V_Synth XT and WinXP

Hi, just keeping you all updated with this bizarre driver installation.

Finally found the "Standard USB Hub" in the inf file in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers and it loaded then changed to "Generic USB Hub" and so I pressed finished.
Then the diver installation screen appeared again looking for the Roland V-synth dirver. Yah !!!
I pointed to the freshly downloaded drivers which it happily loaded.
Finally the end dialog appeared saying that there was an error "The driver class would not allow the driver to be installed"
Tried it many times, but no joy.

Any one have any ideas ??
Thanks
Royce

Hi rcraven
I gave up in the end and just bought a usb to midi lead on Amazon for a few quid.Works fine.
If you do get one of these, just remember to turn the laptop off and on after the adapter has auto loaded its driver.It should be plain sailing from then on.
Oddly,I can get the XT to work with my laptop (WinXP ) in storage mode though, using usb on the XT.
Hope this helps
Andy

Thanks Andy. I also gave up and just use a Midi interface.

Hi Royce. I don't have a V-Synth XT (just wish I did as the samples on line sound great, like the Yamaha FS1R strange great).

I'm not very technical and I'm pretty sure you are the dude that wrote a C++ program to convert the SR-JV80 patches for the XV5080 to convert them to the Fantom X, so you are clearly more tech savvy than I.

Just the other night I was trying to install drivers for my new (used) USB MIDI keyboard controller and it kept telling me it was damaged, the drivers were USB 1.1, the DAW wouldn't recognize it, it was just useless via the USB.

Then I did something simple. I knew for sure that my MIDI patchbay USB was working, so I temporarily unplugged it and put it in the USB keyboard and it worked. Two things changed. The USB cable and the USB port. Like I said, you are obviously tech savvy so I wouldn't be surprised if you already tried something like this. But it never hurts to suggest a possibility.

Now please get a Roland Integra and come up with a great (automated by programming) method to convert Fantom and 5080 custom patches to Integra patches (or I should say tones). Happy Halloween.

Hi Calvin7s

Thanks for the USB thoughts.
I have a couple of old PCs that I did a clean install of WinXP and then installed SP1 to SP3 testing each time.
The V-Synth driver didn't want to work. So I gave up and just use the Midi ports.

I have an Integra 7 converter that I wrote to convert Matt's (Patchman) wind controller patches.
He used them as a starting point and then slaved over modifications for the extra things you can do in an Integra 7.

As he is a dealer and product specialist he got a unit very early, unfortunately there was little documentation that was available at the time and I had to do it 'blind', by sending him stuff to test over and over again.
He kindly tried to swing a loan of a development machine, but Roland Australia didn't want to know.
So I am yet to play with one.

From what I remember I converted his XV, FantomS/X and SonicCell Libraries.
He said that they were very close, but this kind of coding, while possible, is both frustrating and very time consuming and you never really know if you got it right.

Trying to convert for a machine that you don't have is not a good idea.
That being said I have been playing around with a Jupiter 8 simulator for my XV, FanS/X and SonicCell for quite a while now.
Although it failed to bring back my JP8, that I sold 30 years ago, it is a lot of fun to get back to super quick sound design.


All the best
Royce

Hi Royce,
You should consider a tutorial on how you do the conversions and put it up on YouTube to be paid by ads. I'm sure there's an audience for something like that. I'd watch every second even if it was a 100 hour course.

Now I know you can't just casually teach C++, so that would obviously have to be a prerequisite. But even just talking out the process and other software used (like MIDI-OX or whatever) would be very helpful. At worst, it would give a small road map. Every time I decide I'm going to learn some programming, I get lost in all the options. It isn't the hard work and many hours involved. It is the hard work and many hours involved just to find out you picked the worst language for the task.

My apologies to the V-Synth people. I guess this thread should be somewhere else.

Hi Calvin7s
Conversions are really quite straight forward and probably the least exciting thing to program.
The 'good' thing about Roland's synths is that they often just added to the current model to create the next model. So in many ways they were backward compatible.
So you have a history, say, starting from the JD Romplers to the JVs to XV to the Fantoms (architecture changed quit a bit in the FanG ) to the SonicCell to the Integra (which has a foot in both FanG and XV streams).
The FanG morphed in to the FAs and the JPs to a certain extent. Then they went retro.
The beautiful V-Synth really stands apart from these streams. You could still do a lot of XV patches on the V-Synth, but it's not as easy to do the reverse.

So to convert from one to the other you take all the parameters that are the same on both machines (to make that harder Roland often changed the parameter name) and move the value to it. That is about 85% to 90% of the job done.
The often renamed and always re-positioned waves have to be either matched or a good substitute found. This is why you need the two synths in front of you.
In the 4 Tone synths the only other thing is to find the matching MFX and sort out the jumbled parameters - in the sysex Roland just calls these "MFX Parameter 1", MFX Parameter 2", "MFX Parameter 3" etc and any parameter can be anywhere.

As you are just reading a sysex file, creating a new file with the swapped parameters and then saving it, you can use any programming language. C++ is fast in its execution, but for this job it doesn't have to be.

There are lots of easier programming languages out there especially for the new coder. Save yourself some heartache and start with one of those.

Jamie O'Connell wrote MidiOx firstly in C then, I believe, in C++. I heard a rumor that he joined Cakewalk, so I guess he works for Roland.
It started its life as an example of how to write Midi code written by Microsoft and supplied with their C then Visual C++ compilers. It never worked and it would never work as MS wouldn't change it. Despite being told about it they kept including it a way to write a Midi program in each version of their compiler.

As this was both my first C project and my first Midi project I gave up, but Jamie didn't and created MidiOx.
Real time Midi programs use to need to be fast, but with the speed of modern computers that may not necessarily be true now. So I would still start with something other than C++.

I haven't had a need for a new language, so perhaps someone else can suggest something more current.

All the best
Royce

rcraven wrote:

My apologies to the V-Synth people. I guess this thread should be somewhere else.

You're right. Where does something like this go on these forums because it is more about transfer from one Roland to another as opposed to a specific Roland instrument.