Music Things To Figure Out

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Music Things I Don't Know How To Do At The Moment

Some things I am working on now:

• Propellerheads Reason software doesn't seem to want to control my midi devices. It will take messages and control from them, but it doesn't seem to want to send sequencing information out to them.

• The Roland PMA-5 Music PDA doesn't want to properly control a Roland SH-32 synthesizer. This is frustrating. The SH-32 has an LED display showing what instrument is selected, for example "A58" is a beautiful pipe flute sound. When a song is started on the PMA-5, these LED's change to "---", and then the SH-32 makes no sound at all. It's Midi in light (last decimal point), is flashing, but nothing happens. If I stop the song playback sequence on the PMA-5, then toggle either of the SH-32 value buttons below the display (to reselect the instrument), then I can resume play on the PMA-5, and the roland will try to play along. But as soon as another instrument change is hit, the SH-32 goes back into soundless '---' mode.

My PMA-5, when connected to a microKorg, the microKorg faithfully tries to follow along. Instrument changes on the PMA-5 properly change instruments on the Korg, etc. Of course, since the Micro Korg is not a general midi instrument, it doesn't do too well trying to play songs that expect a general midi instrument mapping.

• I must figure out how to download the patches from the SH-32. Something about needing a bulk dump utility. Surprisingly, I can not find this on the Roland site. Korg supplied a program that can be used to store the bulk dump, and libraries of patches, on the PC. It's really too bad there doesn't seem to be a PC control program for the SH-32.

• I must figure out how to download the songs and sequences from the PMA-5. I've composed, or arranged, a number of things that have been sitting in it's memory for years. Somehow I was able to download midi files into it from a Maxis pinball game, so at one point I must have had it hooked to my PC. If I could only remember what software I used.

The Roland Sitemap has dead links to

• Message Boards
  • Guitar Message Board
  • Percussion Message Board
  • Keyboards Message Board
  • Groove Message Board
  • Recording & Mixing Message Board

Now that I think about, I think the Roland came with an RS-232 interface, and a software program on a floppy disk. I still have the manual for the "PMA-5S/AT". It had a "PMA Convert Tool For Windows". It offered these functions:

• Bulk Data Saving
• Bulk Data Transmission
• Canvas Data Conversion
• Canvas Data Transmission
• SMF Conversion
• SMF Transmission

You could send a single song at a time with this software.

The Bome SendSX?Create software definitely seems to be able to receive and store a bulk dump, or monitor the midi stream. However, it doesn't translate anything about the midi recieve. In the case of the PMA 5 there was some conversions that had to be done. Also there is no way to pick a specific song out of the PMA5 dump. Same with the SH-32 dump, no way to pick out an individual patch from the stream.

Midi-Quest might be another possibility. http://www.squest.com./

• My first attempt with this program didn't get much of anywhere. I couldn't figure out how to get it to talk to the either the Roland PMA-5, or the Roland SH-32. It doesn't offer the microKorg as an option, so I didn't even try to get it to work with that.
• Trying again. I got some communication going with the SH-32, but got lots of "SysX?Create data is missing bytes" errors. Their driver for the SH-32 seems to be incorrectly calling itself a Roland XV-3080.
• I am downloading new drivers for the Midiman Midisport 2x2 to see if that helps.

Search google for "Midi Bulk Dump"...

• Found someone else asking the same question I am:
  • "I have Yamaha PSR270 portable instrument with built-in 6-tracks sequenser. It has the Bulk Dump function via MIDI interface, but I have not the software for my PC (Win95) to receive and process this information. Can anybody reccommend me the corresponding software on the WEB? May be the freeware software is availiable?"

• Here are some things that might work:
  • http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Bomes_SendSX/ - Bome's SendSX?Create 1.21

Other links

• Brazilian page about the PMA-5
• http://www.roland.com/worldwide/products/MI/sequencers_and_sound_modules/PMA-5.html
• http://www.grandgent.com/tom/scug/Software.HTM

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