I think you're right, and that's why I've always used the .svq sysex method.

And I agree that it seems a weird bit of design not being able to just dump a patch, any patch, to disk. I've just gotten used to the dummy-song method and have no problem with it.

Because my computer is in a different room from my music gear, I've always just used the XP alone. But what do users do who use a JV/XP software editor to edit and store patches (like ChangeIt!)? How do these editors deal with *single* patches? That may be the answer to Tracey's (and your and others') question. Does anyone know?

Believe it or not, I have ChangeIt! but have never used it.

People, people, people - We should al be experts by now. Know one thing - YOU CAN'T SAVE INDIVIDUAL PATCHES TO DISK USING THE XP alone. You need a computer. I'll explain.

Anyone who's searched the web for JV patches will encounter single downloadable patches in the .syx format. Using a JV/XP editor or a sequencer program, it's possible to save this stuff as sysex files or .MID files (from the editor) and then load them back into your synth one at a time if you like. The thing is, you'd have to be able to convert the sysex (.syx) to .MID - Guess what?! There's a utility that does this, it's called sysx2mid. Type that in a search engine, it's bound to be somewhere on the net.

Other than this, you can save indvidual patches as sysex in the sequencer at the begining of your songs. This is tedious, but it is explained thouroughly in the back of the manual. If you don't want to do any of this at all, you'd have to save the whole bank. I don't like going through all of those steps. so i just save everything as a bank and call it a day.

The Infamous Epu.

epu epu epu -

"YOU CAN'T SAVE INDIVIDUAL PATCHES TO DISK USING THE XP alone"

Of course you can. That's what this discussion is all about: Trying to get around having to save single patches as sysex at the beginning of what we have been calling a "dummy song" and then saving the song to disk as either and .svq or .mid file. You get the patch back by playing the songfile into the XP.

"it's possible to save this stuff as sysex files or .MID files (from the editor) and then load them back into your synth one at a time if you like. The thing is, you'd have to be able to convert the sysex (.syx) to .MID"

Precisely this was the question: Do you *have* to convert the sysex to a .mid file? (That's what we're *already* having to do when we just save the sysex in a dummy song using Transfer Data -> Sequencer.)

Is there any way for the editor programs to send the sysex directly to the XP *without* first dumping the sysex into a .mid file (I'm familiar with the sysex-to-.mid programs; they've been around a long time now; what we're looking for is a way to _avoid_ the .mid altogether).

I'm guessing Tracey (and others) would like to be able to view the patch-bank patches on-screen and then perhaps double-click a specific patch (or highlight it and use a drop-down menu) and have it sent to the XP. Can any editor do that?

epu: You also wrote:

"Other than this, you can save indvidual patches as sysex in the sequencer at the begining of your songs. This is tedious,

Is it more tedious than using sysex-to-.mid conversion and then playing the .mid file back into the XP? I have no idea.

> but it is explained thouroughly in the back of the manual. If you don't want to do any of this at all, you'd have to save the whole bank. I don't like going through all of those steps. so i just save everything as a bank and call it a day"

I'm curious: Why is it more tedious to save a single patch than a whole bank? You just choose a different source. Or have I misunderstood you?

Saving a bank is much easier. All you do is push disk, push save, select sound as filetype, name it, and press execute. Saving a single patch takes twice as many steps:
push utility, push data transfer, select which patch, select internal sequencer, then execute. Then, push disk, save, name the file, select file type, and execute. Much more work!

Hmmm...
The whole point of all this was to find out how I can make my own personalized User bank with any of the sounds I like and want to keep that are in all the different files I have. There are 128 User banks I can save patches in....do I have to go through all those steps (push utility, push data transfer, select which patch, select internal sequencer, then execute. Then, push disk, save, name the file, select file type, and execute.) for each of the 128 patches?! Not to mention having to keep switching disks in-between.
'How many different ways are there to save these patches and what are the easiest ways' is what I want to know. The manual doesn't say much about creating your own user bank...just how to create your own patches and save them in user. But I have patches already created that I want to put there.

-Tracey

FAEbGBD: "Saving a single [ . . . ] Much more work!"

Yeah, technically you're right, of course, but still . . . I mean, it's not all *that* hard.

Tracey: "There are 128 User banks I can save patches in"

Whoa. I hope we've been talking about the same thing all this time. There is *one* user bank with 128 patch locations. Isn't that what you mean?

"do I have to go through all those steps [ . . . ] for each of the 128 patches?! Not to mention having to keep switching disks in-between"

This is the only way I know of without using a patch editor, which is why I am curious to see what epu says about sending individual patches from an editor to the XP without having to convert to a .mid file.

I would point out that once one starts downloading patches and adding them to the custom user bank, you tend not to add all that many after a while. That is, your user bank becomes pretty well established. When I audition patch banks now, I generally pass over the vast majority of patches anyway, so you don't really end up doing this procedure all that often anyway.

[In fact, my User bank is essentially the JV-2080 E-Bank anyway with a couple of custom patches thrown in.]

"How many different ways are there to save these patches and what are the easiest ways' is what I want to know."

[Someone correct me if I'm wrong:]
You either

(1) save the whole bank as an .svd file as FAEbGBD points out,

(2) save each patch (or patch cluster, e.g., 23-26 or whatever) as sysex at the beginning of a dummy song, then load your custom user bank bank into the XP and then the patch you want to add to it, then use the Write function to add that patch,
or

(3) use a patch editor in your computer.

"But I have patches already created that I want to put there"

What format are the patches in? That is, where are they residing now and in what format? How did you get them into that format?

Tracey, you may want to explore getting a patch editor. I am way out of my element there because, as I said, my computer is not even in the same room as my XP, but it may be a good option for you. The most popular seems to be ChangeIt! http://aragon.iitb.fhg.de/moss/
and I'm sure Jürgen would be willing to explain to you how it works and whether it will help you do what you want to do.

If after all this you still want to use the sysex-in-a-dummy-song route, we can walk you through the procedure. It's not all that hard.

Hi!

Okay, so what it seems like I need to do is read about sysex messages. That is an area that I have not explored yet. (Unless I've used it inadvertently) All my patch files were downloaded in MID file format.
I'll check out the patch editor program. I haven't worked with them either. I'm still very new at this whole synth thing.

"There are 128 User banks I can save patches in" <---- Well, you knew what I meant anyway.

Thanks again!

-Tracey

Tracey:

Actually, you don't really need to know anything more about sysex except that it's data. If you set a certain part of a patch envelope to a certain parameter, there's a hex message that tells the XP that.

When you save a patch as sysex (system exclusive data), you're just saving all these hex message in a big, well, a big glob of data. You can put this glob anywhere you want. We're just putting it at the beginning of a song and saving the song.

When you play back the song, it spits this glob into the XP and there's your patch ("spitting globs," well, go with me on this one).

When you download .mid files with patches, that's all your downloading: a dummy song in .mid format (rather than the XP's own .svq format) with that glob of sysex patch data at the beginning of the song. You play the song back, it spits the glob into the XP. That's exactly what a dummy song does.

So you've *already* been dealing with patches this way.

By the way, does anyone here know a website where I can download some god Hammonds pacthes?? I do have de Keyboard's of 60's and 70's expansion board if its required.
Thanks