GR-55 - A little help wanted Creating some GR-55 Textual References

[blindjammer2015]

Normally don't come out and ask this on a public forum but really getting overwhelmed with everything on this unit and going to just throw the idea out there and see if anyone's willing to help.

As a totally blind user, memorizing screens is one of the most challenging parts of getting new gear. I've been fiddling with the gr-55 for a few days with the new Godin LGX-SA I got, but am quite frankly lost in screens. Not that the menus are too complex although all of them are vertical, but there are so many options it's difficult not to get bogged down. So, I came up with this idea. I'm wondering whether anyone on this forum would have the time and patience to colaborate with me on writing out a textual list of all the various screens and options in the menus and tabs of the gr-55? It's a big undertakingg, but I think it'd be a fantastic resource not only for myself, but also for other potential users who may also be blind and a little intimidated by everything they'll have to learn and memorize. Not a user guide with detailed explanations, the gr-55 owner's manual does a plenty good job of explaining it, just a list of the menus themselves. I understand that people have lives, jobs, family, etc, but I thought I would throw this idea out there as someone who really wants to dive deep and muck around with sounds and creating patches without having to rely on someone sighted every time and waiting until people have time. Thanks to anyone who even read this to the end! hahaha.

[Litesnsirens]

Have you tried using the GR-55 floorboard.  Everything is laid out better.

[blindjammer2015]

Unfortunately, the screen reading software I use doesn't cooperate well with the gr-55 floorboard, due to internal coding issues which can't be easily fixed without rebuilding the whole thing from scratch. Gumtown was kind enough to look into it for me. So I'm pretty well stuck at this point.

[vtgearhead]

It sounds like you might benefit from a pure command driven interface that didn't assume anything about current state or menu location. 

[blindjammer2015]

Menus can be memorized, so it's actually not a problem... other musicians who are blind navigate fully featured midi keyboards and similar gear with menus without a problem. A purely command driven interface would probably make things easier, but as it is, I don't think that's going to happen with the gr-55. lol And I'm not about to give up on it after spending the money to get the gear, especially as I knew what I was geting into. I love the possibilities this thing will give me, soon as I figure it out. haha.

[blindjammer2015]

I should also add, to clarify, that the gr-55 floorboard's editing controls don't work with screen reading software because they're graphical knobs, not conventional windows controls, and screen reading software is only designed to process plain text. this is a problem common with most gear editors, and for a blind user it's an absolute nightmare, hence why I began this thread. If I could soully rely on the floorboard, that would be way beyond any success I've had in the past.

[shawnb]

The good news is that all of the textual information for all of the menus is in the manual. 

The bad news is that it is buried in tables scattered throughout the manual - they don't have it collected in one "reference" section.  I imagine from your perspective, the "helpful" explanatory pages which use a lot of art & diagrams are very difficult to read. 

A way to extract the menu-related tables from the manual would be a rapid step in the right direction.   Good news: I found a free service that did a passable job of extracting the tables from the manual and converting them to Excel:  https://docs.zone/pdf-to-excel.

The other challenge is that there are several functions that are graphical in nature & require using the GR-55's display.  For example editing the signal path structure, editing patch names and setting GK sensitivity per string.  Reading GR-55's error messages is also something I can't wrap my head around (blind or not...).   Let's not worry about these challenges for now... 

As I see it...
Step 1 - Get all the menu-related tables in a very simple, structured readable format.
Step 2 - You want your screen reader to give you verbal cues for where you should be on the GR-55.  So we need to somehow present these menu tables in a way that emulates the GR-55's navigation.

I'm almost done with Step 1, I'll share it in a day or so & we can review it. 

I'm still thinking about Step 2.

[shawnb]

A few questions:
What screen readers do you use?   
Can you navigate Excel?
When you are on a specific cell in Excel, can your screen reader be set up to read ONLY the contents of that cell?   

[CodeSmart]

Maybe I'll get no where, but I have asked a couple of good contacts working for Roland for a contact in Roland Japan that might have the menu system of GR-55 in reable English.
If I get some positive response I'll post it here.
(well...probably nothing will happen, but I gived it a try).

[shawnb]

Blindjammer2015, let me know if this helps.  It's a start.  This should be much easier to use than the manual.  Please check it out & we can talk about next steps.  If needed, we can set up a phone call. 

Attached is an Excel file that has all of the tables in the GR-55's Owner's Manual.  It's actually kind of nice, a no BS version of the manual.  Basically what should have been the reference chapters. 

I am still thinking about how to structure it better.  One of the biggest issues we will face is the fact that the lists of parameters are dynamic, based on parameters selected earlier. 

There are two tabs in the attached.  The first is a cleaned up version with table titles & some descriptions in place of images.  The second tab is the raw table data & should be ignored for now. 

[blindjammer2015]

Thank you Shawn! this is most definitely something to start with... and I'll definitely make use of it as a starting resource. Hoping others can offer pointers as well, but I appreciate the offer of a phonecall or similar!

P.S: Also am wondering about an issue with my new Godin LGX-SA and the model tones as expressed here:
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=142.275
Thoughts would be appreciated. I hate to pile on, and I know I appear a little ignorant due to all the questions. Most of it is due to not being able to read anything and experiment at the same pace as someone with sight... but part of it is also my lack of experience when programming anything other than basic guitar tones from multi FX units.

[shawnb]

Let's sync up in a couple of days.   I am in San Francisco, so pacific time zone. 
We can do a lunch hour or an evening, 6:00pm+ pacific time.  Weekend mornings are often good also. 
PM me with some times and we will make it happen. 

