Yamaha An1X and external midi control

[Infrasound]

I have an AN1X being delivered this week that I got for a very reasonable price. It's a lovely sounding instrument with an (IMO) less than stellar front panel interface. I know that a lot of people use the editor as a means of making programming it a simpler process.

I'm wondering if there are any AN1X owners who have set up the instrument to be controlled via an external midi controller like a Behringer or Novation? Does anyone know the level of control that can be gained? I'm a big fan of 1 knob per parameter, but I would suppose that there are more controls than there are knobs available, for this synth.

Would an external controller be better than the editor, or vice versa? I really hate editing synths on a computer - what I would love to do would be to set up the V-Synth as a master controller for the Yamaha, but I would imagine that thew touch-screen will not work on the AN1X.

Anyone who has explored any or these routes (or anyone knowledgable), please weigh in, as I have a few days until the Yamaha arrives to engage in meaningless daydreams of controlling it via thought filtered through a COSM filter. Anyone able to help someone who gets confused by every new synth they buy, will receive nothing from me (except for warm feelings of gratitude - that's enough, isn't it?)

Seriously though, I'm excited by the eminent arrival of said synth, and I'd like to make my familiarisation with the instrument as painless as possible.
Thanks for anyone who can help.

[Jabberwalky]

You should probably use it's front panel editing before you get crazy and worry about external control. It's really not bad.

[guillermotin]

I was trying to do the same thing with my An1x just a few weeks ago...

I totally agree with you that, although it's perfectly possible to program the synth from it's front panel, it's not the most comfortable option. The main advantage of having a controller is, in my opinion, to get easy access to the An1x right-side controls. That includes the Free Eg, the Arpeggiator, Fx settings, Control Matrix and so forth.

I have both the Novation SL Mkii and the Behringuer BCF 2000. What I can tell you is that the Behringuer BFC can easily do that through sysex learning: set up a AN1x software controller, connect the computer out to the BFC in, and have the BCF to learn every control you want. It's quite tedious. What I don't like about the BCF is that it is solely a knob controller - no sliders. So, even with the BCF at hand, I still prefer to program the An1x through it's front panel.

Programming the Novation, though, is a completely different game. In my opinion it's got a more complete set of controls than the BCF, and the display is very useful. The problem with the Novation is that it does not have a sysex learning mode like the Behringuer: it needs to be programmed down to the Hexadecimals to work, and I'm still stuck trying to figure that out. The An1x manual has a very complete midi implementation chart that tells me it's possible to control any of the system parameters by sysex, but the Novation seems to have a size limit regarding the length of the sysex message.

If anyone has any experience in setting up the Novation to control the An1x by sysex, please tell me...

Cheers

[meatballfulton]

The AN1X has a Control Matrix that many people mistakenly call a Mod Matrix. The reason it's not a Mod Matrix is that none of the modulators are sources. What are sources are pitch and mod wheels, the ribbon, aftertouch, velocity, expression pedal, key position, the 8 knobs, etc. or any MIDI CC. The matrix is programmable per patch and as I recall has 19 slots? It's trivial to set up knobby MIDI controllers as sources in the matrix. It's not useful for programming, only performance....this is a common thread of Yamaha synths over the years, decent real time control while playing but not while programming.

The 8 knobs of the AN1x are not all limiting for programming, while you can't access all parameters at once but you can access all the parameters with knobs which is better than a Virus, for example.