Roland TR Editor: Can You Program External Midi Controller for TR8S and TR6S

Yes and no.
I hope this helps you out and perhaps we might see a future update from Roland to allow the option.
No link for the RipCord. That will be for another video. Stay tuned.

[@krazywabbit]

Update. I sent this to Roland via customer support. They responded that this has been added to the list. As stated in the video, I’m not going to tinker under the hood. I will work within the limitations and see what comes later.

[@smyrnovoleksandr7429]

How did you reach the support? Which email did you use?

[@avlantis5935]

The parameter value for the sysex messages is encoded in the hex string. It will most likely just be Roland's own creation of sysex message that the tr8s understands, rather than nrpn. If you want a good understanding of such things, Novation release the programming guide for launchpad and presumably the launchcontrol too, which explain their sysex format IIRC. but Roland's messages will almost certainly have a different format. If you can find the changing values in the hex string, you can reverse engineer your own sysex messages, just by altering the part that contains value, but the rest of the message would take trial and error, guess work to figure out and may be obfuscated to the point where that's not possible Then you'd also need a midi controller capable of sending custom sysex, or some kind of midi device in-between that can convert CC to the appropriate message. I think the bomebox can do this but not certain. I too am wishing Roland would release more information, or just make more parameters respond to CC.

[@jeanmichel71]

Just was on same rabbit hole and couldn't go further.. trying with midifighter twister, but dawless

[@rayderrich]

This might be a case whre the solution is probably worse than the problem, but good thing you tried so hard, perhaps a developer at Roland will pick this up.

[@DJeMo]

Go into the menu and check rx receive and tx send is on in the drummer, also have a nosey in the editor settings.....you defo can remote use it with the editor, there is another editor made by a fella few years ago before Roland released their official one he has X Y axis etc all working also, wish Roland would sort the gui size also, using my laptop I can't ever see the bottom half of their the editor, also the drum machine just got an update a few days or so ago so make sure get your instrument updated, the new additions is a game changer also, FM engines n envelopes and 4 new FX and probability my fav....

[@Mik_McG]

Looks like we're cut from the same cloth 😆. I notice you don't have cc 70 for manually triggering auto fill on your screenshot. I'm trying to get this to work. According to the midi implementation chart, this is an option. But I can't get it to work. I want to trigger auto fill with a midi footswitch.

[@krazywabbit]

I’ve put this on the backburner for now. When the front burner is finished, I’ll try the suggestion. Thanks. Be safe!

[@johnfitzgerald1055]

Hey, do you happen to know if it's possible to change variations over midi? I'm a guitar player looking to incorporate the TR8s in my live perform performance. Ideally Id like to be able to control play/stop and toggle variations using a midi foot switch. I wasn't able to find any data on the midi implementation chart regarding variation program changes.

[@krazywabbit]

I do not know, however I fired up the Google jets. Some in reddit say yes if you know how to sniff out Sysex messages. This is above my paygrade.

[@leobdub]

Did you ever get the XL to talk to the TR6s in the end? Would be cool to know about that.

[@krazywabbit]

I did not. It started down a path that would distract me from making music and into a world of sysex and other bits that do not interest me.

[@clebiovieira]

Can I control the variation changes? I mean, could I force execution of 8x A -> 16x B -> and so on... If possible, it would allow us to create a complete track using just one pattern. Because AFAIK we can not select something like: A-B-C-A-D-A...Am I wrong? btw.. thanks for sharing this.

[@krazywabbit]

Not ignoring your comment. Just finished a massive move cross country. I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to your question. Our belongings don’t arrive until this weekend and it’s going to take me a few to get set up. I’ll look into it then but if you need an answer sooner, there’s a great FB group for Roland and someone smarter can help. Thanks for watching!

[@clebiovieira]

@@krazywabbit hey, don't worry. Thank u for the answer. Meanwhile I've a tkt support to Roland. Let's see what they will answer. I will share here if any news. Have a great day.

[@clebiovieira]

Unfortunately I have to wait. I hope that people ask for the same, in order to Roland prioritize it. The reply from Roland to my question: "Hi Clebio, Thanks for your message and for your interest in Roland Products. There is no way to do this actually. My apologies for the bad news. Really sorry about this but I will feed this onto R&D in hope they will be able to add to a future firmware update. People are crying out for this. As we do not have direct feedback on this, we recommend that you check the product download page frequently. I hope this helps."