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Author Topic: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group  (Read 213131 times)

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DaveW

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Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« on: June 27, 2011, 12:53:49 PM »

A good friend suggested a restart on this thread, since the other was getting a bit convoluted.

I took delivery of one of an fr18d last Thursday, since then I have been busy trying to get to grips with its delights. Seems to me v. good but you need several things to get the best:
Time - two music stands - one for the instruction book - a sympathy with computers files or knowledge of synths and other studio devices - patience. This is not for the faint hearted. It may also be suited those with a tin ear, especially to start with

A calm discussion forum could also be an asset, especially if contributions were based on experience rather than speculation (no harm in speculation, but it ain't like someone saying 'I did it this way - and it worked')

So my initial contribution is this: I bought from Thomann UK Cyberstore, delivery about 8 days, The manual is in German. At the moment I cannot register the instrument with Roland UK.

Now ask me a question?

best wishes

DaveW

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DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2011, 01:04:12 PM »

I heard tell that the German ones have different programming...true or false not quite sure how you could work that one out not having a 'UK' one...

Let's hope this thread remains 'user group' !!  Maybe the mods could do a bit of housekeeping if necessary?

Thanks for starting a clean thread ;)

I had a friend round to sample the box... it worked well for me 'cos I could look at the destructions and see what was happening on the box... learned a few more bits... long road ahead :Ph


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Graham

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howard mitchell

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2011, 01:04:32 PM »

For some reason the user manual is not on the UK site but you can download it in English from http://www.roland.com/products/en/_support/om.cfm?PRODUCT=FR-18D

There is a system upgrade and the tablature maker on the UK site at http://www.roland.co.uk/products/productdetails.aspx?p=1147

Howard
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DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #3 on: June 27, 2011, 01:09:50 PM »

Thanks Howard  and XGX

I have downloaded and printed the manual and various on-line things like Tablature maker.

As for the 'built in tablatures' being foreign. I had the following advice, if you take tablature 11 which is supplied in GCF I think, use the procedure to change the key to A and there you have a three row ADG melodeon, complete with the usual bassesand it worked like a charm.
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DaveW

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summerstars

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2011, 01:31:14 PM »


As for the 'built in tablatures' being foreign. I had the following advice, if you take tablature 11 which is supplied in GCF I think, use the procedure to change the key to A and there you have a three row ADG melodeon, complete with the usual bassesand it worked like a charm.

Wish I had known that 3 months ago - would have saved me a lot of work and heartache -

Has anyone succesfully ugraded the software with the patch on the Roland Site?  When I tried it crashed the machine and it had to go back to Roland for a reset  -  however I must say that their customer service was second to none!  -  they collected the day I phoned them (last tuesday - and redelivered it back on the thursday) and had it back to me within 48 hours
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summerstars

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2011, 01:36:54 PM »

Had some fun this last weekend at a weekend party - was playing it in a session when a sax player walked in - so I flippantly commented that I couldn't now use the sax sounds - her reply was why not?  let's do a duet - which was great fun, as was seeing it in the hands of an expert (Ted Crum) who was very reluctant to give it back to me when it was time to leave..........

PS  Nice to have a thread where we can be positve and helpful about this instrument without the purist back-stabbing previously encountered - could we actually have our own sub-board thus enabling multi threads within it?
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DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #6 on: June 27, 2011, 01:54:45 PM »


Wish I had known that 3 months ago - would have saved me a lot of work and heartache -

Has anyone succesfully ugraded the software with the patch on the Roland Site?  When I tried it crashed the machine and it had to go back to Roland for a reset  -  however I must say that their customer service was second to none!  -  they collected the day I phoned them (last tuesday - and redelivered it back on the thursday) and had it back to me within 48 hours

I had heard Roland UK service was good, but I'm not sure how this german purchase will be received, as mentioned, I couldn't register the instrument on the Roland UK site. No to trying software patches - did they do it for you and what effect did they produce?
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DaveW

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summerstars

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2011, 02:00:54 PM »

I had heard Roland UK service was good, but I'm not sure how this german purchase will be received, as mentioned, I couldn't register the instrument on the Roland UK site. No to trying software patches - did they do it for you and what effect did they produce?

They upgraded the software to the effect that pressing the key or tablature button now indicates which key you are in (or tab you are using) - of course like everything else you need to get used to the light codes used to indicate the key etc
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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2011, 02:08:51 PM »

...if you take tablature 11 which is supplied in GCF I think, use the procedure to change the key to A and there you have a three row ADG melodeon, complete with the usual bassesand it worked like a charm.
Quote from: summerstars=1309176590
Wish I had known that 3 months ago -

Just what I needed too, thanks Dave...

Anyone help de-mystifying/simplifying the 12 tabs has to be good ...

Anyone sorted a tab for BCC# ...and wants to share? ( ;) )

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Graham

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howard mitchell

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2011, 02:59:11 PM »

I've attached a file called RDKC1.XML.txt
Remove the .txt to get the original XML file. Put it on a blank memory stick and follow the instructions in the manual for importing tablatures.

I've edited tablature 6 which originally was B/C layout and added the C# row.
Also changed the left hand to a stradella layout diagonally across the buttons with bass, major and minor chord.  A limited range obviously.

