Roland JX-10: Super JX Flash Module with Vecoven 3.22 Firmware and Soundboard ROM Install

video by thesrabbit

"This video documents my own experience with installing the Super JX Flash Module with Vecoven 3.22 firmware in my Roland JX-10. While there are other great videos about the Vecoven firmware, I wanted to make a video that showed the physical removal of all the old chips and installation of the new ones. Let me first say that I am a total amateur at DIY anything, as the video clearly demonstrates. I am not responsible if you try this and break your gear, hurt yourself, or die. For what it's worth, I did all but the latter. Fortunately the thing that I broke was the thing that I was replacing. That said, I'm hoping that the video gives you a clear understanding of what needs to be done if you decide to do this yourself. As for the actual tools and techniques, that's up for discussion. But this is the way. Or at least it's a way.

Background:
Shortly after purchasing the JX-10, I knew I needed to get the Vecoven firmware, just to have a proper MIDI implementation. I didn't realize there was a flash module option that allows future firmware updates over MIDI and provides an internal memory of 16 banks of patch storage. That's the equivalent of 16 M-64C cartridges, for a total of 1024 sounds. I contacted Fred Vecoven to inquire about my options and he recommend that I get the flash module with firmware 3.x and also the 2 optional sound board roms, so that's exactly what I did. Note: I don't have the PWM hardware mod, nor do I intend to get it in the future, so it's firmware version 3.x for me.

The idea of removing IC's from sockets and replacing them with new ones seemed on the surface to be a trivial task. But after watching one video, I was a bit intimidated, especially by the need to disconnect the flat white ribbon cable that obscures the firmware chip. This is not your average ribbon cable that is simply plugged into a socket. In fact, I don't even know if it is a ribbon cable at all, though that's what I call it in the video.

As it turns out, disconnecting the flat white cable wasn't too bad, though it was very scary when it came time to do it. I found that the best way was to gently wiggle it side to side while pulling (gently) backward. It came out pretty easy.

Far worse than anything was the removal of the IC's. Maybe the removal tool I have is not the appropriate size. It's possible that the one I have is made for small IC's only. It just feels like I couldn't get a grip on the chip at all. Like there was not enough tension. Looking back, I think a better technique would be to gently loosen the IC on each end from underneath with a small flathead screwdriver, and then use the IC removal tool to grab a hold of it and pull it out. But I'm not confident enough to actually recommend that approach. I would love to know if anyone knows the proper technique!

MIDI Mod: The Open MIDI RTC Schema didn't support the way in which the Vecoven firmware reads MIDI CC sequences. I made changes to the schema to support that and bumped its version up to 0.1.1, where it currently is at the time of this publication. I then just needed to make a couple small tweaks to MIDI Mod to support the new schema. MIDI Mod version 1.5.1 does that and therefore works with a JX-10 or MKS-70 that has the Vecoven 3.x or 4.x firmware installed.

Vecoven Super JX Flash Module: https://www.vecoven.com/superjx/flash...

A JX-10 Vecoven 3.x firmware and soundboard rom installation video that I used for reference:"

Roland JX-10 firmware upgrade

video by Simo Sainio

Here's a video that features the physical installation of the flash module in an MKS-70:

DIY INSTALL Vecoven 3.x SuperJX Flash Module for the Roland MKS-70/JX-10

video by #hardwareonly The MIDI Maniac

See the Vecoven label below for more.

Blade Runner Theme Jam/Cover: Sequential OB-6, Alesis MIDIVerb II, CME XKey 37 with Poly Aftertouch

video by thesrabbit

"Like the title says, the music is obviously from the movie Blade Runner, the legendary soundtrack by the mighty Vangelis. This isn't really intended to be a cover per se, but more of a Blade Runner Theme inspired jam to check out some new gear that I acquired over the weekend. I don't even know if I'm playing the right notes or if I'm in the right key, so please don't be offended if I have butchered some things. In fact, I may have borrowed from the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack without realizing it, since I watched that movie recently. So I'd better give props to all the greats: Vangelis, Hans Zimmer, and Benjamin Wallfisch.

Background:
Fresh in over the weekend is the Alesis MIDIVerb II rack unit and CME XKey 37 (with poly aftertouch). Tonight I turned on the MIDIVerb II for the first time and quickly found preset 29, "XLarge Warm 15 seconds". It seems to work very well with the Sequential OB-6 on the GeoSynths 016 preset. Is the MIDIVerb II a poor man's Lexicon 224? Probably not, but I think it still sounds very nice and has that thing called "character". It's definitely very digital and very 80's. The CME XKey 37 is plugged straight into the MIDI In port of the OB-6. This is my first time ever trying to play anything with polyphonic aftertouch. For those who are not aware, the keyboard of the OB-6 does not transmit polyphonic aftertouch, but the synth responds to it over MIDI. I set the sensitivity on the XKey as low as possible (I think), but as you can see (and hear), I still struggled a lot to control it, and that's with hardly any aftertouch depth dialed in on the synth, like 2 semitones of pitch bend at maximum pressure. The effects on the synth are turned off and there are no other effects besides the MIDIVerb II. The mix on the MIDIVerb II is approximately 45% dry and 55% wet. There is no additional processing. The sound you're hearing is straight out of the MIDIVerb II's outputs directly into a Focusrite audio interface, recorded to a single stereo track.

