Layered sounds scale question

[Joao275]

Hi everybody. I am trying to create a combi with two different sounds but i would like to have the second sound to be always a 3rd above the note i am playing. I tried to transpose the second sound 3 semitones but it doesn't work. Let's say i am in the key of C and i play the note C. With a transpose setting of 3 semitones the second sound will play an E which is correct, but if i play a F the second sound will play a G# when it should play a A. Is there any way to do this, to make a sound play the 3rd respecting the scale i'm playing?

[Xenophile]

3 semitones is a minor 3rd. You play a C and you get Eb.
You might be able to do what you want with Karma.

[Joao275]

3 semitones is a minor 3rd. You play a C and you get Eb.
You might be able to do what you want with Karma.

you're right, my mistake. I wanted to say 4 semitones. If i play a C i get E but if i play E i get G# and it should be G. So i can i use karma to do that?

[voip]

So what you're trying to do is tanspose 4 semitones for one key and 3 semitones for another. KARMA can do this, and pretty much transpose wherever you want, on a key by key basis. To get to the place to set this up in the Combi, tap on the KARMA tab (lower row of tabs), followed by the Name / Note Map tab, and then tap on the Note Map sidetab on the left hand side of the screen that appears. An x-y type graph screen should appear, showing input and output note values. Tap on the arrow (>) next to Table: and in the drop down menu, choose Custom. Now it will be possible to select an output note value for each input note value (the actual values can be changed by highlighting them and using the jog wheel, up/down buttons or by holding down the Enter key and pressing the required Note key). To get this to work properly will probably need KARMA to be initialised for one or more of the KARMA modules in the Combi, and the correct MIDI channel selected in kARMA for the transposed Timbre. Refer to the KARMA sections in the Operations Guide, and Parameter Guide.
.

[Joao275]

So what you're trying to do is tanspose 4 semitones for one key and 3 semitones for another. KARMA can do this, and pretty much transpose wherever you want, on a key by key basis. To get to the place to set this up in the Combi, tap on the KARMA tab (lower row of tabs), followed by the Name / Note Map tab, and then tap on the Note Map sidetab on the left hand side of the screen that appears. An x-y type graph screen should appear, showing input and output note values. Tap on the arrow (>) next to Table: and in the drop down menu, choose Custom. Now it will be possible to select an output note value for each input note value (the actual values can be changed by highlighting them and using the jog wheel, up/down buttons or by holding down the Enter key and pressing the required Note key). To get this to work properly will probably need KARMA to be initialised for one or more of the KARMA modules in the Combi, and the correct MIDI channel selected in kARMA for the transposed Timbre. Refer to the KARMA sections in the Operations Guide, and Parameter Guide.
.

That is exactly what i want. I tried to follow all the instructions you gave me but i must be doing something wrong because when i change the output note it doesn't seem to change anything at all. I've changed the output notes in the Name/Note map tab, then in the Control tab i've switched the note map mode to On-All and the Table to custom.

[StephenKay]

You can’t do what you want with Note Maps. Note Maps only work on notes that KARMA generates; you can’t play directly through a Note Map.

And in any case, there’s no way to automatically change the Note Map for a recognized major chord to a recognized minor chord, for example.

So I spent some trying to figure out a way to do this, because it intrigued me. I came up with something, In order to do so, I had to create a custom GE using the KARMA Kronos Software.

It’s not perfect (more below), but it does conform the transposed notes to the scale of the chord being held - as you have requested.

I have posted this over at Karma-Lab Forums also.

Here is a downloadable file: https://karma-lab.com/temp/korgforums/harmony2.zip

So inside the harmony.zip file is:
harmony2.PCG - a Kronos File with two Combis in Combi Bank I-E.
harmony2.KGE - a Kronos file with two custom GEs in User Bank B (used by the combis):

LOAD these two files (after backing up your own data just in case).

There is also a .kdf file for any users of the KARMA Kronos Software. If you don’t have this, you can ignore it.

So after loading, select Combi I-E 000 Harmony Double. You play a major or minor chord with your left hand in the bottom half of the keyboard; you play solo lines in the top half of the keyboard.

If you consult the Master Layer, I assigned a few parameters:
- Switch 1 “Note Doubling On” - you can turn the harmony note on and off.
- Slider 1 “Note Doubling Intrvl” - this changes the interval that the harmony note is away from the played note. You can experiment with other settings. For example, set it to 94 (KARMA Value 9) and you will get the harmony note up an octave.
- Slider 2 “Note Inv/Dbl Vel. Offset” - this controls the velocity of the harmony note with regards to the played note. You can have it be 100% of the original velocity (slider max) or something softer.

Combi I-E 001 Harmony Triad is another experiment I tried; it actually generates 2 harmony notes but doesn’t have any parameters assigned in the Master Layer as it uses a completely different approach.

Some important points:
- You can only play single note lines.
- KARMA Trigger > Qtz Triggers is Off. This allows minimal latency in triggering the notes - because you are actually retriggering the start of the GE with every note you play.
- as KARMA is “generating” the notes that sound (like an arp that doesn’t arpeggiate), it has to retrigger them every 8 beats - but as long as you don’t hold a note that long, you’ll never encounter it.

