Controlling Digitech PMC 10 via the Parallel Port

The Disclaimer

You're using these instructions and software at your own risk entirely. I am in no way whatsoever liable for whatever damage you might cause to your equipment including but not limited to PMC-10, Personal Computer, Laptop, soldering iron, cables, connectors, etc. .

The Why

You recently snatched a Digitech PMC 10 Programmable MIDI Controller off eBay.
It came without the programmer. Bummer.

But don't despair: a solution is right around the corner!

The How

• You need to solder a special cable for plugging into the parallel port (or USB port) of your computer and the PMC 10. That's the hard part.
• And you need the software described below. (Officially Windows only. I have a working Mac OS X USB solution using an Arduino Board, but I need to package it properly and the use is limited as long as Raymond is Windows only, unless you use some "Windows on Mac" technique like Parallels, VirtualBox, etc. I have a setup using virtualbox which I only use to run raymond to edit the sysex files. I use a \\vboxsvr\shared folder to save the edited sysex files to a location that can be read from OS X. Once on OS X, I use SysEx Librarian to send the files to the PMC10.)

The Cable

The numbers in the photos correspond to the clock indications of the message http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/pmc10/message/460

You need to connect it as follows:

  How To Build the Cable

  There are only 4 pins that contain signal values.
  The 5th is ground.

  If you look at the 5-pin male DIN connector, with the orientation
  tabs at the 4 and 8 o'clock position and the pins pointing toward
  your face, I refer to the pins according to the table below.
  The colors Red, Yellow, Black, Orange, Green refer to Radio Shack
  6-pin DIN keyboard extender cable (26-149A).
  The colors Red, Brown, Orange, Green, Black refer to Australian
  Jay Car 6-pin DIN keyboard extender cable.
  Beware that your cable may be using different colors!

  (alternatively to the DIN keyboard extender cable you can use a 
   plug like "PRESA MINI DIN 6 POLI, GBC Product Code 30130606", thanks luca!)

  PIN      POSITION      RADIO SHACK COLOR    PIN ON PAR.PORT   JAYCAR COLOR
  ==============================================================================

  Pin A =~  9 o'clock    Red                   2 Data0          Red
  Pin B =~ 10 o'clock    Yellow                3 Data1          Brown
  Pin C =~  7 o'clock    Black                18 Ground         Orange
  Pin D =~  3 o'clock    Orange                4 Data2          Green
  Pin E =~  2 o'clock    Green                 5 Data3          Black

The keyboard extension cable plug before operation

After the operation the keyboard plug must fit in the "PROGRAM REMOTE" plug.

The keyboard cable plug after breaking off the pin at 5 o'clock

The keyboard cable after cutting off the opposite plug

The parallel port plug after soldering the keyboard extension cable to it (numbers indicating pins).

The Software

The Windows software can be downloaded (340K zipped) and comes with 5 files:

• pmc10programmerGui.exe is a GUI simulating the original programmer.
• pmc10programmer.exe is a command line program with the same functionality.
• WinIo.dll
• WinIo.sys
• WINIO.VXD

It's probably the easiest to throw these files together into one directory.

Just for getting an idea how it looks, here are the command line (50K zipped) and GUI (270K zipped) versions for OS X.

GUI

After connecting the cable and extracting the pmc10programmer.zip open the folder named "pmc10programmer" and double click pmc10programmerGui.exe. This will start the GUI:

Since building the cable is error-prone, I recommend testing the keys by clicking them on the programmer photo, e.g. the sequence
, ,
will enter edit mode and return to performance mode.

Here's an entire sequence you can perform to compare with your results:

1. In the programmer choose "Compound Commands" > "Reset PMC10"

After this, your PMC-10 should display "- 1 SEND PRG CHANGE"

2. In the programmer press

After this, your PMC-10 should display "EDIT PATCH"

3. In the programmer press

After this, your PMC-10 should display "EXIT"

4. In the programmer press

After this, your PMC-10 should display "- 1 SEND PRG CHANGE"

Once you trust your cable, you can use the "compound" commands. These perform sequences of button presses to navigate within the configuration software of the pmc10. I have only implemented those parts that the Raymond software can't do because the PMC10 doesn't support them via MIDI:

• Setting the PMC10 Device MIDI Channel
• Calibrating the Pedals 1 and 2
• Initiating a MIDI dump from the PMC10
• Resetting the PMC10 (Please backup your settings before, since this will erase all data from your PMC10!)

Command Line

Should you prefer using the command line, here are some examples.

Example call:

E:\tmp\pmc10programmer> pmc10programmer.exe menu menu menu menu menu enter

This will cycle around the top level menus and then return to performance mode. But the program offers "compound" commands as well, e.g. to perform a midi dump:
E:\tmp\pmc10programmer> pmc10programmer.exe MIDIDATADUMPCOMPLETE

This will reset your pedal to factory defaults (please back up before testing!):
E:\tmp\pmc10programmer> pmc10programmer.exe RESETCOMPLETE

This will set your pedal's MIDI Channel to 12:
E:\tmp\pmc10programmer> pmc10programmer.exe r PMC10CHANNEL 1 2

I stopped further development since after configuring the PMC10 Channel I finally can use Raymond! I reduced the GUI to the few functions that cannot be performed with Raymond since the PMC10 doesn't allow setting these via MIDI.

Maybe I can talk Sean into integrating these buttons into Raymond. Then I only need to run one program to control the PMC10...

Thank You

• Sean Echevarria for maintaining the pmc 10 list, his fabulous Raymond PMC10 Editor software and providing the necessary posts from his private archives when once again people fail to understand that no webpage whatsoever should ever be deleted from the internet (or moved).
• Luca Formentini for putting up with the DOS-Shell solution before the GUI came out.
• Ed Drake for shooting the background image of the original PMC10 programmer
• Dave Brillhart for working out the original solution.

The Contact