Transmitting Banks During Playback; Real-Time Recording Of System Exclusive Messages; Sysx Echo - CAKEWALK PRO AUDIO User Manual

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Transmitting Banks during Playback

Pro Audio has a special meta-event, Sysx Bank, that lets you play a
System Exclusive bank at a speciÞed time in your song. You can use a
Sysx meta-event to send any of the 256 available Sysx banks at any time
in a sequence. To do this, you have to insert a new event in the Event
List using the Insert key on the PC keyboard. Next you have to double-
click Event Kind and change it to System Exclusive. In the Values
column, select the bank (0-255) that you want to send.
MIDI is a serial data transmission, meaning it can do only one thing at a
time. If you try to upload a huge sampler dump during a fast drum solo,
playback will noticeably lurch. MIDI must complete the System
Exclusive message before it can resume playback. The Sysx meta-event
is appropriate only for very short System Exclusive messages. The exact
length depends on various factors, such as the speed of your computer
but as a rule of thumb, 100 bytes is a likely maximum, and even that
may often be too large.
You donÕt need to use Sysx meta-events for sending System Exclusive
information at the beginning of your song. Instead, use the Auto option
for System Exclusive banks. Banks that are marked Auto are
transmitted automatically by Pro Audio when it loads the song Þle they
are stored in. Use the Sysx meta-event only when you need to change a
synthesizer setting during the middle of the song.
Real-time Recording of System
Exclusive Messages
You can record short System Exclusive messages in real time. These will
end up in the track as the new Sysx Data types of events, which can hold
System Exclusive messages up to 255 bytes long. To do so, choose
Options-Global, click the MIDI Filter tab, and check the System
Exclusive item. Change the desired input port if necessary (only one port
can be recorded from). The Buffers setting may be left at 128 unless the
data are not being recorded.

Sysx Echo

You can conÞgure Pro Audio to echo received System Exclusive messages
to output devices.