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.

Sequential Pro 3 MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Sequential Pro 3: what it answers to, and the 430 controls it offers, on firmware 1.2.

At a glance

Firmware

This page describes firmware 1.2.

MIDI channel

Any one of 1 to 16.

Voices

1, 2, or 3, as set on the instrument, and it can play paraphonically.

Note range

Not recorded.

Velocity

Sent and received. Release velocity is ignored.

Aftertouch

Channel pressure and polyphonic, each answered. It sends aftertouch too.

Pitch bend

How far it bends is not recorded, and the range can be changed.

Program change

Received and sent, with 1024 presets.

MIDI clock

Sent and received.

Start and stop

Received.

Control change

106 controls, in the tables below.

NRPN

Supported, and preferred to CC. 324 of the controls below have one.

System exclusive

Supported.

Controls

In the order the definition gives them, by group. Under each control is the name a program calls it by, once pymidiinstrumentdefs.load("sequential/pro_3") has loaded them.

Performance controllers

Oscillators and mixer

Glide

Filters

Feedback and distortion

Envelopes

Low frequency oscillators

Effects

Clock, arpeggiator and sequencer

Global settings

Modulation matrix

Patch morphing

Program settings, name and data

Where these facts come from

Source documents

• Pro 3 User's Guide, Version 1.2, dated February 2021, its user manual, read on 11 October 2026 (the file read).
• Pro 3 OS 1.1.0.0 Addendum, dated 28 July 2020, its firmware addendum, read on 11 October 2026 (the file read).
• Pro 3 OS 1.2. Addendum, dated 8 July 2021, its firmware addendum, read on 11 October 2026 (the file read).
• Pro 3 Documentation - Sequential, a web page, read on 11 October 2026.
• Pro 3 Operating System - Sequential, Main OS 1.2.1.0, Panel OS 1.1.0.13, its release notes, read on 11 October 2026.

How they were read

THE GUIDE'S APPENDIX F IS THE IMPLEMENTATION. Sequential's documentation page lists five documents for the Pro 3: User Guide, User Guide 1.1 Addendum, User Guide 1.2 Addendum, Sound List and a German Benutzerhandbuch (documentation_page). The guide is 168 sheets, with Version 1.2 and Feb, 2021 on its title sheet. Its Appendix F, MIDI Implementation, has the settings that govern MIDI (guide pp. 134-135), the messages received and transmitted (guide pp. 136-137), a table of all 128 controller numbers (guide pp. 138-139), the NRPN messages (guide pp. 140-141), the program parameters by NRPN (guide pp. 141-144), the global parameters by NRPN (guide pp. 145-146), one control NRPN (guide p. 147) and system exclusive (guide pp. 147-150). No separate MIDI document is listed.

THE GUIDE READS AS THE FIRST OPERATING SYSTEM'S, WHATEVER ITS TITLE SHEET SAYS. Its global menu has a setting called MIDI Arp Notes (guide p. 98), and the addendum for OS 1.1.0.0 says of that setting: "What was originally the midi arp notes setting in the global menu in OS v1.0 is now called midi arp/seq notes" (addendum_1_1 p. 10). The same addendum says the clock's modes were renamed from master and slave to out and in (addendum_1_1 p. 1), and the guide prints master and slave. It adds a duophonic mode (addendum_1_1 p. 9) that the guide does not have. So Version 1.2 is taken here to be the guide's own: no page says what it counts, and what the guide describes of MIDI is OS 1.0 with none of the addenda's named changes worked in. One step of the guide already has sequenced notes going out (guide p. 57), which the addendum dates to 1.1.0.0, though the guide's sequencer tracks can also send notes by their destination (guide pp. 71, 121). Neither addendum reprints a table of the appendix, and no document says the controller table or the NRPN numbers changed in OS 1.1.0.0 or 1.2, beyond the five the second addendum adds (addendum_1_2 p. 4); none says they did not. The guide's numbers are taken to stand. Both addenda tell the owner to reset the global settings after updating, the first because the update "adds new commands to the global menu" (addendum_1_1 p. 2).

