JDXi Manager - Patch Editor for the Roland JD-Xi Synthesizer

You have single-handedly extended the life of this sweet little synth. I thank you, the JD thanks you. Cheers!

Thank you so much for your work on this! The new drum editor really opens up enormous possibilities. The complexity of the JD-Xi's drum engine is impressive but was overwhelming before. Now I can really tweak the sounds into new dimensions. Such impressive work! Donation sent!

Thanks for the kind words and the donation, it's much appreciated.

One thing you might have noticed is that a JD-Xi drum kit actually contains 38 parts, not just 26 as mentioned in the Roland manual, that's why the editor window has 38 drum part tabs.

Also I thought I'd mention (since this isn't obvious and there is no documentation for the editor yet) that the editor allows you to send a MIDI Note-on command (with fixed 127 velocity) when clicking on any of the 38 tabs in the drum editor window with the right mouse button.

With regards to the 'Init Kit', I decided to make it blank, i.e. with all the default settings as Roland used for the parts 27-38 (those that aren't used by the preset drum kits) and with all waveforms set to off (so there is no sound unless you select a waveform).
I thought this was best as a neutral starting point.

Of course if you wish to use one of the preset kits as starting point for editing you can still do so by selecting it on the JD-Xi and the pressing 'Read from' in the drum editor window.

baz55 wrote:

Thanks for the kind words and the donation, it's much appreciated.

One thing you might have noticed is that a JD-Xi drum kit actually contains 38 parts, not just 26 as mentioned in the Roland manual, that's why the editor window has 38 drum part tabs.

Also I thought I'd mention (since this isn't obvious and there is no documentation for the editor yet) that the editor allows you to send a MIDI Note-on command (with fixed 127 velocity) when clicking on any of the 38 tabs in the drum editor window with the right mouse button.

Interesting. Thanks for the right click tip. Has anyone noticed that when you raise the pitch of a drum sample, at some point, octave or more, it sounds like the sample plays in reverse? The hardware does this too so it isn't an editor issue. Is this a bug or is it documented somewhere? Thanks again and I will be donating today.

knobacon wrote:

Has anyone noticed that when you raise the pitch of a drum sample, at some point, octave or more, it sounds like the sample plays in reverse?

I hadn't noticed that and I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, very interesting, that opens up even more sonic possibilities!

I have no idea whether Roland did this on purpose or whether it's a bug but even if it's a bug it's a useful one. :-)

BTW, as mentioned on the JDXi Manager web page, the JDXi Manager is skinnable.

For those of you who prefer a more toned down, less colorful variation of the standard color scheme, here is a suitable skin-file: http://jdxi-manager.linuxtech.net/files/skin-lower_contrast/jdxi_colors.ini

Simply download this file and place it in the same folder where the JDXi Manager executable is, or put it on the desktop if that's where you keep the JDXi Manager executable, then restart the JDXi Manager.

Here is how it looks:

And here is another skin-file:
http://jdxi-manager.linuxtech.net/files/skin-amber_grey/jdxi_colors.ini

Check out this great introductory video that Ranzee made about the JDXi Manager editor on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE8MPaLVV3c

Hello Baz55, I have tried it, very good app!

Here some suggestions:
-Include a RANDOM function on it, in order to create randomic patches.
-When choosing the PCM Wave, the possibility to use the mouse scroll wheel or keyboard up/down to select the PCM wave.
-To link the adjusts of parameters between the parts. For example, if change the ADSR on P1 this also will change ADSR on P2 at same time. This is possible on JDXi, when you press P1 and P2 at same time, in edit mode.

Keep doing this nice job!

Cheers.

Thanks for the suggestions, CesarsoundOne.

Using the mouse scroll wheel when choosing PCM Waves is something I definitely have planned, I actually already tried implementing it some time ago but didn't manage to get working yet. I will work on that again as it's something I myself feel that it's necessary to make browsing through all those waveforms easier.

Your other two suggestions also sound useful to me, I will add them to my to-do list, but I can't say when they will be added. So many ideas, so little time... ;)

baz55, thank you for JDXi Manager! I had already found it both useful and instructive when I was using it a few months ago. After a few months away from it, I'm now back to it and I see you updated it with more features...that's great!

A Linux question, actually two...
At first, I had some issues when trying to install/run it. I had installed the prerequisites, but it didn't run and it complained about being unable to locate MIDI/ALSA.pm in @INC.
It only started after I ran "sudo cpan -fi MIDI::ALSA" (note "sudo").

1) was running the above command as root a bad idea?
2) if not, should the instructions at http://jdxi-manager.linuxtech.net/linux.html be somehow modified?

(I'm running Ubuntu 16.04)

@mixe: thanks for the compliments.

With regards to your problem running it on Linux: the instructions on the website do work (I tested them myself and a few other Ubuntu users also confirmed that they worked fine for them), 'sudo' is not necessary for installing MIDI::ALSA as it will be installed locally in your home directory for your user. If you use 'sudo' it will work too as then the MIDI::ALSA module will be installed system-wide for all users.

The reason I suggested the local user installation rather than the system-wide installation is because the system-wide installation could potentially cause problems if you want to upgrade your Ubuntu install to a new Ubuntu version. But I wouldn't worry too much about this, quite possibly it won't cause any problem when upgrading.

Unfortunately I have no idea why the local user installation didn't work in your case and it's hard for me to debug that remotely as I'm not a Ubuntu user, I normally use Centos Linux.

CesarsoundOne wrote:

-When choosing the PCM Wave, the possibility to use the mouse scroll wheel to select the PCM wave.

This is now included in the next release which will be out in the next few days (I will announce it when it's actually available to download).

baz55 wrote:

CesarsoundOne wrote:

-When choosing the PCM Wave, the possibility to use the mouse scroll wheel to select the PCM wave.

This is now included in the next release which will be out in the next few days (I will announce it when it's actually available to download).

Hello Baz55, wow, sounds good :) Waiting for the new version!

Cheers.

The new release (0.23 alpha) is available now.

This is mostly a bug-fix release with various minor improvements in design and functionality.

Starting from this release I'm keeping track of changes with an online changelog.
See changelog for the new version here: http://jdxi-manager.linuxtech.net/#relnotes

A noteworthy change in this release is that now the JDXI Manager can also open and save files in okJDXiEditor format so you can exchange Tone files with MacOS users who use the okJDXiEditor.

For example now you can use the JDXI manager to load the free Tones available here:
http://www.okdev.org/downloads/downloads.html

Just download and unzip them and then open them in the appropriate editor window (File>Open menu):
.ds files in the digital synth editor window
.as files in the analog synth editor window
.dk files in the drum kit editor window

To save Tones in okJDXiEditor format just add the appropriate extension (.ds / .as / .dk) to the file name when saving a Tone to file.