Roland FR-5, FR-7 owner manual Octave, CC00, CC32, PC

■Note

(On, Off, Default setting: On) The MIDI standard translates almost all actions performed on a musical instrument into commands that can be sent to another instrument. The result of such a transmission is that your actions are either recorded by a sequencer or faithfully replicated by the receiving instrument.

The most fundamental information that travels across a MIDI cable is related to the notes you are playing. That information is conveyed using so-called Note-on messages. (Each note has a unique MIDI number.)

Set this parameter to “Off” if the external instrument should not double the notes you are playing on the Treble or Bass keyboard.

■Octave

(–3~0~3) This parameter allows you to transpose the Note-on messages transmitted by the section in question (if “Note” is set to “On”) up to three octaves up or down.

This can be used for songs where an accordion regis- ter of the Treble section (for example) should be dou- bled by a piccolo flute played by an external module whose notes would be far too low if they were used as is. As stated above, each MIDI note has a unique number. This parameter allows you to add (or sub- tract) 12 (“1” octave), 24 (“2” octaves) or 36 (“3” octaves) to (from) the note numbers generated by your playing.

Another application for this parameter could be to use the bass notes you play on the FR-7/FR-5 both as (accordion) bass and counter-melody played by a digital piano, for example. In that case, you probably need to transpose the Bass register 3 octaves up.

■CC00, CC32, PC

(Std, Off, 0~127 for CC00 & CC32; Std, Off, 1~128 for PC) These three messages belong together. The “old- est” message is called “program change” or “PC” for short. It has been around since the inception of the MIDI standard. It is used to select sounds or memo- ries on the receiving instrument simply by recalling another sound (or memory) on the transmitting instrument.

What you set here is transmitted to the FBC-7’s MIDI OUT port whenever you select the register you are currently editing. (You can set separate addresses for each register.) This allows you to cause an external module to select the sounds that match the accor- dion, etc., sounds you defined.

Select “Off” if a register should not send CC00, CC32 and/or PC messages. Select “Std” to transmit the MIDI address of the register you assign this setting to (reg- ister [12], for example, which would then send PC “12” for CC00= 00/CC32= 00). When you select “Std”

V-Accordion r

Parameters

for one of the three parameters (CC00, CC32, or PC), the other two parameters also adopt the “Std” set- ting. See the following table:

Bank Select & Program Change TX “Std”

BANK SELECT		PROGRAM
MSB CC00	LSB CC32	CHANGE	Section
0	0	1~14	Treble Registers
0	0	1~7	Bass Registers
0	1	1~7	Free Bass Registers
0	0	1~7	Orch Bass Registers
0	0	1~7	Orch Chord Registers
0	0	1~7	Orch FreeBs Registers
0	0	1~22	Orchestra Registers
0	0	1~40	Sets

Why are there three messages? When the MIDI stan- dard was developed, some 20 years ago, 128 memo- ries seemed a lot, which is why it was decided to use a dedicated message type (program change) for selecting memories on an external device.

The entire MIDI standard evolves around the magic number “128”. Given that there is no way of expand- ing that number, so-called Bank Select messages were later added to accommodate the growing num- ber of memories (modules with more than 2,000 sounds are quite common these days).

At the time, neither CC00, nor CC32 had dedicated functions, and so these two control change messages were picked for bank selection.

Two bank addresses (“MSB” and “LSB”), with 128 pos- sibilities each, plus 128 Program Change numbers provide 128 x 128 x 128 values= 2,097,152 possible memories.

Transmitting only Bank Select messages does nothing at all, while working only with program change mes- sages means that you are limited to the 128 memo- ries of the currently active memory bank.

To switch banks and select a memory on the external module you need to transmit:

•A value for control change CC00 (MSB)

•A value for control number CC32 (LSB)

•A program change number

See the manual of the receiving MIDI instrument for the MSB and LSB values it supports.

Be aware that this system allows you to send pro- gram change numbers to an external instrument that lie outside the range of the FR-7/FR-5’s registers (see the table above). Such “excess” program numbers are ignored by the FR-7/FR-5 when you transmit them back (from a sequencer, for example). Example: if you select PC= 49 and transmit that value to a sequencer (to select a strings sound on an external module, for instance), the external module behaves as you expect when the sequencer track transmits that value. If you then decide to use the FR-7/FR-5’s ORCHESTRA sec- tion for your string part, that section will not switch sounds (because it only recognizes program numbers 1~22).

Note: If PC is set to “Off”, the CC00 and CC32 values are not transmitted (CC00/CC32 must always be followed by a pro- gram change number).

Note: If one of these parameters is set to “Std”, the register in question sends its own MIDI address.

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