Arpeggiator from Cubase?

You know what? It's amazing what you can learn by reading the manual.

or rather, what I can learn by reading the manual.

Spoke too soon. That didn't work, still no arpeggiator when using a remote keyboard.

If anyone else has hit this problem then I would very much appreciate some guidance.

ok, I'll post Roland support's reply just in case anyone googles this looking for the answer.

Thank you for your email.

Yes, that’s correct.

The ARP is local only – so when using with a DAW, if you enable the ARP – the notes are then sent out via MIDI ( Arp affected ) so upon playback, you get the same results.

Great for using the JD Arp patterns with other synths etc.

In other words, there is no way to trigger the arpeggiator from an external controller or DAW. You have to physically press the JD-XA keys in order to get the arpeggio, contrary to what is suggested by the manual.

Now, I have to say I hate this. I've got other hardware synths and none of them work this way. There's no reason for it to be this way and it makes recording into a DAW hideously complicated as you have to play the part on the JD-XA keyboard, record the arpeggio MIDI then use Dissolve Part to split it into separate tracks, route these tracks back to the JD-XA and finally disable the arpeggiator so the recorded arpeggios don't get arpeggiated a second time. Want to change the arpeggio pattern? Go back to the start and record everything again.

This is the only thing I don't love about the JD-XA. It's poor design and could so easily be made a switchable feature.

Which I would immediately switch off.

And leave off.

Forever.

EDIT: Many thanks to Oliver Davis at Roland tech support who told me that the arpeggiator is triggered if Remote Kbd is st to ON and the controller is connected to the MIDI IN socket. No idea why it isn't implemented over USB MIDI but at last I have a solution.

I've never understood why the XA's midi implementation isn't translated over USB! Seems very odd!