it's not there Roland R5

Roland R5





Baby brother of the R8, they're OK......but not so versatile...
The R5 is Roland's baby version of the R8 unit...... cut down, but still with good editing facilities to alter sounds.... check it out... comments please....







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Products » Drum machines » Sample drum machines »

Added: 6 January 1999
New price: Out of production
S/H price: ??
Company:  ROLAND UK

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Resources

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roland r5

Comments

Ben Tucker

18-Jul-02

I need a manual for the Roland R5.
Thanks
Ben


HollyMarie

18-Jul-02

Hey just bought a roland R5 and there wasnt any manual with it. Could anyone tell me where i could find one? . Thank you HollyMarie


Jaz Fendras

27-Jan-03

I have had the R5 for 10 years now, I think it is one of the best drum machines out, but I don`t have a manual! CAN ANY BODY PROVIDE ME WITH ONE? even though I know all the functions, it would be nice to have a manual. Roland`s website does not help!


deophid

17-Mar-03

I am trying to sort out an issue with this unit. It has 4 regular Pad Banks which map various percussion parts onto the 16 keys on the keypad. But it also has a special bank called Multi which is mainly used for doing bass parts. It maps the same instrument (such as f_bass) to all 16 keypads with varying pitches. This is all good and well, but...

But I want to be able to use the R5 in Multi mode as a controller for other software and hardware synths, because the editing functions native to the R5 are just way superior to anything else...

But there is a hitch: record a sample of a bass pattern from the R5 into a sequencer like Cubase, look at the MIDI data and you will see that it is all just one note being transmitted. Well, this is normal for a drum machine since MIDI drum maps use different notes to indicate different instruments (a brain-dead idea if you ask me but that's how it is built). This obviously is no good when all the drum keys are playing the same instrument. The problem: the instrument I am controlling only plays the same note. The pitch information is not being interpreted correctly by the slave device.

I checked into this and it turns out that pitch data is being transmitted - but in a non-standard sort of way: The R5 transmits various Control Change MIDI data and roland is using several of these controls to transmit pitch. "Since a Performance Pitch value requires 2 bytes for being transmitted, Control Number 21H, 30H, 31H, 32H, or 33H is used as the lower byte (LSB)" This is from the manual and basically explains the hack Roland uses to transmit pitch via several of the MIDI Control Change fields (it takes several of these fields combined to actually create a data space large enough to contain the 2 bytes required for pitch data).

What all of this amounts to (so far as I can tell) is that you can sequence Multi patterns to a sequencer and play them back on an R5 (or R8 I'm sure) but as far as I know no other instruments are really programmed to interpret these Control Change fields into appropriate pitch data.

I thought that there might yet be another hack around this: if when a pattern is saved in the R5 it only saves the actual keypad number (and not the actual instrument) then it would be possible to record a pattern in multi, save it to a sequencer, play it back in the R5 with a standard pad bank, and then sequence that to get a slave device to recognize different notes. Unfortunately this does not work because the R5 does save the actual instrument part with the pattern, not just the keypad number/mapping.

Well, anyhow, thats as far as I've gotten.

Re: the guy looking for the manual: Have you tried the Alexander Guides? I got one a long time ago from a Guitar Center (I think now a part of Musician's Friend). The title of it was "Alexander R5 R8 Operations Book".


mike coffey

27-Sep-03

how much does it cost and where can I get a power supply for 1?


Chris

16-Feb-07

hey....mine just stopped working all of a sudden. Does it sound like a power supply kind of thing? Has anyone else's just stopped working? Great little machine I must say though!!


xstoph

31-Jul-07

Weblink: link

I'm tying to find a power supply for the roland r-5 human rythem composer.any ideas where to look?


Mike Coultharde-Steer

01-Aug-07

I used the R5 for many years programming drum tracks to loads of old standards - Beatles, Kinks, Eagles, Rock'n'Roll etc - which I used as backing for my pub act (back in the days when a duo could play in pubs without entertainment licences).

After putting in the hard work reading the manual I found it brilliant, but I could never work out how to store the patterns I created, so I devised my own notation and laboriously wrote down every pattern and song.

I've just bought a second-hand R5 from e-bay, thinking I still had all these notations, but I realise that, like a complete idiot, I must have thrown them away sometime in the last ten years.

