Roland PC-300 modulation lever works very strangely.

J

JimH

New member
I recently bought a Roland PC-300 midi keyboard controller. It has one of those levers to control pitch and modulation. The modulation messages it sends out are not right. Does anyone have one of these keyboards and can confirm this?

The lever is spring loaded. You would expect that the further you push it up, the higher the modulation level. For example, if you push it halfway, you would expect it to send out a modulation level 64 message. Then move it down to about 1/4 and it would send out a modulation level 32 message.

But instead it is really working like a switch. You keep pushing it up further and nothing happens until you reach the midway point. Then it starts sending out modulation messages every 16 ms. Each message successive message raises the modulation level by 2 until it reaches full level at 127. So in effect, switching modulation “on” causes the modulation level to uncontrollably ramp up to full. Then moving the lever back below the mid point again causes the modulation level to snap back to 0.

This is totally wrong and makes the modulation lever useless. Does anyone have this keyboard and can you confirm that this is the designed behavior? Or could this be a software bug that can be fixed?
 
I have never been a fan of Roland's pitch/mod joystick concept.

However, I do not believe that the behavior you describe was intended.

Have you tried any other sound sources to control in this manner?

It's possible that the modulation assignements on your module need to be addressed. Either that, or you may have internal settings in the controller itself that are sending the wrong commands.

All in all, I'd return the Roland controller and get something with mod/pitch wheels on instead. Unless aftertouch is important to you (my favorite controllers don't offer aftertouch but the Roland does).

Carl
 
There may be a responce curve or dead zone setting on the stick. Sometimes they dont set joysticks to send out signals for the first 10-20% of movement because they might start activating on their own after the tension is a little loose.

On Korg's when you press down on the stick they send out LFO and when you press up they send Mod. Does the Roland stick start in the middle or is it maxed out at the bottom when resting?
 
The modulation portion of Roland pitch/mod sticks only travels up from rest (and of course back down to rest). It is nothing like a Korg joystick which can actually be swund in a circle.

Here is a graphical representation of the Roland joystick movement.



_|_

Where the horizontal axis is pitch and the vertical (up only) axis is mod.

Roland's interface truly sucks.

Carl
 
Thanks Carl, that is pretty lame. Some controllers have a lot of options for setting sensitivity curves so hopefully that is the issue.
 
Well, it’s not a question of the sound source. To see what was going on, I recorded it straight into Cubase. I can use the list editor to see exactly what’s happening. It’s also not a case of something being set up wrong in the Roland because I checked the manual and the lever is not configurable.

The thing that’s odd about this lever (and it’s the only Roland keyboard I’ve ever owned) is that the travel in the north direction is only about 1/8 inch. So it doesn’t give you much room. I was wrong about where it starts to activate. It’s not in the middle; it’s just about at the top. So here’s what happens. I push it up slowly. Nothing happens at all until I reach the top. Then suddenly it sends out 64 modulation messages spaced 16 ms apart—a perfect ramp up from 0 to 127. I can’t control it; it just sends them all out on its own. If I then back of from the top a bit, it sends out modulation level 0. If I back off from the top while it’s sending out its 64 messages, it stops the ramp in the middle sends out modulation level 0. So it acts like an on/off switch except that it doesn’t jump to 127, it goes there smoothly.

I’m starting to have a theory that this might be how it was designed. It could be that it was never meant to be anything other than a switch. This is a cheap controller. It only cost $159. Perhaps they use a cheap lever that doesn’t really do a modulation range. Maybe the lever can only act like a switch (the travel is only 1/8 inch remember). So to avoid the modulation level jumping to 127 instantly, they made it spit out a smooth ramp. In situations where you just want to add modulation for a second or so, this kinda works the way you might want.

On the other hand, it could be that the lever is not working right. Maybe it is dead all the way almost to the top. Then once it hits the top and starts working, maybe the software has some sort of automatic smoothing algorithm to make it ramp up instead of jumping immediately to 127. Oh well, only theories.

I ordered it through the mail, and so sending it back would be a pain. I’m not sure it would be worth the cost of shipping twice again, not to mention the trouble. I really just wanted some keyboard I could use while sitting at my computer desk, since my real keyboards are across the room. I figured I could trust Roland to make something half-decent. My local stores didn’t carry it, so I just ordered it without trying it first. My other choice was the Midiman, which has the wheels. I really don’t think I like the wheels as much because it’s harder to do pitch and mod at the same time. Anyway, I guess it’s not a big deal.
 
Do not get me wrong. I love Roland products, but in their attempt at "being different" they created this god awful pitch/mod interface.

It sounds like your Roland is working exactly as the designers intended. One of the reasons that I hate this thing and never use the modulation on my JX-8P (yes they've been doing this for decades).

Carl
 
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