FAQ for the Roland XP-50/JV-1080 SYNTHESIZER [ This FAQ has never been completed and is now an antique statement which dates years back. I try to correct the most oudated info, though. 01/30/2004 MK ] The Unofficial, Unauthorized FAQ for the Roland XP-50/JV-1080 Synthesizer wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww A T T E N T I O N !!!!!!! This FAQ is by far not ready! I need much help and your vote for certain Mails! Because of low interest i feel no need to improve this beta-version. prove me wrong, please! wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Written by Matthias Kopfermann Thanks for all the great, informative mails of the past! Notice that this FAQ has some information that may help you a lot but was not asked a lot :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] The FAQ is old and outdated, it seems. Right? You are right, I always some day wanted to edit it and just saw in jan 2004 that it is that old and outdated. Nobody ever asked about updating it. Look at David Peters wonderful FAQ here: http://www.d-flame.cx/~samon/jv_xpfaq.html [ ] Why don't you use html in this FAQ? I really should do that as soon as possible. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Where can I get the newest version of this FAQ? You can get it via WWW at http://www.infodrom.north.de/~matthi/jv-1080/1080faq.txt --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] What is a Roland JV-1080? What is a Roland XP-50? Search google about it: http://www.google.com/search/q=roland+jv1080 Google has lots and lots of links for this eletronic synthesizer. Otherwise read Davids JV-XP-FAQ: http://www.d-flame.cx/~samon/jv_xpfaq.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Is there a downloadable Manual for the synth? No, it does not seem to be! This is the most asked FAQ! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Where can i subscribe to get the mailinglist about the Roland XP-50/JV-1080 Synthesizer? it is sad but there is no more mailinglist available. it was for a long time. The best way to get information about that synthesizers is thru rec.music.makers.synth. You could try to email your questions via Google-Groups. (http://groups.google.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] What is the WWW-site of R O L A N D ? Roland USA is presented since the last NAMM-show back in Jan '96. the link is now: http://www.rolandus.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Is there a ftp site for downloading Sounds? tell me , please! [ ] Are there any tricks on how to do quick editing? From: jadkins@infi.net (Jeff Adkins) BTW 1080 users, I noticed that the scrolling function of the arrow and "dec" and "inc" buttons can be sped up by pressing the opposite direction button at the same time (not unlike the pressing in of the "value" knob). This even "notches" (stops) to zero points. This may be in the manual, but I don't think it is--I tried it because my sound canvas worked that way--sorry if everyone already knows this . . . . -- From: Jeff Adkins Some may want to check out the "Roland JV Series Hot Tips" article in the March '95 issue of _Keyboard. While most of it applies to the JV90, etc., "many of the tips can be applied by it [the 1080] as well." It covers panning," "tone delay," FXM, release, redamper, "real-time patch editing" (use perform and patch buttons on the 1080 tho) chorus and reverb controls, etc. -- From Sky Moonstone What you have to realise here is that the tones go up by how much you add. Example: TONE 1 TONE 2 TONE 3 12 0 127 If you hold the three tone buttons in simultaneously they show an asterisk and you can edit all three at once. So, if you add 20 to the tones you get the value relatively. TONE 1 TONE 2 TONE 3 32 20 127 Tone 3 did not change because It has reached the maximum limit for this value. NOTE: If you wanted all the values to be 20 then you would have to spin the dial until you reached the lowest value for the tones (0) , then add 20. -- From Jeff Adkins You can access patches from within the Performance mode by pressing "Perform" and then "Patch" simultaneously. Also you can speed up the scrolling function of an , "inc" or "dec" buttuon by pressing it and then pressing its opposite simultaneously. These also stop at zero "notches" -- From Chris Sherwood: (...)Same as pressing in the data-knob while turning -- [ ] From Attila Mezei: You can (...) assign 3 different controllers to each tone, each of them controls 4 parameters of the tone (these parameters can be any important tone parameters incl LFO), that is 12 tone parameters can be controlled realtime per tone and there can be 4 tones in a patch! Of course you can set, to what extent these controllers modify the controlled parameters. Also you can control the EFX parameters in real time (not all, howe ver, but enough) You can also assign 3 different controllers to each tone, each of them controls 4 parameters of the tone (these parameters can be any important tone parameters incl LFO), that is 12 tone parameters can be controlled realtime per tone and there can be 4 tones in a patch! Of course you can set, to what extent these controllers modify the controlled parameters. -- From Ben Tubb Some other "hidden" menus inside the XP-50 are available from the up and down arrow keys: Bender Threshold|Now|Low:<--Mid-->:High|Result Mod Threshold|Now|Low|High|Result A/D-1 View|Pedal-1|Pedal-2|Slider1|Slider2 A/D-2 View|Aftertouch|Hold|Battery All values appear to be in hexadecimal. -- From Niklas Silen (about the XP-50) I checked my ROM version. ( then ++ ) -- From DigiMax Although I have not heard of any reported problems with the system on the JV-1080, I thought you do-it-yourselfers would like to check your version out of curiosity. 