Good morning!
I recently purchased a Roland TD-6 drum trigger module, intending to use it as a sound module for computer-driven sequences. After a few hours with it, I've been scratching my head. This is my first drum module, but I had assumed that a module is a module, that I could manipulate it as easily as I did my JV-1010, using bank and instrument select MIDI messages to select patches/instruments.

The TD-6 documentation spends less than a third of a page on using it as a stand-alone sound module. There, it states that you have to select patches by assigning them to songs, and then selecting the songs. The problem is, the song interface gives access to only one channel for assigning percussion instruments/kits, and only the first 10 kits are available (channels 1-4 will accept instrumental patch assignments, but not percussion). No patch or bank select messages in my sequences produce any changes in the TD-6 settings.

Am I attempting to ask this piece of #$%^&*!! to do things it's not designed to do? The documentation says it's 16-part multi-timbral, but I can't figure out how that'd be possible. Help!

p.s. Could Roland's site be any less helpful? The TD-6 doesn't even exist in their knowledge base, and I just LOVE what they call a "user's group" - their corporate newsletter! How cute!