A few questions regarding korg arrangers ......

[antret]

Hi all!

The news of the upcoming microarranger has piqued my interest again in the arranger category. It seems to be priced right and have the nice small form factor that would be useful in my cramped space.

Anyhow.... I was perusing the manual of the of the other arranger this micro is based upon (dont recall the number) and was quite impressed with how deep you can edit sounds, etc on these things! I guess 2 questions came to mind right off the bat:

1) If you wanted to use the midi out to trigger another sound source (my M3, for example), how does that work since there is a 'sequencer' for the backing tracks and then a traditional sequencer to add other parts over top of the backing? What midi channels transmit from the backing tracks? I may have missed that section in the manual....

2) It also appeared that there are a lot of button presses to record your own 'styles/parts' (which I would mostly be doing). Is it really as complex as it seems? Or is it easier once the unit is in front of you?

Sorry for the length and probably basic questions, but I have never spent much time with an arranger board before.

Take care.

[jg::]

Hi,

1) It's not quite like that. Backing Sequence mode is used as a quick way to record a song, using the Styles as the basis. You can record your "live" playing while you're there, or you can add it later. When you've finished, the song is played back as a Song, in Song Play or Sequence mode, with perhaps 8 tracks already recorded. Then you can add a further 8 tracks if you want. So it's not like you have Backing Sequence and then a further 16 tracks. When you come to play it back, a single song has a total of 16 tracks. But then, you can mix 2 songs together, plus have 4 sounds on the keyboard, plus pads! Global mode lets you choose which of these tracks (all 40 of them) goes out the available 16 MIDI channels. You get full choice here, it's quite elegant. Although it's Global - you can't change it on a "per-Song" basis.

2) Recording your own Styles can be a little complex, but like anything, once you've done it a bit, it becomes easier. You can also use a computer DAW to import/export the parts and work that way, which a lot of people prefer.

Good luck!

jg::

[antret]

Thanks for the reply!

16 tracks total.... That makes sense. That is good to know.