Roland FR-5 Manuale Utente

 Final note regarding sequencers

V-Accordion 

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Roland dealer for details. And finally, you may need to 
install applications called “drivers” on your computer to 
ensure that it can talk and listen to the MIDI interface.

If you use the FR-7/FR-5 as MIDI controller for record-
ing new songs, there is one more thing you need to be 
aware of. Always ask yourself which MIDI sound source 
should play back the part you are recording.

• If the FR-7/FR-5’s tone generator is not used for the 

part you are recording, you need to connect the 
external module’s MIDI IN socket to the sequencer’s 
MIDI OUT port and activate the sequencer’s “MIDI 
Soft Thru” function:

Note that this is only necessary for recording new 
material. You do not have to worry about them dur-
ing playback.

The table on page 80 specifies the default MIDI channel 
assignments the FR-7/FR-5 uses. Those choices are 
based on how most accordion players prefer (or are 
allowed) to use their instrument. You can, however, 
change the MIDI channel assignments. An obvious can-
didate for such a change would be the Treble section if 
you want it to conform to a generally accepted (i.e. 
standardized) usage, whereby the melody part trans-
mits on MIDI channel 4.

There is indeed a format called “General MIDI” that 
requires you to use MIDI channel 4 for the melody. 
General MIDI-compatible musical instruments use that 
channel for the most important part of a song, so it 
may be a good idea to assign it to the Treble section.

The table on page 80 states that channel 4 is already 
used by the (Treble) ORCHESTRA section. That is not 
really a problem as long as you don’t use that section. If 
you use it alongside the Treble section, changing the 
Treble accordion’s MIDI channel to “4” would mean that 
both sections transmit on the same MIDI channel. And 
that would be a problem – or rather one of two prob-
lems:

• In Dual mode (page 26), each note you played would 

be transmitted twice and recorded like that (or 
played back by the external tone generator).

• In High or Low mode, the “accompaniment” and “solo 

line” would control the same sound on an external 
module, which may not correspond to what you had 
in mind. 

In such cases, either assign a different MIDI channel to 
the ORCHESTRA section – or select “Off” (no transmis-
sion).

Note that such changes are only necessary when you 
want to add the sound of an external tone generator to 
the Treble section’s accordion sound. If you are working 
with an arranger module whose sole function is to pro-
vide an accompaniment, you may have to select “Off” 
for all of the FR-7/FR-5’s sections. 

And even that is only necessary if you use the FBC-7’s 
switches to remotely control the external instrument 
(page 68) and therefore connected the FBC-7’s MIDI 
OUT socket to the module’s MIDI IN port.

Also bear in mind that the channel assignments set 
here apply both to the transmission (“TX”) and 
reception (“RX”) of MIDI data.

And finally: in DUAL, HIGH and LOW modes (page 26), 
the Treble keyboard transmits on two channels simulta-
neously – the Treble and Orchestra channels. If you add 
the Orchestra Bass part to the Bass or Free Bass section, 
the same applies to the bass notes. As stated earlier, the 
chord buttons of the Bass keyboard use a separate MIDI 
channel.

MIDI OUT

MIDI IN

MIDI IN

MIDI OUT

External sequencer

FR-7/FR-5’s tone 

generator

(FBC-7)

External module