Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Hi all,
I've come across an old Roland MK-80 electric piano which I consider buying to use as a masterkeyboard (wonderful key handling). But there are two issues I'd like to check out first:

1: Does the rather limited 16 notes polyphoni on internal sounds also apply on the MIDI out signals? Meaning; can I play a glissando on another module and keep more than 16 notes alive when using the MK-80 as masterkeyboard?

2: I have another old Roland masterkeyboard, the MKB300 (yes, I really love these old Roland things ), which has what I believe is to be version 1.00 of the MIDI stack. One rather annoying feature here is that when you release all keys but keeps the sustain pedal pressed down, the thing still sends "ALL NOTES OFF" on the MIDI out.... So it's useless for piano playing. Which is no big deal on this board since it has only semi weighted keys. But on the MK-80 it would mean a whole lot.

Any MIDI gurus who can enlighten my knowledge here??

Best regards,
John Martin

1: The way you explain it, I believe your master keyboard could send out more than 16 notes at a time, but assuming you want to use them together in a performance, the master keyboard would still have sound triggered, therefore you lose a voice on the MK irrespective of what module it's triggering. I'm unfamiliar with either of these boards.

2: It appears that it was introduced three years later, so it would seem the MIDI implementation was better. In 1986 the standard was much newer than in '89. Roland generally has manuals online, so i would suggest you check there for the rest of what you need to find out.