Roland MKS-30 MIDI Sound Module

Someone contacted me recently asking if I would be interested in possibly making some additions to the MKS-30 firmware.

New firmware for the MKS-30:

With the help of several MKS-30 owners, I have developed an enhanced version of the v2.0 firmware. Luckily, the socket for the code EPROM is already wired to accept either a 2764, or a 27C128 or 27C256, The larger chips have plenty of space for my changes.

Here are the new features:

1) MIDI CC reception added for all patch parameters

2) Sysex save and load of internal or cartridge patches (This requires a small hardware
modification to convert MIDI Thru into a MIDI out jack, only used for patch saves)

3) Front panel and CC control of velocity usage: Off, Filter Env Amt, VCA Level, Filter and VCA (setting saved in patch)

4) Front panel and CC selection of Poly I, Rotary, or Poly II key assign mode (always defaults to Poly I at power up)

5) MIDI modulation wheel code no longer enables DCO I and DCO II frequency modulation automatically

Here is a document which shows what CC numbers are assigned to different parameters. And here is a document showing how to modify the MKS-30 to change MIDI Thru to MIDI Out, so that you can save patches as sysex with the new firmware. This modification is not required if you don't care about saving patches using MIDI sysex.