Roland A800 Mod lever

[JoeGBradford]

Hi all

I have a Roland A800 controller which has the rather irritating spring loaded modulation lever rather than mod wheel. As soon as I use this (as this afternoon with Garritan Personal Orchestra) it reduces the volume of the VST at the 'at rest' position and I can only get a reasonable amount of volume if I push it and hold away from the at rest location. As I mention it is spring loaded so if I leave go of it it returns to the base position. If I don't touch it volume is fine but I thus cannot use it for orchestral swells etc. Could anyone give me some advice on this please as it is really frustrating - I've been putting up with it for years as I don't perform live but it is annoying!

I tried moving the modwheel controller in the Garritan GUI to a higher position but it just reverts to a low volume as soon as I touch the lever again

Thanks in advance

[abacab]

I have the Roland A300 and agree that their spring loaded PB/Mod lever can be annoying. But by default it should not be sending the MIDI volume.

Download the free MIDI-OX tool and see what MIDI controller you are sending with your Mod wheel. You should only be seeing CC: Modulation event in the MIDI input monitor when you push the Mod lever up.

http://www.midiox.com/?http://midiox.com/moxdown.htm

http://www.nortonmusic.com/midi_cc.html

[mettelus]

There are a few threads on the old forum regarding this. Google "site:forum.cakewalk.com [search terms]" and you will see them.

Basically the ARIA player does not take that mod input until the user changes it, then when returning to zero, ARIA follows. The best counter is to insert an automation lane, but the details are in those threads.

I agree it is rather annoying, since many instruments in ARIA also link that to volume. I have never researched if a MIDI learn to another control (like the sliders on the A PROs) will override the ARIA settings. A slider corresponds better with the intent.

[abacab]

If that is the case, it sounds like a serious bug (or a non-standard MIDI implementation) in the ARIA player (which I do not own). Even if the keyboard modulation controller (CC 1) is returned to zero when released, that should not effect the MIDI channel volume in the ARIA player (which should relate to either CC 7 volume, or CC 11 expression).

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by abacab

[mettelus]

AFAICT there are under the hood options in the ARIA instruments defining what they do and not editable by the user. Instant Orchestra is another example where the mod wheel is used to meld A/B instruments (for the "mood" patches). They are obviously designed for controllers without a spring-loaded mod wheel (the real issue). The RTZ part makes the mod wheel unusable in many cases.

When I get a minute, I am curious if a slider can be MIDI learned to the "mod wheel" in ARIA. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by mettelus

[mettelus]

I am glad this popped up again, since I had never reloaded the "AProEditor" on this machine. Bottom line, MIDI learn is a fail, but with the AProEditor, you can map the Mod Wheel (CC1) to a secondary source (I used slider 1).

If not installed on your machine, for the A800, scroll down on this page till you see "A-PRO Series Editor for Windows v1.01" Download and install that (I used compatability mode (right click prior to running) for Win7).

Next, in this video at the 3:00-3:26 point, follow what he does to turn on the USB ADV DRIVER.  Then, at the 5:00 in the same video (keep that open), follow his connection setup (Input Port: A-PRO 2, Output Port: A-PRO). I would then recommend "Receiving" the data from your A800, then saving it as a file on your computer.

Next, I clicked Slider 1, and in the pop-up I put this (you can use any control, but a slider makes the most sense for me):

A Pro Editor should now look like this for Slider 1:

Finally, I "Transmitted" this back to the A300. I used Control Map 3 for my ARIA, but unless you change that you will be on Control Map 1 by default. Since I only changed that one slider, I again saved the map to my computer and overwrote the existing. You can scroll through control maps in the A800 by hitting the white left arrow key next to the "ACT" button till you see "CTRL MAP" and scroll through them with the "Value" knob (and save up to 19). The video mentioned above walks through some other things, but I hit upon all the steps needed here.

When finished, I left my MIDI input to "A-PRO 1" and now slider 1 acts as a secondary Mod Wheel. They both work, and ARIA responds to the last one touched. Only caveat is that you need to get used to adjusting the slider after changing patches but prior to playing, since the slider will suddenly "jump" to the slider value as soon as you touch it (and might be way off from where the patch loads it).

I am glad you asked this question, since my A300 causes me the same grief and I will need the "mod wheel" messing around with Kontakt 6.

Edited June 14, 2019 by mettelus

[JoeGBradford]

Thanks everyone. Some helpful suggestions there!

[RBH]

I've removed the spring on a couple of controllers I've had.  It works better for set and stay kind of controller moves. Usually pretty easy - but I've never done it on a Roland Controller

[JoeGBradford]

Thanks - might be a bit tricky looking at how the case is sealed

 

[abacab]

6 minutes ago, JoeGBradford said:

Thanks - might be a bit tricky looking at how the case is sealed

 

Not sure I would want to crack the case open.

Probably easier to assign CC1 to a slider, IMHO...

[JoeGBradford]

yes that was my thought! I need to have a look at this as soon as I have the chance