1) Back up your internal programs etc. to card or librarian (Precaution from Roland) 2) Hit "Shift" and "enter" together. 3) Then, while holding down the "up" and "down" arrows together, also press the data knob in. That's it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Is there any use for a chaotic LFO? From Chris Sherwood: There's a preset or two that use it I think, but it seems to me that it's a lot like the rattles -- it has only a limited musical application. However, a lot of folk have used the rattles in sound effects (transpose it down several octaves and do wierd filtering for underwater bubbles or ambient rumbles, etc. etc.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Are there any free editors for the synthies? From Geir Kilsti I've made a new mailing-list, called: jv1080-editor@etn.ericsson.se This list will be used for the jv1080 editor project that has been discussed on this list. The jv1080 editor is to be made for both PC-Windows and Mac platforms and everybody that wants to join this project/list, have to send me a subscribe message as for this jv1080-l list. (Those of you that received my mail on this new list, don't need to subscribe) I will maintain both these lists, but I will not be in charge of the editor project. Geir. -- From Matthias Kopfermann Attila Mezei wrote a PD - JV1080 patch editor for Atari computers. It was judged to be a very helpful programm by Martin Rossel and myself! one of many nice features is the ability to save Effects and all kinds of masks. It is available by sending a mail to the author (ethami@duna.ericsson.se). or you can get it via WWW. just have a look at the XP-50/JV-1080 homepage. -- If you own a Emagic Logic Sequenzer you can get an free editor within the jv-1080homepage mentioned before, it is an environment which lets you manipulate everything and then you can record every move of the faders! -_ there is a Patchmanager for the Roland JV1080, look at Juergen Mossgrabers homepage, you can find the link at the jv-1080homepage. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Does the XP-50/JV-1080 have a global velocity setting? From Attila Mezei Unfortunately there isn't! (...) I have to disappoint you but patches have no global velocity setting, so you have to edit TVA/TVF velocity settings of each tone. (there are parameters e.g. TVA T1 velo sensitivity which depend on the velocity but I believe that they use the applied velocity curve, so you don't have to bother them) But it's not a big deal. What is good that if you decided which patches you will use in your performance and edited them, make a bulk dump of the temporary performance and next time when you load the sysex, your edited patches will be restored. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] I heard that there are bugs? Really? From Attila Mezei There are many bugs in the Owners Manual, I can't tell you how much I suffered because of scrambled EFX parameters during programming. I also mentioned some bugs in the README file of JV1080ED: JV-1080 bugs: ============= Note that the JV-1080 has some bugs, some harmful, some not. E.g. you cannot set velocity curve 5 for tone 1 or velocity curve 3 for tone 2 with sysex message. It is not my program's fault but the internal logic of the JV-1080. But it was not the only fault. Maybe only my early JV-1080 module has these faults. Another serious fault lies in the cursor handling of the JV-1080. When you send an exclusive message to it, the JV-1080 will smartly refresh its screen. But it forgets about the cursor, which may stay on an empty editable field. When you press any cursor key or INC/DEC/VALUE, the result is usually a frozen synth module with a messed display (one LCD line on another, not readable at all) and a randomly filled memory. Don't panic, it only occures when you edit tones with the program AND on the panel, and only during EFX parameter editing (I think). In this case turning OFF then ON does not help (because sometimes you can't read the display even when you turn it on again). When you pressed ON, press UTILITY, then down arrow, then right arrow 3 times (FACTORY PRESET), and ENTER twice (remember, you have to do it blindly, you might not read the display!). So you are warned. By using only the JV1080ED this cannot happen. You can check the parameters on the display if you wish so, but when you see the cursor on an empty field, don't touch the JV-1080, but turn it off (maybe the CANCEL will also work, I did not try). -- From Lance Ware When using an LFO to control panning, a crackling noise may be produced in many cases. This seems to depend on the type of wave used and the speed/depth of the LFO. This is IMO the worst bug in the JV-1080 (and XP-50???). From Mikkel R. Jakobsen Now that we have brought the LFO-noise up, I would like to mention that it's not the only problem. When editing the drumset from within performance mode (patch edit mode?), it sometimes screws up for good. You get the wrong menus when you move around with [SHIFT] and cursor keys left and right (to move between menus)... You can even get to edit the LFO-parameters for drums!!! (Drums can use LFO can they?) I sincerely hope we can get an upgrade of the software sometime, considering they've sold me (us!?) a faulty unit!! Anyone got Rolands email address so I can check? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Is there a way to assign the MIDI channel of a part in a performance? (XP-50 related) From Frank M. Spada: Yes, it's true that you're limited to channel 10 (the performance PART) for drums. However, you can assign any TRACK or PATTERN to any PART you wish. Therefore, you can have all 16 tracks controlling part 10 - all drums... Okay, here's how to do it (as simplified as possible)... In sequencer mode (press sequencer button otherwise), press REC, select track number by pressing a number (1-16), scroll up (push up arrow), select PART number by scrolling left right (left/right arrow)... here you may select part 10 for drums, scroll back down (down arrow), and record... that's all there is to it. Patterns work the same way - I find it's much easier to setup drum tracks by recording loads of drum patterns, then just paste the patterns onto a track. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] How can i dump patches and performances thru sysex with Cakewalk? From Mikkel R. Jakobsen: I thought people using cakewalk could use these lines for dumping patches and performances thru sysex. They must be included in "wincake.ini". I like to use the "Temp Performance" and "Temp Performance Patches" to include my JV-1080 setup in the music-file. This way, you don't have to do anything but load and play the file (unless of course you have other equipment). ---snip here--- Roland JV-1080 Temp Performance=F0 41 10 6A 11 01 00 00 00 00 00 1F 40 20 F7 Roland JV-1080 Temp Performance Patches=F0 41 10 6A 11 02 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 6E F7 Roland JV-1080 Temp Patch=F0 41 10 6A 11 03 00 00 00 00 00 17 01 65 F7 Roland JV-1080 Performance Bank=F0 41 10 6A 11 10 00 00 00 00 1F 1F 40 71 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch Bank=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 00 00 00 00 7F 17 01 58 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 001-016=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 00 00 00 00 0F 17 01 48 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 017-032=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 10 00 00 00 0F 17 01 38 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 033-048=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 20 00 00 00 0F 17 01 28 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 049-064=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 30 00 00 00 0F 17 01 18 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 065-080=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 40 00 00 00 0F 17 01 08 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 081-096=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 50 00 00 00 0F 17 01 78 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 097-112=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 60 00 00 00 0F 17 01 68 F7 Roland JV-1080 Patch 113-128=F0 41 10 6A 11 11 70 00 00 00 0F 17 01 58 F7 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- How can I dump things into my XP-50/JV-1080? From: Chris Sherwood The Roland synths have permanent memory, what we call Preset and User banks. You can write or read SysEx with these locations either a bank at a time or a patch at a time. But the default area that the JV likes the read/write at the single patch and performance level is the Temp memory area. You're always using the temp area. For instance, when you turn the dial to select a patch, what you're actually doing is loading another patch into the temp area. When you edit this patch, the editing occurs in this temp area. That's why you need to save your patch to permanant Preset or User memory before you select change patches, as the new patch would overwrite the temp area. (actually, you can save your edited patch via SysEx as well, not writting it anywhere in the JV/XP memory) The beauty of this for patches is that you can load any patch you want into the synth and play it before you decided that you really like it enough to save it to permemant memory. When you SysEx load a patch, it simply goes to the temp area, so if you don't want it, just forget it (leave it, overwrite it, whatever). Even more robust is the temporary performance memory area, which not only holds the performance you dialed up, but the 16 patches as well. This is different from the patch temp area, which is the same size as a permenant patch memory location. The permenant performance memory areas are for the performance only, but the temporary performance area is for the performance *and* the patches that it refers to. So, if you SysEx dump the performance temp area, then you can send this for any XP/JV owner to play -- they don't need to have your patches, because they're already bundled in. This is also conveient