Live Program Changes

Question

Hi there all,
im trying to build a live audio machine using my drum kit to trigger everything. does anyone know of a way of using a MIDI note on messages to triger a program change?
ideally, what id like is to have a note, that each time you trigger, it moves the program for that channel up by one.
if this isnt possible, can anyone suggest another way of controlling program changes without having to go into the event list...etc...? ideally some kind of human interface.
thanks,

Answer 1

Ok - if you're fairly green to the environment (pun intended! this is tricky, and caused me a little bit of head scratching. I'll document what I did, but remember my requirements for this may be different from yours.
What I wanted to be able to do was program and bank change from notes on my keyboard when playing my XV5080 sound module, instead of having to reach over to the module and keep incrementing sounds. I wanted to bank change as well as the 5080 can have 40 or more banks of 128 patches.
So, the way I have routed this is that it only works when my 5080 is selected on a track. If you want yours to be active at all times and for all instruments, you'll need to take a feed from the physical input object instead.
This is what mine looks like:
The "Select" transformer objects home in on the notes you want to use for the program and bank change inc/dec. The two faders are the key objects, as they hold the current bank change and program change number.
The inc/dec buttons to the left of them send meta events to the faders in increment/decrement and handle wrapping around (ie if you are at 127 and you increment, the fader resets to 0).
I had to route the output and do some stuff to preserve the custom bank changes my 5080 needs, but your needs will be simpler.
Like I say, this isn't a trivial thing to do if you aren't that familiar with the environment. You need to use transformers to remove the notes you want from the MIDI stream (so the notes you are using for the program changes don't play notes themselves) and convert them into events that trigger increments and decrements of the program change fader, and then use that to output the program changes to where you want them to go.
Give it a go, it's probably a good learning experience, and if you get stuck, bump this thread....