I have a Roland MKS80 – anyone have a Panel??

[jasefos]

Hi CTRLR heads,

I am lucky enough to have a Roland MKS80 in my rack among many other hardware vintage synths. It would be great to have a CTRLR panel for it however I don’t see one available for download in the Panels area (neither in the Deprecated Panel downloads).

I figure that I will have to develop this myself based on examining SysEx data in the MIDI Monitor when I use it with my iPad Lemur template (which works great but lacks integration with my host) in conjunction with its MIDI SysEx Implementation chart.

If anyone already has this panel and would appreciate feedback and testing from another MKS80 owner it would be great to hear from you. I’d rather not re-invent the wheel so to speak if someone else has already developed a panel for it.

I have tried following Atom’s “by example” tutorial on how to roll your own Panels which he does with the Evolver however the MKS80 is very different. I will assume it be worthwhile examining the backend of the MKS50 template since there may be some similarities in the SysEx implementation.

Also would anyone happen to know of full documentation available for Panel development in CTRLR – I can’t seem to find much beyond the tutorial and there appears to be a myriad of options in the Properties for the various controls. I just want to avoid asking dumb questions here which may be circumvented by RTFM.
; )

Anyhow, if anyone else here would find use for a MKS80 Panel please feel free to post on this thread so that in development there can be a wider base of people testing it.

Also my understanding is that if you want to making patch librarian storage/recall it’s necessary to learn LUI and develop scripts. Would like to be pointed to any resources you may suggest I look at to educate myself in LUI. Is my understanding correct that the Program Manager framework within CTRLR needs to be completed before that works?

Thanks to Atom again and others here in getting the integration I’ve always hoped for within my favourite DAWS (Ableton Live 9 here) for my beloved large collection of vintage hardware synths.

Best Wishes,

JaseFOS

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[opuswerk]

Hello Jase,

I’ve been working on a MKS70 panel. I believe the MKS80 shouldn’t be too far from that.
It was my first panel, and it took a little while to totally understand how everything works. But it really wasn’t that hard in the end.I tried to build from an existing panel, but that proved somehow tricky, so instead I went from scratch while looking at the same MKS50 panel you mention to work on.

The easiest to get started would be to get the sysex implementation of the MKS80 and copy the MPG80 layout with CTRLR kobs and sliders. You can always theme the GUI after everything is working.

The program manager, as far as I know isn’t working properly yet.

Good luck with your endeavour 🙂

http://opuswerk.tumblr.com
www.soundcloud.com/opuswerk
www.facebook.com/opuswerk

[jasefos]

Howdy Opuswerk,

Thanks for the reply! I too have decided a “from scratch” approach will yield a better understanding of CTRLr (since I’m a N00b here) and something which actually works.

Thanks for the well wishes.

Cheers

JaseFOS

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[jasefos]

OK just an update – I’ve had a few breakthroughs with my understanding of how to use the editor and now understand the proper “z4” token needs to be inserted in SysEx strings for the Roland checksum. So far the controls I’ve added to my panel are working (yay). It doesn’t look pretty yet however I’m pretty handy with Photoshop and have a background in graphic design so I will skin it to look identical to the MPG80 panel (but two panels high allowing tweaking of Upper and Lower Tones simultaneously) once it is 100% functional.

Just thought I should let others here know so that anyone else with a MKS80 wanting a panel doesn’t double up on the work I’m doing.

Actually it would be great to see a show of hands of MKS80 owners on this forum – just post back on this thread and I will be grateful for any testing you can do on beta versions.

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[speed]

I’d love to test the panel when it’s ready.

[opuswerk]

That sounds great. Btw, I’m also pretty good with photoshop, but have no experience with UI designs. So I’m very curious about how you’re gonna go at theming the panel, as I wish to do the same with the one for the MKS70 / JX10. Would be great if you could share your working process.

http://opuswerk.tumblr.com
www.soundcloud.com/opuswerk
www.facebook.com/opuswerk

[jasefos]

I searched Google Images for a good top view image of the MPG80 top panel and discovered a fairly rough image that looks like it may have been scanned from the owners manual (a line drawing). I figured I would start with that, using it as the background for the panel and imported it (and then later tidy up the image in Photoshop and re-import it in place). I’ve used the background image to size and place the knobs/sliders placing them over the top of each control as I worked to give me a guide.

I’ve used MIDI Monitor to watch SysEx strings incoming from the iPad Lemur’s MKS80 editor which has been fine for the most part. The only headscratching coming into play with regards to the way the Lemur has combined Polarity switches and amounts for some parameters into a single control where the MPG80 has separate controls (e.g. VCF Envelope Modulation amount on the Lemur version is a single bi-polar slider however on MPG80 there is a separate polarity switch and independent amount). I will consult the proper MKS80 MIDI SysEx implementation guide to see if that will give me better data to work with.

I have attached my “alpha” version so far to this thread so you can see where I’m at.

All controls present that you see have been tested and are verified working so far. Controls currently only target the Upper tone currently but I plan to create a Lower tone control panel to allow simultaneous editing of Upper and Lower tones (better to see parameters for both Upper and Lower at the same time I feel rather than flipping tabs).

