Roland U-20 / U-220
Drum Patch Editor
This patch editor ought to work properly with both the U-20 and the U-220. However it has only been tested with the U-220. Please let me know of any discrepancies you discover.
Communicating with Edisyn
Set Edisyn's MIDI channel to the same as your rhythm part's Channel (typically 10). Set Edisyn's Synth ID to the same as the Roland Device ID (typically 17). Set the unit's Part Change to "On" or "Dir". On the U-220, set the Timbre Change, Rhythm Change, and Rhythm Ins. Assign all to "Dir". Turn on Sysex receive.
About the Menu
You can set up your synthesizer's Multimode patch to nicely audition the Rhythm part by selecting "Set up Test Patch for Drum Only". This sets the Rhythm Part to be on Channel 10, with all voices, and shuts off all other parts. Alternatively you can set up each Part to be on the same numbered channel (Part 2 is channel 2, etc.), and the Rhythm part to be Channel 10, and distribute voices among all of them, by selecting "Set Up Test Patch for All Parts".
You can also call up the current Multimode patch with "Show Current Patch".
It's often the case that you want to all drums to have the same value for a given parameter. Set the parameter in one drum, then call "Distribute Last Parameter to All Drums", which will, well, distribute the last parameter you set to all drums. If you want to distribute the Drum Tone, you should first distribute the Drum Media, then the Drum Tone.
Hints
- If you double-click on the Drum Source dial, it'll go to the lowest valid drum source.
- Some drum sources in the Internal Drum drumset are missing unless the Latin/FX card is installed (I believe). These have been labelled with a "[L]".
Gotchas
- Bulk downloads from the U-220 will not be understood by Edisyn. Here's why. Roland breaks its patch sysex into multiple messages, each 138 bytes long. But Roland stupidly made it very difficult to distinguish between sysex for a single patch and sysex for a message that's part of a bulk dump of patches. Edisyn must assume that the sysex is for a single patch. However while Edisyn can't figure out bulk downloads sent from the synthesizer, it can figure out bulk files loaded from disk (because it gets all of them at once and realizes what's happening).
- If you are presently editing a drum patch, the U-220 refuses to change patches, so Edisyn can load a new one but it can't get the U-220 to switch to it. Thus Edisyn is forced to send the patch back to the U-220 to change its parameters. This means that loading a patch will take twice as long as it needs to.
- In the manual (page 132), the Internal Drumset is listed as initialized to a number of Latin-2 sounds. These sounds do not exist in the U-220 and are not part of the Internal Drumset even if the Latin Percussion & FX card is inserted: it appears to simply be a mistake. Edisyn does not list these sounds.
Thanks
Thanks to Keith (llamamusic@hotmail.com) for his extraordinary service in loaning stuff, providing materials, and debugging. If you are a U-220 owner, llamamusic.com is a fantastic resource. Thanks also to Benjamin Wild (dj@benjaminwild.com) for bug reports and suggestions.
By
| Sean Luke
|
Date
| October 2022
|