Some basic questions...

dhjdhj · Post by **dhjdhj** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:44 am

No, I'm not being lazy --- I'm working through various tutorials, reading manuals, experimenting and so forth, but there are some things going on that aren't making sense to me.

For example, I was experimenting this evening with simple combis. I chose one of the strings combis, which looks like it has various different string patches associated with different channels and I tried playing them on the keyboard. I noticed that while some of the worked fine, some of them were silent. I also tried adding a piano patch to channel 6 and couldn't get it to sound. As far as I can tell, the settings for each channel strip were identical, i.e, all were set to PLAY (not mute), all seem to be routed identically, nothing seems to be turned off, yet some channels had sound, others didn't.

This would seem like a very basic and simple setup ---- pick a combi and expect all layers to work, yet some don't.

What am I missing?

Thanks,
D

tcornishmn · Post by **tcornishmn** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 4:39 am

I suspect most of your trouble lies in the effects side of things. Go to the IFX tab and look at the routing tabs to make sure that your sounds go somewhere.

The best way to build a combi is to use the "copy from program" feature under the "^" menu. Pick a free zone and choose IFX All Used and the program will be added including the effects and correct routing, assuming there are available effects slots.

dhjdhj · Post by **dhjdhj** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:46 am

Well, I've looked around at everything and as far as I can tell, all the routings are the same for everything.

By the way, I also checked the MIDI channel stuff after reading that the Oasys only responds directly on the global channel and tried setting the other timbres to global but that made no difference.

Also, some of the timbres were set to channels other than Global and still worked. KARMA seems to have something to do with it....for example, if the KARMA button is on, then I got some sounds through the third slider. I tried disabling KARMA completely through the GLOBAL page but that made no difference either.

D

Mike Conway · Post by **Mike Conway** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:37 am

When you play a Combi, you play Channel 1 or the Transmission channel. The sounds you are not hearing are probably on other channels than 1. When you turn KARMA on, the transmission channel will play through or trigger the other KARMA channels.

If you're specific enough to give a Combi name and number we can tell you.

dhjdhj · Post by **dhjdhj** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 1:01 pm

The combi to which I was referring is "Delicato Strings". When I originally selected it, I noted that the first 5 strips were on, so I thought I would add a piano to channel strip 6 but I couldn't get it to sound.

I then went back and looked at the other settings and discovered that several of the other strips didn't work unless I turned the KARMA button on. Changing the MIDI channel values to 1 or to Global didn't make any difference.

That's when I started looking more closely to see why some of the strips seemed to be associated with KARMA and others not but the management of KARMA is still an orthogonal issue that I'm not ready to tackle.

I realize that I can create other combis from scratch but I want to understand what's going on here. Even if I don't USE all the capabilities, I'm not interested in playing live with something I don't understand (

)

dhjdhj · Post by **dhjdhj** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:23 pm

I should have actually added that I have had no problems building my own combi and layering a bunch of sounds. So this issue is more about "what the heck is going on"

tcornishmn wrote:
The best way to build a combi

jerrythek · Post by **jerrythek** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:53 pm

There is a parameter to control turning on and off Timbres when you turn on the KARMA button. This allows us/you to change the active sounds for the KARMA Performance versus what happens when just playing the Combi live on the keyboard.

Look at Timbre Parameters->WaveSeq/KARMA->the KARMA Timbre Off control.

Using this you can have one blend of sounds when playing the keyboard live with KARMA OFF, and then a different blend for the KARMA ON status, for the live keyboard as well as what parts KARMA is "driving" in the background.

Very cool and powerful parameter.

I always point out that you can use this parameter to swithc sounds even when you're not using KARMA. If you have no KARMA GE's set to run, and set Module A so Thru is enabled, then you can use the KARMA Timbre Off control to switch sounds by simply turing the KARMA switch on/off. So it could be as simple as adding a string layer to a piano, to switching from E.Pno to Organ w/brass... whatever.

I hope this helps you, and points others in a cool direction. Good stuff!

Regards,

Jerry

dhjdhj · Post by **dhjdhj** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 4:06 pm

OK ---- now we're making progress...thank you so much.... turning that parameter to NORMAL made the new layer work. However, I'm still a little puzzled... it seems to be the case that if the MIDI channel is global, or between 1 and 3, the layer works, but if it's at 4 or above, it doesn't.

I was under the impression that all layers had to be at global to be playable directly from the keyboard, so clearly there's some extra translation going on somewhere. Any ideas?

jerrythek · Post by **jerrythek** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:34 pm

That's because you can enable MIDI Thru for each of the 4 KARMA Modules - KARMA can re-channelize from the Global MIDI channel to any other channel, and with MIDI Thru enabled for the Zone (either In or Out of the zone's key range) you get this control.

Look at the KARMA Tab->GE Setup/Key Zones page.

You're getting there!

Regards,

Jerry

dhjdhj · Post by **dhjdhj** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:11 am

Excellent - my mental model of how the Oasys works is improving rapidly, thanks to the incredibly helpful feedback from people here.

Thanks,
D

jerrythek wrote:That's because you can enable MIDI Thru for each of the 4 KARMA Modules - KARMA can re-channelize from the Global MIDI channel to any other channel, and with MIDI Thru enabled for the Zone (either In or Out of the zone's key range) you get this control.

Look at the KARMA Tab->GE Setup/Key Zones page.

You're getting there!

Regards,

Jerry