Conference napalm::commusic_v1

I am not familiar with it, but I suspect it is reasonable to
believe its claim of 8100 notes.  In MIDI a note requires exactly
two events, regardless of the length of the notes, so converting
events to notes is easy, and people relate to notes more easily
than to events.  On the other hand, the number of bytes to the
note is variable, so the 8100 can probably be achieved only if
you have nothing but notes, a single instrument, and no release
velocity.  This makes each event take 2 bytes, thus 4 bytes per
note, or 32,400 bytes.  I betcha the QX-7 actually has 32,768
bytes of memory.  If you are driving several instruments (you
said 2-3 synths) many events will need 3 bytes per event, or 6
per note, which gives you as little as 5461 notes.  That's still
a lot of notes, but perhaps not enough for 4-5 minutes of 5-6
tracks. 

I don't know of anything better for $250, or even $500.
    John Sauter

The QX-7 is available at Kurlan Music on West Mountain St., 
Worcester, MA. $249.00. I bought 1 last night.
Tell them I sent you. I want a discount on a drum machine!

BTW, the QX-7, according to the saleman, is scheduled to be replaced
by the "identical" QX-21, @ $299.00.

He said they have 5 left.

I'll try to repay all the help I've been giving by reporting back on
the unit in a couple weeks.

Edd

re: -1    > "all the help I've been giving..."

       should read "...all the help I've been GIVEN..."

At 6:00 a.m. the brain is not MIDI'd to the fingers...   Edd

Have we discovered an honest-to-god BARGAIN? Even at the exhorbitant price
I paid? It's worth the $50 +/- to me not to go to Boston. :^) Especially
to LaSalles'. "Kid in a Candy-shop" syndrome, ya know...

Edd

In my opinion the DX-21 does not really replace the DX-7.
It has fewer operators and its keyboard is not velocity
sensitive.  A TX-21 might be a keyboardless DX-21, which
would similarly not replace the TX-7.

Yamaha is starting to show the DX-5, which is two DX-7s
with a single keyboard and some additional controls.
A TX-5 wouldn't make any sense, since you can get two
TX-7s more easily.

The future will bring better stuff than the DX-7/TX-7:
more operators, more bits in the D/A, faster cycle times
in the D/A, more keys on the keyboard, etc, but Yamaha
isn't showing it yet.
    John Sauter

	Now that I have a QX7 again (8^), I have some questions to iron out and
a comment or two...

	1)  This is directed mainly at Edd, but anyone who knows may feel free
to answer...  Edd, you had spoken about using the extra buffer provided in the 
unit as an aid in the sequencing process.  I've looked around to see if you've
documented this feature and have found nothing.  Would you mind either 
expounding on this feature or pointing me to a note where it is detailed?

	2)  As I have looked over what some other sequencers offer you in terms
of control and such, I have found, happily, that the combination of my QX7 and
the Roland MSQ-100 offer a nice (albeit kludgy) alternative.  What one unit does
not do, the other does (to a limit).  By interfacing the two, I can display
tempo and see measure marker simultaneously.  I have effectively four tracks to
work from (once I learn the hidden secrets of the QX's quantize buffer).  I can
load songs down to the other sequencer and set them back up in order for a
particular set...  Again, it requires a deftness in human interface that I have
not yet achieved, but I think it may suit me well until the day I can buy an 
MC500 for $100 8^).
	BUT - there is one problem I've encountered that I've yet to figure out:
the MIDI clock interface.  I was fooling with them the other night and found
they didn't work as expected.  I plugged MIDI out of MSQ to MIDI in of QX and
vise versa.  I set MSQ clock to slave and QX clock to internal (master).  The
glitch was when I wanted to record into QX from a sequnece stored in the MSQ.
I assumed you would hit PLAY on the MSQ, but it would wait for a MIDI 'start'
command from the QX (since the QX was set at master).  Not so.  The MSQ just 
started playing along all by itself - yet being clocked by the QX tempo setting!
Does anyone have any insight as to why the MSQ didn't wait for a MIDI 'start'
command?

	I thought I had another question, but my minds a blank...  Oh well, I'll
wait and see what kind of replies come out of these questions.

	Brother Dan (Zooks, I've been labelled!)

>	1)  This is directed mainly at Edd, but anyone who knows may feel free
>to answer...  Edd, you had spoken about using the extra buffer provided in the 
>unit as an aid in the sequencing process.  I've looked around to see if you've
>documented this feature and have found nothing.  Would you mind either 
>expounding on this feature or pointing me to a note where it is detailed?

