Connecting secondary keyboard to Roland Juno DS61

[goranmagdic]

Hopefully this is a simple question for some of you pros! I've never used MIDI for connecting things together, but thought I'd try a basic setup, connecting a little Alesis 25-key MIDI keyboard to my Juno DS61, with the aim of having the Juno keyboard used for normal piano sounds, and the Alesis used for something else (drums/brass etc). However, I have no idea what I'm doing! I've connected a 5 pin MIDI cable from the Alesis to the MIDI In on the Juno.

I couldn't work it out from the manual, and I found a forum post that almost helped, but somehow I ended up with the bottom half of the Juno playing drum sounds, and the top half plus the Alesis all playing piano. The post I read said all I had to do once it was plugged in was set it as split, and the bottom half sound would apply to the second keyboard, and the upper sound would be the Juno. If someone could help, or point me to instructions, it would be much appreciated! Cheers!

 

[happyrat1]

You are going to have to set the Alesis to MIDI channel 10 for drums.

To set it for Bass, just pick any channel from 2 to 9 or 11 to 16 and assign the bass voice on the Juno to the same channel.

This may require setting up a superlayer on the Juno with the zone assigned to bass or whatever.

Gary

 

[goranmagdic]

You are going to have to set the Alesis to MIDI channel 10 for drums.

To set it for Bass, just pick any channel from 2 to 9 or 11 to 16 and assign the bass voice on the Juno to the same channel.

This may require setting up a superlayer on the Juno with the zone assigned to bass or whatever.

Gary

Cheers! I'll have to look out the manual for the Alesis keyboard tonight. Not that I'm really good enough to play 2 at the same time, I struggle enough with one!

 

[anotherscott]

Hopefully this is a simple question for some of you pros! I've never used MIDI for connecting things together, but thought I'd try a basic setup, connecting a little Alesis 25-key MIDI keyboard to my Juno DS61, with the aim of having the Juno keyboard used for normal piano sounds, and the Alesis used for something else (drums/brass etc). However, I have no idea what I'm doing! I've connected a 5 pin MIDI cable from the Alesis to the MIDI In on the Juno.

I couldn't work it out from the manual, and I found a forum post that almost helped, but somehow I ended up with the bottom half of the Juno playing drum sounds, and the top half plus the Alesis all playing piano. The post I read said all I had to do once it was plugged in was set it as split, and the bottom half sound would apply to the second keyboard, and the upper sound would be the Juno.

A simple way to start is set the Alesis to transmit on MIDI Channel 2. Do NOT hit split on the DS. Select Grand Piano for the internal sound, the internal keys will play piano. Now to get brass triggered from the Alesis,

• hit PATCH/PERFORM to enter Performance mode (the button should be illuminated)
• make sure Split, Dual, and SupeLayer are NOT illuminated, turn them off if they are.
• Hit Phrase Pad Button #2, which should bring up your Part 2 (MIDI channel 2) sound
• Select the brass sound you want to trigger from the Alesis
• Hit Phrase Pad Button #1, to bring the keyboard back to triggering part 1 (your piano sound).

Hopefully I didn't leave anything out. ;-) But that should do it.