Okay...I've learned how to download patches into the User banks. Now what I need to know is how to keep the ones I want in there, while at the same time looking at another file. Every time I load a file and play it onto my xp, ALL the user patches change into whatever was on that file. Is there a way to download a file, and protect certain patches that I want to keep in the user banks? I was told to delete the ones I don't want, but how do I do that? HELP PLEASE!

-Tracey

This explanation is a long, but I hope it's clear. If not, we can go over different parts.

>>"Every time I load a file and play it onto my xp, ALL the user patches change into whatever was on that file"<<

...because you're loading a whole bank instead of individual patches. The XP is just doing what you tell it to do.

>>"Is there a way to download a file, and protect certain patches that I want to keep in the user banks?"<<

Not really, at least not at the loading stage. I mean, how do you know where the patches are that you want to keep in the new file you're loading?

>>"I was told to delete the ones I don't want, but how do I do that?"<<

Don't think of it as deleting what you don't want, but as saving what you do want.

There is a problem with getting patch banks off the net in that the XP will load them back into wherever they were saved from. If they were saved from a TEMP location, it will load them back into TEMP. If they were saved from a USER location, it will load them back into that USER location on your XP and delete whatever is in the USER location.

The manual doesn't really explain this, but you need to know what the manual *does* say to understand how to deal with it.

Read all the manual has to say about Utility -> 4 Transmitting sound settings - Data Transfer.

Note especially the boxes that designate "Source."

Note especially the difference in that box between USER and TEMP.

Note especially #7 and #8:
7=The Patch of the specified number in USER group [what is already saved to your USER location]
8=The current Patch [in volatile TEMP].

The basic procedure to do what you want to do is to SAVE your USER patches (the whole bank) to disk either as an .svd file or as sysex at the beginning of a dummy song. I've posted about how to do the latter, so search the archives. It's pretty easy. If you can't find it, let me/us know. Somebody will track it down.

You do that by choosing Patch USER 001-128 = your whole USER bank as your SOURCE.

Then you can load any bank of patches from the net. If they overwrite your USER bank, it doesn't matter, since you can *reload* that bank from disk either as .svd or as sysex in the dummy song (I use the latter method).

Once you have the new bank of patches from the net, audition them. When you come to one you like, save it to disk as sysex at the beginning of a dummy song. Name the song whatever the patch is called. Again, this procedure has been explained before on this forum. See if you can find it.

Save each patch you like to a song (from TEMP) like that.

After you're finished, re-load your original USER patch bank.

Now load each dummy song (with the patch sysex) into your sequencer, play the song to load the patch into PATCH TEMP, and now use Utility -> Write to write that TEMP PATCH into whichever USER patch location you want.

Now save your USER patch bank just as you did above into a dummy song as sysex (again, this is Utility -> 4 Data Transfer -> Transmitting data to the internal song).

If you like, load your USER dummy song into your sequencer, erase the sysex in it, save the *new* USER patch bank you just created (the one that is now different because you added a couple of patches to it as explained above), and save the song back to disk. This way you don't have to rename the song from scratch.

I know, it sounds complicated. The key is to understand how to save individual patches to disk as sysex in a dummy song and how to save your user bank to disk as sysex in a dummy song. That procedure enables you to save and load anything you like without losing anything.

Good luck.

I had to print that answer out so I could study it a little closer.

"I mean, how do you know where the patches are that you want to keep in the new file you're loading?"

Okay, let me explain what I've done. I downloaded the patches onto a floppy disk as a zip file. I unzipped the disk and then copied all the unzipped files onto several floppys as MID files. I put those disks into the XP and hit DISK --> select a file, then LOAD. Then when it loads that file into internal memory, I play it. Like you said, it stores all the patches in that one file into the User banks. (I don't really care if it erased anything in User. I've hardly used it anyway.) The answer to your quote is that I'm taking each file, downloading it, then copying the name of each patch onto a sheet that I constructed and printed copies of on the computer. User 1 - 128. Disc __ FILE# __ <-- Like this. I know this seems extreme, and it is taking a long time...but to me it seems worth it (it is turning into a book though...). Look, I'll study this some and get back with you later and let you know how I'm doing with it. Thanks again for your help! I'm very grateful.

-Tracey


[This message has been edited by stillme (edited 12-30-2001).]

Tracey:

"I'm taking each file, downloading it, then copying the name of each patch onto a sheet that I constructed and printed copies of on the computer"

My question was actually: How do you know which patches you want to keep (= store in User memory) without downloading the whole bank? You have to download the whole bank to audition it.

Your original question was how to keep certain User patches from being overwritten when you download these banks. The answer is: you can't. Nor should you want to, since, as I indicated above, you'll need to audition the whole downloaded bank to determine which patches in it you want to keep (= save into User locations).

