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Changing Part and Control Configurations between Scenes

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Antony
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Topic starter
 

To illustrate, I am gradually building a Single Performance that comprises all the keyboard "instruments" required for the song Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

Each section of the song has a different composition/ensemble of instruments. Some instruments are used in multiple song sections, and when they reappear may be "paired" with a different instrument.

I have a MODX7.

Literal example

Section 1 (Scene 1): Synth Bass + Synth Strings + Synth Brass +:Chimes + Sound Effects (KB Splits)
Section 2 (Scene 2): Hammond B3 (full KB).
Section 3 (Scene 3): Hammond B3 + Synth Brass Lead (KB Splits)

Regards KB Splits
In Section 1, the Brass Lead is positioned in the Upper Mid Quadrant of the Keyboard (imagine KB split into 4... lower, lower mid, upper mid, upper).
In Section 2, the B3 has the whole Keyboard.
In Section 3, I want the Brass Lead to be Note Shifted to the Highest (Upper) Quadrant, and I want the B3 occupying the Lower, Lower Mid and Upper Mid quadrants.

Is this possible with Scenes?

Regards Control
In section 1 I have the SuperKnob configured to Fade In & Out the Bass and Strings.
In Section 2 & 3, I want the Super Knob to fade in and out the 4 highest drawbars.

Is this possible with Scenes?

If it isn't possible, then I suppose I should use "Live Set" with each Song Section being a different Performance.
My concern here is that Live Set will cause some kind of Audible "Gap" when switching to a New Performance. In the Song, between Sections 1 and 2, the Strings are fading out (with lots of delay and reverb) when the B3 "arrives" on a C Major chord with lots of Gusto. I guess it is a critical moment in the song, and I don't want to futz it up.

 
Posted : 23/01/2022 2:17 am
Jason
Posts: 7910
Illustrious Member
 

You cannot store note range or note shift in scenes - so you'll need to have some amount of redundancy in order to cover how to present your synth brass and organ. My brain works more literally - so I'd rather see splits defined as note ranges rather than quadrants. Eventually your programming needs to set note ranges and we all kind of relate to things differently - so using the "native" language of the keyboard reduces some ambiguity.

I have, in the past (before Montage/MODX) used octave +/- to shift around where notes were arranged in front of me to "reach" more splits. Today I use scenes exclusively without using octave shifts at all. One big reason for this is I'm using a keyboard with more physical keys than in the past when I octave shifted. What I'm getting at here is that sometimes I suppose you could add octave shift as a way to reorient the relationship of MIDI notes to "quadrant" (physical position) - but because scenes do not store octave shift - I don't use this anymore combined with the lack of need due to extra keys in front of me. So - a little long winded - but I'm also conveying that I'm ignoring any contribution of octave shift to reposition MIDI notes across the keys and assume here a fixed relationship of MIDI notes to physical position. And this more greatly biases MIDI note as a matter of convenience to describe split ranges. Still, you gave enough information to work out the ranges. Maybe I spent way too much time on this.

Oh - and by "more keys" - I now have a "7" (76 keys like you have) as opposed to a "6" (61 keys) which I formerly had. The extra octave+ is just enough to handle all of my splits (thus far) without having to resort to more octaves.

Ok ... so let me see.

E0-G6 is un-octave-shifted physical key range.

Quarter 1 (Q1, lower): E0-A#1, Q2 (lower mid): B1-F3, Q3 (upper mid): F#3-C5, Q4 (upper): C#5-G6

Brass Lead: F#3-C5 for song's section 1
Organ: E0-G6 for song's section 2
Brass Lead: C#5-G6 (note shifted DOWN version of section 1 brass lead to match pitch range) for section 3 - SPLIT (with below section 3 Organ)
Organ: E0-C5 for section 3 - SPLIT (w/above section 3 Brass Lead) -- in other words, just "lob off" the 4th "quadrant" so Brass Lead is alone

Which is my translated (just for me) description of your

In Section 1, the Brass Lead is positioned in the Upper Mid Quadrant of the Keyboard (imagine KB split into 4... lower, lower mid, upper mid, upper).
In Section 2, the B3 has the whole Keyboard.
In Section 3, I want the Brass Lead to be Note Shifted to the Highest (Upper) Quadrant, and I want the B3 occupying the Lower, Lower Mid and Upper Mid quadrants.

