Jay Salam is the owner of Ketron U.S. and is the editor of this newsletter. You may send any comments to knat@ketronus.com.
We have had many ongoing questions regarding the upper banks in the SD2. There are wonderful sounds there as well as the great sounds in the GM bank. I won't list the sounds because the manual does that for us. There are a number of ways to access the upper banks, but they always come to this: You must be able to send bank change information.
One of the most common uses of the SD2 is as a sound source on a computer. As such, the upper banks are accessed by way of MIDI information, the most common of which is the Control Change 0 protocol. If you embed this information in your MIDI files it will always work for you.
The following is the step by step method of making the Bank Change using CC0 in Power Tracks Pro. Why Power Tracks Pro? Because it is simply the best sequencer on the market in its price range. It is also the simplest to use. Since I do not, at this point sell Cakewalk, Sonar, Cubase, or any other of the many sequencing programs out there, I also am not able to provide support for them. That would simply mean spending thousands of dollars for a number of applications that I don't like and have no intention of using.
Here we go!
Open Power Tracks Pro. (If you are using a different sequencer, you can try these steps, but you will have to find your own path to get to the same places.)
Open a Song
Method 1
Highlight a track by clicking on the track number or in the track itself.
Press F2 on your computer keyboard.
Let's pretend you chose Track 3. When you press F2 you get a small new window called "Event List - Track 3". This is the Event List Editor. You will see all the MIDI events for that track.
Make sure you are at the beginning of the song.
In the Event List Editor click the "Ins" button on the right. This is for Insert. You will get a new window named "Event To Add".
Since we are going to do a bank change using Control Change information click the radio button "Control Change" The click OK.
That window disappears and is replaced by a small window that says Control Change. You will see several choices on the left and small areas for affecting them. You will see Channel, Time, Controller, and Level.
Make sure the Channel is on the channel you wish to effect. If the instrument you want to change is on MIDI channel 4 for example, be sure you select MIDI channel 4.
Set the Time to 1:1:0
Set the Controller to 0
Set the Level to 1. (It can also be set to any number that corresponds to the bank you wish to select.) This will get you to bank B in the SD2. If you set the Level to 0, you will be in the GM (General MIDI) bank. Then you will insert the program number the same way. Be sure the program number follows the Bank Change information. If they are reversed in time in the Event List Editor, the Control Change will not do anything on the Program Change because it came first. To correct it, highlight the Control Change time and hit your minus key on the keyboard. It should look like this.
The above setting on the SD2 will give you "Country Guitar".
Method 2
In the Classic View window you can set the Bank in the Bank Column.
Method 1 is still preferable because it will always supercede the other methods.
Method 3
If you have Power Track Pro you can download the patch map at: http://www.ketronus.com/downloads.php near the bottom of the page. Download and open the file and then go to your hard drive and go into the Power Tracks folder. This folder is usually labeled pt.
Open the file and look for the patches.ini file. Rename it patchesOLD.ini.
Then save the file you downloaded from the Ketron US web site into that folder and make sure it is named patches.ini.
Then when you reopen the Power Tracks Pro program, you will get the message that the PATCHES.BIN file has changed. Allow that and when you choose instruments you will have a choice of using all the banks if you choose the SD2 as the instrument.
Note* It is still best to do the changes in the Event List Editor, but this method is quite handy.
The ONLY way to change banks is to send bank change information. In MIDI files another method is to use System Exclusive or SysEx. However, that is a bit more complex. If you are using a controller keyboard, it must be capable of sending Bank Change information. The same is true for an accordion, wind controller, MIDI guitar or anything else you are using. The Bank Change feature on the SD2 is never turned off so if you are not getting the upper banks, you are simply not sending the information.
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Here is something you can't do with the SD2.
I recently tried hooking up an SD2 to the XD3 to see if the styles in the XD3 could use the new instruments in the SD2. Nope, it won't happen.
Reason: Ketron instruments do not send full MIDI information to the MIDI Out port when styles are being played. The thinking is that sending the full MIDI style information to the MIDI Out port would make it too easy to steal the styles. I suspect that other manufacturers do the same.
Unlike styles, a Standard MIDI File plays perfectly. The Ketron instruments send all that MIDI information to the MIDI Out port just fine.
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