XP 80 REVERB/CHORUS QUESTION

[John L]

I have three XP 80's that I use for our midi band. I alternate them.

When I set the reverb to "room" and take all of the numbers down to zero (except HP damp which is 200), the XP that I have been using for several months stays on that setting, i.e. no effects which is what I want for the band.

I just started using another XP80 and noticed that certain songs that I play on a floppy disc (which contains about 13 songs) apparently causes the reverb to go back to Stage 1 rather than Room 1 and the HP damp goes back to 4000. Or I can press the Reverb/Chorus buttons on top of the board to stop the effects. I then tried the same songs on the 3rd spare XP and the reverb kicks in on the same two songs.

Is there any way to permanently turn off "all" of the effects internally so that they will not switch back when I play a certain midi song on the disc? Or does this mean that this particular XP has an internal issue that needs to be repaired?

I never want, or use the effects because I only use this unit with our band so I just want the dry sound.

Roland indicated that both the (Rx Sys. Exc and Rx GM) should be turned off which should stop the reverb and chorus from being activated. They also said I could take out the activation of reverb from the midi itself. Not sure how to do that.

I turned (Rx Sys. Exc and Rx GM) as suggested by Roland on both spare XP’s but the same two songs still cause the reverb to kick back on. However these same songs do not activate the reverb on the third XP that I have been using.

Any suggestions? Thanks for your time.

Thanks
John

 

[SeaGtGruff]

I'm guessing that Roland is correct that you should take the Reverb out of the MIDI files, because it sounds like they are turning it on. Do you know what format the MIDI files are in? Is it the standard MIDI file format (which usually has a ".MID" file extension), or is it some kind of proprietary format that's used by the XP60 and XP-80? If they're in the standard MIDI format, you should be able to open them in a decent MIDI editor, look for the SysEx events which are turning on the Reverb, delete them, and save the changed files. Many DAWs should let you do that kind of thing, although certain DAWs don't let you work with SysEx events-- they'll actually filter those events out of the MIDI data when you import (open) a MIDI file-- so you want to check whether your DAW can work with SysEx before you try it.

 

[John L]

Thanks much. Off to a gig right now but will check and see if I can locate the events this weekend. I can save .MID but some are saved to Roland's SVQ format which, once edited in the XP 80, can't be saved back to .MID due to the company copyright that was put on the file when I purchased it. There is probably a way to turn off the copyright but I have never had a reason to do that over the years. Just thought it strange that one XP does not turn the reverb on any song but the other two XP's turn that same couple of songs on reverb. At any rate I do appreciate your feedback and reply. I will let you know. Thanks.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

One thing I wasn't sure of is whether you can load the song into the synth, turn off the reverb, save the song again, and have it update the song file so the reverb isn't being turned on? I know you can do that sort of thing with mid- to high-range Yamaha keyboards, although my low-end Yammies can't do that-- at least, not after the song has been converted to a standard MIDI file. If you can do that on one of the XP-80s, it would save you from having to figure out which SysEx message is turning on the reverb-- although the MIDI section of the owner's manual should give you an idea of what address is used to turn the reverb on or off.

 

[John L]

Thanks. Nothing is working so I just need to turn all effects off each time I power up for the next set of music. When the XP is turned on it automatically goes to "Stage 1" so I turn it to "Room 1" and the other numbers down. The HP goes to 6000 so I turn it to 0. Once that is done the reverb is off for that set of music. Just have to get used to doing that on all future gigs.

It was interesting, Roland does not have an XP80 on hand to check what I am talking about so they have to go by the on line owners manual. Guess it is too old. The problem is that "some" songs trigger the "settings" to go back to "Stage 1" from "Room 1".

At any rate we will be ok. Just need to remember to turn down the setting prior to each set of songs that we play. Still an excellent workstation.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

On my Yamaha keyboards, most of the initial or power-up settings come from Voice 001 and Style 001, and they are changed whenever a different voice or style is selected-- i.e., the Reverb Type and Chorus Type can be changed by selecting a different voice, the Tempo and Time Signature can be changed by selecting a different style, etc.

I have to be mindful of the order in which I change settings, such as selecting the Voice Number before I change the Reverb Type, or selecting the Style Number before I change the Tempo, otherwise my changes can get wiped out inadvertently.

Some Yamaha models have a "freeze" function for locking in settings so they don't change when a different voice is selected or a registration is recalled. Some models let the user define any number of "user voices" which select one of the preset voices and then immediately change all of the settings associated with that preset voice to the user's preferred values. And some models let the user create any number of "music database entries" which set up the keyboard for a specific song or part of a song. But the models I own don't have those features, so my only option is to save a limited number of registrations and use them to switch voices or styles.

A lot of owners like to create a "start-up registration" that has everything set the way they want when they turn on the keyboard. Simply turning on the keyboard will still cause everything to revert to the preset values associated with Voice 001 and Style 001, but the first thing they do after turning on the keyboard is recall their start-up registration.

The XP-80 might not behave exactly as described above, but I'd be surprised if Roland (and Korg, Casio, etc.) don't do things like that in a very similar manner as Yamaha. The type of keyboard can make a difference, although the differences are often more in the terminology than function-- e.g., what an arranger keyboard calls a "registration" might be called a "performance" on a synth, or what an arranger keyboard calls a "user voice" might be called a "patch" on a synth.

The XP-80 is so old that the PDF version of its manual is a scanned document, rather than a text-based document that can be searched for words and phrases, so it's harder for me to see what all of your options are; but hopefully you can set up a collection of patches and performances with your preferred settings.

 

[Ted Nicoson]

John

You seem resigned to living with the situation you have, and I do not know if you are still monitoring this thread, but if you are, and would like to pursue it, I can send you my email address in a private message, so you can send me copies of a couple of those "offending" songs, and I can try them in my XP-80. I don't see any way for you to attach files directly to private messages in this forum, and I assume you would not want to post them publicly. Roland Support may be correct that sysex messages are the culprit, and that removing them would resolve your problem, but I think more importantly, at this point, is determining why those songs have an effect on two of your boards, but not the third. Maybe I can help with that. If they select User Patches, I would not have those, and that may be a problem, if those patches use effects settings that are causing your problems, but it may still be worth a try. I have been at the XP-80/JV-2080 business for some 20 odd years now. My board was one of the first few sold in the US. As a matter of fact, the cover of my XP-80 Owner's Manual is signed by a nice fellow named Scott Wilkie (not Scott Tibbs) who was Roland's roving demonstrator giving an XP-80/A-90EX demo seminar at the store the night I bought my XP. He has, since, gone on to jazz pianist fame. So, those are my XP credentials. Let me know if you are interested.

Sorry to be so long in offering this, but I've had my XP on loan to the local dance school while theirs was in the shop getting all of its key weights glued back in place. I ran into town this morning and gladly collected mine back. I am knocking on wood that, so far, mine has not been blessed with the need to have that procedure done. I would probably end up doing it myself. I would have offered to do the dance school's for them, but they already had it in the shop before I knew about it.

Regards,

Ted

 

[John L]

Hey Ted. Sorry for the delay. I had not checked back in. My email address is (e-mail address removed)
Yes I can send a file or two that seems to activate the reverb. On the gigs we do I am simply turning off the reverb as soon as I power up and that does the trick for each set. It would be interesting to see if any of my songs ativate the reverb on your unit. Thanks John