All tips and tricks were provided by mail.
Maybe you have some more tips or tricks, please tell me.
Testmode
Press and hold F1 and F2 and switch the power on.
Press F1 and switch the power on
How to enter W-30's Hacker Mode:
Press user twice to enter "user setting" mode.
Then, while keeping tempo pressed, press F1 twice quickly.
The Hacker mode is on now.
After that, the sequencer menu will contain one more option named "Hacking tools". When executed, it will load hacker commands from the system disk.
To quit Hacker mode, do the above procedures again.
In the "Sequencer menu" window now appears two more choices:
7. Block Hacker
8. Hacking tools
In the "Jump to screen" window now appears four new choices:
63. Block using
64. Block tracer
65. Block show
66. Hacking tools
In the "FD Format" window now appears three new choices:
3. Hack system
4. Hack save util
5. Hack save sys
In the "micro edit" window appears new information on top.
Question:
I've got a battered Roland W-30 and one of its nicer
features is the resonant filters, but I simply can't figure
out how to patch the cut-off point to the pitchbend wheel.
If this is not possible can it be done using a different
controller or Sysex info in Cubase ?
Jonathan, Stratford London
Answer:
Firstly, you can't vary the TVF (Time Variant Filter)
cutoff point by using control data. It is purely SysEx as
are all the filter and envelope parameters on the W-30. If
you want to use SysEx data you can. To do this though will
mean that you create a Mixer Map and merrily plough through
the SysEx addresses and data in your manual. If you've no
experience in writing either SysEx or creating Mixer Maps it
can be a frustrating process.
It's not impossible but it is a daunting task.
It could well be possible to get the same effect by a
slightly different method.
The TVF envelope can be made to respond according to the
velocity of which the keys are struck. This is called the
TVF EG level curve and it has six settings that alter the
way in which the filter responds.
By experementing with these and also the cutoff point and
resonance filter settings it should be possible to make the
sound change quite drastically in timbre ??? according to
how a key on the keyboard is struck. You might also need to
re-edit the TVF envelope for a fast attack.
If you want a slow moving filter effect over a long phrase
(a bass riff, for example) all you have to do is draw in the
velocity values in the key edit page of CUBASE using,
perhaps the compass tool to make sure you get straight
lines.
This doesn't quite give you realtime control, I know but
it's the best thing
JB, Future Music
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 13:21:07
From: Anssi Ahola anssi@kirppu.sata.fi
Subject: re:sourcecode
Hi Joris!
Here is some general information that I hope to be useful in a task of getting inside the guts of W-30. In case it didn't go to the mailing list members, please see that will!
MSG Begin:
Here is some information considering the internal parts of W-30. If there
is some tech-heads amongst W-30 users then this might be of some use.
I have been on the mailing list only three days or so, and I don't know,
if this information is widely known already.
1. The Microcontroller
The microcontroller in W-30 is N8097BH. It is manufactured by Intel, and is a part of their 8X9X - series 16-bit microcontroller productline. You can find 8X9X - series microcontrollers users manual on the Intel's www-site. I took a quick peak last night, and it seemed to be pretty comprehensive. For one thing, it describes the options of connecting external memory to the chip, in both text and schematics.
The other useful aspect considering the microcontroller of W-30 is that
it is a variation of a quite popular 8096 chip. That means, that it speaks
the same language, so all you have to do is to find a disassembler/debugger
for the 8096. I already found one propably very suitable for the task, the
only problem is that it costs money.
I'm still looking for the freeware-version, and if I found one, i'll let
you know.
2. SCSI-chip
The type of the SCSI-chip is MB89352. I didn't find much info on that,
altouqh I only did a quick altavista-search for the exact type. It seems,
that the chip is manufactured by Sharp, but then again, as I said, I'm not
certain about it yet. What you can do with that little piece of information,
is to go to your local electronics store and ask if they got it, and what
is the price of one. I bet my arse, that you will save a lot of money compared
of buying the KW-30, which is the exact same chip, only with the Roland sticker
on top of it! I will continue the research as I have time to do so.
If you have any comments or information about these topics, I gladly hear
you out!
3.PA-Decoder
I know very well, that PA-Decoder has gone out of business, or do you
think, that you would give your potential customers the product you are selling
to make a living -for free? My intention, if it was not clear, was to encourage
people to find out what happened to the company; Did it change it's name
and continued its business in some other area of expertice? Whome were the
people in charge of W-30 modification, and where we can find them now? Seems
to me, that some serious detective-work must be done here, and I hereby challenge
all of you to GET THAT INFORMATION!!!!
