motiz88 / gr55-remote

A patch editing app for the Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer.

GR-55 Editor

An experimental, unofficial patch editing app for the Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer.

The app is written in TypeScript, and is built with React Native and Expo for the Web, Android and iOS. It uses the Web MIDI API (via https://github.com/motiz88/react-native-midi) to send and receive patch data.

This repo is a work in progress. You can find links to download the app, as well as usage instructions, at https://gr55.app.

Development setup

1. Follow the Expo setup guide to install Node (required) and the tools needed to build for iOS and Android (optional, depends on your target platform).
2. Clone this repository.
3. In your local checkout, run npm install followed by one of npx expo start --web, npx expo run:ios, or npx expo run:android.
4. Once the app has started, changes you make to .ts and .tsx files will take effect immediately.

Note that the iOS Simulator and Android Emulator do not support USB/Bluetooth MIDI connections. The options for developing while connected to a real GR-55 are:

• Develop using the Web version on PC/Mac (recommended for most changes).
• Use a physical iPhone, iPad or Android device (recommended if working on iOS/Android-specific changes).
• For advanced use cases: Join a Network MIDI session from the iOS Simulator and route MIDI messages to/from your Mac's connected MIDI devices.
• For advanced use cases: Use Xcode to run the iOS app as a Mac app using Mac Catalyst (Macs with Apple silicon only).

Acknowledgements

Major thanks to @gumtown for building the excellent GR-55Floorboard without which this project would not be possible.

More info

• vguitarforums.com thread

gr55-remote's Issues

Check PC TX SWITCH setting is on when connecting

The app relies on PC TX SWITCH: ON to stay in sync with the current patch on the GR-55, so it's useful to check that it's on when we first connect to a GR-55. We should either set it to on automatically (which is a bit invasive) or ideally offer to set it automatically (with an option to silence the suggestion if the user declines).

System dark mode is applied inconsistently

Seen in this forum post: (the SegmentedControl seems to render in a dark theme, unlike the rest of the UI)

Slider fields are broken in some tabs on web

Due to callstack/react-native-slider#471, after navigating between tabs, sliders are often unresponsive. This only affects the web build of the app.

sliders.bug.mov

STRUCT tab label wraps on some screen sizes

Seen in this forum post:

DirectPicker (SegmentedControl) stretches icons on iOS

This is because of react-native-segmented-control/segmented-control#635.