Hi - newbie here! I hope this is the appropriate place for my question. Thanks in advance for any consideration by the experts, I can’t find a clear answer in the manual, and hope what I want to do is even possible…

I currently perform with a S90XS. I also use a Roland Juno 106 as a midi controller to play organ patches on the S90, because the 106’s keyboard is better suited for organ playing than the S90’s weighted piano keys. In this case, all I’m doing is connecting the 106’s midi out to the S90’s midi in, selecting the appropriate patch on the S90, and then play it using the Juno 106.

That’s all I’m using the Juno for - it’s not used as a tone generator. In fact it doesn’t even work anymore as a synth, but its keyboard and midi still work fine to control the S90.

What I was hoping I could do was use the Juno to play one patch on the S90, and have the S90 play another patch - ie: both keyboards control different patches, but the S90 plays both. This is not a layer or a split, but maybe I could somehow control one patch on the S90 from the Juno (say, via a specific midi channel that the patch is set to receive), and have the S90 keyboard play a completely different patch.

In other words, have two completely different tones generated from the S90 at the same time, one from each keyboard. I looked at multi-mode as maybe a way to do this, but the documentation seems focused on doing this from a DAW, as opposed to other MIDI keyboard controllers.

Is this possible? Or am I nuts.

Thanks in advance!

-JM

Momo -
Yes, real possible. I do something similar all the time.

Set your Juno to a MIDI channel other than Channel 1. For this example, lets say that’s Channel 2. The S90xs main MIDI channel (Utility/MIDI) is probably by default set to Channel 1 so you want the Juno to be anything other than 1.

Call up a Multi, Press Edit to get to the screen with Common on top and all the other parts listed as numbers below that. Then select the part you want to control with the Juno (for this example Part 2 is easy because it will be set to MIDI Channel 2 by default). If it’s not set to Channel 2 just change it to match the Juno MIDI Channel. Leave Part 1 set to Channel 1 so it will play from the S90.

On the Part you set to play with the Juno, select the Organ voice you want to use for that part and set up the various parameters the way you want them.

Give the Mutli a meaningful name (under the Common area), and Save it to an “Initialized” blank Multi.(Multis past the A and B banks are blank, or “Initialized” with only basic setup).

Select that Multi. Now if you press Part 1 the S90 will play that. But you should hear the Juno playing Part 2 via MIDI channel 2.

You can also copy an exiting Organ voice or Performance to a Multi, via the Job button when you are in Multi mode. This would pull in all your settings from the start. Then change the MIDI channel to match the Juno and you’re in business.

Any parts with the same MIDI channel number will play together, so Splits and Layers are possible, including multiple voices played from the Juno as controller.

Best of luck
Keyman7

Thanks Keyman!

I tried it out at practice yesterday and it worked great! I didn’t have much time to do much more than set up a couple patches, but it’s exactly what I was looking for.

Changing midi channels on the Juno is real easy to do on the fly, so I’m thinking I can do everything I need with one multi by giving each part a unique midi channel and S90 patch. That way I can change Juno patches via midi channel, and S90 patches via favorites?

I’ll check that out next weekend. Thanks again!

cheers
JM

In appreciation for the advice received from Keyman and this forum, I thought I’d share a rough video of the song that came out of this thread. It’s an original from my band with me finally playing two SX90 patches at once using an external midi keyboard. My performance is rough but I was still giddy being able to do it at all!

http://youtu.be/jqnSa9pLDf0

Thanks again Keyman and Motifator!