Section 13 — Storage
ENSONIQ KT Musician’s Manual 5
MIDI Sys-Ex Storage
What are System Exclusive Messages?
Some MIDI information—such as key events, controllers, program changes, etc.— is understood
by virtually all MIDI devices, regardless of the 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).
The KT, for example, can transfer sounds, or sequencer data to another KT. It is a lot like sending
a file from one computer to another via modem. The 1’s and 0’s that make up the data in
memory are sent out the MIDI port. This data can be received and understood by another KT, or
by a computer running the proper librarian software. Only KT data can be transmitted/received
as Sys Ex messages. All other forms will be ignored.
“Generic” 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 KT can transmit a MIDI System
Exclusive message without the receiving device having the slightest notion of what it means or
what type of device it came from. When you want to send the data back to the KT, you just send
the data from the remote MIDI device back into the KT, which will then retransmit the message
exactly as it was transmitted.
Sending MIDI Sys-Ex Messages to another KT or to a Storage Device
The KT can send MIDI system exclusive dumps of sounds, either singly or in banks, as well as
sequencer dumps containing either the entire sequencer memory or the current sequence/song.
These dumps can be understood by another KT, or can be recorded by a remote MIDI device that
has MIDI Sys-Ex Recorder capabilities (such as the ENSONIQ TS-10, ASR-10, or a computer), to
be stored and later retransmitted to the KT.
Banks of sounds or Presets/Seqs/Songs are always transmitted from the currently selected bank
(i:INT r:ROM, a:CARD, or b:CARD). The Store Sound Data and Store Seq Data Commands will
support Sys-Ex transmission from both the currently selected location, and the currently selected
bank (including r:ROM), for Sounds and Presets/Seqs/Songs.
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