RD-88...so HOW do you actually edit sounds (not Scenes!)

[pax-eterna]

How can I edit individual sounds on this thing and save them to separate locations to the scene?

And add some of the MFX Roland are spruiking about? This manual is way light on detail on how to actually accomplish this stuff. Even the Parameter Guide is pretty useless. All it does is describe WHAT the effects are...not HOW to use and implement them!

[anotherscott2022]

I believe Zenology will do it.

[DesertBoat]

You cannot edit sounds on the RD-88. You can only collect preset sounds in Scenes.

In a Scene, you can
- make a few minor adjustments to a preset (offsets, Cutoff, Resonance, Attack, etc.)
- replace the default Tone Mfx with a Scene Mfx (from the list of about 90 ish, Chorus, CE-1, SDD-320, etc)
- Assign overall Scene effects (Ifx, Chorus, and Reverb)

The effects info starts on Page 9 of the Parameter guide. Not obvious, but the list of Scene Mfx is the same as the list of Ifx, same parameters, etc.

You can edit a Tone in Zenology (not Lite). Requires a Zenology Lifetime License purchase or the Pro or higher subscription. Then save the sounds to USB and load to the RD88.

[pax-eterna]

cool, thanks guys.

Is Zenology worth it with the RD 88? I "get it" if it were a Fantom, or Jupiter et al, but the RD???

[anotherscott2022]

Is Zenology worth it with the RD 88? I "get it" if it were a Fantom, or Jupiter et al, but the RD???

I'd say Zenology is more centered around computer/VST use than anything else, but it also adds capabilities to the keyboards... and in that resect, I think it's actually more useful for the RD88 than the Fantom... because on the Fantom, you always have the option of editing tones right on the keyboard, you don't need to use the computer to do it. The RD88 has no such facility, so the only way to get user-edited tones onto the RD is via the editing functions of Zenology. That said, I have not done it myself, so I have to leave it to others to offer first-hand experience.

[pax-eterna]

Is Zenology worth it with the RD 88? I "get it" if it were a Fantom, or Jupiter et al, but the RD???

I'd say Zenology is more centered around computer/VST use than anything else, but it also adds capabilities to the keyboards... and in that resect, I think it's actually more useful for the RD88 than the Fantom... because on the Fantom, you always have the option of editing tones right on the keyboard, you don't need to use the computer to do it. The RD88 has no such facility, so the only way to get user-edited tones onto the RD is via the editing functions of Zenology. That said, I have not done it myself, so I have to leave it to others to offer first-hand experience.

Thanks - yes that does make sense. The other 'boards have those nice big touchscreens with all the controls there don't they. I might try a month out first and see how it goes.

[pax-eterna]

just did the trial thing, but how do you get the downloads from? There must be an app somewhere?

And what is it with this Cloud> you have to sign in EVERY time!! and if you navigate to another page on the Cloud webpage it logs you out?

This is pretty piss-poor software!

[pax-eterna]

Nope, there is no way to edit the RD-88 sounds in Zenology.

Finally got it working and there are no links in the app, no way to connect the two, no way to import the sounds from the RD, nothing!!

[anotherscott2022]

The individual RD-88 sounds (not scenes, as per your initial question) are called Tones. Based on the RD-88 sound list document, there are ten sets (or banks) of tones: SN PR-A, SN PR-B, RD-88, PR-A, PR-B, PR-C, PR-D, PR-E, CMN, and EXZ-001. My understanding is that most of those tones are in Zenology (at least the ones in PR-A, PR-B, PR-C, PR-D, PR-E, CMN). In Zenology, you can then edit any of those RD-88 resident tones, and you can save your edited versions to a USB stick and load them into your RD-88 where you can play them and combine them into various splits/layers (which you would store as Scenes).

So that is the answer to your initial question, how to edit/save/combine your own variations of the sounds (tones) that are already in the RD-88, despite it being also true that, as you just posted, there is "no way to import the sounds from the RD" into Zenology (you don't need to, because most of them are already there), and there is "no way to connect the two" (instead, sounds are transferred via USB stick rather than a direct connection).

At least that is my understanding.

[pax-eterna]

Thanks - yeah at the start that was how I figured it be, however the reality (to me so far) is that is not the case. I can see no RD sounds in Zenology (for example the EP Sweet Echo) there are other examples.

In fact under the MODEL section at the lower left, RD-88 does not appear. The only models there are Z-Core;Jupiter 8;JX-8P;Juno 106;SH-101 and JD 800

Unless, of course, I can simply choose ANY sound in Zenology edit it to how I want and then (via USB stick) import it into the RD? (still doesn't get around not being able to edit the sounds (tones if you will)

Another side issue is that even though it is a VST-3 the editing screen in the DAW is incredibly small! And cannot be resized although that is a separate thing.

