Korg Forums

somnambulist · Joined: 06 Mar 2009 Posts: 35

I figured out a way to make a 4 selection 'favorites' control with the chord trigger buttons.

For me the chord triggers have always been kind of useless and I really wanted to use them for other purposes, like program changes. I followed this tutorial for the M3 from Jerry(http://www.korg.com/ClassDetail.aspx?ID=111), and Rich Formidoni's RPPR video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH6TqFbskDc, excellent job Rich). It took a workaround to get it on the M50 but it works. I have posted my sample SEQ here if you want to download and have a look:
http://sites.google.com/site/justincarperfiles/Home/CHRDTRIG.SNG

In my example press trigger 1 for plain M50 Grand Piano, trigger 2 for an EP with a Phaser effect, trigger 3 for an organ with some distortion and Leslie, and 4 for a pad. You could make you own with any combination you like.

The idea is that you set up a song and record some sysex data into a track in realtime, such as a track program change, and IFX routing change (I can explain more if anyone is interested, on the M3 this is possble by simply adding the sysex messages, but I did not find anywhere you could do this on M50 so I just hit record and did it in real time). Then move them into the first beat using P6-Track Edit->topmenu->Event Edit. Change it to the first beat and cut/insert as needed to get it there (this is the M50 workaround). Next set up a pattern on P10 and get the data from the track using topmenu->'Get From Track'. Then you assign the pattern to a key via RPPR, and then play the key with a Chord Trigger (I had to turn off RPPR to assign the Chord Trigger). Erase the track. The end result is that you can set up the 4 chord triggers to goto 4 different programs on the fly. They cause a program change to the track your switching, so there is no 'polyphony stealing' that you might have with an effect muting scheme.

You can also change the effects routing at the same time which I am doing in this example. One other cool thing is that the notes from the current sound don't stop for the program change, they continue to sound. You can switch back and forth and holding the keys or using the damper you can play over the previous sound (until you run out of polyphony of course). There is bleed through on the effects and EQ however so its not perfect, but better than a hard cutoff.

Two drawbacks:
-I have the 88 so I lose the bottom octave and a half like all RPPR, and 4 other of the top keys for the assignments. But that's not a too bad price to pay for the functionality. I still have 5+ octaves. I'm not sure how that works out on 61 or 73.
-You can only use 5 IFX and you can't swap those out. You must pick 5, although you can change the mapping anyway you like. But you could also use the MFX for a 6th and 7th effect by sending only one timbre to them if you really needed them.

There are other uses, in fact anything you can record into a track and copy to a pattern can be used this way. These are outlined on page 211 of the Parameter Guide. This application is just the tip of the iceberg.
-You could perform multiple program changes to switch layered sounds as well. Just be sure to set the MIDI channel to the same as the track you are playing. All the EQ data is recordable also.
-It would be really fun to control the ARPs to pick different beats and bass lines. Copy a Combi to a song, program a few beat & bass changes and you could create a 'mini-arranger' on the chord triggers. I'm trying this next!
-How about a dedicated piano song that has 4 different EQs assigned so you could bring out the sound in the mix with a button push preset instead of the twist of a knob (that might not be better, just an idea).
-You could assign 1 of the buttons to mute a different track and the other to unmute to bring in another sound. That would be like two more switches like SW1 & SW2!
-It would also be really fun to play with the effects and LFO settings.

Let me know what you think! And kudo's to Korg just for making such a configurable workstation at this price point. Where else can you get this for about $1000 ?!? I am one happy customer! Very Happy

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M50-88
Yamaha V50 (anyone remember this beauty?)
Yamaha 44" M450 piano

mocando · Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:00 am Post subject:

Wow, if it works the way you say it is really awesome. I'll try it this weekend, when I have some time. You should be working for Korg Man Very Happy

I wonder what Rich or Jerry will say about this Cool

_________________
Martin Ocando

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runeharpun · Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 9:24 am Post subject:

Great! I'll play around with your ideas. I'm not into the RPPR system, so I need to learn those basics.

I've been using different banks for "variations" of the current sound within the same song (like in one of the other videos by Rich). But the sound gap is sometimes a problem. So if I could use the chord buttons for this, and also not getting a cutoff in the sound. That would be great.

Too bad one cannot have different midi channels for different split zones on the keyboard. Then the program changes could really be put into use this setup.

R

Moonshine · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:13 am Post subject:

Thanks for going through all that trouble!
I'll also be testing this option during this weekend. Very cool feature so great you spotted this! Smile

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KORG M50-61, SP-200 Blue Edition
CLAVIA Nord Electro 3
ROLAND Alpha Juno 2

runeharpun · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:02 am Post subject:

Tried your .sng file, and I can clearly see the potential of this working method. Just being able to have 4 variants of the same sound just a click away is awsome.

But is there an easy way to copy one combi to a song, and also keep the chord triggers mappings? Whenever I copy from a combi, the chord buttons get the combi settings - thus overwriting the program change setup.

