Sending a Program or Bank via Sys-Ex. Alesis ION

Parts and Setups

4

Sending a Program or Bank via Sys-Ex

The second page of Store mode contains features related to storing a

Program or bank of Programs on an external device via MIDI, such as a computer with a librarian program, a MIDI data filer, or even another

Ion.

S ending a single Program

The first thing to do is press the

[store]

button above the

data

knob, if you’re not already in Store mode. Next, use the

[page

X

]

button to navigate to page 2. You’ll see a page that looks like this:

The “from” location over Soft button 1 should be the same as the number of the Program you were editing.

The “to” location must be selected carefully.

When you press the

[store]

button the second time, a little marker is placed in the Program data that tells the Ion to put the

Program

in the “to” location

when it is sent back via MIDI. This is fine if you’re expecting it, but if you aren’t it can be difficult to find the

Program that was sent over. You may not remember what the original location of the Program was when you sent it out. There’s a solution to this dilemma, but we’ll write about that in the section called “Special

Cases” on the next page. We have other things we need to cover first.

Be sure the Program number in the “from” category is the one you want to send out. If it isn’t, use the

data

knob or

[select]

buttons to select the proper Program. Then use Soft button 2 to select the “destination” to which your MIDI device will send the Program when it is retransmitted.

Once you have selected the source (“from”) and the destination (“to”), press the

[store]

button a second time. The sys-ex data for that Program will be sent out the Ion’s MIDI jack.

S ending an entire Bank

The process for sending an entire Bank over MIDI is much the same as sending out a single Program. From page 2 of Store mode, use the

[select]

buttons or

data

knob to change the “from” value until it reaches

Program 127 in the current Bank. Then turn the

data

knob one more value clockwise to the “all” option. Use the

[bank]

buttons to select the

The processes for transmitting Programs and Setups over MIDI are slightly different.

We will cover the process for Programs in this section. The process for transmitting

Setups is documented on page 31.

Programs and Banks may be moved from one Bank to another when sent over MIDI.

In order for a User Program or Bank to be received by the Blue bank, for example, the

“from” and “to” Bank locations must be set properly. Then when the Program or Bank is sent back to the Ion, the Global “Program

Write Protect” parameter must be set to

“off.”

Tip: use the

[bank]

buttons as a shortcut to get from a low Program number to a high one, whatever mode you’re in. For example, if you have User Program 0 selected on the

Home page and you want to reach User

Program 127 quickly, turn the

data

knob one click counter-clockwise, which will take you to Blue Program 127. Then press the

[user]

bank button and you’re there!

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