[admin_shawnb]

Blindjammer2015 -

Let me know if this is on the right track.    I am about halfway done.  I have the TONE entries completed and parts of the EFFECTS entries.    It is written as a dynamic lookup, in part to account for all of the dynamic lists in the GR-55 and in part because there are well over 100 variants of sets of parameters. 

I was trying to make this self-explanatory.  Hope I'm close!   If needed, we can have another phone call. 



I'd appreciate it if anybody else could take a peek and help verify some of the entries.   Do some spot checking if you're bored!  I think this may be a handy resource for those with sight as well, it's kinda nice seeing all of the appropriate parameters at a glance... 

(EDIT: See 9/14 post for latest version.)

[blindjammer2015]

I'm absolutely stunned. Haven't even started looking at it in detail yet... but this is exactly what I was looking for. There are no words to express how much this has made my day... thank you so much! And if more people do indeed want to jump on this as well and add more to this already seemingly expansive resouce, that'd be incredible... thanks once again Shawn for being willing to take this on!

[shawnb]

You're welcome!   I must say I'm impressed with how far you've gotten already & your can-do attitude. 

Timing was perfect, in a strange way.  I came down with a very nasty bug so I've been stuck at home listening to music on anti-histamines & pain killers for the last couple of days.  Copy, paste, tweak...  Copy, paste, tweak...  That's about all I could do. 

I'm almost done.  Down to the two most difficult items to describe - GK PEDAL & Assigns.  Give me a day or two & I'll download the completed workbook.

Let me know how it goes. 

[whippinpost91850]

Shawnb you're amazing. Don't over do yourself

[blindjammer2015]

He most certainly is amazing! And Shawn I'm glad the timing just happend to work out. sorry about the cold, though! Not that this is a big deal, but I notice the Owner's Manual's patch list is actually out of date... though that's primarily Roland's fault. None of the additional patches from the updated firmware got into the patch list since it only shows 30 when in reality there are ten new banks. At least, from what I understand... haha. And the Can Do attitude is more because I'm stubborn and because I've had some help along the way! Might've given up otherwise. I just don't believe in letting my blindness be a hastle where it doesn't have to be.

[shawnb]

Roland published an addendum, it's up on their site.

I'll add it to the next version of the workbook!

[shawnb]

New version uploaded - I updated the workbook in Reply #12 above.   

Changes:
  -  All tone & effect menus are done
  -  Almost all master & system menus are done - just a handful left, mainly pedals & assigns
  -  Worked around a bizarre ms query bug where it would truncate anything greater than 256 bytes
  -  Added the presets from the GR-55 Addendum.  The addendum didn't have the components, though, just the patch names.

[blindjammer2015]

Unfortunate the additions don't include the full data... but that whole patch list I feel isn't detailed enough since it doesn't discuss the control and exp peddle functions. Will start looking at this in detail. Thanks again for the incredible work!

[Elantric]

Unfortunate the additions don't include the full data... but that whole patch list I feel isn't detailed enough since it doesn't discuss the control and exp peddle functions. 

see the sheet named "All Tables" and go to excel spreadsheet cell "A 1433" for info on PEDAL/GK CTL

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=19002.0;attach=14700

For context and tutorials of how to use these controls
Read ALL the docs in the Roland COSM Library thread  - that has links to PDF docs that explain all VG/GR/GP/GT features in far greater detail
(see links below)

Roland GS-10 COSM dynamic processor
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=88.0;attach=68

Roland GS-10 COSM Speaker
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=88.0;attach=69

Boss_GT-x_Set-up_v02.pdf
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=88.0;attach=462


Boss_GT-8 Brilliance.pdf
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=88.0;attach=464

Learn about the Roland / Boss "Internal Pedal" and "Wave Pedal" here:

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8782.msg92882#msg92882

[shawnb]

Elantric -

I think blindjammer2015 is talking about the detailed patch configuration.  I think he was hoping that the patch documentation would include info such as voices, pedal assignments & effects.  It would be easier for him to modify & tweak a well-documented existing configuration than to build a patch up from scratch.   

Shawn

[Elantric]

GR-55 Floorboard is the app he needs
just needs a friend to remove the entire plastic dust cover plug from his GR-55's USB port
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=19080.msg136772#msg136772

[blindjammer2015]

As it happens, I did fix the problem with the USB port. Just took a steak knife and very careful prodding to see how I could get the point between the remains of the cover and the main unit, but managed it, and the thing is now gone. and the GR-55 floorboard would be fantastic if Gumtown could make it a bit more accessible without scrapping the entire sourcecode and rebuilding it, which unfortunately can't be done. So am just going to have to build my own patches with the amazing resource that Shawn's written up and figuring out my way through the menus, maybe getting someone to check them along the way. I can at least program the entirety of both PCM tones, modelling tone, and my normal pickups... which is a start. It can only get better from here!

[shawnb]

This is the completed document.  All menus are covered. 

I do think this is a helpful resource for lots of folks - seeing the Basic Edit functions laid out like this is handy.  Also, seeing all the parameters at a glance is handy.  And the simple dump of all tables in searchable format is handy as well. 

The primary intent is to help someone who is blind or who has limited vision to be able to navigate the GR-55 with the assistance of this spreadsheet and a screen reader. 

Again, I'd welcome input & edits & double-checking from folks.

(EDIT: New version uploaded 9/18/16, improved navigation descriptions.)

(SIDE NOTE:  VBA programming geeks may appreciate my solutions to two thorny issues here:  (1) Data truncation on queries that return memo fields > 256 characters, and (2) This spreadsheet works wherever you put it...  How did I get around MS Query's internal insistence for hard-coding paths in connect strings?   ;^)  )