I am using a set of Roland PK-5 midi bass pedals connected to a Peavey Spectrum Bass module. The Peavey manual says that to increase release time (sustain) I should use (send it ? )MIDI number 72. How do I use the PK-5 pedals to send it a 72 and after I do how do I control the amount of the sustain?

Thanks

Tom

Methinks what you want to do is send a data value (on the appropriate midi channel) associated with controller no 72. This controller number is Release Time in Yamaha XG so this seems reasonable.

You need to send a controller message from the PK5. This is three hex bytes long.

Sorry to get techie here but:

The values to need to send (ALL IN HEX, sorry, will translate later) are these:

Bn 48 xx

n is the midi channel (0-F in hex for channels 0-15 which really mean 1-16). The B means "Control Message".

48 hex (=72 decimal) is "I want to modify controller number 72"

xx is the data value which will be a value from 00 to 7F. Yamaha uses values > 40 (hex) to increase the release time and values <40 to decrease it. So you could start at 50 and adjust to taste!

So, for Midi channel 1 and a data value of 50 hex (80 in decimal) the three bytes are:

B0 48 80 (decimal 176 72 80)

For Midi Channel 16 and a data value of 59 hex (95 in decimal) you need

BF 40 59 (decimal 191 72 95)

So hopefully that covers the sort of data you need to send.....

But I've got no idea how you program the PK5!

John,

Thank you for the help. I teach computer programming at the local college in our town so I do know Hex. In fact I teach a lesson on decimal to binary to hex conversions.

I think I know how to send those numbers from the pk-5 so I'll give it a try. Thank you for the explanition of what the numbers are supposed to mean.

Tom

I'll try Octal next time then!