Hammond SK Pro / SKX Pro NPRN to Control Channel GP Script

[russgilbert]

Very excited to announce that I’ve caught my personal great white whale and (with a bit of help from my good friend Claude and way too much time spent pushing a LOT of buttons on the Hammond and writing down what MIDI data they sent) have created a GP Script that successfully catches the NPRN garbage that the Hammond sends and converts it to regular MIDI CC’s that Gig Performer can easily assign to widgets.

Stuff to know: You need to define your Hammond in the Rig Manager - default is HammondSKXPro since that’s what I have… it doesn’t really matter much though.

This script needs to be uploaded at the GIG level in the Gig Script Editor, not in a rackspace. I have my B3X in the global but I think it’ll work anywhere.

Pretty much all the dials, sliders, and on/off buttons work with this including the leslie fast/slow, the analog synth controls, percussion, analog synth dials and faders, and reverb/eq controls.

The “Allocate” buttons for the sound engines and the actual patch bank selector buttons don’t send MIDI messages at all. I can work around a lot, but not that.

The preset buttons work though, as does the dial to scroll through presets. (That dial actually sends program changes, so it’ll rotate through your rackspaces which I personally find useful)

The octave shift buttons don’t send MIDI messages but that’s okay because they do shift the output of both the upper and lower manuals so you’ll get the effect you want when you use them.

The transpose buttons don’t work. That’s probably fixable.

None of the menu buttons or various hammond nav buttons send anything, but pretty much all the dials for things like the bank volume, reverb, etc work. The only dial that doesn’t send anything is the master volume.

Hopefully Hammond will get the memo that this non-standard NPRN/SysEx setup they have makes their stuff way harder to deal with as a controller than any other brand and this script won’t be necessary in whatever the next generation of Hammond ends up being, but for now hopefully others will find this helpful.

hammondnprn.gpscript.txt (7.5 KB)

[dhj]

Thanks so much for adding this.

[David-san]

Even without Claude we already had a lot of fun with the Hammond NRPN stuff in the GP community forum

@David-san

@brandon, this is a Gig script you could use to convert CC99+CC98+CC6 into a single CC# which could be used like any other single CC#. e.g. you could MIDI learn a widget with it. I couldn’t test if it works, but it should be close to. Using a gig script GP should even not notice that your controller is sending CC99+CC98+CC6, only the single CC# will enter GP.

Var
  XK5                        : MidiInDeviceAlias // Define XK5 as a RigManager alias to the real controller
  CC_State, CC99, CC98       : Integer = 0;  

On ControlChangeEvent(CC_msg:ControlChangeMessage) Matching 99,98,6 from XK5
    Select
      CC_State == 0 Do if (CC_msg.GetCCNumber()==99) Then CC99 = CC_msg.GetCCValue(); CC_State = 1 Else CC_State = 0 End
                       
      CC_State == 1 Do if (CC_msg.GetCCNumber()==98) Then CC98 = CC_msg.GetCCValue(); CC_State = 2 Else CC_State = 0 End
    
      CC_State == 2 Do
        if (CC_msg.GetCCNumber()==6)
        then
          Select
            // Leslie Pedal => CC#20
            CC99 == 1  && CC98 == 9  Do InjectMidiEventViaRigManager(XK5, MakeControlChangeMessageEx(20, CC_msg.GetCCValue()*127, 1));

            // Percussion Switch => CC#21                            
            CC99 == 1  && CC98 == 8  Do InjectMidiEventViaRigManager(XK5, MakeControlChangeMessageEx(21, CC_msg.GetCCValue()*127, 1));
            
            // Reverb => CC#22
            CC99 == 2  && CC98 == 10 Do InjectMidiEventViaRigManager(XK5, MakeControlChangeMessageEx(22, CC_msg.GetCCValue(), 1));
          End  
        end
        CC_State = 0; 
     End
End

Please, tell me if it works for you

[russgilbert]

Oh I know. I’ve been banging my head against this wall since I got my first SK Pro in 2021.

The forum is how I learned any solution had to be at the gig level.

[David-san]

@russgilbert

I’ve been banging my head against this wall

Don’t do that - ask on the forum instead

[jrwjryan]

Greetings, Russ/et al. Does these scripts work with older Hammond models e.g., SK-2. I just want to use as is or modify the script to automate the registration changes, push button controls, select extra voices/effects. The SK-2 UI is a little clunky to make quick changes in a live environment.

Cheers, Jim Ryan