THE CONTROLLER TABLE HAS A ROW FOR ALL 128 NUMBERS AND GIVES NONE A RANGE. It is headed Additional Continuous Controllers Transmitted/Received, with two columns, CC# and Param, and a row for every number from 0 to 127 (guide pp. 138-139). 106 are carried below. Six are printed Unassigned: 10, 15, 39, 117, 118 and 119. Eight are the machinery of NRPN and RPN and are not parameters: 6 and 38 for data entry, 96 and 97 for increment and decrement, 98 and 99 for the NRPN's number and 100 and 101 for the RPN's. Eight are the channel mode messages, 120 to 127. 106, six, eight and eight are 128.

EVERY ONE OF THE 106 GOES BOTH WAYS, BEHIND A SETTING FOR EACH WAY. "They are transmitted when MIDI Param Send is set to CC, and recognized/received when MIDI Param Receive is set to CC." (guide p. 138). So no control states a direction. The table prints no range for any, so each has a controller's own 0 to 127 here, and for no switch but the sustain pedal is the value that turns it on given. The guide's chapters do print the panel's range for many of the parameters, among them "Cutoff: 0...164" (guide p. 27) and "Frequency: 0...150" (guide p. 43), and no page says how a controller's 128 values are laid over one. No page says what the two settings are as shipped, or after the reset of the globals that Sequential's page tells an owner to do after every update (os_page), so which of the two an instrument hears, if either, is for its owner to look at. The labels are the table's, with its spellings: Bank Select Course, FX2 On/Off beside FX 1 On/Off, Noise level, and LFO 1 Freq beside LFO 2 Frequency.

THE SHORT LISTS BEFORE THE TABLE DISAGREE WITH IT ON A NUMBER TWICE, AND THE TABLE IS FOLLOWED. The list of transmitted controllers gives Expression the byte 0000 1101, which is 13 (guide p. 137), where the table has Expression at 11 and Paraphonic On/Off at 13 (guide p. 138); 11 would be 0000 1011. And the list of received NRPN messages gives the RPN number's two halves the bytes 0010 0101 and 0010 0100, 37 and 36 (guide p. 141), where the table has RPN Param MSB at 101 and RPN Param LSB at 100 (guide p. 139). The table is the one place that accounts for every number, so its numbers are the ones recorded.

WHAT THE SHORT LISTS ADD. Six of the 106 are also on the list of received controllers, 1, 4, 7, 32, 64 and 74, which states no condition of a setting (guide p. 136), and the chapter puts the wheels, pedal, breath, volume and expression behind another setting, MIDI Control Enable: "When On, the synth will respond to MIDI controllers, including Pitch Wheel, Mod Wheel, Pedal, Breath, Volume, and Expression." (guide p. 97). The appendix gives that setting a shorter list, without breath and expression (guide p. 135). So two pages each put a setting over those six, or over some of them (guide pp. 97, 138), and no page says how the two settings combine: whether any of the six is heard with MIDI Param Receive at NRPN or off. The sustain pedal is the one switch with its values printed: received, "Damper pedal: Holds envelopes in Sustain if 0100 0000 or higher" (guide p. 136), which is 64, and sent, "Damper pedal: Sends 0 if off, 0111 1111 when on" (guide p. 137), which is 127. The panel's volume knob sends 7 (guide p. 137). Breath and expression are on the transmitted list alone, each when a pedal or a control voltage is assigned to it (guide p. 137). And two of the channel mode messages left out below are given as received, 123 to clear all notes and 121 to reset the controllers (guide p. 136).

BANK SELECT IS PRINTED THREE WAYS. The table has Bank Select Course at 0 and Bank Select Fine at 32, and both are controls here. The two short lists have it at 32 alone, received as "Bank Select: 1 - 4 select user banks 1 - 4; 5 - 8 select factory banks 1 - 4; 9 - 12 select add-on banks 1 - 4 others ignored" (guide p. 136) and transmitted as "Bank Select: 0 - 9" (guide p. 137). The guide gives the instrument eight banks, four of the owner's and four of the factory's, and names no add-on bank anywhere else. No range is recorded for either control.

