This very nearly bricked my MC-80 but after 20 or so tries and reformatting it finally worked. I think my floppy disks may have been a bit too old so the data was not fully copying uncorrupted. Works great now thanks!
So glad to finally this thing begin to show up on UA-cam and with a firmware upgrade tutorial! I have 2 of these sequencers, and I never even checked what firmware they were on. I assumed it was all kept in ROM and I wasn't planning on buying replacement chips. I must've skipped the manual section on upgrades.
I quickly scanned over the manual and didn't see anything that indicated that an update was possible. Thanks to the VintageSynth & ROLANDCLAN forums I found out that it was a "thing" that could be done. Can't be sure what the update include, but I assume there must be stability improvements. Glad the tutorial helped; didn't want someone else to miss out on the best version of this amazing sequencer.
Just bought an mc80 expanded and was wondering what the new firmware fixes and if it's worth doing. Really impressed with the VE GS pro sounds too. Good video tutorial. Thanks. 👍
Glad to hear you enjoyed the video on the MC80, David. Not sure what the last firmware fixes. If you find the specs on the firmware, please leave a link here, as we'd all like to know.
@@vintageMIDI I just installed a usb emulator in my mc80 and was wondering if it's possible to put the firmware on a usb drive and update it from that. I don't have a hard drive in mine.
Are your files standard .MID? Or are they formatted by another Roland sequencer? Please be as specific as possible. If you want to know the basic procedure it's covered in the owner's manual. www.roland.com/uk/support/by_product/mc-80/owners_manuals/
Hey, random MC-80 question: does anybody know how to bring existing data into a song? Say, a track from another song, a MIDI drum loop, or whatever? I can do it on MC-50, XP-80, fantom X, MV-8000, but stuck here!
A standard MIDI file with individual tracks assigned to discreet channels should import into the MC80; but as I recall it all ends up on one track in the MC80. The data is all there, but then notes assigned to a specific MIDI channel can be copy/pasted to individual MC80 tracks. I need to go back through the workflow to verify this (it's been awhile).
Looks like you have the scsi installed. I just installed one on my ex, when I go into the test mode it still shows the "dev err!" icon. But the drive works when I boot it up normally, I can save and format a new zip disk. Have you experienced this problem?
Thanks for the video. I'm looking forward to updating from 1.03. there are a few little software issues i noticed, so fingers crossed that this will fix them! By the way, I'm a man in Australia and sold an MC-80 EX on eBay last year... Don't know whether it was yours though!
Glad the video & accompanying links were useful. Hope 1.15 clears up the issues you had under 1.03 firmware. If software issues persist, I'm happy to run tests on my MC-80; let know.
@@vintageMIDI it did clear up my issues, thank you. Hopefully i can give something back by posting an mc-80 video one day. There is so little out there. Thanks again to you and the other good folk you learnt from.
That's an excellent question to which I have no definitive answer. I've never found a service manual or white paper that indicates what was in 1.08 or 1.15. At such low release numbers for both firmware releases, features weren't likely added, but rather issued stability/bug fixes.
This very nearly bricked my MC-80 but after 20 or so tries and reformatting it finally worked. I think my floppy disks may have been a bit too old so the data was not fully copying uncorrupted. Works great now thanks!
Yikes! There is nothing scarier than thinking loved gear is DOA after an update. Glad it worked out in the end.
Great video!. It's awesome to have some tutorials and extra info about our loved MC80!. Keep it coming. ❤ Have a good 2024. My best regards.
So glad to finally this thing begin to show up on UA-cam and with a firmware upgrade tutorial! I have 2 of these sequencers, and I never even checked what firmware they were on. I assumed it was all kept in ROM and I wasn't planning on buying replacement chips. I must've skipped the manual section on upgrades.
I quickly scanned over the manual and didn't see anything that indicated that an update was possible. Thanks to the VintageSynth & ROLANDCLAN forums I found out that it was a "thing" that could be done. Can't be sure what the update include, but I assume there must be stability improvements. Glad the tutorial helped; didn't want someone else to miss out on the best version of this amazing sequencer.
Great, informative vid!
Thanks Mr. Wood. Hope you got that sweet Roland of yours humming with new firmware.
Thanks for Video
Just bought an mc80 expanded and was wondering what the new firmware fixes and if it's worth doing. Really impressed with the VE GS pro sounds too. Good video tutorial. Thanks. 👍
Glad to hear you enjoyed the video on the MC80, David. Not sure what the last firmware fixes. If you find the specs on the firmware, please leave a link here, as we'd all like to know.
@@vintageMIDI I just installed a usb emulator in my mc80 and was wondering if it's possible to put the firmware on a usb drive and update it from that. I don't have a hard drive in mine.
Happy to finally update my MC-80EX sequencer with the help of folks from the RolandClan forum and the VintageSynth forum. Hope this helps you, too!
how to load songs into roland mc80?
Are your files standard .MID? Or are they formatted by another Roland sequencer? Please be as specific as possible.
If you want to know the basic procedure it's covered in the owner's manual.
www.roland.com/uk/support/by_product/mc-80/owners_manuals/
Hey, random MC-80 question: does anybody know how to bring existing data into a song? Say, a track from another song, a MIDI drum loop, or whatever? I can do it on MC-50, XP-80, fantom X, MV-8000, but stuck here!
A standard MIDI file with individual tracks assigned to discreet channels should import into the MC80; but as I recall it all ends up on one track in the MC80. The data is all there, but then notes assigned to a specific MIDI channel can be copy/pasted to individual MC80 tracks.
I need to go back through the workflow to verify this (it's been awhile).
@@vintageMIDI Thanks for the response.
why not just only drag and file into clean diskete?
Can't say why it doesn't work as easy as that. I tried it, but it what worked is what I showed in the video.
Looks like you have the scsi installed. I just installed one on my ex, when I go into the test mode it still shows the "dev err!" icon. But the drive works when I boot it up normally, I can save and format a new zip disk. Have you experienced this problem?
I've not experience the error you describe during test functions; SCSI termination would be something to check perhaps.
Thanks for the video. I'm looking forward to updating from 1.03. there are a few little software issues i noticed, so fingers crossed that this will fix them! By the way, I'm a man in Australia and sold an MC-80 EX on eBay last year... Don't know whether it was yours though!
Glad the video & accompanying links were useful. Hope 1.15 clears up the issues you had under 1.03 firmware. If software issues persist, I'm happy to run tests on my MC-80; let know.
@@vintageMIDI it did clear up my issues, thank you. Hopefully i can give something back by posting an mc-80 video one day. There is so little out there. Thanks again to you and the other good folk you learnt from.
What are the new features?
That's an excellent question to which I have no definitive answer. I've never found a service manual or white paper that indicates what was in 1.08 or 1.15. At such low release numbers for both firmware releases, features weren't likely added, but rather issued stability/bug fixes.