Patch editing - a beginner question

[adrian_k]

I’ve got to a place where I never thought I would get to - I want to edit and maybe create some sounds on my Roland JDxi.

Fine if you like working with tiny rubber buttons and a minute dot matrix screen to access multiple menu layers. Roland don’t seem to provide an editor, I least I can’t find one, the only options I’ve come across are a Linux based one or something for an iPad, but I’m W11 based. Is that right? What am I missing? What do other people do?

Edit: although that Linux one does seem to have a beta version for Windows

[ajay_m]

I genuinely don't mean this sarcastically but what other people do is buy a synth that actually was designed to make creating patches intuitive and easy, i.e the ASM Hydrasynth. Until I got this, I pretty much got discouraged creating new patches because, as you say, on most synths, the process is incredibly tedious with tiny buttons and menu diving, whereas on the HS everything's pretty much a button press away (at least to get you where you want to be) and it has a generous sprinkling of displays and encoders that make interacting with the synth an actually enjoyable experience.

But this doesn't help you right now. So on a more positive note the Linux-based patch editor you mention now does have a Windows version according to its home page albeit a fairly early alpha version. So why not help the developer test it out and see how you go?.

[OneWorld]

I concur with Ajay, it is difficult to give an objective reply without sounding sarcastic, but hey ho, here we go. Yes, there are many that buy a synth with ease of editing in mind. And on the other hand some are so perplexing that it almost takes me back to the time when all editing was done from a command line, even setting the volume and velocity from a qwerty keyboard where the value might be between 0....9 or if MIDI 1.....127, oh my goodness - oh what fun I had programming the SID chip - not!

If memory serves me right there is/was one widely used 'universal' editor. It might have been Soundiver......

https://archive.org/details/emagicsounddiver3.0.5.4

But it's Ye Olde Ancient Softwayre that might only run on the Colossus or of course a VM version of it

I think MIDIQuest do one, I seem to remember one called jSynthLib

Ask chatBOTTY to make one, that'll keep it quiet for a bit

[shurikt]

I’ve got to a place where I never thought I would get to - I want to edit and maybe create some sounds on my Roland JDxi.

Did everybody forget to take their grumpy pills this morning? I can get really interesting stuff out of my rackmount JV-2080, and programming it with the panel is like dental work.

Soundquest's "Midi Quest" product lists compatibility with the JD-Xi here: https://squest.com/Products/MidiQuest13 ... ments.html

I've not used that editor specifically for that synth, but I have for others. I've found them functional if not the most beautiful. They seem to keep updating the main product as they're on version 13, which is nice. There can't be much revenue in ancient midi editors.

Edit: Here's an SOS review from 1995! https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/so ... -midiquest

[adrian_k]

Thanks for the replies and I’m not taking umbrage at the “I’m not being sarcastic but….” because I’m a guitarist and never intended to do more than use the presets and fiddle with the ADSR, filter and effect knobs. But we are where we are.

Thanks for the link to MidiQuest I’ll check it out. I might try the Linux thing but that Windows beta was 2018 and not updated since.

[James Perrett]

My suggestion would be to try a Linux virtual machine but I'm not sure whether you can pass MIDI through to the virtual machine and my lad, who is the real Linux expert, isn't here at the moment to try it.

[adrian_k]

I do have a Linux Mint laptop, haven’t used it for some time but I guess could give it a try. I gave up with Linux when I just couldn’t get it working with my Focusrite 2i2.