Roland JD-800 plugin and sysex

[aMUSEd]

I bought this in the sale but unfortunately (unlike the D-50) it doesn't have sysex import - how annoying! I found a bunch of sysex files for this great synth and also found a utility that does the job but it's Windows only (I'm on Mac) and also command line which I would not find easy to use even if I was on windows.

https://github.com/sagamusix/JDTools

If anyone is able to do the conversion I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one grateful

I can upload the files I want converting (they are all freely available on the net)

[Examigan]

Not sure if you had these already? Just regular presets I made for it, ready to go.
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/roland ... /downloads

[aMUSEd]

Thankyou - I do now

[Examigan]

It’s too bad the people who made this converter couldn’t expand on the idea for other Roland synths:
https://www.difficultaudio.com/roland

[aMUSEd]

Nice find - yes indeed

[beely]

It’s too bad the people who made this converter couldn’t expand on the idea for other Roland synths:
https://www.difficultaudio.com/roland

Hello! So, trying not to sound like sour grapes, if you're not aware of the history of these, I did the D50 convertor when the D50 couldn't import sysex, so we could use the thousands of patches online for it. (Roland later added sysex import, though Roland's importer misses the FX settings in some cases).

Then, I wanted to get my 5080 presets into the 1080 plugin when it became available, and a lot of people then asked for a 1080 -> plugin convertor, so I worked on that, and it took a *lot* of time and effort, but there was basically radio silence when I finally released, almost zero feedback, people to help test and improve it etc, so I basically concluded that I wasn't going to put any more effort into that or other convertors, especially if it was not something I wanted for myself, because it simply wasn't worth the effort - instead I want to put that effort into tools that I want to work on, and the community benefits from and appreciates a bit more.

(Also, I don't have the hardware in many cases to tune the conversion either, and next to nobody that did have the hardware was willing to help work with me either.)

That being said, both convertors are still used and pretty popular, and I was in touch with the guy who made the JD800 convertor which also turned out to be a lot of work for him. This kind of work is pretty thankless, and much of the time, at least for old synths, people only want to do a one-time conversion of all the existing banks out there and then never use them again - at which point, it often makes more sense just to convert the banks and offer them up for download directly, like I did for the entire Cult of D50 library.

There's not many of the other Roland synth plugins that had original hardware with sysex patches available online anyway. The D50 was the most important one to cover for me, given the amount of patches online imo, and the second being the 1080-range of plugins, third being the JD800 (covered by saga) and... what else?

The bottom line is that people won't work on stuff for the community if the end result is the community takes it for granted and can barely even get it together to say "Hey, thanks for doing this".

Too bad, indeed, but it's not really anything to do with "couldn't"...

[Examigan]

Sorry, I should have rephrased that… I appreciate all the work that’s been done!

I just wish the Roland Cloud guys would make it built in, e.g.just like the D-50 VST.

[beely]

They added it to the D50 after I'd released mine, but this was pretty straightforward to do, as the plugin is essentially the same as their previous D50 models and the data layout is the same, no data or parameters need conversion etc.

There's a reason it's not been added to eg the 1080/5080/JD-800 plugins - they know how much of a pain it is to do properly, as these plugins are not the previous engines, so you can't just bring in the data, you need to map/translate/convert and handle the differences elegantly - it's not trivial at all. And it doesn't really add anything to their bottom line. These kind of convertors are usually left to the one or two of us crazy types who would like to have that ability, and are willing to go to the effort to do it...

If the JD-800 patches referenced above are copyright free and can be posted here, or it's a single external link download, zip them/link them up and if no-one else will convert them, I'll give it a shot with sagamusx tool above, and once converted, they can be enjoyed by others...

[aMUSEd]

tbh it's on me for not checking, I only have the D-50, which has it built in (I had no idea it didn't used to - I only bought mine a couple of months ago) so assumed wrongly the JD would have it too. If anyone did make a convertor I can use I would greatly appreciate it and gladly donate or buy something to support them.

[beely]

They added sysex import into v1.06 of the D50 plugin, iirc... about a year or two after it was initially released...

[aMUSEd]

They added it to the D50 after I'd released mine, but this was pretty straightforward to do, as the plugin is essentially the same as their previous D50 models and the data layout is the same, no data or parameters need conversion etc.

There's a reason it's not been added to eg the 1080/5080/JD-800 plugins - they know how much of a pain it is to do properly, as these plugins are not the previous engines, so you can't just bring in the data, you need to map/translate/convert and handle the differences elegantly - it's not trivial at all. And it doesn't really add anything to their bottom line. These kind of convertors are usually left to the one or two of us crazy types who would like to have that ability, and are willing to go to the effort to do it...

If the JD-800 patches referenced above are copyright free and can be posted here, zip them up and if no-one else will convert them, I'll give it a shot with sagamusx tool above, and once converted, they can be enjoyed by others...

Thankyou so much, as far as I know they are safe (found them in 2 minutes online and none of the sites seems particularly dodgy). I will collect them together and send a link

I will also buy one of the Saga banks (or both) to show appreciation for the tool

[PAK]

Sorry, I should have rephrased that… I appreciate all the work that’s been done!

I just wish the Roland Cloud guys would make it built in, e.g.just like the D-50 VST.

Well, they didn’t make it built in on the D-50 either. It only appeared after Beely did his version. I'd argue, had he not done so, I sincerely doubt Roland would have made the effort. The reason is that, for Roland, along with subscriptions they see sound sets as an additional source of revenue. If you can just import thousands of presets from elsewhere why bother buying from them? I think that’s likely to be why they take the attitude that they do..

Companies often have internal conversion tools when they do virtual versions. For example, Korg’s Triton plugin had PCG import from the beginning, but they literally just commented the functionality out so it didn’t appear in the menu of the released version. They just do something good enough for their own internal use but don’t necessarily want to spend time polishing and supporting it.

In the case of Roland, it’s likely they also have their own tools for this sort of thing. However, whatever they have for Zenology doesn’t appear to be very good. Along with (some would say cynical justification for requiring the x080 plugins) leaving out of the patch reverb/chorus, some of the MFX also use the wrong FX, even though the correct FX are actually present!! Which is why, even without the use of the missing patch FX, some sounds are not the same. It’s not because Zenology can’t do it. It’s because whoever managed this was too lazy to check why those sounds were different, and that it was because they used the wrong MFX!

In the case of the JD800 plugin, it would’ve been nice to see things like the (Japan only) preset card E Persing did for the hardware, since it’s pretty rare otherwise. By taking some of the approaches, that they do, Roland are arguably creating reasons for why some want to bypass them entirely via direct hardware emulation..

[beely]

Thankyou so much, as far as I know they are safe (found them in 2 minutes online and none of the sites seems particularly dodgy). I will collect them together and send a link

Are you talking about the online "JD800 All-The-Web" collection of JD800 user-created patches that were distributed as SYX files over the years on the web and collected/compiled by Bobby Blues, at:
https://bobbyblues.recup.ch/roland_jd-8 ... tches.html

If so, the conversion tool author themselves already converted this for the plugin:
https://sagagames.de/stuff/JD-800_AllTh ... Plugin.zip

[aMUSEd]

Yes mainly - thanks didn't see that

I also found a lovely pads bank on Youtube though - will up that when I finish work

[aMUSEd]

OK this one too please if possible - it was shared in the comments here



thanks

JD800-Great pads-SYX-File.zip