Miscellaneous; Restoring The Factory Defaults; About Midi - Roland RD-170 Owner's Manual

7. Miscellaneous

Restoring the factory defaults

You can reset the RD-170 to its factory settings,
which means that your own Setup memories will be
overwritten with the settings the RD-170 contained
when you first got it. You may wish to archive your
Setup memories before initializing the RD-170 (see
p. 32).

About MIDI

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Inter-
face, an international standard which allows perfor-
mance information to be communicated among
electronic musical instruments and computers.
The RD-170 has two MIDI sockets for transmitting
and receiving performance messages to and from
an external device.
By connecting an external MIDI device to these
sockets, you can play it or change sounds on the
external device from the RD-170.
MIDI OUT
This sends out messages describing actions
(such as playing the keyboard) to the MIDI IN
jack on the external device. The receiving MIDI
device will act according to the MIDI messages
received and play notes, change Tones, etc.
MIDI IN
This receives the MIDI messages sent by an
external MIDI device.
Connecting a MIDI device
Connect the MIDI socket (e.g. "OUT") of the external
device to the opposite socket of the RD-170 (e.g.
"IN") using a MIDI cable.
MIDI OUT
MIDI IN
MIDI IN MIDI OUT
MIDI transmit/receive channels
MIDI provides 16 channels. MIDI messages are com-
municated between two devices over a MIDI chan-
nel. Even if the two devices are connected properly
with a MIDI cable, messages cannot be sent or
received if the MIDI channels are not set correctly.
The RD-170 allows you to set three MIDI channels:
one for the Upper part, one for the Lower part and a
basic channel.
MIDI sequencer, computer, etc.
Switch on the RD-170 while holding down the
[WRITE] button. The display will read fct as soon as
the factory settings have been loaded.
Local Control
You can connect the RD-170 to a MIDI sequencer
and record your performances with that sequencer.
It goes without saying that these data can also be
played back.
If the sequencer's (Soft) Thru (or MIDI Echo) func-
tion is turned on, the notes you record will be
retransmitted right away to the RD-170 and thus
played a second time. This happens because the key-
board information reaches the sound generator via
two different routes (directly from the keyboard and
via MIDI). This makes the performance sound
strange and greatly reduces the number of available
voices. To resolve this, you can disable the connec-
tion between the keyboard and the internal tone
generator. See page 27 for details.
Program Changes
"Program Changes" are MIDI messages that allow
you to remotely control Tone selection on the
RD-170 or to select different sounds on an external
instrument that is being controlled from the
RD-170. The Setup memories can also contain
memory addresses that are transmitted each time
you select them. See page 24 for details.
Volume & Expression filter
Whenever you change the setting of the PART LEVEL
[LOWER] or [UPPER] slider, the RD-170 transmits a
Volume control change (CC07) on the MIDI channel
assigned to the Lower or Upper part. This message
can also be received for remote volume control of
the RD-170's Tones.
Another type of (relative) volume message is trans-
mitted when you use an optional expression pedal.
The corresponding control change (CC11) can also
be received.
Owner's Manual
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