I haven't got the instrument with me so haven't tested this or tried the practicality of the stradella layout.

Good Luck
Howard
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DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2011, 03:30:42 PM »

I've edited tablature 6 which originally was B/C layout and added the C# row.
Also changed the left hand to a stradella layout diagonally across the buttons with bass, major and minor chord.  A limited range obviously.

Howard

I've done a similar thing with tablature 6 and put in a set of augmented ADG basses and also completely altered tab 3 to give b/c/c# with a stradella system covering Bb to E, I think it is, F and Bb bass and chords along the top, the others in normal order with just bass note and chord. I've tried playing both and at the moment tend to favour the melodeon bass set-up. I might offer the files if asked, but am a bit wary of anyone copying them into their instruments. The thing that was not obvious to me, but the book repeats it several times is that if you load one of the RDCK files, it loads all twelve tablatures. So, my file has new versions of tablatures 3, 6 and 11 and when the file is loaded on the instrument I get all three new versions. This might not suit you

Howard's stradella bass sounds good and his suggested file handling sounds OK - but I may wait to gain confidence,  before loading and viewing the option on a different computer - but then I was ever  a cautious child



DaveW





 
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DaveW

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DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2011, 03:36:08 PM »

IThey upgraded the software to the effect that pressing the key or tablature button now indicates which key you are in (or tab you are using) - of course like everything else you need to get used to the light codes used to indicate the key etc

this appears to be installed on my recent machine from Germany. The colour coding for the tab and key in use is good, without it things must have been difficult

Dave
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DaveW

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summerstars

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2011, 04:23:45 PM »

I might offer the files if asked, but am a bit wary of anyone copying them into their instruments. The thing that was not obvious to me, but the book repeats it several times is that if you load one of the RDCK files, it loads all twelve tablatures. So, my file has new versions of tablatures 3, 6 and 11 and when the file is loaded on the instrument I get all three new versions. This might not suit you


Remember you can of course setup 4 different tablature sets each with 12 tablatures - and select the set you want to use from a USB memory stick  -  that way you can keep the original as set 1, and use the other three sets to experiment with
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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2011, 04:37:16 PM »

Sounds like fun... if yer know what yer doing...

I've a trip coming up shortly and it won't leave enough time to backwards and forwards it from Roland...

I'll take a look at thngs when I get back... once murphy has left the building  ;)

I've downloaded your 'txt' file in readiness, thanks Howard and to SS and Dave for the input.
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Graham

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DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2011, 08:18:38 PM »

I've attached a file called RDKC1.XML.txt
Remove the .txt to get the original XML file. Put it on a blank memory stick and follow the instructions in the manual for importing tablatures.

Couldn't get this one to load into tablature maker, it seems to persist as a text file. Did anyone else suceed?
DaveW
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DaveW

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Pete Dunk

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #15 on: June 27, 2011, 09:06:19 PM »

Hi JIMMY,

you may want to edit your post to remove the email link unless you want to be spammed to death!

john'at'punch'dot'freeserve'dot''co''dot'uk would serve you better.  ;)
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howard mitchell

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #16 on: June 27, 2011, 09:07:51 PM »

I've attached a file called RDKC1.XML.txt
Remove the .txt to get the original XML file. Put it on a blank memory stick and follow the instructions in the manual for importing tablatures.

Couldn't get this one to load into tablature maker, it seems to persist as a text file. Did anyone else suceed?
DaveW
Goto -
http://www.hgmitchell.co.uk/fr18.htm and you'll see a link to the file. Do a "save link as" or the equivalent in your browser to get the file.

Howard
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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #17 on: June 28, 2011, 01:07:25 AM »

[[[ ADMIN: This thread has been started with a very clear focus for FR18 users to discuss ways of getting the most out of their instrument. Please do not attempt to hijack it. Look, I've even started a separate thread so those people who don't have an FR18 can talk about them anyway!  ::) ]]]

DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #18 on: June 28, 2011, 04:34:58 PM »

Quote from: Howard Mitchell
Goto -
[url=http://www.hgmitchell.co.uk/fr18.htm
http://www.hgmitchell.co.uk/fr18.htm[/url] and you'll see a link to the file. Do a "save link as" or the equivalent in your browser to get the file.
This looks like a cunning plan, better than my major chords only attempt at 'Stradella in a small space' - I will give it a whirl. Thanks Howard

ps I have installed a diagonal FB-C (free bass) for trials too, not getting on very well with it the moment.

DaveW
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DaveW

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DaveW

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Re: Roland fr18 diatonic accordion - user group
« Reply #19 on: June 28, 2011, 06:31:12 PM »

This looks like a cunning plan, better than my major chords only attempt at 'Stradella in a small space' - I will give it a whirl. Thanks Howard
DaveW
[/quote]
Howard, unfortunately, this particular plan hits a problem when try to you play it. The diagonals go the opposite way to normal Stradella - what a bummer - I thought you had hit paydirt! I think to learn the reverse diagonals would confuse normal stradella players. I am working on a hybrid to include the useful Emin Amin and Bmin chords, which disappear if you just change the plot through 90 degrees (this may seem obscure to our casual readers, but hey ho we all play melodeons)
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DaveW

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