Laying Out Controllers on a Keystation III

Now the middle row if the group B controllers is where I usually put pitch and LFO related controllers.



GROUP B Second Row

All controllers set to Global Channel 0

B18 CC129 Coarse Tune

B19 CC130 Fine Tune

B20 CC128 MSB 0 LSB 0 Pitch Bend Sensitivity 0-24 semitones. Default value 2 Min val. 0. Max val. 24.

B21 CC141 MSB 0 LSB 2 Master Coarse Tuning +/- 24 Semitones Min. val 24. Max val. 84

B22 Master Fine MSB 0 LSB 1

B23 CC16 System Controller 1

B24 CC17 System Controller 2

B25 CC131 Channel Aftertouch



The three rotaries B23 - B24 cover the two system controllers and aftertouch. These are used as modulation sources along with the pitch and mod wheels, and polyphonic aftertouch. The modulation matrix however, can only be activated and edited by sysex, which is beyond the keystation. A future project for the BCR2000 me thinks. But I'll park them here till I get around to them.

Third Row

All controllers set to global channel 0
B10 CC5 Portomento Speed
B11 CC84 Portomento Control

B12 CC1 Modulation

B13 CC7 Volume

B14 CC11 Expression

B15 CC10 Pan

B16 CC91 Reverb Send

B17 CC93 Chorus Send



I like generally to place portomento, panning and effects controllers on the bottom row of group B.
The modulation, pitch and expression controllers are here only, because they are the most useful controllers out of whats left. I will need to do some more experimentation, to see if there is a more useful function for these. Prehaps a set of the vibrato controllers with the values limited to +2/-2 in value to try and introduce some "analogue wobble" to synth type waves. Although, the PMA's sine wave only LFO's may limit this.

Voice Editing a Roland PMA-5 using a Keystation Pro

As far as controller keyboards go, they dont get much larger than a Keystation Pro. Eighty eight keys, 9 sliders, 24 knobs, 22 buttons, 2 wheels and 3 pedal inputs, should be able to explore most of the PMA's potential.



At this stage I'll be looking at the sound module side of the PMA.







MIDI CONTROLLERS FOR EDITING INDIVIDUAL VOICES FOR A ROLAND PMA5







Standard Midi Control Change Messages that it responds to.

CC1 Modulation



CC5 Portomento time



CC7 Volume



CC10 Panning



CC11 Expression



CC16 Controller 1 (default)



CC17 Controller 2 (default)



CC64 Sustain



CC65 Portomento On/Off



CC66 Sostenuto



CC67 Soft



CC84 Autobend (portomento control)



CC91 Reverb Send



CC93 Chorus send



CC126/CC127 Mono/Poly



CC128 Pitch Bend Sensitivity

CC129 Coarse Tuning



CC130 Fine Tuning



CC131 Aftertouch







NRPN Controllers

M-Audio use a special CC number- 136, which allows NRPN LSB and MSB parameters to be easily allocated to a knob, rather than having to enter CC 98 then CC99 then CC6 sequentially

All of these MRPNs are "offset" parameters with a range of plus or minus 40, centred on 64. It is best to set them up with maximum and minimum values of 24 and 104 respectively.

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 8 =Vibrato Rate

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 9 =Vibrato Depth

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 10 =Vibrato Delay

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 32 =Filter Cutoff

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 33 =Resonance

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 99 =Attack (both filter and amplifier envelopes)

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 100 =Decay (both filter and amplifier enveloopes

CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 102 =Release (both filter and amplifier envelopes).



RPN

As with NRPNs M-Audio uses a special CC- 132, to enter RPNs. This avoids having to use CC 100, CC101 and then CC6.

CC132 MSB 0 LSB 0 Pitch bend sensitivity (channel specific)



M-Audio has also put some further device specific

CC128 Pitch bend sesitivity (not sure if this is channel specific)

CC140 Pitch Bend



Some of the later Sound Canvas models supported GM2 controllers, however the PMA does not appear to be one of these.