OrganDonor Roland RS-202 String Synthesizer User Manual
- October 30, 2023
- OrganDonor
Table of Contents
Installation manual for Roland RS-202 Polyphonic
Ensemble
Roland RS-202 String Synthesizer
Tools you will need:
- Soldering iron
- Wire stripper
- Metal drill 3.5mm (or similar)
- Metal drill for a 15mm hole (stepping drill for example)
- Center punch
- Screw driver
Included in the kit:
- OrganDonor Main Board
- 4x organ Donor switch board, 3x16pin Connector, 1×20 pin connector
- Analog switch connection: 3×16 – 9cm, 1x20p – 9cm
- Interconnect cables: 1x 12cm, 3x8cm
- Midi connector assembly
- Power connector
- Learn button
- 16x screw 2,9×6.5mm
- Midi socket drill guide
- 2x M3 bolt, 2xM3 nut for midi socket
Principle of operation
OrganDonor uses analog switches to simulate keyboard presses directly.
Normally this would require to solder two wires for each key. Luckily this can
often be avoided by grouping common signals. OrganDonor features solder
jumpers to connect common signals on the back of each analog switch board. We
already connect these jumpers for you.
In the case of the RS-202, there is only one common signal. You will only need
to solder 61 wires instead of 122.
Installation
Using 4 2,9×6,5mm screws, mount the OrganDonor mainboard on the back side like shown in figure 1. The 3 power wires for OrganDonor are soldered to the connector shown in figure 2 and plugged into the OrganDonor main board.
Switch board installation
Mount the switch boards on the back of the case as shown in figure 3 using the
2,9×6,5mm screws. The 3 left boards have 16 pin connectors, the last one on
the right has a 20 pin connector!
Use the interconnect wires to connect the main board and the 4th switch
boards.
Strip the analog connection wires and solder them to the connectors as shown
in figure 3 and figure 4. Switch boards 1-3 are connected identically, the 4
board has the 20 pin connector. Here, the outermost wires (2 on the left and 2
on the right side of the ribbon cable) are the common connection. As you can
see in the picture we used one of the wires on the left, but it is probably
easier to use the rightmost wire (drawn in red). The unused wires can be cut.
Now is probably a good moment to power on and verify everything is working,
before drilling the hole for the midi socket.
Installing the midi socket
The midi socket can be installed on the back of the machine like we did, or
invisibly in the power cord compartment.
Use the provided drill guide to center punch the locations of the 3 holes. The
two small holes need to be about 3.5mm in diameter, the large hole 15mm. Here
we typically use a stepping drill.
Installing the learn button
The optional learn button can be used to set midi channel. It needs to be
connected to the IO “2” and “G” pin on the main board. (The back of the main
board has labels on it). Wires are not included in the kit.
Press the learn button and while it is pressed send a midi note on any midi
channel. OrganDonor will use this midi channel from now on. These settings are
saved.
Configuration
We already configured OrganDonor for the RS-202.
There is, however, a software configuration tool available, in case you want
to play around with settings and key assignments etc.
You`ll find the configurator here:
https://tubbutec.de/files/organDonor/tubbutecOrganDonorConfigurator.html
This is a browser application, it works with Chrome and Safari right away,
Firefox needs to be configured for web MIDI.
The configurator allows you to upload your settings directly from your browser
to OrganDonor, safe and load settings and export settings as SysEx files for
uploading to Organ Donor via another SysEx tool.
We recommend the RS-202 configuration file (available for download on our
website) as a starting point for your custom configuration. Also, in case you
run into a dead end and nothing works anymore you can flash this file and are
good to go again.