Trying to get to the bottom of some out-of-production retro(well, accordin
to FM anyway)gear is not an easy thing to do, but hey, they are making arcade
game - emulators too! I think it can be done, and in fact we all know it
can, because PA-Decoder did it already. So I'll keep you posted and I hope
that you will do the same to me.
--Anssi
Hi Joris,
sorry for Delay but I'm very busy. I have for you tip for realtime control
of W30 Resonant filters. You need:
1 big stereo jack
1 Potentiometer about 500 kilo Ohm
and 1m of minimal 3 line cable (shielded)
then you must connect these 3 parts like on the schema below.
Put Jack to the EV-5 hole and check in the hacker mode (Controllers) if value
(EV-5) changes when you turn with pot. If yes try this with some Aftertouch
sounds. With my W30 this works fine!!!
From: "Hedegaard" hedegaard@heaven.dk
Subject: A Little Word Of Warning!
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 10:41:25 +0100
High All,
Heres a little story that could be interesting for some of u's.
I bought my W-30 2nd hand a few years ago, & noticed that the buttons
on the front panel were hard to press down and reluctant to spring back up
(They worked fine though). At 1st I thought the casing was misaligned, but
obviously it bugged me enough for me to take the whole W-30 apart. Removal
of the back panel was OK, but to my grief, I had to remove both the circuit
boards and the playing keys to dig myself to the bottom where the buttons
were. At this point I thought Roland constructed it in such a way to keep
any Tom, Dick & Harry from probing the synth. Removal of the final panel
revealed buttons that are held in place by double-sided STICKY TAPE!! I removed
1 button to have a look at it, & noticed some other, highly probable
foreign matter, now since I work at an electronics factory, I had a chemical
engineer do an analysis on the substance.
I was told it was coffee with sugar & milk. I came back home, removed
all the buttons and all the sticky tape. I had the buttons cleaned &
other places where the now very old coffee was. By the way, it WASN'T my
coffee.
I placed the buttons back, used a bit of contact spray on the panel, where
there are thankfully very conventional leaded push buttons. After missioning
my way back up the synth, I noticed that my W-30 had been assembled wrong!!!
At the left side, where the power supply sits, there is a metal plate, which
placed properly, will prevent any foreign liquid from going in that direction,
thus saving the W-30 from a 220v overload. I re-aligned the plate, so that
it now serves a function.
I had a problem with the D1 key not sounding when pushed, but a little contact
spray settled that.
My 2 dials are also quite weird, the top one works fine, but makes no noise,
nor do you feel any click-click sensation when rotated.
My bottom dial has a mind of its own. When u push hard & rotate it
left-right, it works fine and you feel the click-click sensation, but when
you push softly & rotate left-right, the numbers reverse in the wrong
order!?!?!?!? Is this normal? I don't think so, so now I'll have to get hold
of these specific types of dials and re-solder...uugggh!
I've never had a synth thats given me more hassle than my W-30, but somehow it doesn't really matter as the rewards are well worth it, at least for me.
Stay well,
This Mail > Presented By Hedegaard
I get a lot of mail from people asking what to do if they have downloaded
a disk from my site.
Well its quite easy and due the fact that I won't tell it to you over and
over i've put it here :)
| 1. | First of all download the fileSDISK from my page |
| 2. | Unzip it and there will be 2 more files SDISK.EXE and SDISK.DOC I believe |
| 3. | Download again a disk from my page, for example
DRUM1.ZIP Unzip the DRUM1.ZIP file and I believe again a file named like DRUM1.W30 will appear |
| 4. | Start SDISK in DOS. It won't work properly
with Windows 95/97/NT. Use it in Dosmode. Press the
D button for the details. First off all you must enter the name of the disk you want to save or restore. Then enter the drive you're restoring to or from (A/B). Then you're back in the main menu again. Well This was easy ;) |
| 5. | If you want to restore a disk then enter a
DD disk in your drive and press
Write. The file on your HD will be written to
disk. If you want to store a DD disk press Read. The disk will be written to a harddiskfile. SDISK won't work properly with a HD disk !!!! |
I have experienced the difficulty how to use WPUT.EXE. At first I got
weird symbols in my display and I had to shut my W30 down. I talked to several
W30 users on the list and they gave me advice. Finally last week, well last
week was again a couple of months ago, I got the program working. There was
nothing wrong with it I was the major faillure ;)
I will keep you from having the same problems so I will try to tell you how
to use WPUT.EXE.
