Yikes, I have a Roland U20 and manual, but the manual is like trying to read the directions from Albuquerque to Bangkok in Cantonese. I have a sound card, but I can't seem to access it. Every time I hit the "B" bank, it says "card not ready" ???? What am I doing wrong here? I have a hint that you need to edit a sound patch to use those sounds.. but how can I do that? In English, since the manual is in some other language meant for a higher being?

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Andrea M. Stansbury
~One Generation~
astansbury@excite.com

Welcome to Roland manualese!

(I'm still laughing at the mental picture of trying to go from Albequerque to Bankgok with Cantonese directions).

I like a lot of Roland gear (I own a JV-90), but the manuals are widely regarded as being the worst in the industry.

Even Yamaha manuals, which are pretty cryptic, are WAYYY better.

Here are two of my favorite examples of Roland "manualese":

1. From my (long since sold) Roland Octapad

"in order to access the pad parameter settings, slightly hard hit the pad..."

What does THIS mean - hit the pad slightly hard, or gently hit the pad hard, or hit the pad hard, oh my head hurts.

2. From the TDE-7 drum module

- A friend of mine owns one of these, and leant it to me, as he wanted me to program some custom kits.

So, I'm perusing this manual, and I'm thinking, Ok, how do I save a kit.

I spent the better part of a half day looking for it all over the manual. I finally gave up and called roland.

What they told me, WHICH IS MENTIONED ABSOLETELY NO WHERE IN THE MANUAL,

is that there is no patch ram buffer in the TD-7.

yeah that's right, when you edit a kit, YOU JUST CHANGED IT!!!!

there's no undo, no save, no nothing.

If you go and mangle a kit while editing it, your screwed unless you saved it via midi dump.

Gee, you think they might have mentioned this SLIGHTLY IMPORTANT FACT IN THE MANUAL don't you.

Sorry to foam at the mouth here, but I can't fathom how Roland always gets slagged in the press for the quality of their manuals and does nothing about it.

I guess that's why they don't have .pdf manuals on their website, they wouldn't be worth the paper to print...

Just a rant on a subject very close to me...

You guys are still lucky!
I have to read the translated dutch manual, where allthough I am dutch I understand mostly the engelish version better....
This is swimming from usa to holland bypassing the SouthPole...
couldn'tn resist this!
fred

i'm glad people are enjoying my post, but i really need some help in the first issue.. any ideas/ help?

Hello Andrea.
now the serous reply;
I don't have a U20 so went to the Roland site to find out what it is?
I found a US20 which is in fact a midi device like my GI-10, is the U20 the same as the US20?
What soundcard are you using?
Which version of windows?
Which software are you using for recording?
Did you set up the midi input in the configuration menu?
fred

I don't believe they're the same. The U20 is an actual keyboard synth. The card being used is a SN-U01 then in large letters 04R. I think this might be the problem; it might not be right for the machine. In which case, I don't know. I'm working to hook my keyboard up to a mac running OS 8.6.

Thanks for the help.. i guess the card is wrong, because every time I try to read it, it says " card not ready" in the PCM slot.. so I must have the wrong card type. It came with the keyboard when I bought it used, so it probably isn't the right one. Thanks ,though.

Andrea, I think you are trying to use the old Roland drum machine SN series card, It will not work with the U20/ U220..You can only use the SN110 cards.....Fran