R

somnambulist · Joined: 06 Mar 2009 Posts: 35

Copy from Combi & Program replace anything you had before in your Chord triggers & effects. I think it overrides Track 10 also if you pick drum track. So you can't copy twice. Copy once when your song is clean and then the other changes have to made manually. Forces you to think ahead Wink

I ran into this problem making a combi by copying programs and its just a limitation of the copy function.
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M50-88
Yamaha V50 (anyone remember this beauty?)
Yamaha 44" M450 piano

runeharpun · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:49 pm Post subject:

And I guess there will be problems using combis with splits and layering because all sounds use the same global channel, so they will all get the same program change?

Edit: There is a way to split the zones on the M50 into different midi channels if you use a midi cable as a loopback device. Using this approach should make it possible to only send a program change to one of the key zones.

RichF · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:30 pm Post subject:

At the end of my chord assign video, when I said "there's so much more you can do with the pads," this is exactly what I was talking about. Great stuff!!
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Richard Formidoni

Moonshine · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:32 pm Post subject:

I think this would be a great subject for RichF to do Using Chord Assign part. 2 Wink

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KORG M50-61, SP-200 Blue Edition
CLAVIA Nord Electro 3
ROLAND Alpha Juno 2

RichF · Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 2:57 pm Post subject:

Why steal the thunder? This guide is excellent!
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Richard Formidoni

somnambulist · Joined: 06 Mar 2009 Posts: 35

Thanks Rich for the kind words! I'm working on my other ideas mentioned in the post, plus some more. But I'm having so much fun playing and doing my practice routine with this implementation that I haven't had the free time!
_________________
M50-88
Yamaha V50 (anyone remember this beauty?)
Yamaha 44" M450 piano

Savage Spirit · Joined: 01 Oct 2009 Posts: 6

somnambulist thank you so much for sharing the great idea. this thread should be made sticky. now with this budget synth the possibilities are just so many. i own a fantom x8 and a m50. with fantom we can use RPS (Realtime Phrase Sequencing) which is quite similar to RPPR for korg. now with fantom there is a magic trick we can do with RPS.

The idea was shared by a guy from the roland clan forum named Laurenz Nitert. Using his trick we could seamlessly change patches and even multiple layers of sounds. the idea was to turn the Rx of a particular timber (in fantom's case each patch in performance/combi mode is assigned to a particular midi channel). for example u want to play piano then strings and then piano + string. for that u would put piano to timber 1 (midi channel 1) and strings into timber 2 (midi channel 2). for the first case (just piano) you will have to send a sysex message to turn the Rx on for midi channel 1 and another message to turn off Rx for midi channel 2 (where strings is assigned). These sysex messages instead of midi sequences are assigned to the keys or pads of the fantom x. So when u hit that particular key/pad button using RPS the sysex messages are transmitted. the result is that u can hear the piano but not the strings. Similarly for the second case (u just want strings) u'll have turn Rx on for channel 2 and turn Rx off for channel 1. For the third case, where u want both piano and strings u will have to turn Rx on for both channel 1 and channel 2. Using this technique you can change between sounds where there is no loss of polyphony unnecessarily, no cutoff, u can hold a key for the previous sound or use the sustain paddle, bender or whatever control and there is no bleed through on the effects. it works so perfectly. I believe there is a way out to turn Rx on/off for a particular midi channel with the m50. Hope somebody would know and explain here how that can be done. Thanks.
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Korg M50-61, Roland Fantom X8

runeharpun · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 7:46 pm Post subject:

This is very much like the setup I'm trying to set up on my M50. The problem is that I cannot figure out an easy way to have the M50 trigger notes on different midi channels internally. I imagine a RPPR setup using different midi channels would open up lots of new options.

Have a look in my other threat for some discussions around the midi channel issue:
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46773

Savage Spirit · Joined: 01 Oct 2009 Posts: 6

I can change patches for different timbers using different patterns. but the problem is whenever different patches are assigned to different midi channels anything assigned to midi channels other than the selected midi track can't be heard. So the problem persists for changing more than one patch at the same time using program change. hope there will be a good sysex editor in the next OS update at least with the functionality to change the hexadecimals so that we can dig in deeper.
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Korg M50-61, Roland Fantom X8

somnambulist · Joined: 06 Mar 2009 Posts: 35

Savage,

I checked this out and MIDI channel can't be recorded on the M50 so that won't work for my technique. And that makes a good point about another limitation: you can't have a variable number of timbres sounding since you can't change the MIDI channel. So you can either have 1 layer switches, 2 layer switches, 3, etc. You can't sequence mute either so you would have to sequence the mixer down or route it to a limiter effect and turn the volume all the way off to 0. Both these steal polyphony but you can't have it all Smile

_________________
M50-88
Yamaha V50 (anyone remember this beauty?)
Yamaha 44" M450 piano