Edirol PCR 300/500/800 - First Impressions

[beatifictater]

ANYWAY... I have a fix for you guys sustain pedal problems. It's a "dumb" solution, and in theory, it shouldn't work, but it does.

In the pedal parameters, set the MINIMUM value to 127; then set the MAXIMUM value to 0. ANY pedal, regardless of polarity, should work fine. Kind of weird, but I suspect that Roland might have programmed their pedals that way to pump sales.

Hope that helps.

i bought the pcr-500 this morning, works great in sonar, but having HUGE problems in reason.....
im having the sustain on every note problem mentioned above, how do i edit those parameters you mention?

and when i trigger/record drums via keyboard in redrum, i'm hearing additional or other drums that i didnt trigger when i play it back?!?

i dont need to be able to control EVERYTHING in reason, at least the pcr-500's working in sonar, but i was hoping at least to be able to play synths, trigger drums and use knobs of the synths etc...hoping it's reasonably easily remedied...

i'm very new to all this, until today i'd only used midi in the straight forward in/out way to use softsynths.....please help!!

[James Tumbling Magnolia]

I managed to get my PCR-300 to control a couple of drum VSTi options in Cubase (SL-1, if that matters), but only at fixed velocities. Does "Velocity Pads" mean they are not velocity sensitive? The manual for the editing software seems to indicate that I can send midi triggers with variable velocities, but I have yet to figure out how to accomplish this. Can anyone help?

[vicious_angel]

I dunno about you guys but i got a PCR-500 before 2 days ago. I had no experience with midi controller but i have an alesis micron which i could not control my vst's from it to my host (orion).
I did read the manual and made a control map for it to control everything to my host and i am really really happy with it.
I even programmed the 18x pads of it to play the drumrack (drum machine of orion which kicks ass). Also the pads are velocity sensitive and its quite fun to play drums with this way.
If you actually read the manual you can see that it has already control maps for cubase(mcr-8 mode 4),garage band, sonar, project5, logic already installed in it so you actually have to RTFM lol. Also you can downoad a lot from edirols page. It has 16 memories saveable and with 2 buttons you can change the control map for it(if you play with rewire and work in different hosts).

About the feel what can i say. Its not a piano but in the synth world it has the best keys i played with (it says edirol by roland ).
The rotary controls are built like a tank the feel from them are definately not cheep and i really really like them.
The pads as another said are lol but they are velocity sensitive and some times its fun to program drums or play with sample live with them.
The slider section controllers are not the best i played with but they are OK for what they do.
Generally i am very happy with it and having fun which is the most importand.

[vicious_angel]

I managed to get my PCR-300 to control a couple of drum VSTi options in Cubase (SL-1, if that matters), but only at fixed velocities. Does "Velocity Pads" mean they are not velocity sensitive? The manual for the editing software seems to indicate that I can send midi triggers with variable velocities, but I have yet to figure out how to accomplish this. Can anyone help?

They are velocity sensitive. In the pcr editor assign them as
Channel message-> Note -> give the note number -> output port 1 -> press ok.
Send the control map to the pcr and you are rdy.
Also you can assign parameters from pcr also have a look on this.


That worked for me.[/url]

[James Tumbling Magnolia]

Thank you, Vicious Angel.

The steps you laid out are exactly the ones I had followed (after RingTFM), but the velocity was still a fixed value and I couldn't find the setting to change it to variable. The keyboard keys would play the same VSTi with variable velocity while the pads played it fixed. So I poked around some more in PCR Editor and discovered that if I spin the velocity setting down all the way past 0, I get to "Touch" instead of a numeric setting - I think I have found my fix! I went back to TFM again and could still find no mention of this. I guess if I had looked at some of the supplied Control Maps first, I would have found it earlier.

[antonborisov]

I'm choosing a new controller and seems like PCR 800 will suit my needs almost perfectly. The only question I have is about keyboard split function. The manual states that your are able to split keyboard and setup different programs for lower and upper range. But what does it mean? Could I be able to setup PCR in a way that the lower range will send notes on, let's say, 1 midi channel and the upper on 2 midi channel?

[Jim Y]

Exactly - you have Upper and Lower buttons, whichever is lit, you can assign a midi channel independent of the other half of the split.
The split/layer keyboard channel settings are (it seems to me) entirely independent of any programmed controllers (that is knobs & faders). They are not part of the controller maps. So if you want a split for an 2 manual organ, just selecting the control map for that organ synth won't set up the split for you.

Jim

[Contraband]

[quote="da-real-cz"]yo everybody im glad theres forums like this cause i gotta serious problem with my brand new pcr-300. for some reason when im using it through reason 4.0, well and reason 3.0 whenever i hit the key the note sustains and never ends. so i hit the key and the note plays for ever. you know what im talkin about right....well any ideas what the hell is going on. this is extremely frustraiting and mad fishy. if no one knows exactly, would anyone like to direct me to a support phone number so ican talk to a real person about this pcr-300 sustaining problem....hope to hear from you guys soon. thanks homies...[/quote]

Hey guys - I have exactly the same problem with Edirol PCR 800 - I noticed that someone had suggested reversing the polarities by setting min = 127 and max= 0 - did you guys try this and did the problem of never ending sustain go away?

Thanks

Contra

[xmal]

is the pcr-300 anygood with fruity loops?
im thinking of buying one but unsure how its going to be

thanks

[kane318]

yea man it works good with fruity loops. easy to set up.

[RPH]

P.S: And dont forget to update your driver and editor for the complete pcr-series to 2.0 - which is out on the new cd's coming with the pcr300/500/800 or as a download for e.g. pcr-30 at roland.com. and if you know what is new in those drivers lemme know

I can only find the old drivers for my PCR30..
Where did you find updated drivers??

( i checked: http://www.roland.com/products/en/_supp ... T=PCR%2D30 )

[vasyan]

Where do I find the pedal paramteres? I can not locate it in my Edirol manual. Thanks for the help!

I also join this question: where to find pedal settings? There is nothing in the owner’s manual about this.
I believe that the only simple solution to this problem is to replace the pedal button with a normally closed contact.