I could actually write some modifications to KARMA that would do EXACTLY what you want, but since it will never end up in the keyboard, why bother…?

Anyway, try it out and see what you think…

[Joao275]

You can’t do what you want with Note Maps. Note Maps only work on notes that KARMA generates; you can’t play directly through a Note Map.

And in any case, there’s no way to automatically change the Note Map for a recognized major chord to a recognized minor chord, for example.

So I spent some trying to figure out a way to do this, because it intrigued me. I came up with something, In order to do so, I had to create a custom GE using the KARMA Kronos Software.

It’s not perfect (more below), but it does conform the transposed notes to the scale of the chord being held - as you have requested.

I have posted this over at Karma-Lab Forums also.

Here is a downloadable file: https://karma-lab.com/temp/korgforums/harmony2.zip

So inside the harmony.zip file is:
harmony2.PCG - a Kronos File with two Combis in Combi Bank I-E.
harmony2.KGE - a Kronos file with two custom GEs in User Bank B (used by the combis):

LOAD these two files (after backing up your own data just in case).

There is also a .kdf file for any users of the KARMA Kronos Software. If you don’t have this, you can ignore it.

So after loading, select Combi I-E 000 Harmony Double. You play a major or minor chord with your left hand in the bottom half of the keyboard; you play solo lines in the top half of the keyboard.

If you consult the Master Layer, I assigned a few parameters:
- Switch 1 “Note Doubling On” - you can turn the harmony note on and off.
- Slider 1 “Note Doubling Intrvl” - this changes the interval that the harmony note is away from the played note. You can experiment with other settings. For example, set it to 94 (KARMA Value 9) and you will get the harmony note up an octave.
- Slider 2 “Note Inv/Dbl Vel. Offset” - this controls the velocity of the harmony note with regards to the played note. You can have it be 100% of the original velocity (slider max) or something softer.

Combi I-E 001 Harmony Triad is another experiment I tried; it actually generates 2 harmony notes but doesn’t have any parameters assigned in the Master Layer as it uses a completely different approach.

Some important points:
- You can only play single note lines.
- KARMA Trigger > Qtz Triggers is Off. This allows minimal latency in triggering the notes - because you are actually retriggering the start of the GE with every note you play.
- as KARMA is “generating” the notes that sound (like an arp that doesn’t arpeggiate), it has to retrigger them every 8 beats - but as long as you don’t hold a note that long, you’ll never encounter it.

I could actually write some modifications to KARMA that would do EXACTLY what you want, but since it will never end up in the keyboard, why bother…?

Anyway, try it out and see what you think…

Thank you a lot for your help and the time you've spent with my question.
I've tried to use the combis you created and they are very very close to what i'm trying to achieve. I think that the reason why it's not exactly doing the right thing is because it uses the chords i'm playing in the left hand as reference. So, sometimes the harmony makes a major 3rd and sometimes a minor 3rd, but not according to the key of the song i'm playing.

What i want is to able to play a melody on the right hand whether i'm playing chords on the left hand or not.

Let's say I'm playing a song in the key of A:

Notes I Play: A---B---C#---D---E---F#---G#
Notes the harmony makes: C#--D---E----F#--G#-A----B

That's why it would be awsome to be able to do that with note map. That way, for each combi I could change the output note individually, acording to the key of each song.

[StephenKay]

OK... well, can't do it.

Also, realistically, you can't have just one map for an entire song. The harmonies are not necessarily going to work depending on different chords in the song. There's no "one-size-fits-all" transposition map. That's why arrangers react to whatever chord is supplied by the LH area. It's a real-time thing.

[voip]

Thank you Stephen, for clearing that up, and for educating me in the process :-)

I knew it wouldn't be completely straightforward to properly implement a 4---3---3---4---4---3---3 transposition using KARMA, hence my reference to Joao275 to use the KARMA documentation. I then went off to try to work it out myself, hit a bit of a brick wall, and then got called away.

Apologies for wasting folks' time. Every day is a schoolday, but some elevate to university days ;-)

.

[StephenKay]

Thank you Stephen, for clearing that up, and for educating me in the process

No problem. Thanks for trying to help.

[Xenophile]

I haven't done much with Karma apart from setting up scenes and forwarding controller messages between midi channels, but I'd be surprised if there isn't some way to set up a scale for its arpeggiator-type functions.

[Mersip]

I found this a really interesting thread, as this is something I also want from time to time.

Until someone finds a smart way of doing it, I basically cheat by creating the harmony notes using a different channel in the Combi for each note [ie when I play a C, the C plays on Timbre 1 and the E plays on Timbre 2 (Transpose +4); when I play E it plays E on Timbre 1 and G on Timbre 3 (Transpose +3)].

This only works to the extent that you have spare timbres for the harmony notes (ie you can't do it over 2 or 3 octaves), but there are a couple of songs where it works perfectly.