Mod R8 Editor Sysex für R8m possible

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Mikke
Mikke's picture
Mod R8 Editor Sysex für R8m possible

Hello Mark,

is it possible to modify the relevant parts of the Software (sysex strings) for editing an R8m machine ?

Best Regards

Mikke

Mark van den Berg
Mark van den Berg's picture

Hi Mikke,

On the R-8 page at this website I state that R-8 Manager

[o]nly supports the original R-8, not the later R-8M or R-8 MK II. (For starters, the R-8M and R-8 MK II use different Model IDs in their System Exclusive formats, so they would simply ignore any System Exclusive messages sent by R-8 Manager.)

But it's not only the Model IDs that are different.
A comparison of the R-8 and R-8M's  "parameter address maps" (as specified in their Owner's Manuals) makes clear that there are many more differences.
The most prominent difference is that data addresses and sizes on the R-8 consist of 4 bytes, but those on the R-8M of 3 bytes.
Even more seriously, most of the data structures themselves are totally different too. For instance:

  • The "instrument" numbers are radically different: this is because you can only insert 1 ROM card (containing 26 instruments) into an R-8, but 3 ROM cards into an R-8M; and on the other hand, on an R-8 you can define 26 "copy" instruments, which (if I'm not mistaken) you can't on an R-8M.
  • The R-8 has 8 feel patches, the R-8M has 16 internal feel patches and 16 RAM card feel patches. And even worse: the feel patches themselves have very different structures.
  • The R-8 has "patterns", the R-8M "patches".
  • The R-8 has "songs", the R-8M hasn't.

In other words: despite its name, the R-8M isn't simply a module version of the R-8, i.e simply an R-8 without its 16 key pads. Under the hood, the R-8 and the R-8M are two very different devices.
So "modifying the relevant parts of" R-8 Manager wouldn't be feasible: creating an editor for the R-8M would basically have to be done from scratch, which would probably take many hundreds of hours.
Of course this can be done, but personally I simply don't have time for this, nor the incentive, since I don't have an R-8M and the number of people interested in such an editor would be small.

Best regards,
  Mark.

Mikke
Mikke's picture

Hi Mark,

thanks for your information.  That there are so much differences i had never thought. So that makes clear that only a short fix will not do the job...

THX for opening my eyes..

Mikke