still confused on stacking sounds in program mode

Cutter · Post by **Cutter** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:24 pm

I am still having trouble understanding stacking sounds in program mode. I can see that in combi I can edit and save as a new combi.

However in program mode is there a way to stack sounds to make a combi....and if so can they be changed on the fly while playing? If so where and how???

thanks

Shakil · Post by **Shakil** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:01 pm

You don't stack sounds in program mode. All you can do is make a single or dual osc program, each osc having 4 velocity layers.

The program mode is to create sounds, and then you use Combi to stack different sounds.

You can start with a blank combi, use 'copy from program' function to start stacking different programs.

Cutter · Post by **Cutter** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:45 am

ok glad to have that cleared up....in combi can I stack a program sound and change that while playing? For example stack a piano over a combi pad and change the piano to a flute while playing? or is it just building or editing a combi and then play it?

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:33 pm

You can change sounds, but it takes some doing if you don't want there to be an interruption in the sound. The easy way is to make two combis and put them in adjacent slots (B-005 and B-006, for example), and when you need to go to the second one, you can do that with one button press or with a footswitch.

Problem with that is that the piano will be interrupted while you switch; if you're switching mid-song, that could be bad. There are a few threads on here already about how to make that switch; look around, if it's something you need to do.

jimmied999 · Post by **jimmied999** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:09 pm

I'm certainly no guru yet, but you can create a single combi with the 2 or 3 sounds you need, and use the Play/Mute/Solo buttons on the touch screen to turn on and off the sound(s) you need without the interruption of switching to the next combi in the bank.

Cutter · Post by **Cutter** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:34 pm

To make a simple combi could work except for the switching sounds while playing.

One day maybe Korg will put all their good things on one keyboard (we can afford)

Rob Sherratt · Post by **Rob Sherratt** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 8:54 am

Cutter wrote:To make a simple combi could work except for the switching sounds while playing. One day maybe Korg will put all their good things on one keyboard (we can afford)

A Combi is 16 tracks, each track can be a different program (sound) and you can mute/unmute every track and adjust track balance/volume while you play. You can assign each track to channel 1 in which case the keyboard will play all tracks, individual programs (sounds) assigned to each track can then be selected via the mute on/off buttons.

Admittedly you "only" have the choice of 16 sounds that you preassigned into the Combi, but it is hard to imagine any other mechanism with a single button press that would allow you to select any sound from a library of thousands and do it while you are playing live.

Best regards,
Rob

Cutter · Post by **Cutter** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:22 am

I can see what you are saying and could preset up a combi or more than one and save them like that.

As far as a one button method my n364 does it I can ad a program sound in fact a couple of them to a combi and a combi to a sound and scroll through the sounds while playing.

Shakil · Post by **Shakil** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:04 pm

"Admittedly you "only" have the choice of 16 sounds that you preassigned into the Combi, but it is hard to imagine any other mechanism with a single button press that would allow you to select any sound from a library of thousands and do it while you are playing live.
"

It's not hard.... almost all arrangers have these buttons that when you press them the keyboard calls sounds from thousands. I have seen this trend in new workstations now... Favorites button on Fantom -G..etc.

But, if you think about it, there are several ways of making program selection easy in a live situation on M3... But, you need some time to set everything up.

1. Using favorites bank.
You can store the sounds you need under favorites. Have the favorites page shown on screen, and then just press on the sound you want to play in live.

2. Using RPPR
You can record Program change messages to RPPR and assign them to keys. When you need those sounds, just press the key on the keyboard. To free up the keyboar, you can use an external controller to sent RPPR keys.

3. KARMA scenes
You can store mute status of the sounds in a combi in KARMA scenes, and recall them by pressing the 4 karma buttons.

4. Button/Sliders
You can very easily control the volume of upto 8 tracks by using buttons and sliders on the left.

5. External MIDI controller
You can get an external MIDI controller that can send multiple command with one press of a button. Store bank change/program change messages on those buttons/pads and press them as you need it live.

So, as you can see there are ways to get to what you want to do. You just have to prepare and select a workflow that works best for you.

Cutter · Post by **Cutter** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:23 pm

The M3 has a lot of power and I can see how to do this in advance as you pointed out. It does not allow for on the fly. When you look at a simple board like the Roland stage it has a dual mode that allows two sounds and you can fast scroll through to change sounds...but thats only two. I think the Roland fantom allows more.

So it is a funtion on boards that call themselves more for a live application. It would be great if a powerhouse like the M3 or m50 could do the same. This can be a very creative feature.

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:59 pm

The Fantom G is the only keyboard on the market today that has patch remain (the ability to switch sounds without cutting off notes from the previous sounds or changing the effects - think what would happen if you're playing a flute with reverb and switch to an electric guitar with distortion but the flute notes keep playing but with distortion instead of reverb - that's not patch remain). If the Juno Stage lets you switch sounds, it's certainly doing that within the same patch.

Cutter · Post by **Cutter** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:29 pm

I don't know a lot about the Roland stage but in dual mode two patch names show up. Arrow up to the top or down to the bottom patch then scroll either one through all the patches and select whatever. It plays both of them. I think you can change the effects on either patch as you want.

Shakil · Post by **Shakil** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:34 pm

cutter

Juno-G and M3 are different keyboard. Juno-G doesn't have a sequencer.

There are other keyboards that let you do what you are looking for..... Check out the KORG PA series, that offers better live performance features than the M3.

BasariStudios · Post by **BasariStudios** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:08 am

kanthos wrote:The Fantom G is the only keyboard on the market today that has patch remain (the ability to switch sounds without cutting off notes from the previous sounds or changing the effects

Not in the real sense of it, maybe it does a better job then the others but not
in the real sense cuz thats phisically impossible, same as you moving from
one room to another and being able to be in both at the same time. Even
though i tested Fantom G myself, its not really something special when you
switch sounds, the glitch is still noticeable i wonder...we ask for something but
then...when you change a sound there is many factors involved as Filters and
FX mostly when it comes to the Sound phonically itself...what happens when
you actually change the sound??? What about the filters and fx? Do we really
expect to be as smooth as we want and imagine or as much as the phisics of
sound are alowing us to do? A sound with Chorus and Faser in it changed to
a Sound with Distortion and Flanger...how can there be no glitch at ALL???
I really dont understand it... i am a Sound designer for at least 15 years and
i still see that as Alchemy, i am not as great as a musician and playing but
trust me, i really know what Sound means, to its bottom and roots.
Kanthos, not many would understand your point, they would still take the
Flute with Distortion over a clean sound.

Shakil · Post by **Shakil** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:19 am

Nedim..

Fantom-G handles the sound switching very well because there are 16 insert effects ( 1 for each part) , and in live mode the sounds can be composed of 8 parts. Fantom-G dedicates 8 insert effects for the current sound, and 8 for the next one you are going to call up. You can have phaser on part 1 in live set 1, when you switch to live set 2, part 1 can have chorus, while phaser is still processing part 1 from live set 1. So when you switch sounds, the trails of the previous sound keep being processed by the 8 effects, and the new sound is being processed by the other 8.

Now, this is possible to switch between two live sets, not three. If you keep holding the old notes from live set 1, and switch to live set 2, both will play fine, now if you switch to live set 3 while holding notes, the 8 effects processors will cut off the sounds to process live set 3.

Filters are not a problem, because there are 128 filters (1 for each tone being played).