Is anyone here familiar with the Boss JS-5 Jam Machine (also known as the Boss Jammer)? A sax/clarinet player friend of mine has one of these devices and uses it for chord backing for solo playing.

From what he’s told me about the device, he’s able to manually enter chord progressions and duration’s using panel buttons, rather than keyboard keys. When a song has been programmed, the Jammer uses its internal styles to provide accompaniment for solo players, singers, etc.

What we were wondering (and we plan to try this the next time we have a chance to get together) was whether by using the Jammer MIDI out and running it to an arranger keyboard if we can get the device to trigger the styles of the arranger, rather than its own styles. My guess is that the answer is yes, but we’re not real sure at this point. Obviously we should be able to find out when we have a chance to try it, but I thought maybe someone on this forum might already know the answer by virtue of having some experience with this piece of Boss equipment.
Thanks,
Paul C.

Generally speaking, if you want to trigger styles on an arranger you have to transmit the appropriate sysex message. That's the way it works on my PSR740. If the Jammer can send Yamaha sysex for instance then you're OK. You can do the same thing with software. Band in a Box, Jammer and XGworks will all generate styles from a chord sequence.

Bryan

Thanks for replying to my posting, Bryan. Not having the manual myself (my friend does have a manual, but I haven't had a chance to look it over.) I phoned a technical rep. from Roland (Roland manufacturers the Boss Jam Machine) who seemed to know some details about the device. I explained what we were looking to do and he said that the unit was designed as a self-contained device which used only it's own internal styles and did not transmit the necessary chord information via the MIDI connection to trigger styles from an external arranger module. So I guess we can't do what we had hoped to do.
Paul C.

I wouldn't be so quick to draw conclusions from a call to tech support. These are very complicated and sophisticated machines and have features that are not readily apparent to someone who is asked questions about probably 100 products all day long.

Just a little bit of psychology - some people will say anything because they think they are being helpful (whether or not they know what they are talking about).

The only way you will know for sure is to get the manual and read it. And, believe it, sometimes a feature is not even well documented in the manual. So you need to also play with the machine and experiment with different button pushes to discover menus and submenus.

And it helps to know a little about the general rules of midi sysex. If not, better read up separately about that too so that when you do push a button twice and find a submenu, you will understand it.

Also, the machine you refer to is usually used by guitarists so I wouldn't doubt that who you spoke to is also a guitarist. He knows how the machine works in standalone mode. Since he has never used the machine in the way you describe, he doesn't know how to use it in that way so the easiest answer to get you off the phone is just to say it can't be done. No one is the wiser. If he said "well maybe it can be done", then you would be on the phone with him for hours while he tried to figure it out - he doesn't need that headache and since you were asking a general question without the benefit of the actual machine in front of you to ask something specific about the menus, he got off the hook quickly by the easy way out.

I have midi capable machines that are 15 years old that can do what you want so I am willing to bet the Jammer can too. You just have to roll up your sleeves.

[This message has been edited by blink_ers (edited 05-24-2003).]

Blink_ers,
You've given me an incentive to try it out when I get a chance to get together with my friend and the Jammer. I will have to get up to speed on some relavent MIDI technical details, however.
Paul C.