software - sendmidi

SendMIDI OS-X

SendMIDI is a small tool for sending blocks of data to external MIDI devices as MIDI SysEx messages. (SysEx = 'system exclusive'). The main purpose is to allow easy transfer of sound setting to hardware synths.

With this tool it is possible to use the OS X finder as a sound manager with drag and drop capabilities and an infinite number of possible sound categories. When using finder’s column it is possible to see the sound categories in one column and the individual sound files of that category in the next column. The way of archiving sounds and grouping them with this tool is quite simple:

• For each of my synths I've got a separate "sounds"-folder on my disk. Each of them contains subdirectories with names like "softlead", "hardlead", "softpad", "fx", ...
• All sounds for the specific synth are stored in these category subdirectories as separate files. In case of the K5000 these files are in .ka1-format, for the other gear it's .syx-Format (plain binary data starting with $F0 and ending with $F7).
• When the file-extensions .ka1 and .syx are associated with SendMIDI, double-clicking a sound sends it to the synth. Moving sounds between different categories is simply done by drag and drop.
• It is also possible to put one sound into more than one category by using links or aliases instead of real copies. That way you're not tied to assigning one sound to only one category and still have only one real file for each sound.

For more detailed information on usage and configuration of SendMIDI, please see the pdf documentation included in the disk image below.

Currently it only contains adaptions for those synthesizers that I own and use - these are: Kawai K5000, Kawai K1, Ensoniq SQR, Oberheim Matrix6, Korg DW-8000, Kenton Control Freak and the DSP-System. If you want to use SendMIDI with other MIDI devices than those listed above please let me know. It should be quite easy for me to add the specific synth either hard coded or to add the possibility to add new adaptions via additional plist files. If anyone is interested in using it to manage his/her sounds for hardware synths as single files within folders in the finder, feel free to download the alpha version:

Click here to download SendMIDI_Alpha2.dmg (184k)

SendMIDI OS X © 2004-2008 Markus Sapp, and of course, no warranties...