JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthesizer

Forum for the JD-Xi Keyboard.
Post Reply
baz55
Posts: 139
Joined: 19:13, 26 July 2015

JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthesizer

Post by baz55 »

A very early development version of the 'JDXi Manager' is now available to download for Windows.

Currently only the Analog Synth part of the JD-Xi can be edited, but this might already be useful for some of you (it certainly is for me, playing with the analog synth of the JD-Xi via the editor has been a revelation for me, this humble analog mono included in the JD-Xi rocks! ).

You can download the 'JDXi Manager' here:
http://jdxi-manager.linuxtech.net/

Please excuse the very simple home page, I had no time yet to make a proper web site for it as I prefer spending my time playing with the JD-Xi and writing the editor.

The download is a simple executable, just put it somewhere (for example on your desktop) an run it, no need for any installation.

When running it for the first time you should resize the program window to suit your screen space, then select the MIDI in and out devices for your JD-Xi and then save the preferences by clicking on Edit->Save Settings.
This will save the current program window size and on screen position and the MIDI device settings and these saved settings will be used as defaults every time you start the 'JDXi Manager'.

Please note this is an early development version, it most likely still has bugs, please report any bugs you find so that I can try to fix them. When reporting bugs please specify which version of Windows you are using.

Any questions or comments are welcome.


Here is a screenshot taken on Windows 7:
Image
jay-mz
Posts: 25
Joined: 03:17, 8 March 2016

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by jay-mz »

Wow man awesome! Can't wait to try this later tonight :)
orion1971
Posts: 8
Joined: 17:23, 5 April 2016

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by orion1971 »

Thanks for this will be playing with it later :)

Do you plan on doing the Digital Synth also?
baz55
Posts: 139
Joined: 19:13, 26 July 2015

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by baz55 »

orion1971 wrote:Do you plan on doing the Digital Synth also?
Yes, I plan to do a full editor for all parts of the JD-Xi, but I can't say when it will be all done as this is a spare time project and unfortunately I don't often have spare time...
User avatar
brakjoller
Posts: 56
Joined: 11:33, 16 January 2016
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by brakjoller »

Hi,

Cool! And nice looking too!

That's basically how far I have come with my little project as well (I'm sure you have seen that thread here in the forum), but implemented in hardware instead :) I have to switch through eight banks back and forth to get at each graphical section you have there (can go back/forward or by entering the number of the bank). But I'm free from the PC, which was my goal.

It's really nice to see how others too realize what capabilities the JD-Xi has under the hood, once you get a better user interface to control all parameters than the built-in menu system.

Since you seem to want to keep this project closed source (your choice of course), could I ask what programming language and tooling you used to develop it? It looks like the Tk UI library so I guess it might be Python - am I right? :) I'm mostly interested if I want to play with doing MIDI programming myself sometime.

If you by any chance want help doing the other parts as well, I might volunteer. Let me know in that case.

Again, great work! I'm sure many will benefit greatly from this.

/Mathias
baz55
Posts: 139
Joined: 19:13, 26 July 2015

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by baz55 »

brakjoller wrote:That's basically how far I have come with my little project as well (I'm sure you have seen that thread here in the forum), but implemented in hardware instead :)
Yeah, but hardware obviously is a lot more work than software, so I have full respect for what you achieved.
could I ask what programming language and tooling you used to develop it? It looks like the Tk UI library so I guess it might be Python - am I right? :)
You guessed the GUI library right, it's Tk, but the programming language I'm using is Perl, not Python.
If you by any chance want help doing the other parts as well, I might volunteer. Let me know in that case.
Thanks for the offer, but do you have Perl experience?
User avatar
brakjoller
Posts: 56
Joined: 11:33, 16 January 2016
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by brakjoller »

Ah, Perl, I didn't expect that - old school, respect! :) I have written and read a little Perl, but not done anything substantial, like this in it. I have experience with quite a few programming languages though, so I guess I could handle Perl as well, if needed.