Again, not that there's anything wrong with your description - just that I deal better with MIDI notes.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the problem of not being able to just note shift using scenes. You can pitch shift - but that's not the same thing and isn't satisfactory to me since it involves stretching pitch rather than note shifting. The way you would literally realize this is to duplicate the brass lead into two different Parts. That works and is an option. But I wonder why not just place the Brass Lead into Q4 (C#5-G6) the entire time to reduce the amount of Parts needed. Its up to you - but I don't know if this completely documents all of your Part usage or if there's more that you're not detailing only because it doesn't present any issue/question. I would probably leave Brass Lead in Q4 for both sections 1 and 3. However, if you don't want to do that - duplicate the Brass lead used for section 1 into a new Part. Then define the note range to Q4 (C#5-G6) and also NOTE SHIFT by -12 (down by one octave) so it sounds in the same range as used in section 1. Your scene selection for section 3 would turn on keyboard control for this note shifted/key range modified version of Brass Lead and your scene selection for section 1 would use the original Brass Lead for section 1.

Then there's the Organ (Hammond B3). During section 2 it's the entire keyboard and in section 3 it's all but the Brass Lead section at the top. Again, you cannot use scenes to define splits - so you'll need to burn a Part. For this one - I would say there's not a way to get around burning the Part no matter what you do. I'd set this up so one Part is the lower part of the organ. So the first Organ Part would cover the note range from E0-C5. And the second Organ Part would cover the note range from C#5-G6. For Section 2 when you have the organ across the entire keyboard - turn keyboard control ON for both Parts (the first and second Organ Part). For Section 3, turn the keyboard control ON for the first Organ Part (the lower part) and turn OFF keyboard control for the second Organ Part (the upper "quadrant" ). Of course if it makes more sense to you - an option is to have two keyboard Parts that have different ranges like one Organ Part covers E0-G6 and the second Organ Part covers E0-C5. And, in this case, the "section 2" scene button would turn keyboard control ON for the first Organ Part E0-G6 (and not the other Organ Part) and the "section 3" scene button would turn keyboard control ON for the second Organ Part (E0-C5) and OFF for the 1st Organ Part. Same result and same amount of resources needed.

So much of what I do when generating my split layout is map out where I want the keys to fall for each layer and split and shift around these ideas until I arrive at a good compromise on where the notes end up being played vs the resources (# of keys I have) vs the limitations of what scenes can store (because scenes are all I use as of now). Sometimes I have to adjust my initial vision to match what ends up being feasible. Sometimes adjustments need to be made in order to make something more practical to play. Sometimes if I have one split where the line is only 4 notes (a small number) - and I don't have the room say at the top (or bottom) of the keyboard to place the notes due to the pitches -- I'll note shift these 4 notes to something other than an octave so the shift changes the key. Just to make sure the highest note of the "run" is played on the very highest key of the keyboard. This allows these 4 notes (or whatever they are) to "waste" the least amount of keys at the top of the keyboard. The impact is I am playing "in the wrong key" for these notes. It's strange to hear because of the note-to-key expectation. However, if I press the right buttons, the right pitches come out and I'm able to "fit" the small range into an available space.

The more you do this kind of thing - the more it becomes second nature. And you may decide to optimize differently than I do developing slightly different strategies/tendencies when faced with the same set of instruments to map across your keys.

NOTE: you gave more information I kind of dumped because I was focused on the scene relationship of the "burn required" Parts. So my second pass I'd have to fold in the other instruments (Parts) you already outlined.

Synth Bass, Synth Strings, Chimes, Sound Effects

Just paper napkin stuff here:

Synth Bass PART
Synth Strings PART
Chimes PART
Sound Effects PART
Brass Lead (lower) PART
Brass Lead (upper) PART
Organ (A) PART
Organ (B) PART

That's 8 Parts - so it fits. Hopefully didn't leave anything out.

 
Posted : 23/01/2022 7:29 am
Jason
Posts: 7910
Illustrious Member
 

Regards Control
In section 1 I have the SuperKnob configured to Fade In & Out the Bass and Strings.
In Section 2 & 3, I want the Super Knob to fade in and out the 4 highest drawbars.

Use scene superknob link to change what superknob does for different scenes. This is the easiest way. For the scene button for section 1 - you will link the superknob to the common assignable knobs that connect downstream to the bass/strings volume control (fade in/out). When you switch to the scene for section 2&3 - both of these will "unlink" these common assignable knobs so superknob will not change the position of these knobs as you leave them - then will connect (link) to common assignable knob(s) that adjust the highest 4 drawbars.

I guess one part of my paper napkin calculation was that all of these instruments consume only one Part. With individual drawbar control - I'm not sure if your organ ("B3" ) takes up more than one Part. There's a good chance it does if using something like the "All 9 ..." drawbar organ. In which case you'd have to trim it down to fit for the previous. That goes for anything else - all instruments would need to consume a single Part.

