific situation (meaning for the TG77), what's the correspondence between the requesting controls and the actual controls (that receive and send to the parameter, if I understand correctly)?

---

I cannot give a definitive answer, since I'm not the creator of this layout, but from my understanding, there needs to be no correspondence between the two at all. One control would send the parameter request to the synth. The synth in return will then send a single event for the requested parameter. MD receives this event, and IF there is a control associated with it, this will update its value. The latter part already works: When I modify any parameter on my SY77, the new value is correctly received and interpreted in MD. I could also create a control that sends a single parameter request to the synth. But since this specific layout has a huge number of controls, it would be a lot of work, and likely also a heavy performance impact to add a single parameter request control for EACH control of the layout.

---

Yes. Allowing for multiple MIDI messages per control -- rather than using supercontrols and subcontrols for this -- would be good, both for sending and for receiving. Some thought needs to be put into the design-time UI for all of this, and that's one of the main conceptual issues. Does each MIDI message get a max and min? A default value? Or does that go with the control itself?