353 PROGRAM PARAMETERS HAVE AN NRPN AND A NAME, AND NO RANGE, SO EACH NAMED ONE SAYS ITS RANGE IS UNKNOWN. "The following table lists Pro 3 program parameters 0-352. Subsequent parameters can be found on the Pro 3 Support page of the Sequential website." (guide p. 141). The table has two columns, NRPN and Param Name, and 353 rows from 0 to 352 (guide pp. 141-144), fifty of them placeholders with Unused in the name. No column gives a range, and the documentation page lists no document that would (documentation_page). The guide's own reason for preferring NRPN is that its ranges are not a controller's: "NRPNs are the preferred method of parameter transmission, since they cover the complete range of all parameters, while CCs are limited to a range of 128." (guide p. 97). So a range could only be guessed: the guide says a controller's 128 values are not the whole range of every parameter, its chapters print the panel's range for many parameters and not for all, and no page says an NRPN's value is the panel's. Each of the 303 named rows is a control below that says range: unknown, its label the table's name and its key that name in lower case with its words parted, after nrpn_. A program reading this file is told the range is not known and is given the widest an NRPN can carry, 0 to 16383, which is no claim about the parameter. Nor is an NRPN paired with a controller. Osc1Octave and Osc. 1 Octave read as one parameter, and no page says so of any pair, so each is a control of its own and the nrpn_ keeps their keys apart. And the table is not the whole of them. By the sentence quoted above there are program parameters after 352. They are not in the guide or its two addenda, and the documentation page lists no document that would hold them (documentation_page), so none is here.

THIRTY-SIX ROWS ARE NAMED AS THE UPPER PART OF ANOTHER, AND NO PAGE SAYS HOW THE TWO MAKE ONE VALUE. Osc1FreqFineMSB to Osc3FreqFineMSB are 6 to 8 beside Osc1FreqFine to Osc3FreqFine at 3 to 5, FilterFreqMSB is 53 beside FilterFreq at 52 (guide p. 141), and Mod1AmtMSB to Mod32AmtMSB are 232 to 263 beside Mod1Amt to Mod32Amt at 200 to 231 (guide p. 143). An NRPN's value already travels as an upper and a lower half (guide p. 140), and no page says whether a row named MSB is used over MIDI at all, or what either row's values are. The sentence quoted below, that the upper half of a number or a value is "never more than two" (guide p. 140), would put no value above 383, where the panel's fine tune alone runs from -700 to +699 (guide p. 18). Of the globals' numbers it is plainly wrong, 4096 and above needing an upper half of 32; of values no page lets it be tested, and none connects it with these rows. Each is carried as the table prints it, a control of its own.

TWENTY-FOUR ROWS READ, BY THEIR NAMES ALONE, AS A PROGRAM'S DATA AND NOT ITS SOUND. SoundVersion at 320, the twenty rows of the name from 321, printed Name (20 characters) and then Name1 to Name19, EditorByte at 341, and DummyModSource and DummyModDest at 344 and 345 (guide p. 144). The names are all the page gives. They are named rows of the table and are carried as it prints them. No page says what sending one does, or names one as sent. The guide's sentence on direction covers program parameters as a whole (guide p. 140), and what it says of what prompts a send speaks each time of front panel controls (guide pp. 97, 98, 134).

SEVEN CELLS PRINT SOMETHING OTHER THAN ONE UNBROKEN NAME. Two carry a mark and a number, PBendRangeDown // 30 at 42 (guide p. 141) and FilterDrive // 50 at 55 (guide p. 142): no page explains either, and the labels below are the names alone. The four rows from 130 break their name over two lines at a hyphen, EnvFilterVelocity- and then OnOff (guide p. 142), and are closed up here as one word, the hyphen being taken for the printer's. The last two of the four are printed EnvEnv3Velocity- and EnvEnv4Velocity-, with Env twice where the first two have it once, and their labels keep that. And 321 is Name (20 characters) (guide p. 144), kept whole.

