I'm thinking of adding a midi controller to my SFP setup and I've stumbled onto Bitstream 3X. I've seen some sporadic references to it in this forum, but does anyone have any hands-on experiences using it together with SFP?
Other strong candidates are Behringer BCR/BCF2000 and M-Audio Keystation Pro 88, but the 3X looks more interesting because of its different mix of controllers combined with size.
Bitstream 3x and SFP?
I have a BCF. I only bought it because when I first saw the bitstream 3x info the few initial sales were over and availability was in limbo when CME picked up the bitstream for distribution. It took 8-9 months to finally start showing up on carts and I couldn't wait that long.
I'm interested in it still, it's one of the devices I wanted to use before I head down the path of a midibox so that I could learn what they've implemented.
I'm interested in it still, it's one of the devices I wanted to use before I head down the path of a midibox so that I could learn what they've implemented.
I cannot speak enough about the KS-88 and it's ability to tackle Scope / Gigastudio.
I am learning to use Sonar right now, and I don't even think in terms of desktop / console layouts anymore. As a keyboardist this is my console, and it's difficult to even think of another peice of gear taking up space. If you stand and play, well you soon will stand and record. No more wheeled chairs being pushed across the room, or having to sit in front of a console or LCD.
www.spacef-devices.com
If you own Black Box II you can take Mehdi's devices and use on a fader as a group fader, or multiple drawbar movements on CW's B2003, just to name a couple. And live it's a dream come true. The bottom most row of buttons can toggle, or be used to change presets on my hardware effects, and hardware analog synths as well, not to mention any synth or effect, or mixer.
They are so cheap and well built, and no cheezy wall warts either. USB ports light the LCD and power the unit. To top it off, the port can be disabled in the device manager for more efficient IRQ settings, but still power the unit as well.
The action is also weighted, and can be set to come semi close to an acoustic piano w/ thunkiness.
The Behringer is a nice peice of kit also, but if you are a synth player, get off your ass and jam !!
I am learning to use Sonar right now, and I don't even think in terms of desktop / console layouts anymore. As a keyboardist this is my console, and it's difficult to even think of another peice of gear taking up space. If you stand and play, well you soon will stand and record. No more wheeled chairs being pushed across the room, or having to sit in front of a console or LCD.
www.spacef-devices.com
If you own Black Box II you can take Mehdi's devices and use on a fader as a group fader, or multiple drawbar movements on CW's B2003, just to name a couple. And live it's a dream come true. The bottom most row of buttons can toggle, or be used to change presets on my hardware effects, and hardware analog synths as well, not to mention any synth or effect, or mixer.
They are so cheap and well built, and no cheezy wall warts either. USB ports light the LCD and power the unit. To top it off, the port can be disabled in the device manager for more efficient IRQ settings, but still power the unit as well.
The action is also weighted, and can be set to come semi close to an acoustic piano w/ thunkiness.
The Behringer is a nice peice of kit also, but if you are a synth player, get off your ass and jam !!
Hi Devo!
I'm using a bitstream 3x as a MIDI controller for about a year now... It's been getting better on each hardware revision, and now it's quite workable, with Mackie mode and Reason remote implemented...
For Scope, you'd use it as a standard MIDI controller, and it's quite complete, with 32 knobs, 8 faders and buttons, and the one I have also has an Infrared sensor and a joystick... All CCs are transmited via MIDI or USB, and work perfectly with scope (i route it though the sequencer to get MIDI into scope- but MIDI yoke also does it).
You can configure the CC mapping in various ways, from a totally custom organization (to fit your synth mapping, for eg.) to preset mappings, with or without minor tweaks. There's a configuration software to help with this, and a large-ish blue LCD for directions. Presets can be stored in the internal memory, and you can change presets, MIDI channels and recollect whole scenes instantly. There's also a "hook mode", which attempts to emulate automation, by holding CC transmission until the knob reaches the position of the current parameter value, preventing jumps, even though it works from its own recollection of the transmitted CCs - it doesn't "read" the parameter values from the controlled device.
Phisically, it's a bit on the small side with A LOT of knobs, which can be a problem with large hands. In my unit, the joystick controller spits out some unwanted ccs every now and then, but that's easily filtered out, and I suppose it would only take some cleaning to get it perfect again. The chassis is heavily built and strong, even though I feel the knobs and faders are a bit on the cheap side (not the worst I've seen, though). It also has some analog SYNC-ing capabilities, that I do not use...
The automation features are a mixed bag: you get an arpeggiator, an LFO, and a motion sampler. They are all good fun, but take a while to learn, and there are some quirks: for example, the LFO has to be previously assigned to ONE CC only, no re-assigning on-the-fly to modulate different parameters...