I often use it as a place to 'stash something away' that I don't need at the
moment. CAVEAT: The contents of track one are transferred to the TEMP buffer
during a quantization, erasing the contents of the temp. It's a great place 
to put something when you're step-time entering something.

Example: I have 94 measures completed. Piano, bass, horns, kazoo, and Irish
harp. Then I decide I want to add 4 bars to the end. I move the entire
94 measures to the temp-buffer and then, using tracks 1 and 2, assemble
the final 4, REMEMBERING NOT TO QUANTIZE!!! (I do lots of step time, so this
isn't to big a deal to me...). After tracking down all the parts to track 2
I move the temp to track 1 and then INSERT track 1 at the beginning of track
2. This works real nice for me because while I'm working on those last 4 bars
they are the only thing I have to deal with. There's no need to listen to or
fastforward over the first 94 measures...

You can't hear the temp buffer. It's only storage. You probably know that.

>	BUT - there is one problem I've encountered that I've yet to figure out:
>the MIDI clock interface.  I was fooling with them the other night and found
>they didn't work as expected.  I plugged MIDI out of MSQ to MIDI in of QX and
>vise versa.  I set MSQ clock to slave and QX clock to internal (master).  The
>glitch was when I wanted to record into QX from a sequnece stored in the MSQ.
>I assumed you would hit PLAY on the MSQ, but it would wait for a MIDI 'start'
>command from the QX (since the QX was set at master).  Not so.  The MSQ just 
>started playing along all by itself - yet being clocked by the QX tempo setting!
>Does anyone have any insight as to why the MSQ didn't wait for a MIDI 'start'
>command?

Hmmm, I think len et moi ran into this same thing with my QX and his MC-500.
Although, I forget the fix, the important thing to remember is that the clock
source doesn't have to be the same as the data source. You can store a sequence
in the QX, set it to slave, set the Roland to master and record the sequence
into the Roland. (Yamaha=data source, Roland=clock).

Yo' len? Do you remember what we did? Seems to me the Yamaha insisted on being
the master...

Edd

    re .11, .12 - Yamaha is famous for its "idiosyncratic" interpretations
    of the MIDI spec.  Yeah, as I recall, the Yamaha insisted on being
    the master, and wasn't willing to take clock from anybody else,
    even though the Rolands give really good clock.
    
    len.
    

RE: .12,.13

    Agreement - that is indeed the way the QX7 works.  Do we have quorum
    yet?

brad

	O.K., I spent some time with them last night...

	I was able to get it to work last night, with some strange twists.
I'm not sure what I did wrong before, but it may have had something to do with
having to shut the MSQ off, reset some dip-switches, turn it back on...  I
dunno.  Many times I lose track of what I've done and get confused.  But at
least it worked last night.

	One thing I noticed was that when the Yamaha WAS set to 'external clock'
that it refused to obey things I wanted to tell it.  F'rinstance, at one point I
tried to change the metronome to sound while recording.  When the QX is set to
slave, it refused to do any jobs (you know, A1, A2, ...).  I couldn't find my
manual, so I was unable to get any official word.

	One of the nifty things I was planning on doing was use the QX as my
base station, but use the MSQ for some of the functions it has that the QX
doesn't.  Example:  I had to record the piano part into a sequence temporarily
(I intend to play it live) so that I'd have something to build other parts on.
The QX will not erase channel data, the MSQ will.  So, after I build up all the
necessary parts, I transfer the data to the MSQ, erase the channel, and send it 
back (Kludgy, I know, but its what I've got for now...).  Well, there were some
glitches that occurred along the way - wierd things - like timing glitches,
added notes...  It didn't happen ALL the time, mind you, but even once is enough
to make you wonder if machines can be posessed.  In the final stretch, though,
somehow it worked its way out and though I don't remember DOING anything to fix
anything, by the end of the night I had a good finished product.  Maybe the
Roland and the Yamaha had some personality conflicts to iron out...

	The use of the temp. buffer is great!  I was able to make use of it
quite a bit last night, along with some other functions like 'chaining', etc.
It's sometimes hard to remember exactly *what* is in which buffer, but it
works.

	Now I know this has been said somewhere before...  But tell me again:
Isn't there *any* way to know how much memory is left?  (Please tell me there 
is, please, oh please...)

	Dan

    Something way back in the bowels of my brain tells me there is some
    sort of a warning at the 90-95% point. Honestly, I don't remember
    ever actually seeing the warning...
    
    It might be a figmation of my imagament.
    
    Edd