Roland Boutiques NO midi out! (edit-usb hack!)

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Re8et
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05 Jul 2019

:exclamation: :exclamation: :exclamation: Atettention please :exclamation: :exclamation: :exclamation:

Roland Boutique do not have Midi out from its own sequencers.
There are few exception
*Most of them do not have a midi through option.
Exception here is the D-05, which has it, and global, which means it stick to preferences when you move around
The not truly Roland Es-02 has Midi out on the sequencer but it is pattern based, i.e., one will have to set the out
per pattern base, and save the preference.
To my knowledge, any of all the other Boutiques has NOT the Midi out on the sequencers, ot the Arps, in fact,
I find it hard to understand WHY they even have a Midi out, if it's totally useless.. except for the useless chain
which is done thousand times better in Reason with the Chain patch I posted here in this forum sometime ago.

I'm not on the same boat of people who says, who cares, anyway the sequencer it's shit, just use other ( Reason or others ) seq's
Even the Op-1 has midi out through the Usb!!! iPhone has midi out!! If there is a sequencer, I want to use it, as mother.
No. you got to be slave.
Well done Roland...
:evil:

I post this here also because there are no universal mods or firmware upgrades for this unbelievable costly units,
given they do not even have midi out, *nor midi through, but, if anyone would get some info on some viable mods or hack, and could please post it here,
I would be grateful.

Here is the Chain patch variable 1-8 poly, I lost the old post link to...
it uses Alien Seed PSDN, MIDI CV player RE. Sequences from Robotic Bean is there to facilitate the walkthrough :) but it is really not necessary for patch sake
Alien Seed PSDN can be swapped for BLAMSOFT Distributor.
There might be a third option to do it free RE's, namely TAP player...
MIDI CHAIN 4 BOUTIQUES.zip
(7.86 KiB) Downloaded 68 times
Last edited by Re8et on 20 Jun 2020, edited 5 times in total.

User avatar
raymondh
Posts: 1776
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

05 Jul 2019

Yes there are some frustrating things about the Boutiques.
That one wasn't important to me, but the crappy implementation of chaining for extra polyphony was a big disappointment.

That said, I still like the Boutiques. They sound wonderful.

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O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

06 Jul 2019

Interesting.

I mostly MIDI IN to a Synth without keys and a proper (cough - minibrute 2s) sequencer.
The JX-03 and JP-08 fits the bill nicely.

KEEPERS.

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boingy
Posts: 791
Joined: 01 Feb 2019

06 Jul 2019

Over the last 3 decades I've owned about a dozen bits of Roland hardware, mostly synths - both rack mount and keyboard. They have all been mostly great, and always sounded great, but tended to have one or two omissions which were puzzling.

I recall one that lacked a MIDI Thru socket at a time when such things mattered and when all its competitors had them. Another had something odd about copying patches into a higher bank - I can't actually remember the details of that one but it was enough to irritate me at the time. Of course you find workarounds to most of these things but it doesn't surprise me that the Boutique stuff is found to lack something obvious!

Having said that, even I no longer use outboard synths I must admit those Boutique things are kinda tempting. Go figure!

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Re8et
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20 Jun 2020

I've read there's some possibility that some midi data gets out on the usb bus...
Arduino -raspberry hack?

need to check that usb midi thing....

I never had any Roland gear in the past. Only saw a TB-303 with just clock input maybe?
I still like the sound they make but the midi thing is just pointless...

There's literally nothing special to output the sequencer over midi, if there is a midi port on the board.
Except the cpu could overflow, and thus they saved money not multiplexing the midi port...

Hooray...

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Re8et
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20 Jun 2020

Confirmed, there is midi out from the D-05 seq!!


Hack is coming!
d05 midi usb.PNG
d05 midi usb.PNG (819.25 KiB) Viewed 2121 times

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Re8et
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20 Jun 2020

Nice! It may fit nicely into the small case!

Hopefully they will not change anytime soon to usb-C! There's plenty already of Universal unflip stuff.
https://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/usb-host ... -board-v24

[edit] The device could not work, it has problems with the OP-1, and the boutiques usb appears as soundcards also, so, yeah, it's complicated...

