polyphony in M3's combination

Stefanus Wayanartha · Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:31 am

StA:
after trying to create a simple combination, i realized one thing. if i set a piano, a string and a pad (in the same channel such as ch1 for all) in a fresh new combi (we assume that those 3 sounds using double oscilator each), i layer it together, and i play it....of course you will get 60 / 3 = 18 voices (because i use double oscilator).. am i correct?

oke next i want to mute those string and pad, so i just play the piano only. i press Play button so those sounds are disabled. so now i just hear the piano only... but why the polyphony is still 18 voices?? i cannot get the whole 60 voices in my single piano...

i think M3 just mute the audio process after it's engine process the midi. in a short way, M3 still process those string and pad, and save those polyphony for them.

and if i press a chord (still piano only), and i press Play button on those string and pad, suddenly string and pad sounds appear within those chord i press...

so my question, why Korg decide to implementate this concept of Play/Mute button? why dont Korg set the MIDI notes off on thos Muted track?

thank you for your oppinion

r12 · Post by **r12** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:40 am

this function allow you to unmute tracks after note on

Stefanus Wayanartha · Post by **Stefanus Wayanartha** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:51 am

StA:
But as a counter, the polyphonic is decrease..

i think i can use a combi with a piano and a layered string, and in the beginning i mute the string channel, and i unmute when i want to use it. but until now, i cannot get the smoother way to use it..

in fact when i press the unmute to the string channel (when i play using a piano sound with a damper), the string sound suddenly appear..haha. except i set the volume to 0 for the first, then i increase it gently...

but i still cannot get the maximized voice at all when i just playing piano with the muted string behind...

*man ... i get confused both with my story and my english T______T*

m3newbie · Post by **m3newbie** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:33 am

I posted about the same problem and requested a fox for this in the M3
Wishlist sticky. I elaborate a little more on this. Here's what I posted...

As a live performer, a few issues that really bugs me that needs to be
addressed. These problems are somehow related.

1. All PROG in COMBI takes up polyphony regardless if it's muted or not.
It seems like while a PROG is muted in COMBI, it still takes up the
polyphony as though it is played. Instead of mute/play why not just have
the sound turned "off". The Roland XP-30 can do this.

2. Changing from from one COMBI to another and from one PROG to
another abruptly cuts of the sound currently played or sustained. Putting
the PROGS inside a COMBI and changing from one to another from inside
a COMBI doesn't cuts of the previous sound but it has its own problem
related to the problem #1 posted above which brings me to #3.

3. Because all sounds are being triggered all at one regardless if it is
muted or not, it takes away from the polyphony AND it creates a big
problem when playing and muting sounds within a COMBI. The same
problem also arises when you use SW1,2 to trigger a layered sound.
Again, fixing problem #1 will probably help fix this problem as well.

Let's take PROG 1-A 024 "Stereo Grand 2-Way SW1" for example. The
moment you press the SW1 button to bring in the strings, all hell breaks
loose and it sounds like a big glob of mess with the strings abruptly
sounding with any keys played or even sustained at the moment. This is
also true when muting and unmuting sounds within a COMBI.

What needs to happen is that regardless if keys are played or sustain (by
sustain pedal) the moment you use the SW1,2 switches or changing
programs within a COMBI, the new sounds should only be triggered by
keys played after the swtich/change while the old sounds are sustained
until the keys played before the switch/change are released.

PLEASE HAVE A FIX FOR THIS! - *Keeping fingers crossed*

Stefanus Wayanartha · Post by **Stefanus Wayanartha** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:47 am

StA:
Yesss!!! exactly like that!!! that what was i meant...
for me those are the most problem in live performance T______T
i hope korg will take the most attention for these problems

lets post it to korg directly

jerrythek · Post by **jerrythek** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:37 pm

There are important benefits to the way we implemented Mute - the main being that like a mixing console you can turn on and off the audio signal while it is playing. If we turn off the synth engine you cannot bring back the sound/track without playing new notes.

So yes, our design is based on control of audio muting, not polyphony.

There are a couple of ways to do what you want, try studying up on the Timbre On/Off function by KARMA... if you aren't using KARMA to run any patterns you can still use it to completely turn on and off timbres when you press the KARMA button. It's a very cool, slightly hidden performance function.

