For Fun - The Andromeda Light Easter Egg; For Fun - The History Of The A6 Name - Alesis Andromeda A6 Tips And Tricks Manual

7 | oo G1 F8 F7 F6 F5 F4 F3
8 | oo G8 G7 G6 G5 G4 G3 G2
See, obnoxious but necessary. Of course you have to reverse the process at the receiving end to
see the proper data. Not all Alesis MIDI products change the bits in exactly this way, others use a
different bit order but the reasoning is the same. If you want to get at other data in the Bank (not
recommended! Very highly not!) keep in mind that the A6 uses a Motorola processor which is "Big
Endian". The bits in a 16-bit word are ordered this way: 16..9,8..1; same as a Macintosh. Intel
(therefore PCs) are "Little Endian" meaning the bits are ordered: 8..1,16..9. You'll have to swap the
bytes in 16 and 32 bit numbers to read them in a meaningful way on PCs.
I know I'm breaking the convention of starting the count of bytes or bits at one rather than zero. The
first item is the 1st, not the zero-th!! I use a zero based count when indexing; the first is the
beginning plus 0, the second is the beginning plus 1, the third is the beginning plus 2, etc. Using a
zero based count to talk about the data seems like we're bringing our music to the computer rather
than bringing the computer to the music. Let the computer adapt to us, not vice versa. [soap box
cracking]
So, a 2048 byte Program Bank Member becomes 2350 bytes for transmission with 8/7 encoding,
sysex start and stop bytes, manufacturer and product id's, and command opcodes. Or 2349 bytes if
retrieved from an edit buffer.
22.34 for fun – the andromeda light easter egg!
Chad wrote:
About the "Xmas lights" sequence: When you hold down soft button 2 when powering up the A6,
and then hit soft button 1 (LED diagnostics), all the lights turn on. Cool.
22.35 for fun – the history of the a6 name:
David Bryce wrote:
Why is it called A6 Andromeda?
Now there's a story...settle in - it's a long one...
I came up with the name Andromeda.
All Alesis gear is assigned a two character factory code at the start of its life. A DM Pro is a D6, a
BRC is BR, Microverb IV is M4 - you get the idea...Andromeda's original name was A6. That has to
do with the fact that Alesis codes keyboards in the following manner:
Q= QS synth,
6 = 61 keys
so, Q6 is a QS6, Q7 is a QS7, etc.
A = analog
6 = 61 keys
is how it got it's A6 designation.
As the marketing manager for the synth division at the time, I thought that the instrument had too
much personality to be called by a letter and a number, and I always disliked A6 anyway - first of all,
an A6 is an Audi. Second of all, in analog synth speak, A6 infers 6 voices, not 16.
As to how I came up with it, I spent forever trying to come up with a suitable name - literally two
years. The first one I came up back in 1997 was Velociraptor, because it was a dinosaur, but a
nasty and powerful one. No one really liked that...
Then, I wanted Monolith (think of the 2001-type ads...). Some folks liked it, but it turns out that it's
already trademarked. So the search went on. I would spend some of my time driving home at night
trying to come up with a name. I knew I wanted a spacey sort of greek god/constellation type name.
I also got off on the tangent that it should start with an A – Alesis, Analog, ASICS - it just seemed to
demand an A name. Then, I saw Andromeda Strain on DVD. Bingo. Greek mythology, female,
celestial body, and deadly disease. Yesssssssss. I was sold.
Now, if only everyone else had been that easy. ;-/