# Boss DD-500 - save individual patches (USB/MIDI/SysEx)?



## wjmwpg (Mar 25, 2016)

Dear Boss DD-500 owners, do any of you know if it's possible to save and share individual DD-500 patches (do they call them presets?) via MIDI or USB (and most likely in SysEx format)? I see that the manual mentions bulk dumps via MIDI, but I'm getting conflicting information on the net (shocker!!!) about individual patch dumping and saving.


----------



## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I don't think Boss has any sharing platform set up, but I'm not 100% sure - I don't use my DD500 with MIDI at all.

Here's the place to ask (safari is being weird): Boss DD-500 Owner's Group on Facebook.


----------



## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

There's a HUGE thread over TGP on the differents fonctions of the DD-500.
Boss DD-500 Questions, Tips, Tricks, and Solutions


----------



## wjmwpg (Mar 25, 2016)

Thanks for the responses. 

@Ti-Ron I did post my question in that TGP thread and got one noncommittal _maybe, but it's clunky_. 

@Budda Thanks! I didn't know that existed. I'll check'em out.


----------



## wjmwpg (Mar 25, 2016)

Some notes on saving individual patches to your computer via MIDI, and then reloading them back from your computer to your DD: 

Okay . . . so here's the deal. The reason I wasn't seeing the patch saved back from my computer to my DD via MIDI is because it doesn't show up unless you leave the patch location you're saving to and then come back to it. Otherwise the DD gives you no indication that the "newly ingested" patch exists in any way after the RECEIVING BULK DATA message has finished flashing on the LCD for a split second. 

I had a patch in 01B called HSIW PARALLEL which I saved via MIDI sysex to my computer. Afterward I wrote a new patch into 01B, SWEEP HPF FILTER. Now when I saved the 01B HSIW PARALLEL patch back into the DD I saw and heard no change in the 01B patch. The DD LCD still read SWEEP HPF FILTER and the delay still sounded like SWEEP HPF FILTER, even though the display of the DD had shown the message RECEIVING BULK DATA when 01B HSIW PARALLEL was being sent back into it from the computer. But, when I left 01B and activated 01A, and then went back to 01B there was HSIW PARALLEL! 

So here's a quick summation of the things I've learned about saving individual patches via MIDI to your computer and loading them back into the DD:

1. In the MIDI BULK DUMP menu the FROM and TO parameters are not about where you're saving from and saving to, but rather the inclusive number of patches you are saving FROM the patch chosen in the FROM field TO the patch chosen in the TO field. So if you put 01A in the FROM field and 01B in the TO field and EXECUTE your DD will send a sysex message containing patches 01A and 01B together in one sysex file. If you were to select 31A in the FROM field and 61A in the TO field and EXECUTE your DD would send a larger sysex message containing all the patches in all 30 banks between 31A and 61A inclusively. It's a weird implementation, but there you have it. Because I like saving single patches I just put the same patch location in both the FROM and TO fields and that way the DD sends a sysex message containing the data for only that one patch. 

2. You don't get to choose to what patch location your MIDI sysex data gets saved to in the DD when you reload it from your computer into your DD. If the patch was in location 18B when you saved it to your computer that's where it's going to go back to when you reload it into the DD from your computer. 

3. The DEVICE ID in the MIDI menu must be the same when you are saving patches via MIDI as it is when you are reloading them. If your DEVICE ID was 17 when you saved a patch to your computer, but you've since changed the DEVICE ID # to something different, and you attempt to load that saved patch back from your computer to your DD, the DD will not recognize the MIDI sysex message. If you are attempting to load a patch (or a full SYSTEM DUMP) from your computer to the DD and you don't even get the RECEIVING BULK DATA message, check your DEVICE ID. If you don't know what the DEVICE ID was at the time the time that you (or somebody else!) saved the patch/system sysex backup via MIDI you'll have to try every DEVICE ID until one works. This is a silly and unnecessary limitation. 

4. When you save a single patch the sysex file created still contains more than one sysex message in the file, so if you use sysex software that can be set to capture single sysex messages or multiple sysex messages into a file, make sure you set it to multiple or you'll only capture the first part of the whole. I use SysEx Librarian for mac and it calls this option Record One and Record Many - so I gotta go with Record Many even when only backing up a single patch. This is a bit unusual in sysex land which is why I mention it. Usually saving a single patch would only require one sysex message, not multiple message in one sysex file. 

. . . I feel like I'm forgetting something, but that's it for now. I hope it helps anyone else out there trying to crack this nut. 

P.S. It's hard to believe Boss/Roland have been in the business of writing gear manuals for over thirty years.


----------



## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I think this will come in handy for some DD-500 owners, thanks for posting!


----------

