Roland FR-5 - Master Bar - Disable Program change in menu?

[Vince Matinsky]

Hello,

I have a question for anyone that may have an answer to my question....
When I play Live with my Roland FR-5, I use my Master Bar to send a Program Change to select a Piano sound on one of my synth modules. It is great when playing live.

When I record, or sequence with my FR-5, sometimes I accidentally press the Master Bar which sends that Program Change and messes up my recording or sequencing.

I have saved 'Set 1' for Live, and made a copy of Set one saved as Set 2 which I can edit for recording and sequencing.. My question is that I don't seem to find anywhere where I could disable that Master Control from sending a Program change to prevent it changing the sound to Piano. Has anyone any suggestions on this or where in the Menu I might find it to disable? I know that within Cubase I can set a filter to prevent this, but I would rather be able to do it by editing the Master Bar to not send a Program change.

Thank you.
Vince Matinsky
Canada

 

[JerryPH]

I have never played with an FR-5, but what happens if you set it to send a "null" or invalid code?

 

[Vince Matinsky]

I have never played with an FR-5, but what happens if you set it to send a "null" or invalid code?

Hi Jerry, Thanks for asking. Unfortunately, the only choices are from 0-127 for Patch or Program change, so there is no '0' or bypass code you can enter....It would be nice if they gave you one choice to have the Master Bar 'Active' or 'Desabled'. You could still have it used in other sets or other registers, but not finding a way around this.,

Thanks again for your response!

Vince

 

[Ventura]

these types of issues (for me) always circle back to using a
MIdi Solutions device inline to filter unwanted messages and such
out of the MIDI data stream

they have proven themselves to be ridiculously reliable in professional use
and once you set yours up, you can forget it is there

because i use outboard, physical drawbars, for instance, i needed to block
all program change messages entirely, as well as midi volume messages
from the V-Accordion

 

[Vince Matinsky]

Hi Ventura,

Thank you for the info. I totally agree as well. For now, I am filtering the Program Changes within Cubase, but after reading the manual a bit more I may have found a way to disable those, although, the way the manual is written, it doesn't go in-depth on a couple of things. I will try to do some editing of some of the parameters and see what happens. Thanks again for your response.

 

[Vince Matinsky]

I am thinking that for an experiment, I will set my Treble Register #! not to send a Patch Change, and then set the Master Bar, when triggered, to select Register #1 and see what happens....

 

[Vince Matinsky]

Well, the experiment was successful! For Master Bar Recall, I chose Treble Register #1. In the MIDI TX settings, I chose 'Off' for all PC Changes. I saved theses in Treble Register #1. After a reboot of the FD-5 it works like a charm. Now if I accidentally hit the Master Bar, there is no Program Change sent and it doesn't mess up my sequence as I am recording it.

 

[JerryPH]

A lot of work for a small thing... I am glad that you found a solution.
I was thinking here and wondering when was the last time I hit the master bar my mistake, and I sincerely cannot recall if I ever had. The only way that I could imagine that happening is if the elbow is so low that it could happen. Is this something that you do, play with the elbow so low that the wrist is hard bent? If yes, that is bad technique. The elbow is supposed to be the height of the keyboard or slightly below, that way this would have never happened (POSSIBLY) in the first place.

Playing like that is also detrimental to playing faster/longer.

 

[Vince Matinsky]

Hi there, thanks you for your input. It is not while I am actually playing that I trigger the Master Bar. It is when I reach over the control my Laptop that I accidentally hit the Master bar. I have such a cramped amount of room with the distance to the laptop and the height of it, that just making any changes to the laptop cause me to sometimes hit the Master Bar which would send program changes that I didn't want to have sent. I could filter these out in the sequence software, however, I also have a Digital Piano, Synthesizer, Drum machine, mixers, etc all over the place to have within easy reach and I only use the FR-5 for certain parts. I don't trigger it accidentally when I am playing...it is while I am making changes on the laptop while wearing the accordion.

I totally understand technique as well as good and bad technique; it is just distances between different pieces of equipment and their use in my little home studio where the problem lies. Playing 'Live' I never have this issue; in fact it comes in handy to change program changes with the Master Bar during live, it is during recording and sequencing that the issue pops up. I do appreciate your input, though. It is not a playing technique issue.

Regards,
Vince

 

[JerryPH]

Hey Vince... thanks for taking the time to better explain things to me.
I know all about limited music space, and in fact I kind of took over half the basement so that I could have more room.

I'd not be able to do what I do in a 10X15 foot space comfortably or as effectively as well. I must have moved things around 4-5 times over the years before I found this layout which finally mostly fits my needs. I use a bit more than half my basement that is divided off in to 2 areas, the computer/editing/mixing side and the green screen side that also houses my shelf of accordions. If I did not have an exercise area, that would be converted to an accordion repair area... lol

 

[pentaprism]

Hello @Vince Matinsky,

This post is off-topic. But I think this thread may be of interest to you:

Adding MIDI ports to FR-7/5 and FR-7x