Roland ax7

Hey

I have a kind of newbie question ^^ as I don't really find something about this in the owners manual, I wonder if someone knows how to switch sounds between the lower/upper keyboard mode? I'm not sure if I'm doing right but it dosen't matter cuz as fast as I try to select a sound on my triton the keyboard mode automaticly changes to upper

HELP

ergo

Wait, Triton? I'm guessing you have a two-keyboard setup. How are the connections made between the two? Are you maybe doing something on the Triton that causes a program change on the AX7?

I'm not sure on anything ^^ the only thing I have is 1 midi cable from the triton midi in to the ax7ans out ^^ could you please explain a bit more, your making more sense then the book lol!

thx

Okay, if the connection is AX7 MIDI OUT -> Triton MIDI IN, then what you're doing on the Triton can't possibly make it back to the AX7. (You could, of course, get a second MIDI cable and connect the Triton MIDI OUT -> AX7 MIDI IN, so that playing a note on either keyboard could use either or both keyboards to make the sound, but that's a whole other story and is probably more than you want to do now anyway).

I'm not familiar with the AX7, and Roland's website doesn't have the manual, so I can't give you exact help, but I can at least point you in the right direction. What I'm describing may not be exactly how the AX7 does things, but is probably pretty close, if not right on.

Most keyboards have two different types of sounds: a single sound (a patch, in Roland terminology, or a program in Korg terminology), and a larger group of related sounds (a program in Roland terminology or a combination in Korg terminology). To keep it simple, I'm just going to call any one of those sounds.

Switching from one sound to another within a bank will send a MIDI program change (PC) message, and switching from a sound in one bank to a sound in another bank will send both a bank change and program change message.

When you switch between patches or programs on the AX7, you're probably sending a program change and maybe a bank change message to the Triton, so what I'd have expected is that the Triton would be the one changing sounds quickly; this is what I suggested might be happening in my last post. Are you sure that you don't have your MIDI connections mixed up and that you're not going from the Triton's MIDI OUT to the AX7's MIDI IN? I'd bet that you are, because otherwise, there's *no way* for *anything* you do with the Triton to affect the AX7. Take a look at that first; it's most likely your problem.

If you do have the connection from Triton to AX7, what's happening is that the Triton is sending a program change message and the AX7 is responding to it and changing the sound. For whatever reason, that's putting the AX7 into upper mode only: probably, the new sound selected on the Triton sends a MIDI PC message that corresponds to a sound on the AX7 that is in upper mode only. For example, say that you're selecting program or combination #10 in a bank on the Triton. You're sending a MIDI PC 10 message to the AX7, which responds by switching the sound on the AX7 to whatever the 10th sound is in the current bank. In your case, that happens to be one playing the upper part of the keyboard only.

If all this is as I've described it, you've got a few options. The simplest is to not connect the two keyboards, which means that each must play its own sounds only. It's simple but limiting. There are two other options if you do want to have both keyboards make sounds on the Triton (or both keyboards make sounds on the AX7).

1) From the sending keyboard (whichever one has the MIDI cable in MIDI OUT), turn off the ability to send MIDI PC messages, either globally (MIDI PC will never be sent on MIDI OUT) or on a sound-by-sound basis (i.e. switching to sound #10 won't send a PC message, switching to sound #11 would). You'd also want to set up sound #11 so that the MIDI PC event that was sent would be whatever goes well with the sound on the sending keyboard (which isn't necessarily sound #11 on the receiving keyboard). Example: the Triton is sending to the AX7. You play program #11 on the Triton, which is strings, but want to switch the AX7 to program #1, which is a grand piano, so you end up layering strings and piano together.

2) From the receiving keyboard (the one with the MIDI cable connected to MIDI IN), turn off the ability to receive MIDI PC messages globally. You probably can't turn this off on a sound-by-sound basis, and it would be weird to want to.

Make sense?

Thank you! yeah I think I understand what you are saying but still the connection I have made is TRITON midi IN and AX7 midi out...the thing is that I only use the triton as a sound source for the moment, I'm going to get a rack of some kind sometime so this is just temporary

if you don't mind I could send you the owners manual...I have it on my PC as a PDF file

I did find the manual now, so don't worry about that. But maybe explain exactly what you're doing to change sounds? Like I said, the AX7 can't be affected by anything you do on the Triton if the MIDI connection is one way. Also, I didn't realize what kind of keyboard the AX7 was; given that it's a 'keytar', you've definitely got the connection in the right direction. The AX7 probably doesn't even have a MIDI IN.

Anyway, knowing that, I'm guessing that you're trying to send a program change to the Triton using the AX7? If so, I bet that whatever you're doing on the AX7 is changing things on the AX7 as well as sending a MIDI PC to the Triton. Let me know exactly, down to the specific button presses, what you're doing that causes the AX7 to misbehave and I'll use the manual to figure out what's happening.

I really appreciate your help!! thank you a lot

Well actually there is a midi in on the ax7 aswell and I'm not really sure what to use the midi in on the "keytar" as it's just a controller. Any way what I'm doing after I have given the two keys power is just that I choose the Prog meny on the triton and then just change the sounds on the triton just as I would if I was going to use the triton and then those settings also affect the ax7, do you understand my lame explanation? ^^ and what I want to be able to do is to choose two sounds as I decribed earlyer so I can have one "lead" sound and one rythmen

Well, now that I think about it, it probably has *some* settings somewhere that can be controlled by MIDI, so that makes sense. MIDI PC seems like an obvious choice.

As for the Triton controlling the AX7, I'll say it again: that isn't possible unless the Triton's MIDI OUT is connected to the AX7's MIDI IN, so that suggests that either you still have your connection going in the wrong direction or one or both units are defective.

What I'd suggest is that you don't touch the Triton at all when you actually want to perform. The AX7 has 128 patches; set up those in the order you want to use for your performance. For each patch, in order, set the split and MIDI channels the way you want them, and save it. Also, for each patch, set the PC message that you want to send to the Triton (in the manual, page 16, at least in the English version, describes this; it's the page with PRG CHG parameters at the top).

With this setup, you navigate to patch 0 at the start of your gig. Each time you need a new sound, hit the Patch Up or Patch Down buttons on the AX7 (you'd use patch down if you want to switch back to something you already used; say if you have one sound for the verse of a song, another for the chorus, and a third for the bridge, you play the verse, hit Patch Up to go to the chorus, Patch Down to play verse two, patch Up for chorus 2, Patch Up again for the bridge, etc.)

Doing this, the sounds on the Triton don't necessarily have to be in order, since you're sending a specific PC message to the Triton with every Patch Up or Patch Down press on the AX7.

Okey I understand what you mean, but I have no ide how any of this works so I have to go deep into the manual ^^ lol and i know about that changing patches on the ax7 but sometimes for example; when I write B31 on the ax7 then I have a lead sound but on my triton at D85 I have a much better lead sound, is it possible to replace that ax7 sound with the triton sound?

and now I just tried to set the midi cable; triton midi out ax7 midi in and then it wont sound at all