Roland Juno Di/Ds Transpose issues.

[Adamgh0]

I've been using the Juno Di since 2012 and the Ds since 2019 and I've noticed some issues with the transpose regarding controllers. When these keyboards are used as "slave" keyboards to an external controller, they seem to ignore the fact that they are transposed. My band uses E flat tuning so I often learn songs in their original key and transpose them for live performances. I have two controllers that I would like to use. One is and old Yamaha DX100 and the other is a Roland ED PC-300 (which lacks a transpose feature.) When connected to the transposed Juno's, they play in standard tuning. The Juno's are not applying local transpose to the incoming MIDI signal from the controllers. I used to use a Fantom X6 which did not have this issue. Transpose the Fantom, it transposes the MIDI. Is there a workaround other than "just transpose the controller, brah."?

 

[happyrat1]

The Junos are simply ignoring the control panel input and playing the notes as they are received as they should.

It's a poor MIDI implementation that lets a receiving keyboard transpose incoming MIDI due to a setting on the playback device.

So yes, the answer is to transpose the controller.

Gary

 

[anotherscott]

The Juno's are not applying local transpose to the incoming MIDI signal from the controllers. I used to use a Fantom X6 which did not have this issue. Transpose the Fantom, it transposes the MIDI. Is there a workaround other than "just transpose the controller, brah."?

If you have an iPad, you should be able to use an app that will transpose the keys you play on the controller and send the transposed Note events out you your Juno. Keystage and Camelot Pro would probably both do this. There are also Mac/PC programs that can do this.

It's a poor MIDI implementation that lets a receiving keyboard transpose incoming MIDI due to a setting on the playback device.

I disagree. Since both ways of working can be useful, a good MIDI implementation SHOULD let a receiving keyboard transpose MIDI. You should be able to set it to behave however you want.

In fact, all the Korg workstations support this, even the lowly Kross and my old Microstation. There is a "convert" parameter which can be set for "PreMIDI" or "PostMIDI" -- it determines whether certain functions (including transpose) should or should not be applied to the incoming MIDI signal.

Yamaha also supports this. Montage/MODX (and some if not all the Motif-based models that preceded them) have two different functions available for global key change... they call one "transpose" and the call the other "note shift" -- one affects incoming MIDI, one does not. I'm pretty sure that even their lower end MX models can do this.

But unfortunately for the OP, the Juno DS does not appear to support this... as far as I can tell, it only works the one way, leaving incoming MIDI unaffected.

 

[Adamgh0]

I figured out the issue. You need to use “Master Key Shift” in the system settings to transpose the Juno DS. The Juno Di doesn’t have a master key shift, only a transpose key. Still has a weird portamento issue when used that way.