But, sidenote, it is possible to get midi out at this point via Reason. Small victory. :roll:

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Re8et
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23 Jun 2020

Arduino midi usb host to Midi DIn out![*]

[*][edit-not boutique to arduino, but arduino to boutique, I had mis-interpeted the title of the video]

I ordered the usb host from hobbytronics in the meantime :lightbulb: :lightbulb:
Last edited by Re8et on 10 Jul 2020, edited 1 time in total.

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Data_Shrine
Posts: 517
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

23 Jun 2020

I think the MIDI Out (on the SH-01A at least) also works as a MIDI Thru.. but I noticed that it doesn't even send octave changes from it's own keyboard.. maybe it's just to pass out MIDI from other sources/channels.. anyway it's really weird.

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Re8et
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Joined: 14 Nov 2016

10 Jul 2020

I sadly discovered that the HT midi host is not working with the D-05 midi usb output...
Still looking for a viable solution. I am trying to test it with the Kenton USB usb midi host but ain't got it yet from a friend of mine to which I once sold it.
It worked for the SQ-1, which is good news but does not add any functionality as it has midi out already...
Posting it just just in case someone might get interested.

The midi out from its own keyboard it's also a weird thing I suspected already. Could try to test it with a standard midi keyboard if I can get midi through, without the use of the [sic] HT midi host

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Re8et
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14 Jul 2020

Data_Shrine wrote:
23 Jun 2020
I think the MIDI Out (on the SH-01A at least) also works as a MIDI Thru.. but I noticed that it doesn't even send octave changes from it's own keyboard.. maybe it's just to pass out MIDI from other sources/channels.. anyway it's really weird.
How would you octave change on that tiny keyboard??
I have two external keyboards plugged to two different boutiques, one is an 88 key, and the other a 2 octave key with octave change buttons.
The octave change buttons works fine with the standard DIN midi input connection.
But the optional-built-in keyboard? How????

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Data_Shrine
Posts: 517
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

17 Jul 2020

Re8et wrote:
14 Jul 2020
Data_Shrine wrote:
23 Jun 2020
I think the MIDI Out (on the SH-01A at least) also works as a MIDI Thru.. but I noticed that it doesn't even send octave changes from it's own keyboard.. maybe it's just to pass out MIDI from other sources/channels.. anyway it's really weird.
How would you octave change on that tiny keyboard??
I have two external keyboards plugged to two different boutiques, one is an 88 key, and the other a 2 octave key with octave change buttons.
The octave change buttons works fine with the standard DIN midi input connection.
But the optional-built-in keyboard? How????
Yes it works fine with input from DIN midi or USB from other keyboards. Using the L M H transpose switch works with the optional-built-in keyboard to change octave, but it doesn't send out the octave change through DIN midi.

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Re8et
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Posts: 1512
Joined: 14 Nov 2016

20 Jul 2020

Data_Shrine wrote:
17 Jul 2020
Re8et wrote:
14 Jul 2020


How would you octave change on that tiny keyboard??
I have two external keyboards plugged to two different boutiques, one is an 88 key, and the other a 2 octave key with octave change buttons.
The octave change buttons works fine with the standard DIN midi input connection.
But the optional-built-in keyboard? How????
Yes it works fine with input from DIN midi or USB from other keyboards. Using the L M H transpose switch works with the optional-built-in keyboard to change octave, but it doesn't send out the octave change through DIN midi.

On the SH-01A there's the octave out from the cv and gate, at least from the ribbon control.


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Data_Shrine
Posts: 517
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

21 Jul 2020

Re8et wrote:
20 Jul 2020
Data_Shrine wrote:
17 Jul 2020


Yes it works fine with input from DIN midi or USB from other keyboards. Using the L M H transpose switch works with the optional-built-in keyboard to change octave, but it doesn't send out the octave change through DIN midi.

On the SH-01A there's the octave out from the cv and gate, at least from the ribbon control.

thank you, that's interesting. Roland does things the really odd way !

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