Do you do the layout purely by writing code or using some layout tool that helps you place the different controls?
User avatar
ahgi
Posts: 30
Joined: 03:39, 19 March 2010

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by ahgi »

thank you
baz55
Posts: 139
Joined: 19:13, 26 July 2015

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by baz55 »

brakjoller wrote:Do you do the layout purely by writing code or using some layout tool that helps you place the different controls?
It's all hand-written code.
ahgi wrote:thank you
You're welcome, let me know if you find any bugs.
baz55
Posts: 139
Joined: 19:13, 26 July 2015

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by baz55 »

Question to everybody:

Are the following waveform icons intuitive enough?
Are you able to identify what they mean?
(I'm particularly concerned whether the last 2 are intuitive, the first 5 should be ok)
waveforms.png
waveforms.png (1.89 KiB) Viewed 15534 times
PeZiK
Posts: 23
Joined: 14:30, 8 May 2016

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by PeZiK »

baz55 wrote:Question to everybody:

Are the following waveform icons intuitive enough?
Are you able to identify what they mean?
(I'm particularly concerned whether the last 2 are intuitive, the first 5 should be ok)
waveforms.png
Crystal clear, love it!

P.
teacue
Posts: 4
Joined: 21:49, 25 May 2016

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by teacue »

I prefer NOISE and SUPER SAW (or SP-SAW).
There are today so much new symbols to remember that I do prefer plain text in case a symbol may lead to confusion.
baz55
Posts: 139
Joined: 19:13, 26 July 2015

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by baz55 »

teacue wrote:I prefer NOISE and SUPER SAW (or SP-SAW).
There are today so much new symbols to remember that I do prefer plain text in case a symbol may lead to confusion.
Thanks for your feedback. While I tend to agree with your point of view and I actually had used 'NOISE' and 'SP-SAW' in text form at first, it was messing up the formatting due to the length of these two words, that's why I tried to come up with symbols for 'noise' and 'super-saw'.

I might still change this back to text depending on the final overall layout of the panel. In the mean time any opinions or suggestions on how to make these two icons look more intuitive are very welcome.
User avatar
funktree
Posts: 115
Joined: 11:42, 11 April 2015
Contact:

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by funktree »

May I ask..:

1. How many hours went to this ?
2. Have you done any other midi development work before ?
3. Have you tried to parse the “getpatch" Sysex to set values for each control ? This would set all the controls when a patch is selected ? (One of the biggest issue of all Editors ...)
4. What is the future for this ?
5. I suppose the "perl/Tk”-> wxPerl (mac)... wouldn’t be hard :).. To port this to MAC, do you need help with this one ? (Just asking at this point)

BTW this is more editor then librarian.
I would be more interested in later to organize user banks E,F,H...

Thanks for sharing!
FunkTree
baz55
Posts: 139
Joined: 19:13, 26 July 2015

Re: JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthes

Post by baz55 »

Hi Funktree, I have no idea how many hours went into this, definitely quite a few already, why are you asking?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'parse the “getpatch" Sysex' but if you press the 'Read from' button the editor will import the currently active patch from the JD-Xi into the editor with all controls on the editor then reflecting the status of the patch in the synth.

You can synchronise the editor and the JD-Xi both ways, by using either 'Dump to' (transfer all settings from the editor to the JD-Xi) or 'Read from' (to import the currently active patch from the JD-Xi into the editor, as already mentioned above)

I'm aiming to make a complete editor for the JD-Xi (for all parts of it) including some patch management functionality but I cannot make any forecasts as to when it will be complete as this is a spare time project with no deadlines.

The problem with the Mac is not Perl/Tk but rather that there is no functional MIDI module for Perl on the Mac. There is this one, but it's abandoned and not sufficiently functional:
http://search.cpan.org/~crenz/Mac-CoreM ... oreMIDI.pm
If you have the skills to create a fully functional OS X CoreMIDI module for Perl then it would be a no-brainer for me to use that to include support for the Mac.

With regards to librarian functionality, the MIDI Specs that Roland provides for the JD-XI do not include any way to access the user Programs and Tones via sysex.
By trial and error I discovered a hidden way to do that, see here:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12162327-post23.html
But accessing the user drum tones doesn't seem to work, I found the address they are at but every time I attempt to read out the drum banks my JD-Xi freezes solid and needs a power cycle to get back to normal.

BTW, I really like your youtube tracks you did with the JD-Xi, IMHO they are among the best I've seen on youtube.
Post Reply