Sending a single MIDI sysex with a microcontroller

[Taylor]

I have just built a polyphonic MIDI synth using a computer soundcard as the brain (more info on that project later, it's really fun).

In order to access most of the sounds in this thing, I need to send a sysex message. But the whole reason I built this unit was to have a physical keyboard that's not part of my computer, so I need a hardware box that can send this one measly sysex message when I hit a button.

I happen to have a bunch of PIC 16f684s laying around, so if it would be possible to use that chip, that would be great.

What would I need to do to write a program that just sends this one message? Are there any code examples similar to this that I could dig through and adapt?

[David]

There are reams and reams of stuff.  Thorsten Klose's "Floorboard" (although that was written for a 16f874) comes to mind.
Another example is an adaptation that Josh Harle made to bit-bang serial output of a MIDI note number at 4MHZ so he wouldn't have to use an external clock.  I think that used a 16F684.  The point of that is that it's a very short leap to formatting and sending SYSEX messages.

[G. Hoffman]

THIS SITE[\url] has a couple of assembly transmitters for 16F84s.  I'm sure you could easily modify them for a 684.


Gabriel

[potul]

hi

Once you've tried a PIC with an integrated UART, it's a pain to go back to software UARTs...  I would recommend to use something like a 16f88 or a 16f628. I've recently programmed a MIDI controller that uses sysex to communicate with a PC, so I could help if needed.
But when stepping into programming the serial interface and consider all timing issues associated to it, I'm a noob...

Regards,

Potul

[deadastronaut]

dont know if this helps...been looking at building midi drum kit with transducers...

rob.

http://highlyliquid.com/midi-controllers/