EM-55 Owner’s Manual
49
ENGLISH ENGLISH
ENGLISH ENGLISH
MIDI is short for
Musical Instrument Digital Interface
. The word refers to many things, the most
obvious being a connector type that is used by musical instruments and other devices to exchange mes-
sages relating to the act of making music.
Each time you play on the EM-55’s keyboard or
start the Arranger (or Song), your instrument
transmits MIDI data to its MIDI OUT socket. If
you connect this socket to the MIDI IN socket of
another instrument, that instrument may play
the same notes as one of the EM-55’s parts,
select sounds, etc.
MIDI is a universal standard, which means that
musical data can be sent to and received by
instruments of different types and manufactur-
ers. Furthermore, MIDI allows you to connect
your EM-55 to a computer or hardware
sequencer.
Connect your EM-55 as shown below.
Channels
MIDI can simultaneously transmit and
receive messages on 16 channels, so that up
to 16 instruments can be controlled. Nowa-
days, most instruments –like your EM-55–
are multitimbral, which means that they
can play several musical parts with different
sounds.
Note: All EM-55 parts are set to receive MIDI mes-
sages. If they do not seem to respond to the mes-
sages you send from the external controller, you
should check whether the external controller’s MIDI
OUT is connected to the MIDI INput of your EM-55.
The EM-55’s transmit and receive channels
of all parts have been set in keeping with a
tacit Roland standard and are therefore
shared by all recent E, G, and RA series
instruments. You cannot change them. They
also correspond to the track assignments of
the 16-track Recorder:
MIDI Function parameters
See “Editing parameters (general procedure)” (p. 42) for how to select and set these Function parameters
(they belong to the same Function menu as the “General Function parameters”).
■
MIDI TxRx (MIDI transmission and reception)
This parameter allows you to specify which EM-55
parts should transmit and receive MIDI messages:
■
Sync Rx (MIDI synchronization)
Use this parameter to specify how the EM-55
should be synchronized (as slave) to an external
MIDI sequencer, computer, drum machine, etc.
“Synchronization” is a learned term for the fact
that one device (or function) is set to start and stop
at the same time as another device (or function),
and to run at the same tempo (BPM).
Please note that synchronization is only possible
when you connect the external device’s MIDI OUT
socket to the EM-55’s MIDI IN socket (though you
can also work the other way around; in that case,
see the sequencer’s manual for details).
15. MIDI functions
The EM-55 receives data
The EM-55 transmits data
External MIDI instrument/computer (*)
(*) Direct connection to computer possible via optional MIDI/Joystick cable.
EM-55
1 9
2 10
3 11
4 12
5 13
6 14
7 15
8 16
Accomp 1
Arranger bass
Accomp 2
®
Upper 1
Accomp 3
®
Upper 2
Accomp 4
Accomp 5
Accomp 6
Arranger drums
®
Lower
®
M. Bass
Style Pads
D Beam part
Melody Intell
®
M. Drum
Option Meaning
ALL All parts.
KBD Only the Keyboard parts (see ® in the
table above).
STL Only the Arranger parts
(A.Drums~Accomp 6).
OFF None of the EM-55’s parts transmits/
receives MIDI messages.
EM-55_UK Page 49 Sunday, October 7, 2001 10:16 PM
