Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

I’ve had this Roland U-20 since the mid-90s and haven’t had a chance to use it that much. Consequently it is in near mint condition and appears to be functioning correctly on all levels. (looks new too!!)

I recently began using Logic Pro and hooked the U-20 up to my MacBook Pro through a MOTU MIDI interface to use with Logic Pro because I like the sound patches. To my great surprise this worked straight away. I can trigger the current sound patch from Logic Pro with MIDI notes and can play the current internal soft-synth from the U-20 keyboard and record the incoming MIDI notes in the software. Pretty easy so far.

The only problem I am having is trying to set this up so that the software will play two different patches on the U-20 from two different tracks in the Logic Pro project. As I understand multi-tymbral synths this should be something I can do with the U-20. I setup the different tracks in Logic to go to different MIDI channels. On the U-20 I set the RX on each patch to the appropriate channel setting. Unfortunately, the only sound patch I get from either track is the currently selected patch on the U-20.

The User Manual for this is frustratingly arcane and I am sure I am misunderstanding how this can be accomplished. Any insight to solve this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

See p. 49 in the manual about creating a Sound Patch to have multiple U20 sounds (Timbres) on different MIDI channels. You can have up to 6 parts plus a drum kit (rhythm part).

Thanks, I had read that section of the manual but it appeared to relate to creating "layered" soundscapes rather than separate triggering from a DAW for each part. I tried this and it works as described however, it is limited to the 6 parts of the currently selected Sound Patch in the U-20. This may be all the U-20 can do given that it was conceived in the late 80's before software sequencers came into more common use. It was more common then to chain several hardware modules and have them trigger different sounds from each one using MIDI messages.

I'm still working on trying to get Logic Pro to send a Patch change MIDI message to the U-20 so I can utilize more separate parts from different Sound Patches. However that may not be something the U-20 can do for the reasons listed above.

Thanks for your response! At least I can use 6 separate sounds although the U-20 touts a maximum of 30 in the manual.

The problem is the Roland manual. They're always terrible. Especially with MIDI setup! The U20 is definitely capable of what meatballfulton says it is.

Obewankobe wrote:At least I can use 6 separate sounds although the U-20 touts a maximum of 30 in the manual.

Yes, 30-voice polyphony, 6-part multitimbral.

Read further, p.97-98.You can send program change messages on each MIDI channel to change the timbre of each part in the patch.

Set both Keyboard and Sound Patch RX OFF.

Set RX Timbre Change Switch ON.

Then send the program change msg on the appropriate channel (1-6).

This is shown in the far right column of the chart on p.98.