Using MIDI with the iPad Air and Roland A-37 keyboard controller

[DarthMarklar]

Hello all, I would first like to thank Arlo again for such an amazing app. I've been using it at a couple of my gigs and loving every minute of it.

Now that I've used it for just making set lists, I'm interested in checking out its MIDI capabilities. I have a question on the iPad Air though. I've read some reviews that people are having difficulties using the iRIG along with the lightning to 30 pin adapter. Has anyone successfully been able to do this? If so, I'd appreciate confirmation from someone.

And if it does work, I have another more complicated question. I currently use a Roland A-37 keyboard controller: http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/276

This controller uses "Upper" and "Lower" banks where I've set midi ch.'s 1 & 2 (respectively) that each control a separate external sound module. This way I can switch back and forth between the two modules, or even press both Upper and Lower together to play both modules together, from the A-37.

My question is about being able to use the SetListMakers MIDI capabilities to send messages to my A-37 in order to change these parameters. If you look at the A-37's support page, there is a Midi Implementation manual, but I am not familiar with this part of MID and unsure if this is the "raw midi" that Arlo talks about being able to be sent from the app: http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/276/support/

I was hoping I could use this manual in combination with the raw midi send function and have it control my keyboard. Or even if I can use the MIDI Learn function to have it record button presses on the A-37...

If anyone can confirm if this is exactly what can be used with the app, that would be great. Just changing MIDI patches, isn't going to be enough for me. I need to be able to control the Upper/Lower banks as well as the Transpose button (on the A-37) and wanted to see if, at least, it seems possible, before ordering the two items mentioned above.

Thank you so much. I'm definitely loving this app and showing it off to all my friends.
-Mark

[DarthMarklar]

UPDATE! I purchased the iRIGI midi and the connector cable and I am able to change my modules with the program change section of the Set List Maker.

I am currently working on trying to figure out how this Raw MIDI works. I am not able to get my A-37 controller to change. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[arlo]

The raw MIDI field is basically for any outgoing MIDI messages other than program changes. This could include sysex (device-specific) messages or any standard MIDI like continuous controller (CC) messages. Can you find out what message your device needs to receive to trigger what you want it to do? I took a quick look at the manual you linked to, but it wasn't searchable so I didn't dig into it.

[DarthMarklar]

Thanks. The more I look into it, I am not sure if I'm able to trigger these functions.

The 3 things that I would love to trigger are:
1) set the transpose button (most songs are set to -1 because the guitarist drop tunes almost every song, but two songs require transposition at 0)
2) set UPPER and LOWER buttons (most songs start with just UPPER selected, but a handful require UPPER and LOWER pressed at the same time so I can combine the two channels)
3) set a SPLIT point (a couple songs require the lower half of the keys for one channel and the upper half for the other channel)

From what I've gathered, I can't see any way to change these buttons via MIDI control messages. I am able to save these settings into the A-37's banks, so, for example, when I type in bank #34, the UPPER and LOWER buttons, transpose button, and split button, all change...

But again, I think this has more to do with some sort of internal memory bank of the A-37, which doesn't seem accessible via MIDI.

I believe those functions MAY be assignable with a bulk dump, but I known that's not what I want.