1Introduction

WS-30 Player is a sampler plugin that loads Roland W-30 floppy disk images and plays their patches the way the original hardware does. It also reads Roland S-550 and S-50 sound disks, which use the same sound data format.

The plugin copies the W-30's memory exactly. Anything that would not fit on a real W-30 does not fit here either. If you know the hardware, you already know the plugin. If you don't, section 4 explains the few ideas you need.

What it reads

System requirements

WS-30 Player works in any VST3 or AU host, including Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Cubase, FL Studio, Bitwig, Reaper and Studio One.

2Installation and activation

The download is the full plugin. Until you enter a licence key it runs as a demo: everything works, but the sound drops out for 2 seconds every 45 seconds.

Install on macOS

1. Unzip the download and double-click WS-30-Player-0.2.0-macOS.pkg.
2. Follow the installer. It puts the VST3 and AU versions in the system plug-in folders for you.
3. Open your DAW. WS-30 Player appears as an instrument (in Logic Pro, under AU Instruments).

Install on Windows

1. Unzip the download.
2. Move the whole WS-30 Player.vst3 folder to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3. Windows asks for permission, because that folder is shared by all users.
3. Open your DAW and rescan plug-ins. WS-30 Player appears as an instrument.

Activate your licence

Your licence key is in the purchase email from Lemon Squeezy.

1. Open WS-30 Player in your DAW.
2. Click About (or the logo).
3. Click Activate, paste your licence key and click Activate.

You need an internet connection once, to activate. After that the plugin works offline, and the About screen shows LICENSED TO and your name.

One key works on up to 3 computers. To move it to a new computer, open About on the old one and click Deactivate first.

Updates

WS-30 Player checks for a new version at most once a day. When one is out, the ABOUT key's LED lights and the About screen shows a link to download it. Install it the same way; your licence stays activated.

3Quick start

To hear a disk, double-click it in the library and then play. You don't need LOAD PATCH, LOAD BLOCK or any of the other keys for that.

1. Add WS-30 Player to an instrument track in your DAW.
2. Click Library at the top of the panel.
3. Find the folder with your disk images and double-click it to open it.
4. Double-click a disk (for example a .OUT file). The whole disk loads into memory. This is the same as selecting it and pressing Load Set.
5. Click Close to return to the main panel.
6. Click a patch name on the PATCH screen, then play from your MIDI keyboard.

You can also drag a floppy image from Finder or Explorer straight onto the plugin. It loads the whole disk in one go.

4How a W-30 disk is organised

A W-30 sound is built from a few samples spread across the keyboard, each one covering a range of keys. Once you know the four words below, the rest of the plugin makes sense.

Zones: why a patch looks split into coloured blocks

A patch divides the keyboard into zones. Each zone plays one tone. The coloured LEDs above the on-screen keyboard show where each zone starts and ends.

For example, the Ac Piano patch shown in section 5 uses samples of seven piano notes spread across the keyboard. Each sample covers the keys around the note it was recorded at. Within a zone, the sample is played faster or slower to give each key its correct pitch, exactly as on the hardware. So every key plays its own note, but the tone colour changes slightly where one zone hands over to the next.

Each of those seven notes was also sampled twice: played softly (the tones named mp) and played hard (ff). The patch uses the Mix key mode, so every key plays both, and how hard you play sets how much of the loud sample you hear. That's how a W-30 piano sounds brighter when you play harder.

Why the tone list looks out of order

The tone list shows tones in the order they sit in memory, not in pitch order. On the piano disk, the seven soft samples are tones 1 to 7 in bank A, and the seven loud ones are tones 9 to 15 in bank B. So halfway down, the list jumps back to the lowest note. Other disks are arranged differently, depending on how they were made. Whatever the order, the patch maps every sample to the right keys.

Sub tones

A sub tone is a second tone that shares the wave memory of another tone but has different settings, such as a different loop or filter. It costs a tone number but no extra wave memory. Sub tones are marked SUB in the library.

Key modes

Each patch has a key mode that decides what happens when you press a key.