| 1. | First of all you have to have a PC (this is PC software you know) |
| 2. | Download the program Wput from the W30 site |
| 3. | Unpack it with PKUNZIP.EXE and there should be a file WPUT.EXE |
| 4. | Make some awesome samples and save them as 16bits *.wav files. It has to be 16bits, that was my faillure. It doesn't matter what kind of KHz you use. I even can use my 8 bits samples from my amiga (19886 KHz) but if you don't save them as 16bits you'll get weird symbols and your W30 might crash !!! Well I didn't experienced this but it might ;) |
| 5. | Format a disk on your W30 : Insert a DD disk |
| 6. | Press the SEQUENCER button |
| 7. | Press the F5 (Disk) button |
| 8. | Press the F4 (Format) button and select SONG & SOUNDS . Your disk will be formatted, this is saver then using the Winit program on your PC |
| 9. | Put the formatted disk into your PC drive and type "WPUT.EXE NAME.WAV", now your PC will write the "NAME.WAV" file to your disk |
| 10. | If you have transferred all your files to your W30 disk, it is ready to put in your W30. Start your W30 by inserting the systemdisk. The system will be loaded and also some samples and song data will be loaded |
| 11. | Insert the disk you just put the samples on and press the SOUND button. Then press F5 (Load Sound) and finally press F1 (Load Set).The disk is being loaded in your W30. All data which was in your W30 will be erased |
| 12. | When the W30 stops with loading you will see
NOTHING or hear
NOTHING!!!!! Ehm this isn't wrong, this is right. We will have to make a patch before we can hear the sound |
| 1. | Press the SOUND button |
| 2. | Press the F3 (Patch Edit) button |
| 3. | Press the F1 (Parameter) button, enter
the name of the patch you want to use. Like if you want to have a patch with
drums, enter drums. Set the volume to 127, otherwise you won't hear anything when the patch has been made |
| 4. | Go back to the main menu and select Patch Edit again |
| 5. | Select Split |
| 6. | You will now enter a new menu. At the top of the menu is the name
of the patch you've just entered, otherwise rotate the knobs on your W30
and look for the patch you want to make/edit. On the right of the screen there are 2 positions for samples, 1 and 2. With these positions you can enter the samples you want to be put in your own patch. Press any key on your keyboard and in the screen *INFO will light up and you still don't hear a sample playing. Press the SET button and the *INFO will change into SET1. This is what we need to create our own patch |
| 7. | Select the sample(s) you want to put in the patch |
| 8. | Press the keys you want the sample to respond to. This could be the
whole keyboard or just 1 key if you like. Do this for each sample you want to put in 1 patch, but try not to press the same key twice with different samples, otherwise you will hear 2 samples playing at the same time |
| 9. | When you are finished, go to the
PERFORMANCE mode and you will see your own patch
and it will play the sound you want to except maybe on the right frequency
and the right volume, so the sample could be higher or lower than the original
? If this is the problem, than you have to remap the sample to the keys? |
Remapping a sample is needed to put the sample on the right frequency
and to let it respond to different volumes.
If you press a key on the keyboard you will hear a sample playing but it
doesn't matter how hard or soft you press the key. The volume stays the same.
This can be helped by resetting your sample.
| 1. | Press the SOUND button again and then press the F4 for sound editing I believe |
| 2. | Go editting the parameter of the sample you want |
| 3. | Select the sample you want to edit. press the
INIT button. The W30 will ask to you if you
want to reset 1 Patch or a whole group of
patches. I always select 1 patch at a time because the names will be erased. This way I can easely put the old name back at 1 sample, but imagine when you must replace all right names at all samples.... Its up to you to decide what to do :) |
| 4. | When you have reset a sample, you have to enter the right name again. This should be handy especially when you want to edit this disk again in the future |
| 5. | The frequncy of the sample will be put automaticly at
C-5. Its up to you again to select the key and the right note you want the W30 to play your sample. Just got to the C-5 and rotate till it sounds good for you. Now your sample is almost ready for use |
| 6. | If the sample is still not quite right, but you can't help it while
you're switching a note up or down, then try to get the note to the right
frequncy by using Finetune You can remap the sample up +64 or down -64. The sound will go up/down so you can exactly finetune your sample |
Midi If you want to use the sample in your midi setup, you have to make some changes again.
| 1. | Press the SOUND button again and select
MIDI-RX or something like that. Here you will find all parameters you can control by midi. Everything is turned on, but if you don't have innited your sample/patches then everything is turned off, so nothing will respond on your midi messages. For example if you want the W30 to respond to your midi volume messages, you have to turn the VOL to on. Thats also the way with the other parameters, but read this in your manual please |
| 2. | Now we're almost done. The last thing to do is to give each patch
a different Midi Channel. Otherwise you still will hear all sound at one
time. Press the Sound again |
| 3. | Then press F1 |
| 4. | You will see the name of your patches and the channels they react
on. If you already have done something the channels are changed, otherwise
they all are at Channel 1. Well it's quite easy
to change this to other channels. Try it................ |
Well This is it !!!!