Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    Anything endorsed by Yaron Gershovsky (musical director and keys for
    Man-Tran Band) can't be all bad!
    
    Edd

	EM reviewed it and to me, it looked pretty mediocre. It has
	all the editing facilities of a QX7 (read that as practically
	none), but it does have SYSEX dump and other file related
	facilities. It didn't appear to have enough memory to store
	a long or complex song. Avoid it.

							Jens

    
    
       And an extremely complex UI. Two led segment displays.
    Kinda like a mirage......
    
    
    
    
    RC
    

    
    
      Just talked to a "keyboard salesperson" at Dr Sound about this
    thing. He said it has 64k, which was quoted as 14k events.
    
    
    RC
    

Does anyone have one of these ?  What are they going for ?  Has it been
re-released (with fixes) ?  They are back to running full page ads in EM...

If I wanted the cheapest easily usable sysex recorder to store my ESQ-1 
sequences on, what should I buy ?

    ditto -.1
    
    I was just re-looking into one of these, and wanted it for the exact
    same application: wicked cheap storage of my ESQ sysex fodder. I second
    the request for hands on experience.
    
    dp

If I remember correctly, EM did a review on these little beasties within the
last six months or so. I recall reading that they were relatively simple
implementations, with no real claim to displace computer-based sequencers. They
seem more appropriate as a portable way to capture stuff to take back and use
with your "real" sequencer.

If anyone's interested, I can look in my back issues for the review (or lack
thereof).

    
    
      Dr Sound (NYC) is selling MDI30's for $139.
    
       I may be picking one up tomorrow night to use as a midi filer.  
    I think their are two flavor's of this beast..MDI30 and 40. A review
    will be in order....
    
    
    
    RichC
    
    

    I got a demo of this in Daddys, Salem a month or two back. As I recall,
    you can record six MIDI tracks. However there's very limited editing
    capability, the tracks are overlaid as you record, so that once you've
    recorded , I don't beleive you can get at any track individually. They
    were pushing it as a handy way of storing sysex dumps.
    
    John

    
    
      I just put down $20 on a used MDI 40. This one has an eight character
    lcd display as opposed to the  two character Led display on the
    MDI 30. 
      It has a 14k event mem, as Brian previously supplied, and the
    disk can hold 58k. 
      One attractive feature of the MDI 40 is that you can filter pitchbend
    and aftertouch messages. At home, with my 2 MMT8's, I have no way
    to do this and use an enormous (midi-guitar) amount of memory on
    the simplest of PB's, as well as a ridiculous amount of time backing
    the MMT8's up to (gasp) *tape*.
    
      Hope this helps. Even if it doesn't, for $119 I get a nice bookend.
    
    
    
    RichC
    

    
    
    
      Having lived with it over the weekend, I can now say the $119
    was money well spent.
      I'm able to dump 80% of the MMT's memory in sysex into the MDI40
    and store it on disk (it takes approx 25% of the disk).  
    My Roland D110's entire sysex dump took 15% of a disk's space.
    I'm also able to store approx 7 songs (midi data) on a disk, and
    the machine has pretty fast disk access..about 5-8 seconds for any
    one song. Chain play mode is pretty useful...gives me time to tune
    the guitar between songs.
      As for writing a song using this thing..no way. Zero editing,
    only punching in and out. I'll stick to the MMT8's for that. They
    have to be the quickest and easiest sequencers to compose on, period.
    
      Definately a great, cost effctive little device.
    
    
    
    
    RichC
    
    

    Thanks for that review, Rich.
    
    dp (Who will probably get one when I go to NYC next week)

Could anyone elucidate the differences between the mdi30 and the mdi40, other
than the size of the display, if any ?

    re .-1
    I believe the MDI30 has less memory than the MDI40.  Can't remeber
    offhand how much less.
    
    Rich - thanks for answering some of the questions I had around this
    device - mainly around access time to songs on disk.  I'm looking 
    at it as a possible low cost unit for gigs, having
    used an Atari package to make up the original sequences (see
    note 1326.36).  Looks like it could do this for me for a lot less than
    I'd have to pay for any other sequencer with 3.5 inch floppies.
    
    Does the device have MIDI merge?  Can you sync it externally to
    incoming MIDI clocks?
    
    Alex

         
    
      Alex,
    
      It does have midi-merge, if you mean it in the sense of midi "echo".
    You can play along with the executing sequence using the midi in.
      I don't know about incoming clocks. I'll have to look it up.
    
      The MDI40 holds one song at a time and can store 30 on disk. They
    would have to be pretty darn simple songs. I can fit about 5-6 of
    mine on a disk.
      I believe I read somewhere it holds 14k notes in memory, and can
    store 58k notes on disk.
    
      Definately suit's my needs. Previously, using  two Alesis MMT8's,
    I couldn't do tempo changes. Now, as I record a sequence from the
    MMT8 to the MDI40, I can vary the play tempo and the changes are
    recorded. Pretty cool.
      I used to have to bring my cassette deck from home to a gig, just
    in case one of my sequencers dumped it's cookies on power-up and
    needed a data reload. Now I can bring just one MMT8, and the Brother. 
    
