[sdiy] Looking for a tinny MIDI controller (patch change needs for Roland GR-55)

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

Bonjour Jean-Pierre,

The MIDI Patch Change message only supports 128 presets, numbered 0 through 127. In order to access more presets, you need to send a MIDI Bank Change message. Roland should have a MIDI Implementation Chart for the GR-55 which describes which Banks are valid.

If you're going to program your own device, you'll need to know how the Roland GR-55 arranges its hundreds of presets into banks. Since each MIDI Bank holds 128 Patches, there will be some GR-55 banks that are partially empty (otherwise the total number of patches would be a whole multiple of 128, like 512 or 1024, not 954). Your device will hopefully skip the empty ones to save you time, which means you need some custom programming for the Up/Down function.

So, if you already have a device that sends 18 presets, and you add a new device that steps up and down through 954 presets, then how will the new device copy the current preset into your existing device? Can't you just modify your existing device to take a common 1/4" foot pedal switch as an optional input for stepping through presets while building your selection of 18? I'm assuming that your existing device is programmable.

Brian


On Apr 29, 2016, at 10:17 AM, Jean-Pierre Desrochers <jpdesroc at oricom.ca> wrote:
> Thanks GB for your nice reply,
> 
> But the GR-55 has a huge number of presets to access:
> 270 factory presets,
> 297 user in guitar mode,
> 90 preset/ 297 user in bass mode
> 
> So the Gecko only access 127 preset max.
> and if I go pcboard kit I'll prefer using
> my design stuff and build one.
> 
> Still looking around..
> 
> ************************************************
> Le 2016-04-29 12:02, MTG a écrit :
>> Are you looking for a circuit board or product?  Highly Liquid make
>> the former and Gecko the latter.
>> GB
>> www.musictechnologiesgroup.com
>> On 4/29/2016 7:18 AM, Jean-Pierre Desrochers wrote:
>>> I just bought a Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer
>>> which is a nice instrument. Lots of nice presets to use..
>>> After playing with it for a while I found it difficult
>>> to rapidly change preset patches on the fly (for example in live
>>> situations).
>>> The user needs to step on the 2 first footswitches at the same time
>>> then go UP/DOWN to the patch number he needs, then select
>>> the preset# (1,2 or 3) on that specific patch.. annoying !
>>> Since the GR-55 has a MIDI input I designed a small MIDI foot controller
>>> that has 3 rows of 6 preset switches. That's 18 presets ready to be
>>> selected fast.
>>> I use my device now for selection.
>>> The GR has four groups of presets: LEAD, RHYTHM, OTHER and.... USER.
>>> So I programmed my MIDI controller to select the first 18 USER presets
>>> by MIDI means. Now that I have this working and I'm happy with that
>>> I'm looking for a tinny MIDI controller that would do a simple UP/DOWN
>>> patch preset number selection for ALL the GR presets.
>>> This one would be used only to go around all the available presets
>>> at first to 'choose' the bests ones then copy them at my USER group's
>>> first 18 locations. No stepping on GR footswitches.
>>> I've seen lots of disc jockey MIDI controllers with many pads
>>> and gadgets but I don't need that much for my needs.
>>> Any suggestions ?
>>> Thanks.