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macOS Editors & Librarians

It seems that the best patch software for the Chroma has always been on the Mac. This may be partly because the platform is strong in the music industry. For "classic" Mac OS software (to OS 9) see Classic Mac OS Editors & Librarians.

Cubase

Åke Danielson [21010068]

An Edit Panel for Cubase SX3 (should also work in version 4) for editing the Chroma directly from Cubase. Requires a CC+ with at least firmwawre version 210. Use it to change the parameters dynamically during songs or as an editor to build sounds from scratch.

This panel also works in the Windows version of Cubase.

SysEx Librarian

snoize · www.snoize.com/SysExLibrarian

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2+; MIDI retrofit capable of reading and writing sysex files (I use the Syntech but EES should theoretically work as well). As of version 1.1 (September 2006) SysEx Librarian is a universal binary (runs natively on Intel and PowerPC Macs).

This app allows you to send and receive sysex messages to other devices. It works quite nicely for Chroma patch storage and retrieval (given a MIDI interface that allows for system exclusive communication). Here is a screen shot of SysEx Librarian 1.1 running under Mac OS X 10.5:

MIDI Quest

Sound Quest · www.squest.com/Macintosh/MidiQuestXL/MidiQuest-About.html

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2+ or Mac OS 9.2. Currently a PowerPC binary, so will run under Rosetta on Intel Macs.

Michael Lambie <mlambie@squest.com> of Sound Quest writes, "We now have librarian support for the Fender/Rhodes Chroma. This includes bank and patch storage and bank editing. We do not have patch editing at this time. While we do have a Mac version of Midi Quest, it does not support the Chroma at this time. We will offer support with the next Macintosh version upgrade." [February 1999] I've e-mailed back to see about current status of the Mac version. They still offer an unsupported, user-created Chroma librarian module for their Windows version, (currently at version 9). [January 2004]

SoundDiver

Emagic · www.emagic.de

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2+, Mac OS 8.6+; Syntech/Chroma Cult MIDI kit

A universal editor/librarian. Malte Rogacki [21010091], who wrote the adaptation (editor module), writes, "The Chroma adaptation was the first one I did for SoundDiver; the librarian functions are all there, but editing is not really 'streamlined.' The problem is, SoundDiver doesn't support the Controller format the Chroma uses (if I remember correctly it had something to do with starting with a controller value of 64 instead of 0). So I have to dump the edit buffer for each edit. Still, it has a nice graphical interface." [February 1999]

A public beta of SoundDiver 3.1 was made available for Emagic customers using Mac OS X (an XSKey was required). However, Apple—which acquired Emagic in 2002—decided not to pursue development of SoundDiver. The beta software is available for download from John Korchok's site. However, since the beta requires an XSKey, it will be useless for anyone who doesn't own Logic Pro. [April 2012]

Click on the screen shot below to view at full size.

SoundDiver Chroma editor

Chroma Adaptations

These adaptations were done by Malte Rogacki.

Other adaptations are available as part of the 3.1 beta download package linked above.