All in all, the bitstream 3x is quite comprehensive. It can be quite straightforward, but also very deep. I wish it had more push-buttons, and I wish it had LCD strips, because it gets a bit confusing to know what to touch amongst all those knobs... And I wish the software and manuals were simpler (you still have to enter values in hex!!?). Online support has been superb, and the price has dropped quite a bit, too (I paid almost €600 for mine)...
Best would be to get your hands on one before buying, to see how it feels. The Novation ReMote Zero has lesser knobs and a different build quality, but it's got those LCDs... Mackie's C4 has them too, but in a different price range... For all my mixing, I'm using a Radikal SAC2K, which is superb, and the Bitstream is just for the synth and fx plug-ins.
Hope this has been helpful!
Much peace,
T
I'm using a bitstream 3x as a MIDI controller for about a year now... It's been getting better on each hardware revision, and now it's quite workable, with Mackie mode and Reason remote implemented...
For Scope, you'd use it as a standard MIDI controller, and it's quite complete, with 32 knobs, 8 faders and buttons, and the one I have also has an Infrared sensor and a joystick... All CCs are transmited via MIDI or USB, and work perfectly with scope (i route it though the sequencer to get MIDI into scope- but MIDI yoke also does it).
You can configure the CC mapping in various ways, from a totally custom organization (to fit your synth mapping, for eg.) to preset mappings, with or without minor tweaks. There's a configuration software to help with this, and a large-ish blue LCD for directions. Presets can be stored in the internal memory, and you can change presets, MIDI channels and recollect whole scenes instantly. There's also a "hook mode", which attempts to emulate automation, by holding CC transmission until the knob reaches the position of the current parameter value, preventing jumps, even though it works from its own recollection of the transmitted CCs - it doesn't "read" the parameter values from the controlled device.
Phisically, it's a bit on the small side with A LOT of knobs, which can be a problem with large hands. In my unit, the joystick controller spits out some unwanted ccs every now and then, but that's easily filtered out, and I suppose it would only take some cleaning to get it perfect again. The chassis is heavily built and strong, even though I feel the knobs and faders are a bit on the cheap side (not the worst I've seen, though). It also has some analog SYNC-ing capabilities, that I do not use...
The automation features are a mixed bag: you get an arpeggiator, an LFO, and a motion sampler. They are all good fun, but take a while to learn, and there are some quirks: for example, the LFO has to be previously assigned to ONE CC only, no re-assigning on-the-fly to modulate different parameters...
All in all, the bitstream 3x is quite comprehensive. It can be quite straightforward, but also very deep. I wish it had more push-buttons, and I wish it had LCD strips, because it gets a bit confusing to know what to touch amongst all those knobs... And I wish the software and manuals were simpler (you still have to enter values in hex!!?). Online support has been superb, and the price has dropped quite a bit, too (I paid almost €600 for mine)...
Best would be to get your hands on one before buying, to see how it feels. The Novation ReMote Zero has lesser knobs and a different build quality, but it's got those LCDs... Mackie's C4 has them too, but in a different price range... For all my mixing, I'm using a Radikal SAC2K, which is superb, and the Bitstream is just for the synth and fx plug-ins.
Hope this has been helpful!
Much peace,
T
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helldriver
- Posts: 273
- Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2001 4:00 pm
It says it can handle sysex data, does it mean i can contol my oberheim matrix which reads sysex only)
Tau do you have any glue?
thx
Tau do you have any glue?
thx
Last edited by helldriver on Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Hello helldriver!
I've never had to use it, but, according to the manual, the unit can be programmed to generate all sorts of messages in "User mode", including sysex. Even better, it comes with a preset for the Oberheim Matrix 6/1000, so maybe that's exactly what you need.
I've copied two sections from the manual describing the capabilities of the unit re SysEx. The first one is about "MIDI Strings" that can be assigned to the controllers of the bs3x, and the second is about the ability to send a checksum message (not sure if it matters).
Hope this helps!
All the best,
T
"MIDI String
The MIDI string describes the MIDI event the Bitstream 3X will generate.
This string can be programmed by the user when using the Bitstream 3X “User defined mode”, only via the dedicated configuration software.
It can be up to 21 bytes long, each control of the Bitstream 3X disposes of its own MIDI string, for each of the 21 groups of the Bitstream 3X. This string is always defined using the hexadecimal format, as described in the MIDI specification.
Note: If you are not familiar with the MIDI events and their hexadecimal representation, the configuration software provides some predefined templates, which will help you to fulfil the MIDI string with all the standard MIDI events.
Example of MIDI string : Sysex
According to the MIDI specification, a sysex always starts with F0 and ends with F7.
Example : F0 10 20 30 40 50 00 00 F7
If the above MIDI string is assigned to a control of the Bitstream 3X, then each time the user tweaks this control, the Bitstream 3X will generate this sysex MIDI event and send it to the different MIDI and USB outputs."
