It's been fifteen years solid since I've even seen an Opcode Studio unit and the Studio 3 is micro next to a Studio 128 but it's plenty mondo for the current requirements here at the Rockhouse.
Note: if you do not have a hard-core geek crash helmet, this might be a time to bailout.
Smoke testing took a while to get started because there can't be smoke without a power cord. The power supply is internal so only a standard power cable was needed but, to no surprise, it was difficult to find one. I'm not concerned about the power supply. When it's still working after fifteen years, there's little reason to worry now.
There are two MIDI-in and six MIDI-out ports. If maybe you think of this as a milk bar, one MIDI-in supplies water and the other one supplies milk. Any of the six MIDI-out ports will get water or milk depending on how you configure the individual MIDI devices.
Initial smoke test was to apply power and that passed so the next was to connect one MIDI cable. When the cable is plugged only to the Studio 3, nothing happens. When the other end is connected to a live MIDI device, the Studio 3 detects it and lights three of the output MIDI ports. That indicates live intelligence because there's no power pin on a standard MIDI cable so the device wasn't simply looking for a state change on a power pin.
That three of the six MIDI-out ports lit is not how I remember my Studio 16 behaving and I expect any device to be accessible to any other, regardless of the MIDI-out port it uses. There was no power cord included and, surprise, there was no manual either but there's a slight possibility it may be possible to download one online even though Opcode went out of business all those years ago.
My general thinking is both Boss RC-50 loopers will connect via MIDI-out on the looper to the respective MIDI-in ports on the Studio 3. The Boss DR-880 drum machine only needs a MIDI-out port from the primary looper because it's a relatively stupid device and the others don't want to hear what it says via MIDI.
The loopers will also connect to the respective MIDI-out ports so they can listen to MIDI data from the other. As things look at the moment, the Studio 3 may function more as a sophisticated MIDI splitter rather than a full-out MIDI multiplexer but that remains to be determined.
With this configuration, it is still possible to connect the lights / lasers controller because it's not necessary to hear MIDI from it but transmitting Start / Stop via MIDI is excellent and even more excellent if I can send a patch number corresponding to the desired lights / laser configuration. It will more excellent even than that if Phrase Change can be sent as well because that conceivably would permit changing the lights / lasers configuration each time I switch within any given loop. That still doesn't given me the full visualization of musical lighting but it's closer.
And all for $29 US and change. Unbelievable.
Note: if you do not have a hard-core geek crash helmet, this might be a time to bailout.
Smoke testing took a while to get started because there can't be smoke without a power cord. The power supply is internal so only a standard power cable was needed but, to no surprise, it was difficult to find one. I'm not concerned about the power supply. When it's still working after fifteen years, there's little reason to worry now.
There are two MIDI-in and six MIDI-out ports. If maybe you think of this as a milk bar, one MIDI-in supplies water and the other one supplies milk. Any of the six MIDI-out ports will get water or milk depending on how you configure the individual MIDI devices.
Initial smoke test was to apply power and that passed so the next was to connect one MIDI cable. When the cable is plugged only to the Studio 3, nothing happens. When the other end is connected to a live MIDI device, the Studio 3 detects it and lights three of the output MIDI ports. That indicates live intelligence because there's no power pin on a standard MIDI cable so the device wasn't simply looking for a state change on a power pin.
That three of the six MIDI-out ports lit is not how I remember my Studio 16 behaving and I expect any device to be accessible to any other, regardless of the MIDI-out port it uses. There was no power cord included and, surprise, there was no manual either but there's a slight possibility it may be possible to download one online even though Opcode went out of business all those years ago.
My general thinking is both Boss RC-50 loopers will connect via MIDI-out on the looper to the respective MIDI-in ports on the Studio 3. The Boss DR-880 drum machine only needs a MIDI-out port from the primary looper because it's a relatively stupid device and the others don't want to hear what it says via MIDI.
The loopers will also connect to the respective MIDI-out ports so they can listen to MIDI data from the other. As things look at the moment, the Studio 3 may function more as a sophisticated MIDI splitter rather than a full-out MIDI multiplexer but that remains to be determined.
With this configuration, it is still possible to connect the lights / lasers controller because it's not necessary to hear MIDI from it but transmitting Start / Stop via MIDI is excellent and even more excellent if I can send a patch number corresponding to the desired lights / laser configuration. It will more excellent even than that if Phrase Change can be sent as well because that conceivably would permit changing the lights / lasers configuration each time I switch within any given loop. That still doesn't given me the full visualization of musical lighting but it's closer.
And all for $29 US and change. Unbelievable.
No comments:
Post a Comment