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I am re-including this for the last time just for anyone who may have missed it in the past two issues.

More about the 4.0 release(with corrections)

Ok, the first thing that I have got to say is that while my upgrade is working perfectly, several of you are having some problems. First and foremost, you must know for sure that you got an uncorrupted download. When computers send packets of information across the internet, any kind of digital "noise" or brief interruption or in many, many cases spyware and virus condition can cause portions of the information to be lost or distorted. If you are on dial-up instead of high speed internet access, this causes even more problems.

Of course, when I say working perfectly, I am referring to a clean download and install and not the "bugs" that Ketron will surely have worked out shortly. Overall I am extremely happy and will keep 4.0 on my SD1 and look forward to 4.1.

Now for those of you who want to revert to the 3.0 OS here are the direction that AJ posted in the Solton Club emails. Here is his email in its entirety.

Please note that below is the REVISED solution from AJ and supercedes the posting in the last issue.
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Team,

Over all, I am glad that most of you are enjoying OS4.0 for the SD1 from Ketron. There have been some, however that have wanted to use the new OS with eg. the older sound settings. This capability will soon be available on our website.

Currently, these are your 2 options:

* Use 4.0 with the new 4.0 sounds.
* Use 3.0c or later with the older sounds.

If you have at any point installed 4.0 and want to re-install 3.0c or later, please do not forget to also install the following files from your HD FOLDER-90 Reload:-

* -Firm0000.snd

* -FLASH086.pcm (All of these from the folder should be loaded).

(Note however that you will still have the 'noise' in the Electric Pianos and Organ sounds).

Due to FLASH format size, the FLASH memory is always re-formatted when you change from 4.0 to any other OS or from any other OS to 4.0. In each case, you will have to reload the FLASH styles (if older than 4.0, use the styles in the Folder 90 -Reload, else use the newly created folder STANDARD). The styles must match the OS!

Sorry for any confusion previous post might have caused.

Thanks,

Prince Ajua Alemanji (AJ)

Computer Engineer (Annalyses & Design)
KETRON S.r.l
Wk Tel: 215-466-3409
"One good thing about music... when it hits, you feel no pain".
"A rich person is not one who has the most, but one who needs the least."
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Virtual Drawbars
A lot of performers are using the fantastic organ sounds on the newer Ketron instruments. The samples are second to none and I can see why, for the most part, players are content with what is there. Let me say that I don't blame you.
Still, there is a section of the Ketron products that is not getting the full use it deserves. This is the section of virtual drawbars which resemble the drawbars on the Hammond Organs and most particularly the B3 model which is and was the most popular organ ever built for Rock, Country, Jazz and Pop music.
The way to get to the drawbars is slightly different on different Ketron models. On the X models, press "User Voice" in the sounds area and then the "Bank 1/2" button. The voice that comes up is usually Pipe 1.
Now to see the virtual drawbars press F7 "Edit Voice".
On the XD and Vega the procedure is only slightly different. Press "User Voice" and then press the Bass-FX button in the voice group. The 10 organ slots come right up. Choose the voice to edit and then press Exit before you press F7 "Edit Voice".
The SD1 is the simplest to get to. Simply press "Drawbar". Then F7.
The X series and the SD1 have 16 slots for the virtual drawbar organs while the XD has 10.
The X and the XD have 8 drawbars plus percussion and click. The SD1 has 9 drawbars.
The drawbars are labeled like the pipe in a pipe organ. 16' means 16 feet which was the length of the pipe for the low C note. There were a few pipe organs in the world that had a 32' pipe on the low C, but that is too large for most buildings and in some very rare instances there are 64' pipes, the low C of which is so low that you feel it before your ears register it. Not only that but it takes so much air to get the note started that the rest of the music suffers. It is common that the longest pipe is 16'.
The octaves go up one octave each time you cut the pipe in half. So that an 8' pipe is one octave higher than 16' and a 4' pipe is two octaves, etc. You also have some that are labeled 5 1/3 etc. These are between the octaves and are used as color.
Now that you can see the drawbars on your Ketron, you want to be able to manipulate them. On the X and SD the button pairs on the farthest left as well as some button pairs in the next column of buttons raise and lower the drawbars. Try it. This is fun.
On the XD and Vega you don't have those pairs so you select the drawbar that you wish to affect by using the cursor keys and then raising and lowering the bar with the value keys. Whichever model you have, you can have a lot of fun with this.
All models have "Click" which is on F1 and "Percussion" which is on F6. You set the value of these with the value keys. The Click sound is designed to emulate that dirty key contact sound that was so common on the B3s. The Percussion has two values. Pressing the F6 button repeatedly gets you from 4' percussion to 2 2/3' percussion. You can toggle back and forth between them to see which you like the best. Be sure the value is not set at 0 or you won't hear any change.
F2 "Sustain" is exactly what you would think. Turning up the value on this makes the note sustain after your finger has left the key. This is very cool if you with to emulate the vintage Lowery Organ of the 50's.
F7 is "Effect" and the effects are pretty much organ type effects. Play with these to tweak your sound.
With all these tools you can create and save almost any vintage organ sound you would like.
Have fun and let me know what you come up with.

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Visit me at www.ketronus.com. Or email me at jay@ketronus.com

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