Note that when you switch from the scene for section 1 to section 2 - your superknob will be at a certain location. I mean it will be left at some particular place. I would hope it would be left at position that's right where you want it when you switch to section 2 and the organ's keyboard control is turned on. If not - you could have scene 2 set the superknob position to where you want it when you press it so the drawbars are exactly where you want them for the start of section 2. Then the scene button for section 3 can turn off the "memory" for superknob so it doesn't touch the position when you switch to this scene.

 
Posted : 23/01/2022 7:52 am
Antony
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Topic starter
 

I used "Quadrants" just as an easy way to convey and describe what I am trying to achieve. The splits are in fact in carefully defined Note Ranges. The whole piece is in Gm, so the splits are generally around G-G octaves.

Whats caught my attention is the fact you cant change key Ranges with Scenes, which I had already realised except I thought I was doing it wrong.

I might have a look at your suggestion of having two Parts for Organ and two Parts for Brass, I have enough spare slots.

 
Posted : 23/01/2022 9:03 am
Antony
Posts: 0
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Topic starter
 

@J, @Bill

Thanks for your comprehensive replies.

 
Posted : 23/01/2022 8:09 pm
Jason
Posts: 7910
Illustrious Member
 

In the past others including myself have touted the benefits of being able to offset note shift (the non-sample-stretching kind) and offset note ranges (high and low) under scenes. Your desire to do this is a fairly typical example of the kind of thing I've run into so many times. That said - the existing system works as-is - you just need to "game" it a bit. And sometimes drop some ideal constraints/functionality for your Performance to fit inside the box. This is a typical synth "thing". Work within the boundaries to achieve a goal or modify the goal slightly to still get to a place close enough to the original vision.

 
Posted : 23/01/2022 11:45 pm
Antony
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Topic starter
 

:Yeah, I wish you could Note Shift more than +/- 24.

I had a brief look at Zones... never used this feature. If I'm understanding it correctly I'm wondering if I could set up Zones for each Part and overcome the Note Shift limit.... so if I wanted, extreme example, I could play a Bass Part up at the top end of the KB with my right hand.

Need to read it some more.

 
Posted : 24/01/2022 11:21 am
Jason
Posts: 7910
Illustrious Member
 

In the past I would octave shift the entire keyboard to give extremes a hand. If you octave shift down then this will move the bass (same pitch) up the keyboard. Then you can note shift everything else (not the bass) so these lower MIDI notes play the same pitches they previously played before the shift. So you would also shift up all the other Parts by an octave to compensate from the [OCTAVE -] change. This really depends on if your existing Part(s) are already note shifted up at the maximum limit or not. So it's not a cure all. But it's a way to think about utilizing the options.

There are other things that can be done - but I know the general theme of problem because it's common when constructing splits.

 
Posted : 24/01/2022 2:51 pm
Posts: 0
New Member
 

:Yeah, I wish you could Note Shift more than +/- 24.

You can but, this only works for AWM2.
A work around is to reprogram the Coarse tuning on each element. This function gives 'up to' +/- 48 extra, in addition to the note shift +/- 24.

The reason i used 'up to' is because the starting point for elements vary. As an example, If a bass element is already on -12 course tuning, you can only take it an extra 3 octaves down to -48.
I played with 3 Bass sounds - Upright AF1, Active TRB, 3VCOs and was able to get them to play Bass in any key range using this method

 
Posted : 24/01/2022 8:43 pm
Bad Mister
Posts: 12304
 

You can...

Correct!

When you want to play bass with your right hand, you should build a bass where that can happen. When you are mapping samples to create a synth sound you generally would (naturally) map the bass instruments in the lower (left hand) area of the keyboard. But if you want to offset an existing bass for the right hand, you should construct the Part so that its low notes appear on the keys you desire -- use the COARSE Tune Element parameter.

From the HOME screen
Select the PART you wish to edit
Press [EDIT]
Along the bottom of the Part Edit screens you can select the Elements 1-8, or All
Touch "All" > tap "Balance"
This gives you a look at all 8 possible Elements simultaneously and their Coarse tuning, in semitones.
Use the "COARSE" tune parameter to adjust where the sound is oriented on the keyboard.

...but, this only works for AWM2.

Offsetting an FM-X Part can be handled differently... in general, when initially programming the a sound with this synthesis you would, again, naturally, map the instrument you are building for the area of the keyboard you are going to be playing it. If, however, you want to take someone else's work and offset where on the keyboard it is sounding when you play the MODX keys you can use Part "Note Shift" parameter (-24/+24) in combination with the "Part Settings" > "Zone Settings" > "Octave Shift" (-3/+3) to accomplish your goal

 
Posted : 24/01/2022 9:43 pm
Jason
Posts: 7910
Illustrious Member
 

I'd still prefer non-stretching options.

 
Posted : 24/01/2022 11:04 pm
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