ENSONIQ EPS-16 PLUS, Musician'S Manual

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EPS-16 PLUS Musician's Manual Section 11 — Storage Functions
MIDI System Exclusive Recorder
What is System Exclusives Data?
Some MIDI information — such as key events, controllers, program changes, etc.
— is understood by virtually all MIDI devices, regardless of manufacturer. The
common ability to send and receive these messages is what allows you to play
any MIDI synth from any other, to change programs and volume remotely, to
start and stop sequencers and drum machines together, and the many other
performance miracles we have come to expect from MIDI.
There are other messages which each manufacturer has reserved for
communicating specific information with a specific machine (or family of
machines). These machine-specific messages are called System Exclusive (or
Sys-Ex) messages, since they are meant to be recognized only by a particular
device and ignored by all others (i.e. they are exclusive to a particular system).
System Exclusive Storage
It is not strictly necessary, however, for the receiving system to understand the
data it receives, if the purpose is to store it for later reloading into the original
system (just as it's not necessary for a file cabinet to understand the pieces of
paper you file there). The EPS-16 PLUS can receive any MIDI System
Exclusive message up to 288K and save it to disk without having the slightest
notion what it means or what type of device it came from. When you want to
send the data back to the original device, you just load the data from disk back
into the EPS-16 PLUS, which will then re-transmit the message exactly as it was
received.
Here are a few examples of the kinds of information which you can use the
EPS-16 PLUS to store in this way:
• The program (patch) memory of virtually any MIDI synthesizer.
• The pattern memory a drum machine.
• The sequence memory of a MIDI sequencer.
• The preset memory of any MIDI reverb or other effects device which can send
and receive it.
In short, any MIDI data (within memory limits) which can be transmitted from
one device to another can be received and stored by the EPS-16 PLUS. With the
EPS-16 PLUS at the heart of your system you now have disk storage for the data
in all your MIDI instruments.
Saving Sys-Ex Data Uses the Internal Memory
The EPS-16 PLUS uses the RAM (Random Access Memory) that is normally
devoted to instruments, banks, and the sequencer to "buffer" incoming System
Exclusive messages before saving them to disk. A buffer is an area of memory.
where data is held temporarily. When the EPS-16 PLUS receives a System
Exclusive data dump, it stores it in the internal memory until you save the data to
disk.
Important: You must save all instrument, bank, and sequencer memory before using the
System Exclusive Recorder function to receive data.
MIDI Sys-Ex 11 - 15