Anyway, good luck. We'll get you straightened out with it one way or another.

dnark/doug

OH! I misunderstood. Sorry. And thank you.

-Tracey

This is one area where I'm very unimpressed with the XP. There should be an easy way to copy a single sound to a disk. It's very easy to copy a whole bank to a disk, why not a single sound? This whole business of putting it in a dummy song first is idiocy if you ask me. Sure, it works fine, but it's too many steps for a should-be simple procedure. Now that they've moved onto the XV and Fantom lines, I fear we'll never see an OS update for the XP line.

FAEbGBD:

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but can't you just save a patch as an .svd file, choosing "sound" as your file type when you save? I use the song approach because it's easier to have things loaded into temp instead of directly into user and save them later. I've just never worked much with .svd files.

Tell you what, I'll call Roland and have them tell me exactly what one is saving with the .svd option and what the real options are for saving individual patches. I'll report back.

Or can someone initiate us into the mystic goodies already?

dnarkosis:
I was told by somebody that they had trouble downloading patches in the SVD. format. That they wouldn't work on the synth half the time. But the site I went to to download them did have several formats you could download them as.

FAEbGBD:

It seems to me like you should be able to download the files onto your computer, open them up, and select the patches you want to copy onto a floppy from there. But when I tried to open up the files...it didn't work. It kicked me into Cakewalk then (that is what it selected to open them as) and from there I had no idea what was going on. This is all real tricky for me. There are so many different ways and steps to do things it's so easy for me to get lost.

-Tracey

Tracey:

"It seems to me like you should be able to download the files onto your computer, open them up, and select the patches you want to copy onto a floppy from there"

It sounds like what you're really asking for is a printout of the patch banks you are downloading. That's not what a patch or bank download is. It's not a text tile, but a data file. Data files "open up" into the device they were designed to be used with, in this case the XP. And there, indeed, you do get a list of patches (in your User bank) you can select and save onto a floppy just the way you describe.

"But when I tried to open up the files...it didn't work. It kicked me into Cakewalk then (that is what it selected to open them as) and from there I had no idea what was going on"

It's kicking you into Cakewalk because that is the media player on your computer designated to play = to open .mid files.

Any time you double-click a file (any file), Windows will open it with the program designated for that type of file. Your computer uses Cakewalk for .mid files, that's why it's opening Cakewalk to open = play the files.

But Cakewalk is not the XP, so all Cakewalk is going to do is play the sysex out into empty space unless your XP is connected to the midi port of your computer, in which case Cakewalk will play the .mid file and send that sysex to your XP; the XP knows what to do with the XP-specific sysex data (i.e., make a patch). Cakewalk is just a sequencer that plays the file, not a synthesizer that knows what to do with the data.

Hope this helps.

Dnark:
Saving as an SVD file by selecting sound as filetype has always saved the entire user bank for me. All my user patches, perfs, and rhythm sets. I don't think you can save one single patch as an SVD using the XP. It just saves the whole works, unless I've done something wrong, but I couldn't find any help in the manual that might suggest that I'm doing something wrong or that there is a way to save a single patch other than the way you've described.

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

Hey, I'd almost forgotten about this thread. Tracey, how's it going? Have you got a patch editor? Is it doing what we all are looking for?
As far as Hammond patches, I've got some, but they aren't all that amazing.

Hey, no I haven't gotten a patch editor yet. The reason being (and I posted this in the General section titled $#@$%@$#%@%) Because I sent my faulty disk drive to the person I bought the XP from, and haven't heard anything from him in weeks. Won't return my emails or anything. So my XP is not working at this time...I'm kind of at a halt with all that. But thanks for asking! I appreciate it.

-Tracey

Sorry to jump into this thread so late in the game but, if I understand what you want to do correctly, it can be done fairly easily with an editor/librarian program.

I have been using Noize by Terzoid Software (http://www.terzoid.com)for quite awhile and it allows you to add a single patch, or multiple patches, to an existing User Bank on the XP. You then save your new User Bank in Noize and/or a sequencer. You can also make your own patch banks with whatever patches you choose and, if you so desire, you can make a bank that has just one patch in it.

Once one gets beyond the learning curve of the editor/librarian software, it makes editing patches, performances, sytem settings, etc., very easy. I have only used Noize, so I can't comment about any of the other programs available.

Hope I haven't further clouded an already cloudy issue by jumping in so late.

Cromberger

That's a very useful bit of information. Thanks! I'll probably use it!

another one is sound diver 2.0...

specificly designed for xp/jv instruements...should be found on morpheus or kazaa...

or how about the new sound diver 3.0 for 149 bucks...hahahha didnt think so...although i will get it eventually