From Your Letters

This page is devoted to letters received that contain suggestions that others may want to try, and to letters with questions and answers that don't fit well on the "How To" pages.

1. HARD DRIVE SUGGESTIONS - Dewey Hodgkinson - Oceanside California

The October Technote magazine had some ideas on how to organize the hard disc that were great. I do some stuff that works for me. First of all, my directories are set up for the way I entertain. The loading speed is great, 3-4 sec. When I set up a registration for a particular type of song, I have them set up by classification. Ei... Tunes of the 40's, 50's, etc. Jazz, Waltzes, Latin, Dixie and on and on. Some files are set up for Sing-a-long, Hawaiian, Octoberfest, in other words Themes. I like to have ready on the hard disk composer patterns. Mine come from places like Technote, Algo-rythyms (Canada), Neil Blake (u.k.).
I recently purchased "Style Works" from Klaus Grosser (Germany) that takes GM and instrument styles and converts them to Technics. All these are categorized and stored to load. Further more I added a "code" to the tune name that tells me where the composer came from. {t} is for Technote {a} Algo-rhythm, {nb} Neil Blake. If I have room in naming the tune I also add the tempo.

Lets talk about the "File Load Script" I use this in several creative ways. First of all I set up medleys for breaks, medleys for singsongs, Patriotic medleys, Because I love also playing piano I have created my own back up orchestra, as my accompaniment group with more medleys. I run over to the piano (hopefully in tune) and can do a set with me as my own back up band. Isn't that great? Now that we have the ability of adding the TLX lyrics files I am in the process of converting this file from my Karaoke GM files and tune 1000 files. Things keep getting better for the hard disk. By the way, the PC computer program was also a blessing. To do printing of tunes names. The file management was a BIG help. (I said finally and I should have said next to finally.) Anyone that hasn't taken advantage of the Bass and Drum output into their sound system is missing a bet. When playing live this can give you the separation and control through a sound system that really makes anyone sound like a LIVE entertainer. More stuff if this interests anyone later. Dewey Hodgkinson - Oceanside California.

2. FOOT CONTROLLERS - Scott Yee - San Francisco Bay area

I use the "four pedal" foot controller in addition to a single foot switch pedal with my KN5000 for all "live performance" applications. After trying out many variations and settings I've found ONE that works "BEST" for me.

I assign:

"Foot Switch #1" to: Sustain

"Foot Switch #2" to: Panel Memory Increment

"Foot Controller Switch #1" to: Fill 1

"Foot Controller Switch #2" to: Fill 2

"Foot Controller Switch #3" to: Intro/Ending (either 1 or 2)

"Foot Controller Switch #4" to: Sustain

"Expression Pedal to: Total Expression

I set up the Four-Pedal Controller Unit "centered"on the floor underneath the keyboard with the pedal #4 (right most) pedal acting as the sustain pedal. Pedals #1 & #2 (left most pedals) are easily accessed by the left foot to trigger fills every 4 or 8 bars to give a "live" spontaneous drummer feel. I compose song styles so that each section of my songs are stored in separate ascending panel memories, I assign the "single foot switch (Foot Switch #2) to: Panel Memory Increment and have this foot switch situated a few inches "left" of the "Four Pedal Foot Controller" unit. Because this foot switch pedal is a "separate" unit, this helps to prevent accidental triggering of "panel memory increment" occurrences (which can be VERY EMBARRASSING during a live performance gig). I also do not assign START/STOP to foot pedals as the location on top of the keyboard is convenient and only needed occasionally as I primarily rely on syncro-start to initiate songs.

I no longer take my Roland damper pedal out on gigs (one less piece to haul) as the sustain setting is now incorporated in the "four pedal unit".I do have Foot Switch #1 assigned to "Sustain" though because most KN song files have that as a default and I initially want to be able to easily audition styles in my studio without having to make foot controller setting changes for that.

I use the above settings for all my songs to "maintain consistency" and "avoid confusion" and only RARELY make different settings for specific songs. After a short while, you are able to locate and press the correct pedals by touch only which is essential for a professional performance.