I think it sounds pretty good. Imagine what it would sound like played by someone who can actually play.

For OB-6 owners, you can find the GeoSynths preset here as part of the Evolution Volume 1 set: https://www.geosynths.com/dsi-ob6​"

Intro to "Spiral" Draft (Vangelis Cover) - Roland System-500, Audiothingies Doctor A, OB-6, Lyra-8

video by thesrabbit

"This started off as an exercise on how to do auto-panning within a Eurorack system, without having any mixer modules with pan controls or CV panning inputs. I thought about what sort of musical piece would be a good way to test out my explorations, and the answer is "Spiral" by Vangelis, of course! The intro is probably my favorite synth piece of all time. The breakdown of the patch used here for the main sequence is as follows, from left to right:

Roland System-500 512 Dual VCO:
One oscillator sawtooth and pulse wave out, range set to 16' (should have done 32'). PWM is applied via an LFO.

Roland System-500 521 Dual VCF:
Oscillator sawtooth and pulse coming into the filter's mixer, level of the pulse wave is 100%, and the level of the sawtooth is about 50%
Cutoff set low to start with, resonance about half-way up. The cutoff inputs are fed from the outputs of an envelope generator and an LFO. Playing with the levels of these inputs in real time along with the resonance knob is critical to capturing the vibe of the original sequence and delivers that pulsating sound.

Roland System-500 505 Dual VCF:
Output of the 521 is going to the input of the first filter in the 505. I'm only using this module for its built-in VCA. The cutoff is open all the way. This does add some extra brightness to the sound, but my other VCA's are all used up in this patch. Once the signal runs through the 505's VCA output, it is effectively a complete single synth voice, ready to be recorded or routed to a mixer, etc.

Buffered Multiple:
The first mult input is the output of an envelope generator from the Dreadbox Ataxia. One of the mult's outputs is routed to one of the 521's cutoff inputs and another one of the mult's outputs is routed to the 505's VCA level input. The second mult input is the output of the 505's VCA. Two outputs of the second mult are routed to the inputs of each VCA in a Doepfer Dual VCA module on the far right. Using a buffered mult means that the outputs have exact copies of the input signal. Having 2 identical copies of the single synth voice is critical to the auto-panning process.

Dreadbox Utopia:
The triangle LFO of the Utopia is routed to both the pulse width input of the 512 oscillator and to one of the cutoff inputs on the 521 VCF. The rate of this LFO is pretty slow. This slow modulation of the pulse width and filter is another critical component to recreating the vibe of the original sound.

Dreadbox Ataxia:
Mod 1 is setup as a standard ADSR envelope. Its output is split and sent to one of the 521's cutoff inputs and the 505's VCA level input. This is already mentioned above in the "Buffered Multiple" section. Attack is 0, the decay is set to around 40% and sustain and release are probably no more than 10%. This envelope is triggered by the gate of incoming notes from the sequencer.
Mod 2 is setup as a fairly slow LFO, with a wave shape that's somewhere between a triangle and a sawtooth. Its output is split into 2 with a passive mult and routed to the "rise" and "fall" inputs of the Make Noise Function module.

Make Noise Function:
This is setup to basically function as a slow triangle-ish LFO with a positive and negative output. The positive output is routed to the CV input of VCA 1 of the Doepfer Dual VCA module, and the negative output is routed to the CV input of VCA 2. Cycle mode is enabled and the "rise" and "fall" parameters are continuously manipulated in real-time via the output of an LFO from the Dreadbox Ataxia. The net effect of this is that audio doesn't simply sweep from left to right at a steady even pace. The panning speed changes in accordance with the signal coming from the Dreadbox Ataxia's LFO. This variable panning speed in conjunction with external stereo delay creates a nice swirling spacey effect.

Doepfer Dual VCA:
Each VCA's input is an exact copy of the output of the 505's VCA (the complete synth voice). The CV input levels on each VCA are maxed out and the gain control is maxed on the second VCA. The positive output of the Make Noise Function is routed to VCA 1's CV input and the negative output is routed to VCA 2's CV input. As the positive output of the Make Noise Function increases (moves up and away from zero), what this does is effectively pull the level of VCA 2's output down (by applying negative voltage) while simultaneously pushing the level of VCA 1's output up. As the positive and negative output from the Make Noise Function approaches 0, the level of VCA 1 drops and the level of VCA 2 increases (as the pullback applied to the maxed out gain level of VCA 2 diminishes). This is the final piece of the auto-panning puzzle. The output of VCA 1 is then connected to an input on a desktop mixer that's panned hard left and the output of VCA 2 is connected to an input on the same mixer that's panned hard right."

Polyphonic Eurorack: First Try and Walkthrough

video by thesrabbit

"Here's my first attempt at polyphony within a modular system. I've got 4 distinct voices, each with its own oscillator, filter, amp, and envelope. To make things more interesting, I added a sort of sub-oscillator to the first voice, though it can sound quite dissonant depending upon when that voice is triggered.

