JD-08 Potential MIDI Bug

[bM3w]

I just got a JD-08 and one of the first things after upgrading the firmware to 1.02 was changing the MIDI channel settings on the device.

I set the general channel to 11, Part A to 12 and Part B to 13. While the synth receives and plays back incoming notes on those channels accordingly, I also noticed that the JD-08 plays an init tone on MIDI channels 4 and 5, no matter the MIDI settings. This is of course a huge problem, because I have other synths configured to receive MIDI on channels 4 and 5.

Can anyone with a JD-08 confirm the issue or know if there are any other settings I may have overlooked?

Thanks!

[AndrewHenderson]

This is known and already agreed upon, that it is a bug. The JD-08, is nothing more than a repackaged, Jupiter X synth, which uses midi channels 4 and 5, like you are seeing. They didn't bother to take this out, when they ported the firmware over, to the JD-08. The problem is, these can't be edited, or turned off. There is no setting for this and it is hardcoded, into the units firmware.

Lots have already gotten in touch with Roland about this, of course, with no favourable reply. I have heard about this bug since January, or so.

Try and get in touch with Roland and be 'yet another' to mention this and hopefully they will get their act together and get this fixed, in a future update.

Ever since Roland copped out of doing proper ACB synths, they are all sharing the same firmware now, from the Jupiter X and you are seeing this laziness, in action. Notice how all the new synths are on 1.02? I saw someone dissect this firmware (on Gearslutz I believe?) and they noticed that it is shared between many of their devices.

[bM3w]

Wow, WTF Roland? I wish it was me doing something wrong, but this is just ridiculous.

Thanks for the detailed response. I'll definitely get in touch with Roland and report the bug. I would even consider this a (hidden) product deficiency. Not that I want to return the JD, but this is serious enough to cause lots of troubles in certain setups if one isn't willing to apply all sorts of workarounds.

One can only hope they fix this with the next firmware...

[AndrewHenderson]

Wow, WTF Roland? I wish it was me doing something wrong, but this is just ridiculous.

Thanks for the detailed response. I'll definitely get in touch with Roland and report the bug. I would even consider this a (hidden) product deficiency. Not that I want to return the JD, but this is serious enough to cause lots of troubles in certain setups if one isn't willing to apply all sorts of workarounds.

One can only hope they fix this with the next firmware...

Absolutely. It is unacceptable to have to deal with oversights like this, especially after so many months since, the products release. This came out in December, in Japan remember, so nearly 6 months now. I know others have already wrote to Roland and mentioned that they were given the same, generic response, or the runaround. This is nothing but a lazy release from Roland. A good few waveforms are an octave down/up, from where they should be, when compared to the original JD-800. The filter isn't modelled after the JD-800 whatsoever and is the generic one, taken from all the other zencore releases. From here on out, I am really going to look into the details of these Boutique, before I buy anymore. I had no problem with the earlier ones, being ACB, but ever since they went to these zencore rehashes, they have lost their charm, with me.

[bM3w]

Yeah, super annoying to deal with another MIDI bug in a Roland device. Just a few months ago I got myself a FA-07 and quickly noticed a problem with the MIDI THRU function, which doesn't pass through all MIDI data as expected (something wonky going on with start/stop and MIDI clock data). This already caused major headaches and quite a monster MIDI reconfiguration to make things work the way I need them. Given the age of the product I don't expect this bug to ever get fixed. Although I hope Roland gets their act together and will fix the JD's MIDI bug.

I totally understand the complaints about the filter and the waveforms, and I guess the JD-08 should be a lot more accurate when it is advertised as a small factor JD-800. Especially when people buy the JD-08 based on those promises and have legitimate expectations. However, I never had a JD-800 nor did I expect the JD-08 to match the original sound and I purchased it based purely on what I heard from the JD-08. But man, that MIDI bug...

[AndrewHenderson]

Yeah, super annoying to deal with another MIDI bug in a Roland device. Just a few months ago I got myself a FA-07 and quickly noticed a problem with the MIDI THRU function, which doesn't pass through all MIDI data as expected (something wonky going on with start/stop and MIDI clock data). This already caused major headaches and quite a monster MIDI reconfiguration to make things work the way I need them. Given the age of the product I don't expect this bug to ever get fixed. Although I hope Roland gets their act together and will fix the JD's MIDI bug.

I totally understand the complaints about the filter and the waveforms, and I guess the JD-08 should be a lot more accurate when it is advertised as a small factor JD-800. Especially when people buy the JD-08 based on those promises and have legitimate expectations. However, I never had a JD-800 nor did I expect the JD-08 to match the original sound and I purchased it based purely on what I heard from the JD-08. But man, that MIDI bug...

The problem with the waveforms being octaves off in pitch, is that this will likely never be fixed, as people would have already made patches, based on the waveforms at their current setting, so 'fixing' this, would break everyone's current patches. For this reason alone, they would likely shy away from this fix, however, if the unit was proper out of the gates, this could have been avoided before hand. I don't think Roland properly tested this at all, before release. They figured since the firmware worked on the Jupiter no problem, it should work here, without thinking things through.

I really miss Roland of the 80's and 90's....

[Synthtron]

I just got a JD-08 and one of the first things after upgrading the firmware to 1.02 was changing the MIDI channel settings on the device.

I set the general channel to 11, Part A to 12 and Part B to 13. While the synth receives and plays back incoming notes on those channels accordingly, I also noticed that the JD-08 plays an init tone on MIDI channels 4 and 5, no matter the MIDI settings. This is of course a huge problem, because I have other synths configured to receive MIDI on channels 4 and 5.

