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Using different scales or tunings on a Moog Grandmother

Modified on Thu, 29 Jun, 2023 at 3:23 PM

Building off of the instructions from the Editing Parameters Using MIDI Sysex Messages portion of the Grandmother manual, you can use the following example sysex commands as a guide for creating your sysex commands. For example, to turn keyboard local control off you would use the following sysex command:

F0 04 16 23 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7

You'll notice that the parameter ID (10) for keyboard local control from this command differs from that listed in the manual (16). This is a discrepancy we are aware of and are working to correct.

To send this command to the Grandmother, open MIDI-OX and type the command into the sysex view window, click save and name the file as you wish, select send sysex and choose the file you’ve just created. To turn keyboard local control back on, you would use:

F0 04 16 23 10 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7

As a quicker workaround to creating your own sysex files from scratch, you can rely on the program Chonky Synth Parameter Manager https://www.fuzzy-cat.com/.

You’ll notice that some of the parameter ID’s options have no effect and that the sysex commands generated often contain different parameter IDs than those listed within the program and in the manual.

As mentioned above we are aware that some of the Parameter ID options are missing/incorrect and are working to correct the issue.

For loading alternate tuning systems to the Grandmother take the following steps. Import the desired .scl file into http://www.microtonalsoftware.com/scl-scala-to-mts-converter.html and export it as a .syx file. Load the .syx file you’ve just created into your preferred sysex manager and send to the Grandmother.

The scale will remain until you power the instrument off or load another scale.

At this time, you will not be able to load and save multiple scales into parameter ID 1’s slots 1-31 as is implied in the manual.

A good resource for downloading .scl files is http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/ A good resource for analyzing alternate scales, mathematically/harmonically is https://sevish.com/scaleworkshop/.