I wonder if it would be possible to break out MIDI files from BR Patterns (64Guitars?). Right now (I think) the only way to do it is to use the MIDI out from the BR-900CD into a DAW, but it is a PITA...
It would be much more convenient if there were a software converter, IMO...
Another of the many projects which I had hoped to do someday but never found the time for. It should be easy enough to extract the necessary information from the BR's pattern file. The problem for me is assembling that info into a standard midi file. I've read a bit about the midi file format and understand most of it, but the timing-related stuff is complicated and I haven't found the time to work it out yet. Maybe someday, but don't hold your breath. There are so many other projects I want to work on.
I wish Roland had included a midi export feature in the BRs, or at least in the BR Rhythm Editor. Midi import is already there, so export should have been a breeze. Better still, I wish they'd chosen to write their patterns as standard midi files rather than using their proprietary format.
I've been trying to get the BR-900CD to output the MIDI patterns I created. I set the input of SONAR to Omni, and I can get an input that triggers Battery 3 (with a kit that uses the tones I use in the BR drumkit).
I've tried both MIDI Clock and MTC, and set Sonar to record both MIDI and Audio channels, but nothing records, either in the audio channel or the midi channel, even though both Sonar track meters show strong activity while the cursor moves.
Has anyone else tried to do this? Has Roland set the MIDI out so it will trigger Battery, but not allow recording (not at all sure how they could do that. Maybe there's a switch I'm ignoring somewhere....
UPDATE: Tried this in Ableton Live as well, with the same result. I suspect this is a Roland "feature", but I'll take a whack at it in Fruity Loops...
I'm not familiar with Sonar or Battery but here are a few basics to check.
- Which midi channel is the BR-900 sending its data on? This defaults to channel 10 but you can change it to anything from 1 to 16 or OFF. Make sure it's set to 10 as that's the standard channel for drums.
- Which midi channel are you recording in Sonar? Make sure it's channel 10 to match the BR's midi output. Otherwise, Sonar's sequencer will record nothing.
- While you're recording, can you see the midi data in the clips pane or is it empty? If it's empty, then no midi data is being recorded by the sequencer.
I haven't tried recording the midi data from my BR-864 with a software sequencer, but I did record it once to the hardware sequencer in my Yamaha keyboard and had no problems. I just made sure they were both communicating on channel 10 and started recording.
I think the problem you're having is more likely to be a setup issue in Sonar than a quirk of the BR-900.
Without going into details, Sonar works just fine, and I was able to save all the patterns I had created in the BR-900CD. It is actually pretty easy; I was getting hung up by shortcuts I had used in other programs...
One issue is latency, the measures are not precisely aligned with the Midi captures; this is an easy fix - simply select everything in the piano roll and quantize (I use 16ths).
Sonar LE (with the BR-800) will be much easier to use than Sonar Producer, which is a VERY complete program......... Someday I'll get to the preset patterns, but for now I'm off for beer and pizza..:-)
Did you ever get around to getting MIDI files of the presets?