FR-8X: How to Program a User Program
User programs were designed to make customizing your Roland instrument easy to understand and to facilitate. A User Program is basically a snap shot of how you have set up your V-accordion accordion. If you’re playing around on your instrument and find a combination of instruments you like together, the user programs give you the opportunity to save exactly what you’ve set up with a simple procedure.
Creating a user program will save literally any settings you’ve adjusted on the accordion – at any given moment. In addition to whichever sounds you have selected, it will also save the chin switches you’ve programmed, the bellows setting you’ve selected, the multi-effects you’ve assigned, etc. It will save any and all parameters you’ve adjusted.
There are two terms we use when discussing user programs – banks and registers. There are 100 available User Program banks, each with 14 available registers. This means that there are 1400 programmable spots available in your FR-8X for customizability.
Let’s take a look:
1) Press the button that says User Program. Notice that there are 2 banks already filled up with pre-programmed registers. These were created by Roland, and are provided for inspiration and use.
2) To scroll through the different registers and banks, turn the data/enter knob . The first number on the left side of the screen refers to the bank number that you’re in, while the second number, after the dash, refers to the register within that bank. You’ll see that starting on bank 3, you have all blank user program banks.
Now let’s learn how to create a user program:
1) The first step is to set up the accordion however you like it. Select your favorite sounds, adjust the bellows to your liking, assign your chin switches to the desired functions, and perhaps add some drums. Once you like everything about the set up of the accordion, you are ready to save the user program.
2) From the main screen, press and hold the “Write” button until the write screen comes up.
3) Using the data/enter knob, scroll until you see the words “User Program” highlighted.
4) Press the “write” button to select user program.
5) The next screen you’ll see allows you to select which bank and number, also known as “register”, you want to assign your current set up of the accordion. We would suggest starting with bank 3, number 1, so that you don’t program on top of the first 2 pre-programmed banks.
6) Use the data/enter knob to scroll through the numbers when you select, and press the data/enter knob to jump back and forth between the bank and number categories.
7) Once you have selected the bank and number where you’d like to save your set up, press the write button.
8) The final screen of the process allows you to name the user program register. This way you can distinguish between the other user programs that you save. Use the data/enter knob to change the letters by pushing to select, and scrolling to change letters.
9) Now that you’ve spelled out the name for the user program, press the write button again to confirm the save.
That’s it! Now when you go into the User program mode, you’ll find the register that you just programmed.