"Checksum Management for exclusive systems
The Bitstream 3X is capable of generating exclusive systems (SYSEXs) in user mode. Certain synths or software capable of receiving sysexs require the reception of an integrated checksum in the sysex, in order to proceed to an eventual error correction. A checksum is an integrated number in the end of a sysex, just before the end marker sysex F7h. This number is calculated by a known algorithm, defined by a standard. This calculation is the sum of the
octets preceding the checksum, modulo 128.
From the controlling synth, the position of the first byte which needs to be taken into account for the calculation of the checksum (called « checksum first byte position ») can vary, so that this first octet is configurable on the Bitstream 3X, in order to make it compatible with all the synths in the market.
If the value of this parameter is 0, the Bitstream 3X will not integrate the checksum in the generated sysex, if the value is different than 0, it will correspond with the position of the first byte in the MIDI chain to be taken into account for the checksum.
Example: The sysex to assign is: F0 00 20 4F 10 20 30 CS F7 where CS = checksum
If the calculation of the checksum only takes into account the octets 10 20 30 the value « checksum first byte position » should be 05 (as the first octet to take into account is the position 5, the beginning of the sysex F0 being at position 1)"
I've never had to use it, but, according to the manual, the unit can be programmed to generate all sorts of messages in "User mode", including sysex. Even better, it comes with a preset for the Oberheim Matrix 6/1000, so maybe that's exactly what you need.
I've copied two sections from the manual describing the capabilities of the unit re SysEx. The first one is about "MIDI Strings" that can be assigned to the controllers of the bs3x, and the second is about the ability to send a checksum message (not sure if it matters).
Hope this helps!
All the best,
T
"MIDI String
The MIDI string describes the MIDI event the Bitstream 3X will generate.
This string can be programmed by the user when using the Bitstream 3X “User defined mode”, only via the dedicated configuration software.
It can be up to 21 bytes long, each control of the Bitstream 3X disposes of its own MIDI string, for each of the 21 groups of the Bitstream 3X. This string is always defined using the hexadecimal format, as described in the MIDI specification.
Note: If you are not familiar with the MIDI events and their hexadecimal representation, the configuration software provides some predefined templates, which will help you to fulfil the MIDI string with all the standard MIDI events.
Example of MIDI string : Sysex
According to the MIDI specification, a sysex always starts with F0 and ends with F7.
Example : F0 10 20 30 40 50 00 00 F7
If the above MIDI string is assigned to a control of the Bitstream 3X, then each time the user tweaks this control, the Bitstream 3X will generate this sysex MIDI event and send it to the different MIDI and USB outputs."
"Checksum Management for exclusive systems
The Bitstream 3X is capable of generating exclusive systems (SYSEXs) in user mode. Certain synths or software capable of receiving sysexs require the reception of an integrated checksum in the sysex, in order to proceed to an eventual error correction. A checksum is an integrated number in the end of a sysex, just before the end marker sysex F7h. This number is calculated by a known algorithm, defined by a standard. This calculation is the sum of the
octets preceding the checksum, modulo 128.
From the controlling synth, the position of the first byte which needs to be taken into account for the calculation of the checksum (called « checksum first byte position ») can vary, so that this first octet is configurable on the Bitstream 3X, in order to make it compatible with all the synths in the market.
If the value of this parameter is 0, the Bitstream 3X will not integrate the checksum in the generated sysex, if the value is different than 0, it will correspond with the position of the first byte in the MIDI chain to be taken into account for the checksum.
Example: The sysex to assign is: F0 00 20 4F 10 20 30 CS F7 where CS = checksum
If the calculation of the checksum only takes into account the octets 10 20 30 the value « checksum first byte position » should be 05 (as the first octet to take into account is the position 5, the beginning of the sysex F0 being at position 1)"
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helldriver
- Posts: 273
- Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2001 4:00 pm
You get presets for the Microwave II and Microwave XT, as well as other waldorf synths (D-pole, X-pole...)
I was trying to find a full list of presets to put up here, but, as it says on the waveidea website: "Keep in mind that the configuration software in itself gives you more than 13000 presets from the most used synths and software !", so it would just take tooo much time.
The Bitstream is extremely configurable, and it's very much a programmers tool. You can see it's been designed to work with older equipment (even analog) as well as modern softsynths / sequencers, so, even if it takes a little digging, I'm sure you can control anything from here...
Much peace,
T
I was trying to find a full list of presets to put up here, but, as it says on the waveidea website: "Keep in mind that the configuration software in itself gives you more than 13000 presets from the most used synths and software !", so it would just take tooo much time.
The Bitstream is extremely configurable, and it's very much a programmers tool. You can see it's been designed to work with older equipment (even analog) as well as modern softsynths / sequencers, so, even if it takes a little digging, I'm sure you can control anything from here...
Much peace,
T