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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.

Moog Music Mother-32 MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Moog Music Mother-32: what it answers to, and the 7 controls it offers, on firmware 2.0.1.

At a glance

Firmware
This page describes firmware 2.0.1.
MIDI channel
Any one of 1 to 16.
Voices
One, so it plays one note at a time.
Note range
0 to 127: C-1 to G9, counting middle C as C4.
Velocity
Received.
Aftertouch
Channel pressure, one value for every key. It sends none.
Pitch bend
12 semitones, and the range can be changed.
Program change
Received, with 64 presets.
MIDI clock
Received.
Start and stop
Received.
Control change
7 controls, in the tables below.
NRPN
Not recorded.
System exclusive
Not recorded.

Controls

In the order the definition gives them, by group. Under each control is the name a program calls it by, once pymidiinstrumentdefs.load("moog/mother_32") has loaded them.

Portamento

Control CC Values
Portamento Time
portamento_time		 5 0-127
Portamento On/Off
portamento_on_off		 65 0-127

Assignable output

Control CC Values
CC 1
cc_1_to_assignable		 1 0-127
CC 2
cc_2_to_assignable		 2 0-127
CC 4
cc_4_to_assignable		 4 0-127
CC 7
cc_7_to_assignable		 7 0-127

Without a group

Control CC Values
Sustain
sustain		 64 0-127

Where these facts come from

Source documents

How they were read

Users Manual, 73 pages, and the Firmware Update v2.0 addendum, 13 pages: printed manual pages 56, 57 and 59.

THE MANUAL ALREADY DESCRIBES FIRMWARE 2.0, which matters because the addendum beside it is dated April 2020 and the manual was made in July 2020: its Setup mode chapter lists the eight pages the addendum introduced, including the four that are new in 2.0. So the two agree and the addendum is cited for one thing the manual words differently.

MOOG PUBLISHES NO MIDI IMPLEMENTATION FOR THIS INSTRUMENT, and the manual's MIDI chapter is two pages of prose rather than a table. Everything below is read from those two pages and from the Setup mode list that follows them.

SEVEN CONTROLLERS, AND THE MAKER NAMES THEM IN ONE SENTENCE EACH: "The following MIDI CC messages are received by Mother-32: CC 5: Portamento Time, CC 65: Portamento On/Off, CC 64: Sustain, CC 1,2,4,7: Used to generate CVs at the ASSIGNABLE OUTPUT" (p. 57). There is no other controller number anywhere in either document.

WHAT IT DOES WITH A NOTE IS WORTH KNOWING BEFORE SENDING ONE. "MIDI Note 0 corresponds to -5V, and MIDI Note 120 corresponds to +5V. MIDI Note values 121 to 127 will generate the same output as MIDI Note values 109 to 115" (p. 56). So the top seven notes are not silent and are not themselves either: they fold back an octave. The note range below is the full 0 to 127 because every one of them does something, and the folding is recorded here because no field can hold it.

PROGRAM CHANGE DOES TWO JOBS. "MIDI Program changes 1 to 64 select the current sequencer pattern location. MIDI Program changes 71 to 86 select one of the 16 Assignable output modes" (p. 57). The sixty-four pattern locations are what presets records; the sixteen output modes are a second use of the same message that the format has nowhere to put.

THE PITCH BEND RANGE IS SET BY A REGISTERED PARAMETER NUMBER, which no other instrument here does: "The Mother-32 default Pitch Bend amount is +/-1 Octave ... MIDI Pitch Bend amount can be set from +/-0 to +/-12 semitones using MIDI Pitch Bend Depth RPN (CC101 value 0, CC100 value 0, CC6 values 0 to 12)" (p. 57). That is the standard RPN rather than anything of Moog's, so it is recorded in voice.pitch_bend and not as a control.

NOT RECORDED: SYSTEM EXCLUSIVE. Neither document describes a system exclusive implementation. Both describe updating the firmware by sending a .syx file to the instrument in boot-loader mode, which is system exclusive arriving and being acted on - but it is the boot loader doing it, not the instrument answering, and nothing says the running instrument implements anything.

NOT RECORDED: NRPN, which appears in neither document.

ONE SENTENCE OF MOOG'S CONTRADICTS THE PANEL, recorded rather than resolved: the Setup page for the channel says it sets "the MIDI Channel your Mother-32 will use to send and receive MIDI data" (p. 59), and this instrument has no MIDI output to send on - the manual's own connection instructions say to "connect the MIDI OUT of your MIDI controller to the MIDI IN on Mother-32" (p. 8), and the panel has one MIDI socket.