Hi there.

I have a Roland 700GX connected via MIDI to Sonar 8 Producer. I created a .ins file in Roland's web site using their on-line utility.
Everything works perfect, except for the fact that sounds do not sound the same when played from midi tracks in Sonar than when played directly in the 700GX.

I spent two full days trying to solve this before posting. I nailed it down to the fact that when sonar plays (and assigns patches), patches do not seem to retain their original multi-effect.
In other words, whenever I select a patch from the 700GX directly, patches have factory set multi-effects, but whenever sonar plays a track and assigns a patch, those multi-effects seem to be always turned off. Some sounds that rely heavily on multi-effects hence sound much different.

The only work-around I found to the problem was to put the 700GX in part mode ("16 part" instead of "16part+perf") and then select the tone for each part in the keyboard before sending data from the sequencer...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!! I really do not know where else to look and already tried every possible solution I could think of.

Thank you all!

I'm having this problem too. And tech support is steering me toward the textbook diagnosis of setting a tone for each part. I've done all that and it still plays back a totally DRY tone - totally ignoring the effects. This doesn't just happen on my presets but even the factory presets.

I hope I'm just doing something wrong because this would be a horrible bug! I mean, why bundle SONAR with the piano when it won't WORK with the piano?

Has anyone got this working??

Desperate!
Curt

Never made it work.... eventually dropped my case.

I talked to the Roland tech support and the answer I got was that "the 700GX is not a phantom" in that is really not thought as a multi-track keyboard where you assign MFXs to parts, etc..., but as a stage piano... that the actions you perform on the keyboard always overrule whatever setup you do through MIDI... or something like that.
Never convinced me... but I just could not bare to keep spending time on this...
Let me know if you ever find a solution!

Never had a problem with the original factory presets though.... maybe you have a problem with the keyboard....

Cristian.-

Hi Cristian!

Wow, that was quite a dismissal type of response you got from Roland! In my case, I don't intend on using it as a multitrack keyboard, sequencer or otherwise. I'm a solo pianist that actually likes the internal piano sounds on this thing and I just want to record them by playing back my recorded MIDI data in the application that THEY bundled with the piano! Seems like a reasonable request, no??

I do understand their point of view however. I did get it to work but only by playing stored setups. Any "live" adjustments I made to reverb levels, for example, would not be observed until I stored them to the assigned tone for the playback "part".

Initally, i had that strange "doubled" effect happening which I immediately recognized as the sound being played by the keyboard and then back in from SONAR and played again so a quick trip into the 'settings' menu to turn off the Local option fixed that.

This works fine in my situation.

I actually bought this board with the full intention of using it as a $2400 controller triggering Garritan Steinway and Ivory with it ( i LOVE LOVE LOVE the feel of these keys!!). I was quite suprised to hear the tone of the Superior Piano preset! A small EQ adjustment and the reverb set to Cathedral positioned at about 11 o'clock and I've got a nice Wayne Gratz/Michael Whalen kind of tone working there!

Curt

I have exactly the same problem. I can do what I like via SysEx but MFX only play back when you play via the keyboard.

From what I've managed to glean it looks like it's something to do with the MIDI controllers for the keyboard because there's although nothing about MFX controllers in the manual, there are controllers for Reverb & Chorus / Delay and these work just fine from Sonar LE (the bundled software).

Suffice to say I'm not terribly happy about this - this keyboard wasn't cheap and creating a couple more MIDI controllers for the keyboard wouldn't have cost Roland much money.

On top of all that the online technical specs don't say anything about this, besides - why would I want a Phantom when it costs a grand more and I'll never use the workstation elements because it's easier doing stuff on a computer than it is faffing around with a cumbersome keyboard-bound user-interface? Seems to me they're just trying to force people to spend more money for something that costs them little.

Why are musical instrument suppliers like Roland stuck in the dark ages with their customer service? Surely it can't be because they believe they've got a captive audience?

I think the context of the RD700GX is a stage piano.. not a sound module. I was initially irritated by a number of omissions in (as you say) a $2400 machine.. no metronome, no ability to store user rhythms etc etc, BUT Roland make no claims to the RD as to anything other than a live performance machine..

These limitations are only irriations for me..i also own a Juno G and a Fantom G6....Personally I would die for a G7 with weighted keys and the expressive & superior grand patches...then i could ditch the RD700 and the G6 and not worry about any limitations whatsoever.

Hi, there are a few days I own my RD, and the same here, I ´ve been testing it with Sonar and it seems to be that the MFX only work with the 4 zones, I mean if the channels that are being played by Sonar are the same channels to the tones that are assigned to the zones, if they are, the MFX are sounding ok, (lets say we´re using channels 1,2,3&4 in Sonar for playing tones that in the RD-700Gx are in Zone1(ch1), Zone2(ch2), Zone3(ch3) & Zone4(ch4).
but if I move ahead and assign another tone to (i.e) channel 5 in Sonar then that tone in the 16 parts has no MFX applied. It sounds dry (mmm, too bad).
anybody have any thoughts about this?
Could this be fixed with an OS or firmware update?

The solution was pointed out by Jabberwocky in this post:

http://forums.rolandclan.com/index.php?action=show_thre...

You have to set Part mode to 16Part instead of 16Part+Perf.

Press Edit, choose system and then hit the inc button until you see the Part Mode setting. Select this with the down arrows and turn the dial until it says 16Part.

Fixed it for me anyway.

Hi Rcatell,
RD is in "16 part"

For me the only sounds that come out with MFX
are those that are assigned to some of the four zones (ch1,ch2,ch3&ch4)
So I can have a maximum of 4 channels playing with MFX.

MFX seems to work only for the first 4 channels(zones),
not for the rest of the 16 parts(channels 5,6,7, etc.)

If you are able to play, lets say, patch pad 153 "LunarStrings"
fully sounding with its MFX applied (you will notice it has a flanger effect)
in a channel number HIGHER than Ch.4 (for example in Ch.7)
please let us know and detail the process.

cheers.

Hi soniccream,

Unfortunately I haven't tried using parts higher than 4 yet. Only got my RD last week. Some people (myself included) were having trouble getting the effects at all and it seems that the 16part setting fixed this.

I'll try and check out the higher parts and see what I find. Doesn't sound hopeful though if you haven't got it working.

Cheers.