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This page is read from MIDI Instrument Definitions, a Python library used in the author's other projects, in which every number is traced to a document its maker published. Its source is on GitHub.

Behringer RD-6 MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Behringer RD-6: what it answers to.

At a glance

Firmware
Not recorded.
MIDI channel
Any one of 1 to 16.
Voices
8.
Notes
Each note plays a drum of its own, listed below.
Note range
Not recorded.
Velocity
Not recorded.
Aftertouch
None.
Pitch bend
Not recorded.
Program change
Not recorded.
MIDI clock
Received.
Start and stop
Received.
Control change
None.
NRPN
None.
System exclusive
Not recorded.

Drum notes

Each drum plays from the note beside it.

Drum Note
bass_drum 36, C2
snare_drum 40, E2
low_tom 45, A2
hi_tom 50, D3
clap 39, D#2
cymbal 51, D#3
open_hat 46, A#2
closed_hat 42, F#2

Where these facts come from

Source documents

How they were read

The Quick Start Guide, V 3.0, 30 sheets in nine European languages, with its specifications and MIDI tables printed once, in English: the hook-up diagrams and controls at pp. 14 to 17, the clock and MIDI channel settings at p. 34, and the specifications at pp. 52 and 53, which hold the MIDI message table and the note table. Behringer publishes Chinese and Japanese editions as separate files, which were not read. Also the RD-6-BK's product page, and the release note for firmware 1.0.6.

Two pages are printed to a sheet, with the cover and the back on sheets of their own, so pages_per_sheet: 2 with an offset of one: p. 52 is the left half of the 27th sheet.

THERE IS NO FULL MANUAL. Behringer has nine RD-6 pages, one for each colour, under product codes 0704-AAE to 0704-AAN, and all nine offer this guide in the same file, RD-6_QSG_WW.pdf; the RD-6-SR's page offers it a second time under its own product code, byte for byte the same, and the other eight add the release note. None offers a user manual.

THE MAKER'S OWN MIDI MESSAGE TABLE IS THE ONLY LIST OF MESSAGES IT PUBLISHES, AND IT NAMES NO CONTROLLER. The table is headed "MIDI message" (guide p. 53), gives five columns - Status, Second, Third, Parameter, Description - and groups its rows as Channel Message and SysRT. The channel messages are 8n Note Off, 9n Note On and Bn 7B All Notes Off; the real-time messages are F8 Timing Clock, FA Start, FB Continue and FC Stop. That is every row. It is behringer/td_3's table without its pitch bend row, printed the same way: FB and FC leave their Second, Third and Parameter cells empty where F8 and FA print dashes, and All Notes Off is printed as two bytes, Bn 7B. Both are the artwork.

WHY A QUICK START GUIDE'S TABLE IS ENOUGH FOR none HERE, WHICH IS AN INFERENCE. A quick start guide that lists no controller is not on its own evidence that an instrument has none, which is why pwm/malevolent leaves its field unset. behringer/td_3 says none because the same table in the TD-3-MO's guide carries a row the TD-3's lacks, Bn 4A Filter Cutoff, which shows that this table, in Behringer's guides, is where a controller is listed when an instrument has one. This file takes that as holding for the same maker's table in the RD-6's guide, a step further than behringer/td_3 took: there the evidence was a sibling's own guide printing the same table, and here it crosses from that bass line to a drum machine. The only Bn row is All Notes Off, which this format keeps out of controls as a channel mode message. Pitch bend, aftertouch and system exclusive are not in the table either.

THE TABLE GIVES NO DIRECTION, AND THE PAGES AROUND IT POINT IN. The examples beside it are footnoted "Note: 1, MIDI input channel 1." (guide p. 53); the MIDI IN is "to input MIDI from an external MIDI device such as a sequencer or DAW." (guide p. 17); and the hook-up drawing plays a MIDI keyboard into it (guide p. 14). The RD-6 sends something too: the channel setting offers a transmit channel as well as a receive one (guide p. 34), the MIDI OUT/THRU socket gives "output of MIDI data to an external MIDI device and/or a direct output of the MIDI IN to chain to other devices." (guide p. 17), and the product page claims "MIDI In, Out and Thru over USB" (product_page). No page says what is sent, so nothing is recorded as sent.

EIGHT DRUMS ON EIGHT NOTES, AND NO PAGE SAYS THEY MOVE. The note table gives each voice in decimal and hexadecimal (guide p. 53), from Bass Drum on 36 to Closed Hat on 42, and no page describes changing them, though the app "can be used to change certain settings of the RD-6." (guide p. 34) without naming them. So note_map is left unset. "Number of simultaneous voices 8" (guide p. 52), and "Number of sounds 8" (guide p. 52): the two agree.

PROGRAM CHANGE IS LEFT UNSET, UNLIKE THE CONTROLLERS, BECAUSE THE PRODUCT PAGE POINTS THE OTHER WAY FOR IT ALONE. The table has no Cn row, and on its own would give false, as behringer/td_3 records. But the product page says "USB connectivity has been added for sync and MIDI triggering." (product_page) and that a DAW can control the instrument, "allowing songs and patterns to be swapped or individual sounds to be triggered." (product_page). The triggering is the note table; the swapping names no message, and only a program change or something like it could carry it. Nothing on the page claims a controller.

NOT RECORDED: