From tonysounds@yahoo.com Fri Oct 21 03:58:13 2005
Subject:Re: Why Doepfer

Overstating the problem? Ehhh (waving right hand in a
small off-horizontal back n forth motion)....

You must remember that you are a guru here. I
consider myself pretty knowledgeable about midi, er
rather, how to implement it; I know jack about why it
works, or what it does to work (a phoner the other day
ended up in a discussion about why midi doesn't give a
handshake to a newly added device like a computer, and
as the theory was discussed, my jaw went slack, my
eyes glazed over, a little rivulet of drool started to
escape the corner of my mouth!).

But I know how to do what you're saying, and having a
template is the most sensible thing; it's obviously
easy to remember if your rig has a "routine" that is
dependable.

But as someone who's done it both ways, I find it much
easier to edit a keyboard controller's functions
(especially on an A90/A70, where the functionality is
in English, silkscreened onto the keyboard itself, and
is logically laid out the same, regardless of who the
synth module's makers are, and what their "routine"
is) than it is to edit a module's parameters,
especially when we're now talking about a screen with
2 lines of alpha display, or sometimes worse, a small
screen so packed with information, in a font so small,
that I feel like I'm 80yrs old and cant read a damn
thing.

What Walter says is absolutely true, the Fantom
KEYBOARD display is excellent, because it gives you a
vague visual of what you're doing, and lends itself to
shrinking the learning curve. Admittedly, if you own
a Motif, or Triton, or XYZ of a recent vintage, and
have spent some time with it, they all probably have
enough functionality to get most of us through a
typical gig as a controller. But if we're using those
instruments on their own merits, not as controllers,
it's a lot easier to program "specials" into the
equation.

My Hello Dave needs are VERY simple; give me Hammond,
Rhodes, piano, and the occassional clav sounds. A
Motif and clone are all I need. When weight was an
issue, I could make an SP76 and Electro do the gig
well; or a V-combo. But I did a lot of prep for my
Pink Freud gig (which required a ridiculous amount of
sounds, and specials) using a Motif, Fantom and
Electro, and sometimes an Ion in non-midi mode, and
used a lot of "specials" in each instrument; but it
never came close to the power of this new rig. I
couldn't make this fly on a CME w/o memory; even with
programming the modules to do all the zoning inside
themselves (On this part, I'll do lefthand organ,
right hand rhodes, with a bit of analog synth in the
top octave; and on this part, the organ has to be
played with the right hand, so I'll trigger string
pads with my left, and Taurus bass pedals in the
lowest octave, with no sustain pedal active on the
bass pedals, but sustain working on the
strings...oops, make sure I shut off sustain on the
organ), I'd need the ability to remember that on the
next song, I don't need Module X, but now I do need
Modules Z&B.

That's a lot easier for most people if they have
experience doing it (which is gained easily enough
just by doing it, that's how you learned, how I
learned) but it's a STEEP curve if you're jumping in
for the first time. And as we know, Korg's way of
doing things is different than Roland's, which is
different than Yamaha's. Some things are a menu away,
others are buried in sub-menus. Now granted, most of
you have probably been using software editors for your
synth modules for a long time; I've never used them
until now, and still haven't seen what my Fantoms or
Motif's look like on a screen. (But in the near
future, I will be checking this out.) But doing all
this from a keyboard controller is just an easier way
of thinking, for me.

Programming "blanks" into the modules is a way to do
that, but I like the consistency of a controller; I
don't necessarily want to have 6 Taurus patches, just
with different zoning info, or ...well you get the
idea. When I'm running close to 7-10 modules, that's
just a bit much; its easier to do all that with a
controller. But even still, if your controller
doesn't have memory, every "scene" change will now
take a program change per zone???? You're running
four modules (say your Clone, your piano module, your
synth module, and an FX processor), and every time you
change songs (or even patches during a song) you have
to page to the right zone, and then input the program
change? Not a great way of thinking live.

And for what I was and am doing, it's a lot more
complicated than that. I need something to take on
that workload and make it faster.

T

--- Bruce Wahler wrote:

> Hi Tony,
>
> Isn't that overstating the problem, though? Even
> without memory -- or knobs, for that matter -- if
> the controller has the ability to call up Program
> Change messages, one can still call a new
> performance remotely. The performance parameters
> (channel, zones, etc.) have to be programmed into
> the modules, but most multitimbral modules already
> do that. When I don't want a particular module
> active in a certain program, I save a "blank"
> program with all the volumes set to zero at that
> program location.
>
> As an example, I use the zones, knobs, and switches
> of my Keystation, but I don't use the performance
> memories -- or specifically, I only use *one* of
> them. I program the same settings into all ten
> memory locations, but that's just one part paranoia,
> two parts what-else-am-I-going-to-do-with-them. In
> my case, I already had all the zones and splits
> programmed into the synth modules (from the AN1x
> days), and the memories in the master controller
> were unnecessary. Maybe I could program one to
> adjust the sounds of each module, but I find that a
> set of general purpose knobs don't map well into
> specific devices. I'd rather deal with the menus.
> The one exception is my Virus C, but it already has
> a bunch of knobs.
>
> I'm probably more methodical (anal?) than most, but
> I like my knobs and switches to do pretty much the
> same thing on every preset. If I program say,
> reverb as Knob 5 in a piano patch, I'd prefer to
> have it call up reverb on every other patch -- one
> less thing to remember. I'll probably even put a
> "Reverb" label on Knob 5 to help me remember. So
> for me, performance memories are unnecessary, as
> long as the keyboard remembers the settings for each
> knob and switch between power-ups. (All of the
> latest round of controllers seem to do so.) What I
> used to hate was my old Fatar 88, which couldn't
> even remember to stay in split mode when power
> dropped!
>
> As far as remote control goes, let's assume that
> Controller X has only four sliders, like the Yamaha
> KX series did. Program the sliders to CC21, CC22,
> CC23, and CC24. Now map the global controllers of
> all your modules to those four CC values, and the
> knobs work on any patch. Then use either channel
> selection, or a combination of enabled and blank
> patches to call up the right set of modules for each
> program. (PG1-10 --> Synth A, PG11-20 --> Synth B,
> PG 21-30 --> Synth A + Synth B layered, etc.) It's
> not as elegant as setting up zones in a master
> controller, but it accomplishes the same thing.
>
> Regards,
>
> -BW
>
> --
> Bruce Wahler
> Design Consultant
> Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
> 978.386.7389 voice/fax
> bruce@ashbysolutions.com
>
> At 08:35 PM 10/20/2005 -0700, you wrote:
> >But do you play one sound all nite long? The idea
> of
> >a controller, even if you're using it rudimentally,
> is
> >to give you "remote" control over your midi device.
>
> >With no memory, you'll have to reach over and
> change
> >programs on the module itself.
> >
> >--- Kevin Anker wrote:
> >
> >> --- In CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com, tonysounds
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > That's just insane. Great for project studio
> >> applications, unusable for gigging.
> >> > T
> >> >
> >> > Josh Lawrence wrote:
> >> > Yes, that is accurate - you cannot save patches
> on
> >> the CME series. It will,
> >> > however, remember your last setting on power
> >> down/power up.
> >>
> >> Depends on what you're trying to achieve.
> >> Personally, I have no use for splits, layers, or
> any
> >>
> >> of the other advanced controller functions that
> >> would necessitate creating a patch. I play one
> >> sound per keyboard, per song, and frequently roll
> >> with just one keyboard. That hasn't kept
> >> me from gigging 5-6 nights a week for the last 15
> >> years. Were I to get a Doepfer for
> >> example, the entry level 88 would be sufficient,
> and
> >> if I really felt passionately about having
> >> pitch and mod controls, then the next step up
> would
> >> be more than enough.
> >>
> >
> >
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