RD-80e
DATA FILER
2. MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
2.1 THE RD80e’S STRUCTURE
The RD-80e is a MIDI Data Filer, meaning a device capable of reading MIDI files and
playing them back in audio format thanks to its own internal sound generator.
For a clearer idea of how it works, we can divide the RD-80e into two sections: a file
management section, which from now on we will call the
Data Player
, and a generation
system, called the
Sound Generator
.
The
Data Player
section reads the data saved on the floppy disk and sends them to the
Sound Generator
section or to the [MIDI OUT] port. As well as this, this section manages
all the device’s internal programming, including the functions for management of the songs
and of the sequences of songs contained on the floppy disk, and all the functions for
editing the songs themselves, such as their deletion, memorisation and modification.
The
Sound Generator
section, on the other hand, converts the data received from the
Data Player
section into audio signals, and thus into music, bearing in mind the timbre and
dynamic of every single note.
This section is able to reproduce 353 sounds and 17 Drum Kits, and is poly-timbric on 16
parts (16 different timbres can be played simultaneously) each distributed on one track,
meaning one MIDI channel.
The maximum polyphony (the number of notes which can be played simultaneously) is
32. What’s more, the
Sound Generator
section has a multieffects unit containing ambient
effects (reverbs and echoes) and modulation effects (Chorus and Flanger).
2.2 DATA FORMAT
The RD-80e floppy disk driver is able to take 3.5” floppy disks in DD (720 KByte) and HD
(1.44 MByte) formats, formatted in accordance with the MS-DOS
standard. If the files
contained in these two sections are to be interpreted by the instrument during reading,
they must comply with the MIDI file (*.MID) Standard in formats 0 and 1. During recording
of MIDI data from an external source, the result will be saved in the form of MIDI Standard
Files in format 0.
In order to be interpreted correctly by the instrument, MIDI files must belong to the
GENERAL MIDI standard.
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