THE SECOND ADDENDUM NAMES FIVE OF THE NUMBERS THE GUIDE PRINTS AS UNUSED. 304 to 308 are Morph Source, Morph Target Bank, Morph Target Program, Morph Target Mode and Morph Amount (addendum_1_2 p. 4), again with no range, and are carried the same way. So 308 program parameters are controls below, and the 45 rows still named Unused are not.

FIFTEEN GLOBAL SETTINGS ARE CARRIED BY NRPN, AND THIRTY ARE NOT. "The table shows the global data sent and received on global parameter dumps, and corresponding NRPN number when sent/received individually." (guide p. 145). It has 45 rows, 4096 to 4140, each with a range and a description and some with their values by name (guide pp. 145-146). It disagrees with the guide's own chapter on the global menu in row after row (guide pp. 96-102), and it carries the first operating system's names, MIDI Arp Notes and Master and Slave (guide p. 145). So a row is carried only where the table and the chapter give the same number of values, under names that agree where the table names them, the table does not print the row's description against a second number or leave one of its set out, and no addendum changes the setting. The fifteen are in the global group below, each with the table's range and the table's names. Five of those names differ from the chapter's by a word or by capitals: the table's MIDI 1 Port and MIDI 2 Port are the chapter's MIDI 1 and MIDI 2, its MIDI All and All the chapter's MIDI ALL and ALL (guide pp. 97, 145), and its PassThru the chapter's Passthru (guide pp. 98, 145). Three descriptions differ: the table's Pressure Curve and Pressure Enable are the chapter's Aftertouch Curve and Aftertouch Enable, and its MIDI SysEx Enable the chapter's MIDI Sysex Enable.

THE THIRTY LEFT OUT, AND WHY EACH. Master Fine Tune and Master Coarse Tune, 4096 and 4097, are printed 0-24 and 0-100, where the chapter's coarse tune has 25 steps and its fine tune 101 (guide p. 96): each range fits the other row's name. MIDI Clock Mode, 4099, names four modes where the chapter has five (guide p. 96), under names the first addendum changes. MIDI SysEx Cable, 4105, has two values where the chapter has three, and MIDI Out Select, 4106, a range of 0-2 over four named values where the chapter has six (guide p. 97). Local Control, 4108, is off and on where the chapter has three states (guide p. 98). Seq Pedal Mode, 4111, is in no item of the chapter. MIDI Arp Notes, 4112, agrees with the chapter and is the setting the first addendum replaces. Scale, 4115, is 0-64, the 65 values of the chapter's text and not of its heading, which runs from 1 to 17 (guide p. 100); the chapter disagreeing with itself, the row is left out. Pedal 1 Assign, 4119, and Sustain Pedal Mode, 4122, are each 0-4 with no names. The guide calls the choice among Footswitch Function's three values the sustain pedal's mode, "There are three modes to choose from:" (guide p. 56), so that row has five values against three (guide p. 99). Pedal 1 Assign is set here against the chapter's Pedal Function, a pairing no page makes, which has two (guide p. 99). Pedal 1 Polarity, 4120, Sustain Pedal Polarity, 4121, and Arp Sync, 4124, each have two values under other names than the chapter's (guide pp. 98-99). And the sixteen rows for the control voltages, 4125 to 4140, have the chapter's count of values, 0-255 against -127 to +128 (guide pp. 100-102), but their descriptions cannot be relied on: they print CV1 In Scale twice and no CV2, the four input offsets twice, and no output scale, of which the chapter has four. The four output offsets, 4137 to 4140, are printed once and whole, and are left out with the block they stand in.

THE GLOBAL TABLE HAS TWO MARKS AND NO FOOTNOTE. An asterisk follows MIDI Param Send and Local Control and a dagger follows MIDI Param Receive (guide p. 145), and the appendix has no text for either mark. Another page gives a dump of the globals as "50 nibbles (LS then MS) for 25 Global parameters" (guide p. 150), which is not 45, and says of it: "The Global Parameters Data Dump is not recognized when received. It is only transmitted when requested. NRPN messages are used to change Globals." (guide p. 150). That is against the table's own sentence, which has the globals sent and received on dumps.

