Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1992 - 57

F7
FO 7F 61 02 42 04 60 02
1E OF 63 31 33 35 2E 36
00 33 36 2E 36 00 35 39
F7
The breakdown of rhis message is as follows:

fO 7f

61
02
42

U::i versal _'?ea~ -:-i:ne
Sys:em Exc~usi -.-e
message header
Dec-ice _Vo. 9- (61 Hex)
~SC sub ID No. 1 header
Slide Frojeccors
command_forma c
TIMED_GO command
02 1E OF 63
00 hours 02 minuces 30
seconds 15 ~rames 99
sub~rames

31 33 35 2E 36
Cue 135.6
00
deli. i cer
33 36 2E 36
Cue ~is: 36.6
00
delimi er
35 39
C e Fa h 59

End of SysEx

At the MIDI transmission rate of 31 ,250
bits per second, these 25 bytes will take
eight milliseconds to send, which will
create no perceivable delay. An example
of a full slide projector implementation
of this protocol could be that cues would
correspond to individual slide numbers,
cue lists to currently loaded slide trays,
and cue paths to slide trays that can be
mechanically loaded by some automaric
mechanism. A slide projector which does
not support the IMED_GO command
could respond by simply projecting slide
135 in the currently loaded slide tray
using a default fade time. A fully computerized slide projector control system
connected to a number of slide projectors
with multiple trays per projector could,
however, respond to all aspects of th is
message.
We are convinced that MSC has a
bright future since MIDI has been largely
responsible for the enormous proliferation of musical equipment and technology since 1985. MSC contains the same
features that have allowed MIDI to do
this: it is powerful, easy to use, inexpensive, and, most importantly, it is a standard. Much equipment already in the

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field uses some form of non-standard
MIDI implementation since customers
have been asking for the equivalent of
MSC for years.
lost of this equipment
can easily incorporate MSC with a simple software upgrade. Obviously it will
be more difflcul t to upgrade older gear,
but not impossible. In this case it may be
more COSt effective to use a low-cost
MSC add-on unit, interfaced with a few
modifications, than to discard this still
useful equipment. In fact, until everyone
suPPOrtS MSC, we will even have to use
similar interfaces in new projects but we
definitely look forward to when everything can simply be connected together
with standard MIDI cables and communicate perfectly right from the start'

Charlie Richmond is the TD&T flSsociate
editor for sound design. This article lUas
original6' published in the December 1991
issue o/Lighting + Sound International
and IUflS subsequent0' tmllS!ated into Dutch
and published in the April 1992 issue 0/
Zichtlijnen.

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TD&T

1992 SUMMER

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