ROM tones

The W-30 has built-in ROM tones that patches can use without any samples on the disk. Those sounds are stored inside the W-30 itself, not on the disk, so WS-30 Player can't play them. Keys that use ROM tones are silent, and the main screen tells you how many there are, for example 3 KEYS USE ROM TONES (SILENT).

5The front panel

The panel has four screens, a row of keys at the top, a row of function keys above the keyboard, and four knobs. The screens copy the W-30's blue 240 x 64 dot display.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. 1Top keys
2. 2Main screen
3. 3Master knobs
4. 4PATCH screen
5. 5TONE / PART SET screen
6. 6WAVE screen
7. 7Function keys
8. 8Keyboard and zone LEDs

1. Top keys

2. Main screen

The large screen at the top shows the current disk and patch.

• Top line: the disk name, and on the right the disk type (for example W-30 DISK), or MULTI PART A CH1 in Multi mode, or TONE PLAY.
• Patch line: the patch number and name in large letters.
• Details line: key mode, bend range, octave shift and patch level, for example MODE:Norm BEND:2 OCT:+0 LVL:127.
• Status line: the disk label, or a warning such as keys that use ROM tones.
• Bottom tabs (Single mode): the output routing, filter, interpolation and voice mode at a glance. In Multi mode this area shows the 8 parts instead.

With no disk loaded, it shows NO DISK and the file types you can drop onto it. If a disk can't be read, the reason appears here.

3. Master knobs

4. PATCH screen

Lists the 16 patches in memory. Click a patch to play it. In Multi mode, clicking a patch assigns it to the selected part. Scroll with the mouse wheel or the arrow keys.

5. TONE screen (PART SET in Multi mode)

In Single mode it lists the tones in memory with their bank and root key. Clicking a tone switches to Tone Play, as on the W-30: the whole keyboard plays that one tone, using the current patch's level, bend range and octave shift. Click any patch to return to normal patch play.

In Multi mode this screen becomes the PART SET. See section 7.

6. WAVE screen

Shows the waveform of the selected tone, with a moving playhead for each note that's sounding. The bottom line shows the loop type (FWD, ALT, 1SHOT or REV), the length in seconds and the root key. Click the left or right half of the screen to step through the tones.

The WAVE screen follows the last tone you played, so you can see which sample each key triggers.

7. Function keys

MIX, DISK and PART are covered in more detail in section 8.

8. Keyboard and zone LEDs

The on-screen keyboard runs from C1 to C8. The row of coloured LEDs above it shows which tone each key plays: one colour per zone. Click an LED to show that tone on the TONE and WAVE screens.

When you play with the mouse, where you click on a key sets how hard the note plays. Click near the bottom of a key for a strong note. Near the top, notes are very quiet.

You can make the window bigger or smaller by dragging its bottom-right corner. Your DAW project remembers the size.

6The disk library

The library works like the W-30's disk functions: you pick a disk, look at what's on it, then load all of it or just part of it into memory. Click Library to open it and Close to return to the panel.

The three screens

The long screen at the bottom shows hints and the result of each operation, for example LOAD SET: COMPLETE.

Browsing

Click a disk once to see its contents on the DISK screen. Double-click it to load the whole disk.

CD-ROM and hard disk images (.ISO, .NRG, .BIN, .IMG) hold many disks. Double-click one to open it; its disks are listed in groups, such as KEYBOARD ACOUSTIC PIANO. Click an area to see it, double-click to load it.

Up/Down, Page Up/Down, Home/End, Enter, Backspace, Delete and Tab work in every list. The library reopens where you left it, including your place inside large CD images.

Checking a disk before loading

In Patch view, each patch on the DISK screen shows how many tones it needs and how many seconds of wave memory. The highlighted line at the top shows the same for the selected patch: CHECK 16T 14.7S means 16 tones and 14.7 seconds. In Tone view, each tone shows its bank (A or B), length in seconds, and SUB if it's a sub tone.

Auditioning

Audition is on when you open the library. While it's on, the keyboard plays the patch or tone selected on the DISK screen, without loading it. That makes it quick to hear a whole folder of disks. Turn AUDITION off to play what's in memory instead.

Loading

The simplest choice is nearly always Load Set (or a double-click). Use the others when you want to combine sounds from several disks.