                               
                                                                  
    BTW..It comes with a demo disk of sequences including:
    
    Maple Leaf Rag (not 1/8 as good as Dave O's)
    Alfred Hitchcock theme (shoot me classical fans, I don't know the name)
    Don't Worry, Be (gag) Happy
    and 3 other extremely memorable tunes who's titles I forget.
                                                                
    
    RichC

    re .15 - the Hitchcock theme music is the "Funeral March of the
    Marionettes".  I forget the composer.
    
    len.
    

    
    
      The main difference between the MDI30 and 40 is internal memory.
    The Mdi 30 has half (32K) the mem of the 40 (64k). Same disk drive
    (240k, 53k notes).
    
      They also make a better model, the PDC-100 , whick features 128k
    internal memory, realtime or step input, cut and paste, tempo changes
    inside song and Song Position support.  Same disk drive. A 32 character
    backlit display. For approx $299.
    
    

    I use an MMT8 live and need a replacement for *gasp* tape input. We
    have 5/6 songs per load and fill in the time between loads with "real"
    live performance.
    
    I am looking for the cheapest "non-tape" storage device to use live
    which will load 100% of the MMT8's memory.
    
    Which one of the Brother m/c's is capable of this?
    
    ...Sean

    Anybody know how the PDC-100 compares with the Alesis Datadisk?
    
    ...Sean

    I had the opportunity of picking up a Brother MDI40 a couple of weeks 
    ago new for 140 pounds (UK).  Thats about 100 pounds less than I can 
    expect to pay for any other disk filer or sequence playback device 
    using 3.5 inch disks, so I bought it.
    
    I'm intending to use it on gigs to load other devices with sysex data, 
    and as a sequence playback machine (I'll initially be driving a Roland 
    E20).  Here's my first impressions so far..... 
    
    The disks are formatted to hold up to 30 "songs", where each song is 
    either a sequence or a sysex dump.  In practice, I estimate you will 
    get 4 - 10 sequences on the disk, depending on the size of sequence.  
    The internal memory will hold only one song at any time.  It takes 4- 
    30 seconds to load a song from disk to memory.  My average so far is 
    about 20 secs.  If the song you want next is'nt on the disk you have 
    in the machine, you can of course pop in the required disk while the 
    previous sequence is playing.  The first time you try to access a new 
    disk, there is a disk registration period of about 0-3 secs, depending 
    on the number of songs on disk (my average is < 1 sec), before you 
    can start loading the song you want.  This means that there is very 
    little time penalty for loading specials, requests, etc, or for not 
    working to a preset programme of songs.
    
    The MDI40 will run internal or external synch.  With internal synch, 
    you can vary the playback tempo (unlike the Alesis Datadisk SQ).  With 
    internal synch, you can also suppress sending start, stop & clock 
    signals.  This is a bonus for me driving the E20 - and for anyone else 
    using a drum machine as an SGU, as it prevents the drum m/c starting up 
    on it's own.
    
    The UI is very simple.  I'm using an Atari with Master Tracks Pro to 
    build my sequences, and it's very easy to record them into the MDI40.  
    My singer will be the person running the unit on gigs (she's the one 
    who chooses the songs), and she's had no problems loading and playing 
    sequences.  I reckon my 11 year old will be able to use this to record 
    and play back her own piano pieces (another reason I bought a 
    "sequencer" rather than a file playback device).
    
    Editing facilities are virtually nil - just punch in/out on the record 
    track.  Once you've got a record track you like, you transfer it to a 
    merge track, leaving your record track free for further work.  You 
    can't modify data once it's on the merge track.  I don't plan to use 
    these facilities, so I have no problems with any lack in this area.
    
    The maximum song size is 14k notes.  You can get a pretty 
    extensive sequence into this, but I've also been able to fill it a few 
    times - mostly on numbers using complex drum patterns (multiple sets of 
    16th notes running all the way through the song) and segways (2 
    numbers back to back).  In each case, I've been able to simplify the 
    sequence, and I don't expect this to be a typical problem, but I 
    recommend that you look closely at the size and complexity of your 
    sequences before going for this device.
    
    All in all, Im pretty happy.  For a relatively small investment, I get 
    the opportunity of using sequences on gigs for the first time, and the 
    sysex dump facility means I no longer have to worry about finding my 
    synths at a gig with hosed patch memories.
    
    Alex
    

    Correction to last reply - the price was 180 pounds (still about 100
    pounds less than anything else in the UK).  Since writing my last note,
    I've dumped a few more sequences.  I think I must have started with all
    my big ones - the ones I've dumped recently seem to leave me with about
    40% of the internal memory spare and take 15 seconds or so to load.
    
    Alex

     Does anyone have anymore feedback on the PDC-100. Have they
    actually purchased one.
    
    chuck (who is very unknowledgable about this stuff but would like
           to get a good bang for the buck on my first purchase)