Changing The Song Orchestration (Smf Cover); Important Information; Smf Cover: Changing The Orchestration; Saving Your Modified Song - Roland VIMA JM-8 Owner's Manual

VIMA JM-8

Changing the song orchestration (SMF Cover)

9. Changing the song orchestration (SMF Cover)
The JM-8 can also play back Standard MIDI Files (called "SMF"). Those are special song files with the ".mid" (or ".kar")
extension that require a tone generator for playback. You can change the orchestration of such files.

Important information

The JM-8 contains a high-quality tone generator for
Standard MIDI File playback. Standard MIDI Files are dif-
ferent from audio files (mp3 or WAV): they only contain
instructions for the tone generator.
This allows you to work with much smaller files and also
to modify certain aspects.
SMF Cover: changing the
orchestration
‰ Only available for Standard MIDI Files.
The COVER function provides "masks" that change the
instrumentation of the selected song. Simply by select-
ing another preset, you can cause a Viennese waltz to be
played back by a heavy metal band, etc. Even though the
arrangement (rhythm, riffs) does not change, the songs'
character can be modified beyond recognition.
(1) Select the SMF song you want to modify (see p. 23
and following).
(2) Press [MENU] ‰ [SMF¥COVER].
(3) If none of the 10 displayed options appeal to you,
use the PAGE [ø][˚] display buttons to select a dif-
ferent page with more options.
(4) Press the [®÷π] button to start song playback.
(5) Press one of the 10 bigger display buttons to select
another preset.
The names of the preset options already provide a
good indication of what to expect.
After selecting a preset, you can press [ORIGINAL]
(PAGE 1) to return to the original orchestration.
(6) Try out various presets to see how (fast) this con-
cept works.
(7) If you like the new version better than the original
one, you can press the [SAVE¥COVER] display but-
ton to save the song to the internal memory or a
USB storage device with this information (see
below).
58
Otherwise, press the [EXIT] button repeatedly until it
stops flashing to return to the main page.
Note: The COVER information is part of the data only the
JM-8 understands. Other SMF players (or sequencer soft-
ware) ignore these settings. You can, however, "freeze"
them, in which case they become part of the song. See
"Before saving your settings" on p. 95.

Saving your modified song

If you like the SMF song with the new orchestration bet-
ter than the original version and want to use it again at
a later stage, you must save the song.
(1) While on the "SMF COVER" page (see above), press
the [SAVE¥COVER] display button.
Note: If you are no longer on that page, return to the main
page, press the [MENU] display button ‰ [SMF¥COVER] dis-
play button.
The display changes to:
(2) Select the device where you want to save your
song:
Display button Meaning
HDD Your SMF file will be saved to the inter-
nal hard disk.
USB Your SMF file will be saved to a con-
nected USB storage device. (You can still
connect it now if you forgot to do so
earlier.)
Note: SMF Song data cannot be saved to a CD-R/RW.
(3) Select the folder where you want to save your
song by pressing its name.
If you like, you can also create a new folder where
the file will be saved. If you don't, proceed with step
(7) below.