Custom patches for guitar synth

tsjazz

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Jan 21, 2012, 10:30:08 AM1/21/12

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Can anyone tell me if you can upload custom sound patches to memory of
Roland GR-20 Guitar synthesizer? I know you can tweak the existing,
built-in sounds, but what of you wanted to upload a totally new
instrument to it? If not possible, how can you "expand" the instrument
range for GR-20?
Thanks,
Tomek

Gerry

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Jan 21, 2012, 2:55:52 PM1/21/12

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Do you have the manual?

http://tinyurl.com/6vescbe
--
Where words fail, music speaks. -- Hans Christian Anderson

Gerry

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Jan 21, 2012, 2:59:07 PM1/21/12

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On 2012-01-21 19:55:52 +0000, Gerry said:

> On 2012-01-21 15:30:08 +0000, tsjazz said:
>
>> Can anyone tell me if you can upload custom sound patches to memory of
>> Roland GR-20 Guitar synthesizer? I know you can tweak the existing,
>> built-in sounds, but what of you wanted to upload a totally new
>> instrument to it? If not possible, how can you "expand" the instrument
>> range for GR-20?
>
> Do you have the manual?
>
> http://tinyurl.com/6vescbe

I meant to add that long ago I had a program written by a user that
allowed me to store and retrieve patch information from a GR30 on a Mac
(OS9 and before). At the beginning and end you just read it all in
through the midi port.

I moved on from that system and the program no longer worked, but the
GR20 is a more current system; you'd figure it had the capabilities as
well.

Just googled and this was the first thing I found. There may well be others:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/me-edit/

ic

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Jan 21, 2012, 5:20:53 PM1/21/12

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"tsjazz" <tsjazz...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:2a57a100-4188-41ea...@o20g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...

Don't know about the GR20 but the GR33 can drive any midi-enabled sound
module or synth, including soft synths. I've found Roland modules and synths
are the only ones which respond well to GR units, I supect due to the amount
of midi data a GR can output, which proabably overwhelms some other synths
midi inputs. A GR unit can produce midi data equivalent to 6 mono synths, eg
different pitchbend simultaneously on 6 channels even if you're not using 6
different pichbends.

You can't add waveforms inside the GR units. Only some synth units allow
adding sound modules. There were some hardware synths which could be totally
reconfigured via software but most makers lock everything down for
commercial reasons. Some now have mega samples on their waveforms but some
can be updated like the Nord stuff, but only using the propietary format and
sounds provided by Nord, not like a conventional 'sampler'.
--

icarusi

Greg D

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Jan 21, 2012, 9:07:52 PM1/21/12

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I've had the GR20, GR33, and GR1 (which I still have). The GR20 was
the easiest to use, but also had the least configurable internal
parms. The GR33 was nearly as easy to use as the GR20 but had more
configurable parms. The GR1 is the least easy (still not hard to use,
though) to use but has the most number of internal parms and I suppose
that arguably it would be the most customizable. That said, the GR1
has so many internal config parms that I never go to that level.

Keep in mind that the GR1 can do applause and other weird, outlandish
sounds, but I don't think that is possible with the GR20. Not sure
about the GR33.

None of 'em sound like studio effects to my ears. The GR20, the GR33,
and the GR1 are about the same tonal quality you'll find in a $129
keyboard, which today is light years ahead of where the mono-phonic
synths of the 80's were, imo.

Frisbieinstein

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Jan 22, 2012, 2:59:46 AM1/22/12

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On Jan 22, 10:07 am, Greg D <oasy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> t the same tonal quality you'll find in a $129
> keyboard, which today is light years ahead of where the mono-phonic
> synths of the 80's were, imo.

Yeah, I've got one of those keyboards. Every now and then I think,
when I was a kid you couldn't buy this for ANY price.

tsjazz

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Jan 22, 2012, 10:26:24 AM1/22/12

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Sounds like the keyboard would be a good solution, but that would be a
chore to get it set up along with my guitar and have to mess with all
the extra hardware.
What I'm trying to accomplish is to either mod the existing patches in
GR-20 or maybe add a laptop with some software to my guitar, GR-20 rig
to get some more decent tones. For example I'm looking for better
xylophone and some horns.
Wouldn't there be maybe a software for mac or pc that could mod the
sound coming through MIDI out of gr-20?

Gerry

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Jan 22, 2012, 12:38:21 PM1/22/12

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Did someone upstream answer this question directly with a link?

Joey Goldstein

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Jan 22, 2012, 6:12:13 PM1/22/12

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I believe that with the Roland GR synths you are limited to the samples
and wave forms that come with the the unit.
You can edit the raw samples and the waveforms with the editing tools
they give you (envelopes for the note and/or filter shapes, etc.) but
you're stuck with the raw samples that come stock.
I'm sure there are free GR software patch editors out there at Roland's
web site or elsewhere online.
If the stock samples and waveforms don't suit your needs you could buy a
separate sample player (or a full-fledged sampler), load whatever
samples you want to buy and edit them, and trigger the sampler via the
GR's MIDI output.

--
Joey Goldstein
<http://www.joeygoldstein.com>
<http://homepage.mac.com/josephgoldstein/AudioClips/audio.htm>