Attachments:

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--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[jasefos]

Actually I came across one stumbling block while making this panel which may help other Panel-Making-n00bs like myself … When you create additional controls by copying and pasting a control, the duplicated controls will have the same VST Index number. If controls have the same VST Index number you may discover moving one control moves other controls “ganged” which share the same VST Index number (I’m developing this using CTRLR running as a VST plugin within Live 9.1.1 with on OSX). So in summary, be sure each modulator in your Panel has a unique VST Index number otherwise you will end up with unintentionally ganged controls.

PS … I would love to find some doco on the Panel editor – in particular some of the properties for the controls are not immediately obvious in what they do!

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by jasefos. Reason: grammatical

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[jasefos]

OK here is a 100% functional version of this Panel (all controls of MPG80 mapped to modulators and editing for Upper Tone only for the moment).

Next tasks:
– replace background image with a much sexier panel for the GUI.
– extend Panel to provide editing of Lower Tone.
– learn how to make Snapshots work so I can at least store sounds within DAW projects.
– learn LUI scripting.
– learn how to decode SysEx dumps back and forth from MKS80.
– make hit records.

Attachments:

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--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[speed]

Man this is amazing! Thanks for your work.
I have an MPG-80 if you need any photos or anything.

[jasefos]

Howdy Speed,

Would be keen to know if it works OK for your MKS80!
(currently only does Tone Upper at the moment but I will be adding Tone Lower as well)

If you had to time to snap a high resolution “over the panel” shot of your MPG80 that would be ace since most images I found on Google Images had too much perspective skew or were not of resolution sufficient. Personally I’m thinking it may be too difficult to photograph properly with even focus and I should just re-create the front panel using the image I have as a guide.

Cheers!

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[speed]

I’ll give it a go tomorrow. I’m pretty sure my room mate has a tripod and that. We’ll see how she goes! Eager to test the panel out!

[opuswerk]

Thanks for sharing your work in progress.
I discovered the same painfull thing with the VST index. Had to go and set all my parameters once I had finished. Also be weary that their numbers are the ones the DAW fetches, so it’s best if they starto from 0 upwards.

I grabbed your panel, as I’m curious about the graphics stuff, but it seems you didn’t export the graphics data going along with the panel, so I only get sliders.

http://opuswerk.tumblr.com
www.soundcloud.com/opuswerk
www.facebook.com/opuswerk

[layzer]

hey jas, you may want to try a trick i use to speed up developement of near identical controller groups ie; replicate entire voice parameters of voice1, voice2, voice3, voice4…. in your case, upper – lower.

use wordpad to open the .panel file to rename the sysex with the byte that distinguishes each voice. do this by selecting and renaming each section of voice code one by one… speeds it up for me anyway

[layzer]

opuswerk wrote:

That sounds great. Btw, I’m also pretty good with photoshop, but have no experience with UI designs. So I’m very curious about how you’re gonna go at theming the panel, as I wish to do the same with the one for the MKS70 / JX10. Would be great if you could share your working process.

hey i am the pg300 panel creator and here is how i did mine using only mspaint and knobman! haha

making of pg300 panel

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by layzer.

[jasefos]

Layzer – thanks for posting this! Glad to see the technique you used! I’m about to head off to do a laser show in the city tonight (my other hat) but I’ll try out skinning with your technique once I return.

For the moment, here is the latest build (which now includes 4 Snapshot sounds which seem to work OK), better naming of Modulators (to match Roland’s MIDI SysEx Implementation chart in the MKS80 manual), fixes to some things not working as they should. I’ve included the dodgy background graphic this time.

Is there a way to save which includes embedded resources (perhaps this is visible somewhere in Layzer’s tutorial video which I’ll watch when I return)?

CHEERS

JaseFOS

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by jasefos.

Attachments:

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--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[jasefos]

Howdy folks …

Just a progress update.

I’m re-skinning using the best photo I could find on Google images (the only fail is that the sliders are all in the same position so I can’t use Layzer’s Knob-Man technique to automate creating the fader/knob animation series). I’ve removed all the fader caps and painting/tracing over the original (after removing some perspective skew and getting rid of fader caps, etc). Looking nice and smooth so far!

My only challenge is finding the right matching font (the nearest on my system is Verdana which isn’t quite like the MPG80). I figure someone here might spot it right away/ Can anyone eyeball some close up MPG80 images and tell me what font would be right?

Cheers

JaseFOS

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

[jasefos]

Much progress over-night … attached to this post you’ll find the latest Panel file updated and accompanying background image resource it makes use of (10+ hours of Photoshop tweaking – fun!).

Incidentally, does anyone know how to embed image resources within a Panel file? It would be a better user experience if the background image was just a part of the Panel file.

Enjoy folks

Cheers!

JaseFOS

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

--> Music: www.soundcloud.com/jasefos
--> DAW: OSX10.10.5 with Live 9.6 x64, UA Apollo Quad
--> Controllers: Push 2, KeyLab61, Maschine mk2, MCU Pro, 2xMCU-Ext
--> Synths: Cyclone Bass Bot TT303, ESQ1, MKS80/MPG80, Matrix 6R, Matrix1000, Mopho, 05RW, DW8000, Virus TI Polar, Voyager Electric Blue, MiniBrute, AN1X, K5000s, FIZMO, ASR10 rack, Kenton ProSolo (controls Sequential Pro-One, Yamaha CS15), Prophecy, EMX1, MonoTribe, SP1200, DX100, KARP Odyssey

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