You could also play your Combi in Sequencer Mode, record the Sys Ex control of the Timbre Status parameter (from INT to OFF) into a Pattern and then map that Pattern to RPPR, and even to one of the Pads to achieve this...

A bit tricky, but with our advanced viewing of Sys. Ex. control it's actually pretty easy to do this. Go to the Track Edit, Create Sys. Ex. command near the end of the upper RH menu choices and explore a bit.

Regards,

Jerry

Stefanus Wayanartha · Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:56 pm

StA:
Thanks for the explanation

i think audio mute has some benefits for some players, but midi mute also has benefits in many situation. Im using Yamaha PSR series for many years, and those upper 1 and upper 2 button is using MIDI mute and i can do smooth transition when i want to mute upper 2 layer only without cutting the sound..

maybe i can suggenst one thing that Korg can implement, that is adding one MIDI mute button right below the audio Mute button, so musician who want to use smooth transition in mutting some sound, and they will get some additional polyphony by disabling some layer

is that possible? i thing its a great and useful feature that no synth implement it. But i dont know how it will be contradicted with Karma engine.

The tricky midi mute by Karma will also losing our chance in using one Karma layer

i dont want to sacrifice one karma layer just for mute midi layers. do i correct?

But thank you for your explanation since im very happy and pleassured by your idea and solution

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 12:54 pm

jerrythek wrote:You could also play your Combi in Sequencer Mode, record the Sys Ex control of the Timbre Status parameter (from INT to OFF) into a Pattern and then map that Pattern to RPPR, and even to one of the Pads to achieve this...

A bit tricky, but with our advanced viewing of Sys. Ex. control it's actually pretty easy to do this. Go to the Track Edit, Create Sys. Ex. command near the end of the upper RH menu choices and explore a bit.

Is this possible on the TR or M50 as well? Seems like it'd be the big answer to the "how to switch sounds within a combi" question that everyone has.

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:38 pm

jerrythek wrote:There are important benefits to the way we implemented Mute - the main being that like a mixing console you can turn on and off the audio signal while it is playing. If we turn off the synth engine you cannot bring back the sound/track without playing new notes.

So yes, our design is based on control of audio muting, not polyphony.

There are a couple of ways to do what you want, try studying up on the Timbre On/Off function by KARMA... if you aren't using KARMA to run any patterns you can still use it to completely turn on and off timbres when you press the KARMA button. It's a very cool, slightly hidden performance function.

You could also play your Combi in Sequencer Mode, record the Sys Ex control of the Timbre Status parameter (from INT to OFF) into a Pattern and then map that Pattern to RPPR, and even to one of the Pads to achieve this...

A bit tricky, but with our advanced viewing of Sys. Ex. control it's actually pretty easy to do this. Go to the Track Edit, Create Sys. Ex. command near the end of the upper RH menu choices and explore a bit.

Regards,

Jerry

Hi Jerry,

Many of us are trying to find an effective way of changing lead programs during live performance. To assign say 8 different "lead" programs to a Combi and then use two of the PLAY/MUTE buttons to deselect the current sound and select another is one option but we need to prevent running out of polyphony.

Your suggestion seems promising but it's too complicated for me to work out and I can't find any documentation on it despite doing extensive searches in all Korg documents for "timbre status".

Could Korg please provide us with one worked example Combi in which say any one of 8 sounds can be solo'ed via a single button or key press, and whereby the other 7 sounds that are not playing do not use up polyphony?

If you can do that for us, with one working example and some notes to explain how it's done, I'm sure we can take it from there.

Many thanks,
Rob

Stefanus Wayanartha · Post by **Stefanus Wayanartha** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:55 pm

StA:
in a simple word, midi mute button will give musician more benefits

like what Rob said and what i said before. Why dont Korg give it a try? as long as it is possible to implement...

jerrythek · Post by **jerrythek** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:10 pm

Rob,

My tricky method requires using Sequencer Mode, since we are going to use RPPR to act as a Sys. Ex. switch.

