Combi Order / Librarian

michelkeijzers · Post by **michelkeijzers** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:05 pm

When playing live I always order my combis (one or two per song) in the playing order (even with empty - End of Set - combis in between sets).

However, as our band tends to change the order very regularly it takes me sometimes half an hour to rearrange the order. I therefor use some empty locations to minimize this rearranging (in case a new song has to be inserted at combi 5 for example, having to move all the other combis after that).

However, my question:

1. How do others cope with this problem? I guess a lot of players use this way of arranging their songs.
2. Is there some kind of librarian of the editor delived with the synth who can help this problem solve or minimize?

If there is none, I'm thinking about making a simple software program to quickly swap, insert and remove combis.

And a 'bonus' part:
Programs are used by combis. Sometimes I want to tweak a combi and therefor also the programs used by it. But I don't want to change the sound in combis using that same (altered) program.

3: How can I know which combis are using a program?

4: Would it be worthwhile to have an external software program that can create a report for each program: Like:

Prg Combis
A001 B017, C018, ...
A002 -
A003 B020, B021, C101, ...

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:42 pm

A good librarian will do 3 and 4. I don't know if there's a librarian for the M50, official or otherwise.

michelkeijzers · Post by **michelkeijzers** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:51 pm

@Kanthos: I completely agree .... if there is no good librarian I could make a small program to report these things based on a PCG file on disk ... not the ideal situation but reasonably easy to implement.

runeharpun · Post by **runeharpun** » Wed May 06, 2009 1:53 pm

Is there a spesification of the file format of combinations and the banks? I'm thinking about making a program to generate a new combi bank based on different single combination files.

runeharpun · Post by **runeharpun** » Wed May 06, 2009 2:12 pm

And to answer the question about how I cope with different performances and switching, this is my setup:

I've got a Behringer FCB 1010 hooked up to my M50. I've installed the UNO firmware, enabling the stompbox mode. This way I can turn on/off effects using my feet. So this is the function of the switches on the FCB:

1 - enable rotory speaker and/or distortion (CC82 and CC 83)
2 - enable chrorus (CC85)
3 - enable delay (CC86)
4 - different function based on which combo (CC87)
5 - Select next patch (solo patch). Connected to the M50 switch socket.
6 - patch 1
7 - patch 3
8 - patch 5
9 - patch 7
10 - patch 9

I can use different banks on my FCB 1010. So bank 2 would have patches 11,13,15,17 and 19.

The reason I only use every second spot, is that the even numbers have the solo patch connected to a performance. So combi 2 is the solo patch for combi 1. I can then use either the down key on the M50 to get back from the solo patch, or press the pedal on the FCB to select a spesific performance.

I've also set up one of the foot controllers (on the FCB1010) to tweak the volume of my MFX (which is always the stereo compressor, using CC88). This way I can make small volume adjustments while playing.

The other FCB pedal is set to CC4. Some performances use CC4 to blend between a more solo friendly sound and a standard sound. Some performances use CC4 to adjust distortion or delay level.

McHale · Post by **McHale** » Wed May 06, 2009 6:40 pm

This is one of the reasons my Triton is still my main synth. There was a free librarian for it and it takes me about 10 minutes to put all my patches in order. On the M3 or M50, it's a manual process of rearranging patches and way too time consuming. I'm afraid that without a librarian, my M3 and M50 will never be more than just secondary.

I'm surprised with all of the focus on PC integration that Korg didn't give us a librarian function. I'm hoping that that comes someday.

-Mc