Can anyone with a JD-08 confirm the issue or know if there are any other settings I may have overlooked?

Thanks!

I noticed this right when I hooked it up to my other MIDI gear. I got one of the first JD-08 batches a while ago and I recently updated to that latest firmware hoping it would be corrected but no, still there. Roland were lazy on this one and it is really annoying. No one in any of the reviews I saw ever addressed this issue either. I am not sure it will be corrected because I read the JX-08 suffers the same thing.

[AndrewHenderson]

I just got a JD-08 and one of the first things after upgrading the firmware to 1.02 was changing the MIDI channel settings on the device.

I set the general channel to 11, Part A to 12 and Part B to 13. While the synth receives and plays back incoming notes on those channels accordingly, I also noticed that the JD-08 plays an init tone on MIDI channels 4 and 5, no matter the MIDI settings. This is of course a huge problem, because I have other synths configured to receive MIDI on channels 4 and 5.

Can anyone with a JD-08 confirm the issue or know if there are any other settings I may have overlooked?

Thanks!

I noticed this right when I hooked it up to my other MIDI gear. I got one of the first JD-08 batches a while ago and I recently updated to that latest firmware hoping it would be corrected but no, still there. Roland were lazy on this one and it is really annoying. No one in any of the reviews I saw ever addressed this issue either. I am not sure it will be corrected because I read the JX-08 suffers the same thing.

If it is fixed on one, it will be fixed on another, it is exactly why both are broken in the same way. They both share the same firmware.

[Synthtron]

If it is fixed on one, it will be fixed on another, it is exactly why both are broken in the same way. They both share the same firmware.
[/quote]

and no one anywhere in any video reviews I have come across ever goes into depth on these kinds of things which is frustrating. I have been using Roland for over 30 years now and this is unacceptable. I've come to believe the whole ZenCore platform is LAZY. Maybe for Roland it is a post pandemic situation to keep product flowing with the shortages by repurposing what is already available to them and just retool/repackage the electronics but tweak the software then out the door to make $$$ to survive. Economical for Roland but not really for the end user who does not know any better. Yeah, I understand and accept it being used as the engine in their Fantoms but they have it in most of their latest releases including the AX-Edge, MC X0X boxes, Verelab and their flagship Jupiter/Juno-X synthesizers and now these Boutique synths. With those flagship Jupiter/Juno synths Roland should have given us the best analog emulating tech (ACB) but NO they chose this ZenCore ABM system. Too much redundancy. I think it is super lazy of Roland and it makes their synths undesirable to me. The Jupiter-X and Juno-X LOOK cool but under the hood not so much. I do not think looks alone are what buying a synth should be based on and I am certain many have done that very thing. To each his own. Maybe Roland will offer a firmware to update the JD-08 but I a not holding my breath. IRRITATING!

[Synthtron]

I just wrote Roland about the issue where there is an initialized type sound on MIDI channels 4 & 5 that you cannot access nor turn off. It is annoying while trying tho integrate the JD-08 with my other hardware MIDI devices. It really seems like the JD-08 is half-baked in that area.

[AndrewHenderson]

I just wrote Roland about the issue where there is an initialized type sound on MIDI channels 4 & 5 that you cannot access nor turn off. It is annoying while trying tho integrate the JD-08 with my other hardware MIDI devices. It really seems like the JD-08 is half-baked in that area.

Thank you for doing this. Others have done the same. After 8 months, I hope they will issue a firmware update to fix this, as it is a pain to integrate into bigger setups, with shared channels.

[Synthtron]

I just wrote Roland about the issue where there is an initialized type sound on MIDI channels 4 & 5 that you cannot access nor turn off. It is annoying while trying tho integrate the JD-08 with my other hardware MIDI devices. It really seems like the JD-08 is half-baked in that area.

Thank you for doing this. Others have done the same. After 8 months, I hope they will issue a firmware update to fix this, as it is a pain to integrate into bigger setups, with shared channels.

I got a response today from Roland:

"Thank you for contacting Roland Support.

Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention, this issue is currently being investigated by our engineering team.
Unfortunately, I do not have an ETA one when this matter will be addressed nor if & when the version build will be implemented."
I am sure others got the same response. I am not sure if it will be corrected or not.

[AndrewHenderson]

I just wrote Roland about the issue where there is an initialized type sound on MIDI channels 4 & 5 that you cannot access nor turn off. It is annoying while trying tho integrate the JD-08 with my other hardware MIDI devices. It really seems like the JD-08 is half-baked in that area.

Thank you for doing this. Others have done the same. After 8 months, I hope they will issue a firmware update to fix this, as it is a pain to integrate into bigger setups, with shared channels.

I got a response today from Roland:

"Thank you for contacting Roland Support.

Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention, this issue is currently being investigated by our engineering team.
Unfortunately, I do not have an ETA one when this matter will be addressed nor if & when the version build will be implemented."
I am sure others got the same response. I am not sure if it will be corrected or not.

Thank you so much. Really glad that you got a response and appreciate you sharing, said response.

As usual, the ball is now in Roland's hands. We continue to wait and hope.

[AndrewHenderson]

I can't believe this synth has been out for a year now and this still hasn't been fixed. Very lame.

[AndrewHenderson]

And here we are, 7 months later. It has been quite some time since I checked, so decided to have a look for a firmware update and nope, still 1.02 for the past 18 months.