I never could figure out why Technics chose the following default foot controller settings:

"Foot Switch #1" to: Sustain

"Foot Switch #2" to: Glide

"Foot Controller Switch #1" to: Start/Stop

"Foot Controller Switch #2" to: Panel Memory Increment

"Foot Controller Switch #3" to: Panel Memory Decrement

"Foot Controller Switch #4" to: Panel Memory Bank Increment

"Expression Pedal to: Total Expression

For some reason Technics default settings never worked for me. I have had to spend "countless hours" reassigning the KN Foot Controller Pedal assignments to my personal choice settings. Perhaps there are people out there that the Technics Foot Controller default settings work well for. I am curious how other KN keyboard players using "Foot Controller Pedals" are setting their foot controller pedal assignments to and what works "best" for them.

3. STYLE DISKS: From: - Robert Schatzman -

I have several "prerecorded" discs from Technote etc. There are things I have to change every time I use them, for example the control pedal settings. Can I make these changes and then save them to the Technote disc? In other words, can I change their disc? Also, there are some things I cannot change, for example instruments. Is it possible to modify their settings? And save them? I don't want to create my own stuff, but some of the things are very inconvenient, for example, some selections have the tempo turned ON so that if you change the tempo and then change to the next bank, the tempo changes. I can turn the tempo OFF but I have to do this every time I load a new rhythm. Any help you could provide would be appreciated, or if you could suggest somewhere to look. Thanks in advance.

Robert Schatzman

Hi Robert.

Most people find it necessary to edit the styles that have been bought from Technote or other sources. No one plays the keyboard exactly like you do and it is normal to want changes in the way the keyboard is set up. The answer is to create your own style disk by making those changes you want to make and then saving the style to a new disk. I ALWAYS do this with purchased styles.

So, just load the first style from the Technote disk, make your changes, and then save that style to a new disk. Then load the next Technote style and edit it. Then save that style to your own disk. Do this for every style on every disk that you have bought so that the style disks that you use are your own disks, that have your keyboard set up the way you like to play. You only have to do this once for each style. In some cases, you can get two Technote disks onto a single disk of your own, depending on which Technote styles you are working on. It is not a good idea to change the styles on the original Technote disk because you will want to have the original disk stored somewhere just in case the disk that you use for playing gets damaged.

Yes, you can change the instruments and sounds that Technote uses for their styles. In fact, you can get totally different sounding styles by editing the instrument assignments to the various parts of the composer. Look at item 12 titled Composer Sound Edit at the how to pages of my web site. That discussion tells you how to change the instrument assignments in the composer parts. Remember to save the new styles that you have created with the new sounds to your own disk giving it a name that will help you remember what edit you have used.

I'm not totally sure I understand your question on tempo. I think you want the panel memory buttons to leave the tempo alone when you use them. Look at page 66 of your owners manual. If your panel memory is in the expanded mode (most people use it that way), you can determine what characteristics of the keyboard are stored in the panel memory buttons. If you don't want tempo to be one of the items controlled by the panel memory just turn the tempo selection off. (see top right of the page) Remember that when you are setting up your own disks with the styles that you got from Technote, this is one of the items that needs to be edited before you save your style to your own disk. I believe this function is included in the Current Panel file that you put on the disk.

Bob Hendershot

4. MY SOUND MEMORY KEEPS CHANGING! - Leroy Leavell -

I am using the sound memory section of the KN5000 to store drawbar settings. This memory apparently has other instrument sounds in it. When I stored the drawbar settings in memory A and then pressed memory A to access the settings they came up once or twice then when I tried it a day or so later the original sounds came up on the screen. I wonder if I am doing something wrong.

Thanks, Lee

Hi Lee,

Your sound memory is usually stored on disk when you save a song or style. It is also on the disk with purchased styles. So, any time that you load a disk and include in the load, the sound memory data that was stored when the disk was made, you replace whatever was in the sound memory with whatever is on the disk. Often, purchased styles use special sounds for the composer rhythm and you must include the sound memory settings with the load for the rhythm to sound right. This means that your sound memory will usually change when you load a disk.

If you want to have your sound memory stay the same when you load a disk, you can select page 2 of the load menu and turn off the sound memory option. That will load everything that is selected for the load, but not change your sound memory since the sound file is turned off. See the top of page 115 of your owners manual.

If you have a favorite sound memory setup that you want to use often, do the sound memory setup and then save just the sound memory to a disk. Select Save, then Technics Format. Be sure to use a new disk or a blank number space on the disk before you initiate the save process. Give the file a name like "Sound1" then go to page 2 of the save menu, and turn off everything except the sound memory. (See the top of page 123 of your manual.) Then save the data. Later, when you want to recover just the sound memory setup, just load that disk. Since it only has the sound data, nothing on your keyboard will change but the sound memory.

Bob Hendershot