Hi,
I've just bought a RD800 for a church environment where we're looking to run both the Roland for our main piano and a midi instrument (spectrasonics omnisphere vst) for all our pads and synth sounds.
What I need to be able to do is control the piano volume (internal) + midi instrument volume via two of the sliders on the top panel (at the same time). We need to be able to change this mix regularly 'on the fly'.
I also need it to be simple enough for a range of people to easily manage it as we have a number of different players using the setup.
The way this looks to be implemented on the RD800 is that the sliders either work in 'midi' or 'internal' mode - and not controlling both at the same time? So, if I'm in 'midi' mode the sliders only control the midi instruments and if not then they only control the internal sounds. Also, when in midi mode you always get the midi settings menu - so if you hit any of the instrument selection buttons then you're changing settings rather that changing instruments.
This seems a little confusing and is going to be difficult for some of our players to get their heads around.
What I need is to be able to send midi messages (ie midi volume changes via the sliders) when in the 'main' mode without the midi button lit.
Is this possible or does anyone have any suggestions on how I might achieve an optimal control setup?
Sorry if this is a bit long winded or difficult to understand!
We had no trouble getting this to work on our old RD600! :)
Regards,
Cameron.
RD800 MIDI + internal control
Re: RD800 MIDI + internal control
I would buy a small mixer and have your sound from the RD800 and your computer plugged into the mixer. That way you can just move the faders easily to control the sounds on either instrument.
This may not be the answer your looking for but in keeping things simple this option would work.
We have just bought the RD800 for church and I like how you can save layers to A1 B1 C1 so people only have to push a button and get a pad and piano sound together. The pad sound I usually only have assigned to the bottom and middle of the keyboard that way when playing in the higher register you don't get the trails. I also set the volumes but then can control the sound of either with the faders.
This may not be the answer your looking for but in keeping things simple this option would work.
We have just bought the RD800 for church and I like how you can save layers to A1 B1 C1 so people only have to push a button and get a pad and piano sound together. The pad sound I usually only have assigned to the bottom and middle of the keyboard that way when playing in the higher register you don't get the trails. I also set the volumes but then can control the sound of either with the faders.
Re: RD800 MIDI + internal control
cam777cam - I see that on the RD600 you only had 2 internal layers and 4 sliders so 2 sliders were for the internal layers and 2 for the external. On the RD800 you can have 4 internal layers so Roland seems to have decided that you should normally just use all 4 sliders for internal or external but not both. Someone somewhere decided I guess that when you want to control the external devices you should just hit the MIDI button briefly and make the change and go back. I appreciate that this doesn't work for you however I don't see any way to change this on the RD800.
Perhaps as an alternative to da-man's mixer suggestion you could consider getting midi sliders to control your VSTs. I use the Korg NanoKontrol and find it very helpful for controlling the volumes of my various VSTs and also use it to control certain other aspects of them while performing. You could velcro it to the RD and then have lots of options available to you. I also have MIDI volume pedals on my FCB1010 which can also be used to control the volumes.
Before doing any of that though I would invite you to explore the pad and synth sounds on the RD and see if with the 4 internal layers you can now get the sounds you need without the need of external VSTs. They have added a lot of sounds over the years. The RD600 came with 128 different tones which was great at the time but the RD800 has over 1000 tones including 196 pad/choir tones so perhaps you can find the additional sounds you need right on the RD800. Of course they wont be as complex as those you can get on the VSTs however with more options on board and some tweaking you might find some sounds that can work for you.
Perhaps as an alternative to da-man's mixer suggestion you could consider getting midi sliders to control your VSTs. I use the Korg NanoKontrol and find it very helpful for controlling the volumes of my various VSTs and also use it to control certain other aspects of them while performing. You could velcro it to the RD and then have lots of options available to you. I also have MIDI volume pedals on my FCB1010 which can also be used to control the volumes.
Before doing any of that though I would invite you to explore the pad and synth sounds on the RD and see if with the 4 internal layers you can now get the sounds you need without the need of external VSTs. They have added a lot of sounds over the years. The RD600 came with 128 different tones which was great at the time but the RD800 has over 1000 tones including 196 pad/choir tones so perhaps you can find the additional sounds you need right on the RD800. Of course they wont be as complex as those you can get on the VSTs however with more options on board and some tweaking you might find some sounds that can work for you.