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Sycologic M16

MIDI Matrix

Article from Electronics & Music Maker, April 1986

If ever there was an interfacing unit that looked likely to solve all MIDI routing problems in one go, the M16 is it. Paul Wiffen checks it out.


Wandering around the new, refurbished Syco during a recent launch party, my eye was caught by an unassuming 2U-high rack unit, with a remote control featuring a keypad and one of those splendid new light-on-dark-blue liquid crystal displays.

Further investigation showed it to be a 16-by-16 programmable MIDI Matrix. It had myriad programming possibilities, and with its smart, ergonomically efficient styling, it certainly looked expensive.

Conceived by Ken McAlpine (an ex-E&MM staff man, no less) with hardware by Tim Orr and software by Richard Monkhouse, the Sycologic M16 is best viewed as a more elaborate variation on the theme written by the company's earlier MI4 unit, one of the first MIDI switching devices to come onto the UK market.

The first thing the M16 allows you to do is label all 16 of your MIDI sources (the controlling devices) and all 16 of your MIDI destinations (slave units). You don't have to keep remembering what's plugged where. Each time you call up a source or destination, it's clearly labelled. Of course, this doesn't stop you connecting things wrong, but you can refer to these names to help you plug in everything correctly.

Having named all the instruments connected to the M16, you can begin to create no fewer than 32 custom routings. When you've entered all the information for each patch, you simply Store it with a patch number. If you have two patches similar except for one crucial routing (say), you can call up one, make the required change, and then restore it as another patch.

But patches aren't restricted to storing routings. They can also remember MIDI program changes, and transmit them on a specific channel when the patch is selected.

When you've set up your 32 patches, you can access them in several ways. Type the number on the keypad or use Increment and Decrement buttons to call up the desired patch, and then hit Enter at the moment you want it. This is useful if you have to make a very fast change, and also prevents you from automatically calling up the wrong patch. Alternatively, you can set up the M16 to receive a MIDI program change from a master keyboard, effectively altering all routings and patch changes from one button press. You can even make the M16 look at one particular MIDI channel for this program change, or have it respond to all program changes no matter what the transmitted channel.

As if all this isn't enough, dedicated techno-buffs can use the M16 to analyse exactly what excuse for MIDI their keyboard or sequencer is sending out. By switching to MIDI Analyse mode, you can display the last 12 bytes of any MIDI data received by the Matrix.

You have to take a quick course in hexadecimal before you can even begin to interpret the displayed bytes, but no matter how you approach this facility, it does help you understand why your Yamaha synth is interpreting Roland aftertouch data as a series of program changes...

More useful for the average musician, though, is the fact that the M16 can be made to turn off any droning synth that data errors have left hanging on. The Matrix does this by sending an All Notes Off command. However, some synths don't understand this standard MIDI message, so it follows this by actually sending a Note Off command for every note. Clever stuff, undoubtedly.

Yet simply by using the M16, you're less likely to suffer from disobedient MIDI equipment in the first place. One of the reasons for synths droning on is that MIDI Note Offs get lost if you re-route whilst instruments are sounding. But the M16 features a built-in Switch Lock system, which prevents changes from taking place while data is arriving on any one of the 16 sources. It works by slotting changes in-between when no transmission is taking place, and that's a good thing.

As it happens, the M16 is a good thing generally. I already don't know how I managed with less than 16 Ins and Outs, even though many session players and studio owners will probably struggle on with the sockets given them by synth designers.

For composing, recording and (especially) performing work, Sycologic's M16 makes an awful lot of MIDI sense.

Price M16 basic unit £599 plus VAT; M16x expander £299 plus VAT

More from Syco, (Contact Details)


Also featuring gear in this article

Matrix Magic
(SOS Mar 86)


Browse category: MIDI Patchbay > Sycologic



Previous Article in this issue

MoPro Atari 520ST MIDI Software

Next article in this issue

Digisound PK1 PitchTracker


Publisher: Electronics & Music Maker - Music Maker Publications (UK), Future Publishing.

The current copyright owner/s of this content may differ from the originally published copyright notice.
More details on copyright ownership...

 

Electronics & Music Maker - Apr 1986

Scanned by: Stewart Lawler

Gear in this article:

MIDI Patchbay > Sycologic > M16 MIDI Matrix

Review by Paul Wiffen

Previous article in this issue:

> MoPro Atari 520ST MIDI Softw...

Next article in this issue:

> Digisound PK1 PitchTracker


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