[anotherscott2022]

Thanks - yeah at the start that was how I figured it be, however the reality (to me so far) is that is not the case. I can see no RD sounds in Zenology (for example the EP Sweet Echo) there are other examples.

I cannot find "EP Sweet Echo" in the RD-88 Tone list. The closest are "RD-1K Sweet Echo" and "1975 Sweet Echo" but those are Scenes, not Tones, and Scenes are specifically what you're not looking to edit. If those are the sounds you were thinking of, you should be able to examine those Scenes to see what Tones they are made up of. If those are tones that are located in banks PR-A, PR-B, PR-C, PR-D, PR-E, or CMN, I think you should be able to locate them in Zenology, edit them, and bring your edited versions into the RD-88.

In fact under the MODEL section at the lower left, RD-88 does not appear. The only models there are Z-Core;Jupiter 8;JX-8P;Juno 106;SH-101 and JD 800

RD-88 is not a MODEL, which, in Roland Cloud parlance, is a software version of a synthesizer. RD-88 is hardware, and that's the category it shows up in if you look at the Roland Cloud Manager. A Model is something that can sometimes be loaded into hardware (like the Fantom-0), but RD-88 is not one of the hardware devices into which you can load Models.

But the bigger point here is, you shouldn't be looking for anything that says RD-88. Rather, you're looking for the Zenology synth, which should include most (all?) the the Tones that are in the RD-88's banks labelled PR-A, PR-B, PR-C, PR-D, PR-E, and CMN. Once you locate the Zenology synth, load a tone, edit it, save it, and put it on a USB stick, you should be able to bring that tone into the RD-88. That would be how you'd edit RD-88 tones. But you can't edit the ones that are not in Zenology (e.g. the ones in the RD-88's SuperNatural banks).

Unless, of course, I can simply choose ANY sound in Zenology edit it to how I want and then (via USB stick) import it into the RD?

Right, that's what we're looking to do here.

(still doesn't get around not being able to edit the sounds (tones if you will)

It does, because most of the Tones in the RD-88 are already in Zenology. That's why there's no need to export them from the RD-88 first, or wire them up, etc... because they're already there.

Again, this is just based on my reading here and elsewhere. I don't own an RD-88 and have not done this myself.

[pax-eterna]

thanks - I'll have another crack at it.

I do get confused with the definition difference between tone and scene haha. You are correct in pointing out that the example I used Sweet Echo is indeed a scene and not a tone

[JLuv]

I have been using Zenology pro in a MacBook to edit tones and then import them into an RD-88 using a thumb drive. If you are into making your own sounds this is highly recommended. I've crafted dozens of tones to my taste. At least as important is that you look at the factory tones to see how much polyphony they consume. Some potentially have 4 stereo 'partials'. In my understanding this uses 8 polys so with the 128 polyphony restriction on an RD-88 you could only play 16 notes on the keyboard with this tone. Use two of these in a 'Scene' and you'd be reduced to 8 notes!! I edited several tones in Zen and was able to cut the partial use in half without sacrificing much in sound quality. I hope this info is useful.
I do have a question regarding this. When transferring these edited tones to the RD-88 via a thumb drive during the 'chose which tone to transfer' part of the process all of the previous user tones are listed even if they are not on the thumb drive. And then when one is selected all of them are again listed for loading and you have to uncheck each one or all of the previous edited tones load again. This is driving me crazy. I've tried using another thumb drive in case there is some hidden info about the past tones loaded. If anyone can figure this out I'd be very appreciative.

[codefire]

You cannot edit sounds on the RD-88. You can only collect preset sounds in Scenes.

In a Scene, you can
- make a few minor adjustments to a preset (offsets, Cutoff, Resonance, Attack, etc.)
- replace the default Tone Mfx with a Scene Mfx (from the list of about 90 ish, Chorus, CE-1, SDD-320, etc)
- Assign overall Scene effects (Ifx, Chorus, and Reverb)

...

Can you change the EQ of individual tones/voices in a scene? Or the is EQ just a global setting?

Jason

[Fretzkey1]

Hi there,
I'm late to the party but new to the RD-88. I traded in my JUNO DS 61 and my AX-Edge Keytar because I wanted to settle down and get SERIOUS about gigging with a real keyboard for a while.
So if I'm understanding this right, the Sound List manual, pages 1 - 5, lists everything you can access from the bank select buttons, and also each bank has a few empty scenes that you can initialize.
Then, the remaining pages, 6 - 40 list the thousands of tones that reside inside the RD-88, but that you can't access, but they have to live there in order for you to edit them with an external PC and a paid subscription to the cloud?