Kiwitechnics Patch Editor

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Danielle Just

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Aug 5, 2024, 9:00:58 AM8/5/24

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Theres a significant demand for the knobby boxes that add traditional controls to Roland's old digital parameter-access synths, and recent sales on eBay have included a PG200 (for the JX3P and MKS30) for 235$380, a PG300 (for the Alpha Juno series and MKS50) for 280$450, and a PG800 (for the JX8P, Super JX10 and MKS70) for no less than 485$785. Meanwhile, asking prices for the MKS80's dedicated programmer, the MPG80, have peaked at close to 1000$1600. These are crazy prizes for what are, if we're honest, just control panels for synths that would have had them in the first place had low cost not been a major design factor. So here's a thought: with modern technology, it should be possible to build a programmer that can substitute for all of these and address a bunch of other synths besides. And here it is. It's the Kiwi Technics Patch Editor.

Around the back, there are MIDI In, Out and Thru sockets, an input for an external controller (see 'Using The External Input' box) and an input for a 9V DC power supply that you have to provide yourself. I'm normally critical of the use of wall warts but, on a unit where size and cost are such overriding factors, I'm prepared to give the manufacturer the benefit of the doubt. It's also worth noting that, like the PG200, the PE has magnetic strips on its underside to secure it to steel cased synths. Nice touch!

If you have a JX3P but have never used it with a programmer, you've missed one of life's little pleasures. It's such a simple synth, but such a pig to program from its front panel. Yet it sounds lovely, and it comes alive when connected to a handful of knobs and switches. This was a good start.

I set up a chain of four instruments: a Roland Alpha Juno 2, an MKS70 Super JX, an MKS80 Super Jupiter, and a Korg EX8000. I wanted to use the Juno 2 as the controller keyboard, so I connected its MIDI Out to the MIDI In of the PE, the MIDI Out of the PE back to the MIDI In of the Juno, and the MIDI Thru on the Juno to the chain of modules. No nasty MIDI loops occurred, and all worked as it should.

Editing the Juno 2 itself worked well, because all of the synth's parameters were mapped to the PE, with the exception of one important area: two of the envelope parameters were permanently set to values that truncated the contour from five stages (AD1D2SR) to the more common four. This meant that the contour could be mapped to the ADSR sliders on the PE, but at the expense of one of the synth's best features. So I emailed Murray Hodge at Kiwi Technics, and 24 hours later a new version of the operating software arrived. This retained the ADSR compromise on the original setup, now called Page 1, but also offered the full set of seven contour parameters on a second page. This was much better.

Editing the MKS70 from the PE again worked well, although there is one compromise in the parameter map that concerns me: the degree to which velocity affects how much the oscillators' pitches, the oscillator mix, the filter cutoff frequency and the VCA respond to their envelopes is the same for each. This means that if you want to create a patch in which the velocity affects the oscillator mix a little, the cutoff frequency a bit more and the amplifier a lot, you can't program it from the PE. What's more, the Key Follow options in Env1 and Env2 are not implemented. I feel another email to Murray Hodge coming on!

Like the Juno 2 and MKS70, the MKS80 can also be programmed over MIDI, so it's not necessary to use the dedicated MPG80 input. And, as with the previous synths, the PE worked well with it. However, because of the size of the Super Jupiter's patch map, more compromises were required. For example, the modulation polarity of the two oscillators is always the same, and the Key Follow amounts for both Env1 and Env2 are missing from the patch map. Many of the performance controls are omitted too; if you want to program things such as the key mode, glide, the bender and aftertouch, you'll have to turn to the synth itself to do so. But if this makes me sound a bit negative about the PE, it's only because I have an MPG80. Had I been forced to program my MKS80 from its front panel, I would have sold it years ago. For anyone with an MKS80 but without Roland's dedicated programmer, the PE will be a godsend.

The PE also supports the Roland Juno 106, but this seems rather pointless given that it already sports a dedicated control per parameter. However, there's one module that uses the same synth engine as the Juno 106 but has no controls whatsoever: the MKS7 Super Quartet. Grabbing yet another MIDI cable, I connected mine and found that selecting the appropriate MIDI channel on the PE (1 = bass, 2 = melody, 3 = chord section) was all that was necessary to make it possible to edit each of the parts. Of course, neither the editor nor the module could store the results (neither has memories), but I have never edited my MKS7 before, and doing so proved to be an unexpected pleasure.

One less obvious feature of the Patch Editor is its ability to translate MIDI Continuous Controllers to SysEx commands. Many software products and some hardware control surfaces send only MIDI CCs, and many synthesizers' programming systems respond only to SysEx. But, given that there's a standard MIDI CC map, it's possible for the PE to accept the incoming CCs and translate them into the appropriate SysEx commands for whichever synth is selected at the time. (Well, with the possible exception of the PG200 or PG800 options, which I didn't test.) There is, however, a caveat: SysEx uses more data than a MIDI CC for the same message, so there's a small risk of locking up the Patch Editor if you ask it to do too much at once. I didn't experience this, but I'm not a frenetic knob twiddler, so I am at less risk than some users.

Another benefit of programming via SysEx is that each synthesizer responds only to its own data messages. To test this, I left my MKS80 and MKS7 in series, set the MKS80's MIDI channel to '1', and sent a bunch of CCs to the PE. As expected, I was able to edit each module independently by selecting the appropriate synthesizer in the PE's menu. Bravo!

So what's the verdict? To be honest, I could continue digging out vintage synths and testing the PE with them, but I see no point, because every time I do so the result is the same. In short, it works extremely well, even though there are compromises that I would prefer to see addressed. But when you consider what it's like to edit these synths without any form of programmer... well, those compromises seem much less important.

It's no fun editing a digital parameter-access synth, and even if a dedicated programmer exists, it's likely to be expensive. The Patch Editor already substitutes for four of Roland's dedicated programmers and also addresses vintage synths from Korg, Sequential, and others. It's a great idea and it deserves to be a success.

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"The panel updates the parameter settings on receipt of an Edit Buffer message from the Kiwi-3P. At various places in the panels scripts a command to send an Edit Buffer request are written in, such as when a new patch is selected.

Quick question, I noticed on the SysEx parse section of the developers documentation, you mention you are currently adjusting the Electrion one SysEx parse, so it is just a reference document currently.

My question is, are you planning on adding the request/response sysex parse to the online editor, or will it still be something needed to be done in a json/text editor? It would be awesome to be able to implement patch request to the editor, but I understand that is probably fairly complex.

If the leading bytes of the incoming sysex message match the bytes of the header, Electra will start extraction of parameter values out of the message and will assign them to controls. The extraction is done with so-called rules. There are three rules in this example:

Also, it is always useful to have ElectraOneConsole running when you experiment with things like this. The Log view can give you insight in what is happening in Electra when you load the preset and when you press the [PATCH REQUEST] button.

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For more information on Sound Quest's editor librarian software visit: Midi Quest 9 for Windows, Midi Quest 9 for Macintosh, Midi Quest XL for Windows, Midi Quest XL for Macintosh and UniQuest for Windows Midi Quest 9: TC-Helicon includes a free Sound Quest UniQuest VoiceOne Editor/Librarian with every new VoiceOne TC-Helicon is now shipping a UniQuest/ VoiceOne Editor/Librarian for Windows with each one of its VoiceOne voice processing units.