Now, I'm sure I will be able to re-creat all my work, but it will take months, so, does anybody have anything comparable they'd be willing to share, or could they point me in the direction of any website that might be able to help? Many thanks


kelly

25-Aug-07

Weblink: link

Hello,
Will a r8 card work with a r5?


gitaronno

12-Sep-08

Weblink: link

hi, i'd like to use the outputs 1,2,3,4 on the R5 separately for kick, snare, hihat etc. anyone know the trick to do it?
thanks in advance!
Onno


admin

12-Sep-08

We have added the user manual to the R5 page now - try following the manual to enable drumsounds to dedicated outputs.


Glen

03-Feb-09

Weblink: link

Hi, to send individual sounds to the separate outs 1-4 simply use the pan facility in the voice edit menu and use the + and - button to select the output line you want, i think it goes l5, l4, l3, l2, l1, 0, r1, r2, r3, r4, r5, 1, 2, 3, 4 from memory...


larry ayre

06-Feb-09

Weblink: link

To deophid; did you ever figure out a way around the bass CC message problem? Like mikecsteer I spent many many hours in the 90's programming drum & bass parts for restaurant type gigs. Unlike him I eventually standardized my midi settings (note numbers) with a System Exclusive message. Some of my earlier tracks could be played by prefacing them with a SysX track containing the sometimes peculiar choices I made for the note numbers of the instruments. I used a Roland MC 50 sequencer with the R5 for performance and further editing.I backed up all my working parts with bulk dumps to the floppies used by the MC 50.

Now I do it all with my XP PC. Every few years I go back and hook up my old gear to the M-audio 2496 soundcard I use, and try to get Finale or Adobe Audition to record the parts. I haven't had any luck.
There's a lot of good material there. I can record the analogue from the drum machine, but I really would prefer to have the parts backed up in editable form, so I could get rid of some of the bulkier stuff; I'll never take it on a gig again. I think I could probable figure out a way to map the drum parts to the Roland VSC; but the bass parts with the CC messages seem to defy management. Any new developments out there?

Thanks, Larry Ayre.


DrillHead

14-Mar-09

Weblink: link

The R5 manual is available through Roland via a pdf download and it's free.

I'm looking for a copy of the service notes schematics for the R5. My stereo outs are only sending usable signals through 1 side both through the phones jack and the LR stereo pair. I own a R8 as well but the sys ex messages are not compatible. I have a ton of data saved to disk from many years of playing recording with the R5 and I fear recreating it on my R8 will be nearly impossible.

I want to open her up and try to fix it but I need the schematic as to not further the damage. Any help would be appreciated.


admin

14-Mar-09

the manual is up there on the top right under the heading PRODUCT RESOURCES


Andy Mac

27-Aug-09

I've just got an R5 and whilst it all seems to work some of the buttons need a little bit of a shove to work properly. Anybody know where I can find a service manual or should I just take it apart and get a can of compressed air to give things a blast ?

cheers
Andy


edu

22-Oct-09

necesito el manual de la R5


Huw Rees

23-Nov-09

Weblink: link

Can you use a drum pad to trigger your programmed beats? i just need to start and stop the pre programmed grooves. thanks


robert craig

27-Jan-10

total failure whith this particular machine. i have an old 505 that i love but, the rca jacks became loose and now all i get is static. also having a problem linking up the 202 to it. any suggestions?


electronique

10-Mar-10

Weblink: link

hi there

I've just bought a roland r5 drum machine, but I have no cables, except for red/white audio cables. what do i need to make it work???

please help

cheers


admin

13-Mar-10

[quote] electronique wrote: hi thereIve just bought a roland r5 drum machine, but I have no cables, except for red/white audio cables. what do i need to make it work???please helpcheers [/quote]

you need a power lead, and then connect the other cables you have - connect the audio cables from the r5 stereo L/R line-outputs into a mixer or whatever feeds your amp/speakers so you can hear the r5. The r5 also has a headphone socket u can use to listen when you program beats.


broscosmoline

12-Jan-11

hi there. i'm trying to use a preset pattern on an old Roland R5. trouble is, when i press the "start/stop" button to play the pattern, nothing happens. at first i thought the button was broken, but now i notice that the tempo is set to midi. i want to change the tempo to 120 BPM, but can't figure out how to do it. can anyone help?





Last added comment


admin

13-Jan-11

[quote] broscosmoline wrote: hi there. im trying to use a preset pattern on an old Roland R5. trouble is, when i press the start/stop button to play the pattern, nothing happens. at first i thought the button was broken, but now i notice that the tempo is set to midi. i want to change the tempo to 120 BPM, but cant figure out how to do it. can anyone help? [/quote] it's prolly stuck in external clock sync mode. Try the clock settings.


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