Trying to Set Up Roland XP-10 for GM or GS

[pbouchard]

Hello! A fews years back I composed a number of MIDI files for playback on a simple Casio keyboard. Recently I rearranged several of these files to play back through the Microsoft Wavetable Software Synth. However, I found these sounds to be inadequate. I now own a Roland XP-10, so what I want to do is to rearrange the songs to play back through the Roland, where I'll have a rich set of sounds to choose from.

My problem is that I have not figured out how to put the XP-10 into GM or GS mode. Consequently, the instruments I hear played back on each track bear no resemblance to the instruments I have chosen for the tracks in the sequencer. The instructions that came with the XP-10 are not very clear. I tried sending a 1-line system exclusive message for GM mode (F0 7E 7F 09 01 F7), but it made no difference. For my sequencer I am currently using Voyetra's Digital Orchestrator.

Any ideas of what I need to do? Thanks!

 

[pbouchard]

Although I'm not sure why it didn't work before, I'm now able to set the XP-10 to GS mode by sending a 1-line system exclusive message. That said, I still welcome any helpful tips!

 

[TexRoadkill]

Why not just pick the patches you want it to use instead of letting the General Midi standard pick them for you? You should be able to set the patch for each track pretty easily.

 

[pbouchard]

TexRoadkill, thanks for the suggestion! I'll give that a try. I had been going down the other path simply because an on-screen menu of sounds made it easy to try different instruments on the fly -- and the revised choices would be saved automatically in the MIDI file at my next save. Your suggested path is probably superior, although I presume I'll have to dump the settings from the Roland back to the MIDI file to save the new patch choices. (I'm still learning all this stuff, but gradually getting the hang of it.)