ONE CONTROL NRPN, AND IT IS ABOVE THE NUMBERS THE GUIDE ALLOWS FOR. Seq Play/Stop is NRPN 4188, 0-1: "It is received and transmitted but not saved as part of a program." (guide p. 147). It is a control here; the table does not say which of the two values plays. The guide says of an NRPN's number and value that the upper half is small, "though in most cases the MSB will be zero or one, and never more than two" (guide p. 140); 4096 and above need an upper half of 32.

NRPNS GO BOTH WAYS TOO, BEHIND THE SAME TWO SETTINGS. "They are transmitted when MIDI Parameter Send is set to NRPN in globals, and received when MIDI Parameter Receive is set to NRPN in globals." (guide p. 140). By that sentence a global setting is not heard as an NRPN while parameters are received as controllers, and MIDI Param Receive is itself one of the fifteen: set to CC or to off by NRPN, it could not be set back by one, and the dump of the globals is not heard either.

HOW AN NRPN IS HEARD. The instrument sends one as the number's upper half on 99, its lower on 98, then the value's upper half on 6 and its lower on 38 (guide p. 140), and the list of what it receives has the same four controllers (guide p. 141). "When receiving an NRPN, all messages do not necessarily need to be transmitted, since the synth will track the most recent NRPN number" (guide p. 140), and "Once an NRPN is selected, the synth will also respond to NRPN Data Increment and Decrement commands" (guide p. 140).

CLOCK BOTH WAYS, AND START AND STOP RECEIVED. The clock mode has five settings: off, master, "MIDI Clock is sent, but not received." (guide p. 96), slave, "MIDI Clock is received, but not sent." (guide p. 96), slave with the clock passed on, and slave that ignores start and stop. "The Pro 3 Sequencer will start and stop playback in response to MIDI Start/Stop/Continue messages." (guide p. 115). No sentence says the instrument sends a start or a stop, and the list of real-time messages has one row, the timing clock (guide p. 136). So transport is receives.

PROGRAMS: 1024, AND THE TWO LISTS MISCOUNT A BANK. "The Pro 3 contains a total of 1024 programs." (guide p. 7), in eight banks of 128. Program change goes both ways, each behind a setting, and the two lists give it as "0-127 for Programs 1-127 within current Bank" (guide p. 136) and "0-127 for Programs 00-128 within current Bank" (guide p. 137), which are 127 and 129 programs for 128 values.

ONE VOICE, OR THREE THAT SHARE A FILTER, OR TWO. "The Pro 3 was designed primarily as a monophonic instrument. But we added a 3-voice paraphonic playback mode for extra performance power." (guide p. 12), and "(However, the filter and its envelope are shared between the three oscillators.)" (guide p. 12). OS 1.1.0.0 added a third way: "The Pro 3 now features duophonic playback mode." (addendum_1_1 p. 9), reached with the paraphonic button and then a second step, "On Oscillator 3, press the low freq button." (addendum_1_1 p. 9). Program parameter 29 is Osc3LowFreq (guide p. 141) and controller 87 Osc. 3 LFO Mode On/Off (guide p. 138), names that read as that button's: "Low Freq: Turns Oscillator 3 into an LFO" (guide p. 19). No page says so in words. The paraphonic mode is the program's: program parameter 64 is ParaphonicOn (guide p. 142), and controller 13 Paraphonic On/Off. So voicing_modes is one, two and three, and polyphony is not recorded.

NOT RECORDED:

• a range for any controller or program parameter, neither table printing one;
• the thirty global rows above;
• the 45 program parameters still named Unused, and those after 352;
• mode, there being no chart, though the table names 124 to 127 as the omni, mono and poly messages;
• a note range, the two lists' legends giving a note's number as 0 to 127 (guide pp. 136-137) and the sequence editor a step's note as C0 to G10 (guide p. 73), and no page a range of notes the keyboard has or the oscillators will sound;
• a bend range, which is the program's;
• what, if anything, Main OS 1.2.1.0 changed from 1.2, the page that serves it listing no changes (os_page);
• what the two settings are as shipped;
• and what the two marks in the global table point to.