User Guide

PC2 Made Easy
64
24. Bank Controller Issues for External Slaves
This is less a tutorial than an explanation. Since most keyboards these days will have
more than 128 different programs, and since MIDI only allows 128 values for any
message, the bank controller was added to allow you to have multiple banks of
programs with each bank having up to 128 programs in it.
There are actually TWO bank controllers: Controller #0 and Controller #32. Some
manufacturers use just 0, some use just 32, and some use both. Since each bank
controller can have 128 values, that means that the total number of possible banks is
128 x 128 = 16,384 (numbered as 0-16,383). Since each bank can have 128 programs in
it, that means the total number of possible programs in an instrument is 2,097,152!
(Think of how long it would take just to listen to that many programs.) Anyway, in
practice, most instruments tend to have 10 or fewer banks.
The PC2 uses controller #32 (although you can send both without problems). It is
possible to have up to 8 banks, numbered 0-7. The bank values were described in the
Basic Concepts chapter.
When working with external slaves however, you may find they require very different
values for the banks. Many Roland keyboards, for example use values of 80 or 81 for
controller #0.
The PC2 actually has a parameter called Bank Mode, within the Program menu. This
allows you to chose either 0 or 32 or 0/32 for an individual zone. However, if the value
of this parameter is not the same as a similar bank mode parameter that is found in the
Global menu, it causes the PC2 to display the bank values in a very confused manner.
Therefore, we recommend that you DO NOT use this parameter - leave it set at the
default value of 0/32, which is the same as the default Global Bank Mode value.
So if you have a device such as a Roland, which uses just a value of controller #0, you
have to know how to calculate the bank number. Controller #0 is the Most Significant
Byte (MSB) and Controller #32 is the Least Significant Byte (LSB). If you see the two
bank controllers together, they are normally shown as MSB/LSB. This means that you
count by incrementing the number in the LSB column before incrementing the MSB. In
essence, you are counting in base 128. To make it obvious for the majority of us who
prefer to think in base 10, the following numbers show how the banks increment:
Controller 0/32 Bank Number Equivalent
0/0 0
0/1 1
0/2 2
etc.
0/127 127
1/0 128
1/1 129
1/2 130
etc.
1/127 255
2/0 256
2/1 257