The Timbre Status parameter is found on the P3, MIDI tabs. It just says Status, but since it's found under Timbre Parameters I commonly call it Timbre Status. Sorry for confusing you with that.

I am working on some examples, in my spare time... which there seems so little of. But it'll be coming soon.

Regards,

Jerry

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:21 pm

jerrythek wrote:I am working on some examples, in my spare time... which there seems so little of. But it'll be coming soon.

Hi Jerry,

Many thanks, your worked examples will help a lot. Sorry I'm not yet experienced enough to work out how to implement your suggestions on my own. Give me another day or two.

Best regards,
Rob

Daz · Post by **Daz** » Fri May 01, 2009 4:48 am

I owe Jerry a favour, so I've created an example song file that demonstrates the technique he mentioned so you can evaluate it.

The following zip contains a song file called TSCTL.SNG

http://daz.korgforums.com/misc/tsctl.zip

It contains a single song. The first four tracks are all assigned to MIDI channel 1 and all have their Status set to INT (i.e. enabled), so if you hit a key all 4 tracks' Programs will sound. All the other tracks/timbres are disabled (Status = Off), except Track 16 which I am using for the RPPR routing.

Jerry had suggested the following :

You could also play your Combi in Sequencer Mode, record the Sys Ex control of the Timbre Status parameter (from INT to OFF) into a Pattern and then map that Pattern to RPPR, and even to one of the Pads to achieve this...

In keeping with that, I created 8 RPPR patterns each of which contains a sysex message to change the Status of a particular track to on or off (INT or OFF). I named the patterns so it is clear what each does ('trk1 on', 'trk3 off' etc.). I then assigned each of those patterns to the 8 keys starting at F7, and configured the 8 pads to play those 8 notes so you have the following actions assigned to each pad :

Pad 1 : Enables Track 1
Pad 2 : Enables Track 2
Pad 3 : Enables Track 3
Pad 4 : Enables Track 4

Pad 5 : Disables Track 1
Pad 6 : Disables Track 2
Pad 7 : Disables Track 3
Pad 8 : Disables Track 4

Feel free to change the notes (and thus patterns) assigned to the pads. You can trigger more than one pattern using a single pad by assigning multiple notes.

====

Let me tell you how I created the Sysex Message that is used by the patterns, 'cos it was a little fiddly.

Firstly I did as Jerry suggested and explored the 'Create Excl Data' page menu option, but found that whilst it can create an amazing number of different automation events (very cool M3XP feature!) it won't create an event to control Track/Timbre Status. So I created a different sysex message type and used the BIN EDIT feature in the event editor to tweak that to the message I wanted.

The sysex message required looks like this :

F0 42 30 75 41 04 00 23
00 03 00 00 00 00 01 F7

The last digit on the first row (23) is used to determine the track whose Status will be changed (23=track 1, 24=track2, 25=track3 etc.) and the second to last digit in the second row is the Status value (0=Off, 1=INT)

I've left my template sysex message in Track 1, so you can easily edit it to give you the function you need and then pull the message into a pattern using the Get From Track page menu option. That is how I created the 8 different patterns/messages myself.

Enjoy,

Daz.

Daz · Post by **Daz** » Fri May 01, 2009 5:32 am

Here is an updated song file that contains a second song that demonstrates the KARMA based technique that Jerry mentioned.

http://daz.korgforums.com/misc/tsctl2.zip

Only two tracks are enabled and both are assigned to MIDI channel 1, hitting the Karma On/Off button toggles which tracks' Program will sound.

Here are the key parameters to look at :

1) Go to page P3 Track Param, select the Other 1-8 tab and see how I set the Karma Track Off Control parameter for the first two tracks

2) Go to page P7-1 KARMA1 GESetup, select the Setup A tab and see how I change the MIDI input and output channels of module A to 16 to stop it from getting involved with channel 1 MIDI activity.

The technique will work with as many timbre/tracks as you'd like to use.

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Fri May 01, 2009 5:53 am

Hi Daz,

Very many thanks for your help and advice on this. I am just shooting to catch a flight to the USA, where I will be until 10th May. I will eagerly try your valuable work on my return to Corfu. Thanks again!

Best regards,
Rob