[sdiy] keyboard controller MCU protocols (was Re: ...)

[Adam (synthDIY)]

> On 10 Aug 2026, at 08:49, brianw <brianw at audiobanshee.com> wrote:
> 
> Adam, are you talking about Roland's DCB? That was supposedly the inspiration for MIDI, but USI came between DCB and MIDI, so it might be quite different.
> 
> Brian Willoughby

Hi Brian
I actually still use DCB! I have a Roland MD-8 that acts as a midi interface for my Jupiter 8. It converts DCB to MIDI, MIDI to DCB, or 2 way communication! 
Although my Jupe is a fairly early one, it originally belonged to a touring band, and had multiple upgrades back in the day including the DCB board.

I think the JX-3P was either the first or second midi synth Roland produced - so the programmer protocol would likely be a bit later than DCB, but I certainly don't know for sure.

A




> On Aug 8, 2026, at 7:30 PM, Adam wrote:
>> Rainer that's interesting. I wonder if that's similar to the JX3P's communication with the PG-200?
>> 
>> A
>> 
>> On 9 Aug 2026, at 08:37, Rainer Buchty wrote:
>>> On Sat, 8 Aug 2026, grant musictechnologiesgroup.com wrote:
>>>> I love that the panel MCU is a MIDI controller for the rest. Is this a pretty common technique?
>>> 
>>> Roland liked to play this game, it seems.
>>> 
>>> The JX8P also has a similar setup where the main board and the synth board essentially communicate via MIDI. The differentiation whether it is internal MIDI or "true" MIDI is IIRC a leading 0xf4.
>>> 
>>> It's even weirder that one board does MIDI in, and the other does MIDI out ...
>>> 
>>> Rainer
> 
> 
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