Simple Sysexxer receiving data
During the last days and weeks, I missed some minor features in Simple Sysexxer, so guess what I was doing…
The current SVN hosts some minor new features. When loading or receiving data, the annoying dialog to confirm data loss now offers to remember the confirmation. This is not done persistently, but on a per-session basis:
Simple Sysexxer - confirm data loss
When loading a file, the data can now be sent automatically to the device:
Simple Sysexxer - autosend option
The option to request data from a device is now back in all its glory – including some ugly icon :) :
The current code offers to split the loaded data into single SysEx files. This feature mainly is useful for single program banks of the Access Virus C synthesizer. The file names will be built according to the sound’s name, while special characters (like forward slashes, ooops) will be filtered out.
The split files will be altered, so sending them back to the device will load the files into the current edit buffer instead of writing them back to the original destination:
Simple Sysexxer - split file
The code which does the splitting is quite ugly (heck, I just needed the task to be done!). As I deny to do the necessary refactoring, it will be removed before the next release. Use it at your own risk and responsibility. If you brick your Virus, accuse yourself. If you still cannot resist, check out revision 28 from the subversion repository.
Just in case that you wonder what this is all about, here’s the use case. There are tons of soundbanks for the Virus spread all over the web. You can of course load them into the Virus completely, overwriting your RAM banks. But there’s no tool for Linux to audition individual sounds. Thus the splitting option:
- Load the sound bank (either in syx or smf format) in Simple Sysexxer.
- Save the individual sounds into an empty directory.
- Connect the MIDI output of Simple Sysexxer to your MIDI device using aconnect, qjackcontrol or patchage.
- Enable the autosend option.
- Drag and drop individual sound files onto Simple Sysexxer.
- Play the sound.
- Keep or drop the file, using your file manager.
What I really miss for Linux is a universal synth editor and librarian (JSynthLib seems to be rather dead). And yes, I deny to master such a tool as OSS in my spare time :) .