There is a very detailed rundown after the demo "performance", but to summarize:
Each voice is a single sawtooth wave, with the addition of a square wave sub-oscillator on voice 1. All 4 oscillators run through their own low pass filter. The first 2 run through filters 1 and 2 on the System-500 521 dual VCF module. The 3rd oscillator runs through the LPF on the System-500 505 module. The 4th oscillator runs through the LPF on the MS-20 Mini. From there, each voice has its own VCA, and then the output of those VCAs are routed to the System-500 530 module, which acts as a stereo mixer. Voices 1 and 3 are panned to the left, 2 and 4 are panned to the right. This produces an effect similar to auto-panning. All four voices run through a BBD and spring reverb tank, which adds a ton of extra grit. Each voice has its own dedicated envelope generator. The first 2 have the System-500 540's envelopes. The 3rd voice uses a single ADSR from the Dreadbox Ataxia. The 4th voice simply uses EG2 on the MS-20 Mini.

I did my best to get a similar sound out of each voice, though it's far from perfect. However, that's really the whole point of this experiment: to do something that no standard polysynth can do.

In the demo, I've got aux sends setup in Logic to the Audiothingies Dr. A for delay, and for reverb I've got my favorite Alesis MIDIVerb II and Quadraverb combo. These effects run in parallel and were recorded in real time along with the dry output of my mixer. I tried to mix in the effects so that they're about 55/45 dry/wet.

Modules used:
Roland System-500: 512, 521, 505, 530, 540
2HP VCO (x2)
Polyend Poly 2
Arcus Audio buffered mult
Pittsburgh Modular Giraffe (x2)
Blue Lantern Subharmonics
Manhattan Analog DTM
Doepfer Dual VCA (x2)
Dreadbox Ataxia
Erica Synths PICO BBD
G-Storm Electro Spring Reverb Tank Driver
Korg MS-20 Mini"

Roland Super JX-10 first patch: PWM High Res Sweep Pad

video by thesrabbit

"I recently bought a Roland Super JX-10 and have finally got around to building a patch from scratch. The JX-8p, Super-JX, and Alpha Juno series all share the same filter that's notorious for losing all the bottom end and thinning out when you turn up the resonance. So how do you get a high res sweep pad on the JX-10 without losing all of the guts? Pretty simple. Just take your high res sweep pad and save it as another tone, turn the res all the way down and that becomes your "lower" layer. That's really the only substantial difference between the upper and lower layers of the patch here. PWM is made possible by setting both oscs to a square wave, crossmod to "sync 2", turning the pitch of osc 2 up 8 semitones and adding about 50% LFO depth on the pitch of osc 2. I strongly prefer to turn both osc 1 and 2 all the way up in the mix, so the PWM effect is more subtle.

Effects are a TC Electronic Flashback II "Toneprint" ping pong digital delay and an E-Dome setting on the Source Audio Ventris Dual Reverb. The synth and effects are both going straight into the mixer and the mixer goes straight into the audio interface. Zero post processing."

Roland Alpha Juno Chorus Compared to the legends: JUNO-6, JX-3P, JX-10, JU-06A (60 and 106 models)

video upload by thesrabbit

"The Roland Alpha Juno 1, 2, and MKS-50 have the same legendary BBD chorus chips as the rest of the 80's Roland classics, with one major difference: variable chorus rate! I've gone through and mapped out the actual chorus rates of all possible values, from 0 to 127. I've also measured the chorus rates of every Roland synth I own, and found which chorus rate values on the Alpha Juno best align with each of them. This includes the JUNO-6, JX-3P, JX-10, and JU-06A, which has built-in JUNO-60 and JUNO-106 emulations.

Contents:
0:00 Intro
0:46 Baseline patch on the JUNO-6
1:58 Baseline patch on other synths
5:32 Overview of comparison
5:56 JUNO-6 vs Alpha Juno
13:30 JX-3P vs Alpha Juno
17:53 JU-06A Juno-60 model vs Alpha Juno
23:56 JU-06A Juno-106 model vs Alpha Juno
28:43 JX-10 vs Alpha Juno
32:58 JUNO-6 Chorus 1 vs JX-3P
33:58 JUNO-6 Chorus 2 vs JU-06A Chorus 1
35:22 JUNO-6 Chorus 2 vs JX-10 Chorus 1
36:26 Wrap-up
37:14 Measurement method

For a full rundown of my findings, look no further: https://eokuwwy.blogspot.com/2021/06/...

If you are interested in hearing how the chorus on the Alpha Juno compares to the other Roland giants, then this video is for you! There's a small section at the end that shows how I measured the chorus rates, so you can do the same.

This is not intended to see how the Alpha Juno stacks up overall sound wise against the others and there is no real patch matching. That would have taken way too long, and this video is already long enough. I'd suggest heading over to Starsky-Carr's channel if you're interested in that sort of thing (his Alpha Juno vs 106 video is definitely worth the watch)."