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.