If you've changed memory since loading it, LOAD SET and LOAD BLOCK ask before replacing it.

Building your own set of patches

LOAD PATCH and the TONE keys add sounds to what's already in memory. Memory is limited to 32 tones and 14.4 seconds, the same as a W-30, and a full disk usually uses most of that. So clear memory first:

1. Press New to clear memory. The MEMORY screen should show about 7.2 seconds free in each bank and 32 free tones.
2. Select a disk in the BROWSER.
3. Make sure Patch view is on.
4. Click a patch on the DISK screen.
5. Click an empty patch (shown as -) on the MEMORY screen. The library picks the first empty one for you.
6. Press Load Patch.
7. Repeat from step 2 for each patch you want, from the same disk or others.

LOAD PATCH copies the patch's samples into free wave memory and gives its tones free tone numbers. It rewrites the patch's key zones to match, just as the W-30 does. After each load, the next empty memory patch is selected, ready for the next one.

To load one tone, switch to Tone view, click a disk tone and a memory tone, then press Tone > A or Tone > B to choose its wave bank.

Managing memory

An asterisk after MEMORY on the right-hand screen means memory has changed since it was loaded.

Search, favourites and recent disks

The first search in a large folder takes a moment while the plugin indexes it in the background. After that, the index is cached and searches are instant.

7Single and Multi play modes

Use Single to play one patch at a time. Use Multi to play up to 8 patches at once, each on its own MIDI channel, like the W-30's Part Set.

Single mode

One patch plays on every MIDI channel. Click a patch on the PATCH screen to choose it, or send MIDI program change 1 to 16 to select patches 1 to 16.

Multi mode

In Multi mode the middle screen becomes the PART SET. It lists 8 parts, A to H. Each part has a MIDI channel (CH), a patch and a level (LVL). The Part Set loads from the disk with LOAD SET.

The on-screen keyboard plays the selected part. The main screen shows that part (for example MULTI PART A CH1), and a summary of all 8 parts along the bottom. A marker flashes beside a part while it's receiving notes.

Program change messages change the patch of every part on that MIDI channel. LOAD BLOCK loads a disk's sounds but keeps your current Part Set, so your channel set-up survives when you change disks.

Voice mode (V-MODE)

The W-30 has 16 voices. V-Mode decides how parts share them.

Fixed voices stop a busy drum part from cutting off notes in a pad part. The VOICES knob sets the total number of voices, up to 32.

8Outputs, MIDI and your DAW

Individual outputs

As well as the main stereo output, WS-30 Player has 8 individual outputs, Out 1 to Out 8, like the W-30. First enable the extra outputs in your DAW (how you do this depends on the DAW; look for multi-output instruments in its manual). Then choose the routing with the function keys:

If a sound is routed to an output your DAW hasn't enabled, it plays through the main mix instead, so nothing goes missing.

MIDI

Pitch bend, mod wheel and sustain work separately on each MIDI channel.

Automation

Your DAW can automate and save these parameters: Patch, Volume, Master Tune, TVF Filter on/off, Interpolation (Clean or Vintage), Polyphony, Play Mode, Output Routing, Voice Mode and Analogue Character.

Saved with your project

The disk image you loaded is saved inside your DAW project, along with any changes you made to memory. Your session reopens with the same sounds even if you move or delete the original disk file. The window size is saved too.

Exporting samples as WAV files

Export WAV saves every sample in memory as a WAV file, so you can use the sounds in another sampler.

1. Load a disk.
2. Click Export WAV.
3. Choose a folder.

Each WAV file includes its root key and loop points, which most samplers read automatically.

9Troubleshooting

Most problems come from loading a patch into memory that's already full, or from playing the on-screen keys near the top. Both are quick to fix.

Common problems

Disk messages

Activation messages

10Support and glossary

Getting help

Email [email protected]. The address is also on the About screen. To help us sort out a problem quickly, please include:

• the version number from the About screen
• your computer (Mac or PC) and operating system version
• your DAW and its version
• the name of the disk file you were using
• what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead

A short screen recording is often the quickest way to show a problem.

Glossary