for you in the studio--if you're playing a list of sequences for someone, you don't have to keep changing the entire User bank to load the patches that you need (which for me, are often different from sequence to sequence). All you have to do is save the temp perf and load it up everytime, which is quick and does not overwrite any permanent memory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ ] Is there any way on the JV1080 that i can say have a single performance set up and just pump patches from , say, Galaxy, into each of the 16 multi locations? From: Edward J. Japel Stephen: Even if you can send patches via Galaxy to the JV1080 while in the PERFORMANCE mode, what you have to remember is that the destination for sending patches from Galaxy is the USER mode area. When you select a performance setup, the ENTIRE performance is stored in the TEMPORARY area. If you want to use a specific patch and then change it to another patch while in performance setup mode, this can ONLY be done from the performance mode. So I think the answer to your question above is NO, you cannot dynamically change the patches in the performance setup as a function of sending pathces to the user mode. My RECOMMENDATION, after many trials, is to transfer the SYSEX performance setup to your sequencer. When you play the sequence the JV1080 will repond with ** RECEIVING SYSTEM EXCLUSIVE Data *** ... you're sequence is ready to be played with ALL the parameters set properly in the TEMP area. If you like to play along... then assign a part (I use part#1) to respond to your keyboard. This part is pointing to the USR area and responds to program changes from you keyboard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] How can I handle the .SYX files with my PC Windows? Cakewalk directly supports the .SYX format, otherwise you can use the software-packet "mdutls10.zip" and/or the software-packet "dumpster.zip". You can get them via FTP, for example at the FTP-site: ftp.cs.ruu.nl:/pub/MIDI/PROGRAMS/MSWINDOWS/dumpster.zip ftp.cs.ruu.nl:/pub/MIDI/PROGRAMS/MSWINDOWS/mdutls10.zip _________________________________________________________________________ [ ] I want to playback GM-files. Is there also a Sys-Ex-Command to put the JV1080 in GM-Mode? Try the GM-Mode Init String (SysEX): F0 7E 7F 09 01 F7. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] I was looking at a patch and noticed that the LFO rate was set but the LFO depth was zero for all destinations. But it was obvious that the LFO rate was changing some aspect of the sound...?] From Koert It is perfectly possible to let an LFO influence your sound with the depth sent at 0. This can be done from within the CONTROL menu: you can set an LFO as the e.g. controller 2. This controller can then control e.g. pitch, cut-off (which you could of course also do directly from within the LFO menu), but also resonance, EFX factors (imagine a sound with oscillating reverb or distortion...)which is not possible from within the LFO menu. (Koert) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- >The 'manual' way is to write down the patch numbers b4 the gig... >but that means it's 2 buttons [SHIFT]-[BANK USER/PR A/PR B ..etc] + 3 >buttons for PATCH NUMBER + 1 button ENTER. Which is 6 key presses >(noisy too) before I get to the desired patch. Simple thought here - just use the sequencer to select the patches. Create a sequence file for each song you play, set tempo to 250, and put the patch selection in the first beat, first bar, and have each song exactly one bar long. (Any other controller initialization can be in there too) THEN use the chain-link feature to link the songs in your set together - and have each song pause at the end. That way, all you need to do is hit the "Play" button to set up for the next song. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] How can i transform Jv-80 sounds into JV-1080 sounds? From 1) According to Roland, the XP-50 will read JV-80 patches (but not the JV-1080). It's been reported here that it happens with some errors. Two other ways: 2) I think there's a tool on pacficrim (in the Jv80 directory) that will print out the parameters of a JV80 patch. You could then manually program the patch into the JV1080. 3) What I do, since I have a JV80 too: copy the patch(es) to an M-256 RAM card, then plug the card into the JV-1080 and do a block copy to User memory. Note: Many of the JV80 patches on pacficrim have already been converted to JV1080 format and are in the Jv1080 directory somewhere (if they were moved out of incoming). _________________________________________________________________________ []What is a *.syx file and what can i do to get it into my XP-50? From Jeff Jones A .syx file is a binary file (contains characters that are not all ASCII). It contains SysEx message bytes. The XP-50 does not read this type of file. There are two ways to get the syx message into the XP-50. 1. Read the syx file into Cakewalk or some other software on your computer, and then send the syx messages out the MIDI port of the computer to the XP-50. This only works if you have a MIDI connection from your computer to the XP-50. 2. The other option is to stuff the syx message bytes into a song the XP-50 will read it, and you actually play the syx messages as a song.