Controlling Micron with another MIDI controller

[mellotron]

i'm considering getting an emu xboard 49 to use with my alesis micron. i've found that having only one knob to navigate the tiny lcd screen is kind of tedious, especially since i'm trying to learn how to make my own programmed sounds from scratch. and it takes a lot of time for me to scroll to each parameter and figure out what it actually does or how the heck signal flow affects the sound. i've pretty much resorted to random twiddling.

my question is: if I connect the xboard and patch all of the parameters, does this mean that i'll be able to just tweak a knob here, move a slider there on the xboard, then just navigate to the save screen and save my program?

i've also recently bought "microzune," which basically allows me to control the micron through a vst and host. clicking and dragging on the parameters is actually more efficient for me to experiment. But I really think that ideally I'd be able to just have a lot of knobs and be able to edit without endless scrolling.

 

[altitude909]

it really depends on the sysex implementation of the micron and what you other controller is capable. If the Micron will accept continuous controllers (CC's) to control parameters then it definitely will work but I would expect that almost everything will require sysex controls which are a little more complicated. What you need to find out is what the sysex functionality is of the Emu, if any. Beyond that, you need to look at what the midi implementation is of the micron itself. The easy way to do this is to loop the midi out of your midi interface back to into itself and see exactly what code your software is sending out with something like midiOX. When you adjust something in the software it will spit out a string like this: F0 42 30 03 41 0F 00 F7. What you are interested in is what is between the F0 and F7 which identify the string as sysex. What has to happen is ONLY one number can change for each control (i.e. 00 in my example), if this is the case and your controller is adequate it will work, you can just copy each sysex string into the controllers software programmer and set the variable bit (i.e. 42 30 03 41 0F DV, where DV is the bit that changes). If not, then you wont be able to do with out something more advanced like a Behringer BCR/BCF which allows for much more complex sysex commands