K.N.A.T

Issue No. 8

Hello everyone and welcome to issue number 8 of Ketron News and Tips (KNAT).
This issue is targeted for October 15, 2002. Due to the fact that I have been spending a fair amount of time under the weather, this letter will be shorter than some of the others. I had a choice of either making it shorter or being late. If you have a question to ask or a tip to submit, please let me know at jay@ketronus.com. Also I love your comments so don't hesitate to let me have a response.

First an Apology: (and an explanation) I want to apologize to those who have sent emails requesting special information on various aspect of the Ketron instruments and not gotten a response from me. My ideal scenario is that no email go unanswered or technique go unexplained.
When I started the newsletter, I never expected such an overwhelming response to my efforts. So much so, that I find time is lacking in getting some things done. So I am being forced to prioritize. At least for now here is how I will try to handle the requests.
First call on my time will go to those who have purchased their instruments from me. (This is not a non-profit business -- I hope.)
Second will be the questions that are most common. I will try to answer those and even use them in the tips and tricks portion of the web site.
Then I will try to answer the other questions that have come to me. In that category, I will try to answer first the questions on issues that are not clear in the manual. If you haven't read your manual, you should!

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Edit Voice

You can have a LOT of fun in this area. Edit Voice section of the later Ketron products. You cannot do all the teeny edits you can do on some products like the upper end Korg, but you have 95% of all the stuff anyone except studio programmers ever use. And, of course, you are starting with better samples than other products so you don't need such refined tweaking. I have picked a patch for you to tweak if you have never played with this section. Go to Stage Piano in "User Voice". On later instruments it may be called Stagepno. Get to your normal screen (the split screen) and press F7 "Edit Voice".

Just for fun, start by setting the Attack (F1) to 12 instead of 0. What was a piano almost sounds like a whistle. I just had you do that so you would know how the Attack works. Reset it to 0. Now on the left side of the screen do the following.
F2 Decay 66
F3 Sustain 67
F4 Release 65
F5 Level 80

ON the right side of the screen you have some extra options.
F6 Resonance to minus 64
F7 Cutoff 127
F8 Effects -- When you press this you get a different center on your screen.
The effect type will be highlighted. Press your right "Value" button until the effect type
shows Delay~Chorus. Then use the "Cursor" button until Reverb is highlighted. (you can
set the type of Delay and Chorus, but the defaults "Delay1" and "Chorus1" are good for
now.) Using the "Value" buttons set the Reverb to 63. Then move down to the "Delay"
using the "Cursor" again and set the Delay between 18-63. Be sure the Delay is plainly
audible. Then repeat this procedure and set the Chorus to 63.
F9 Wheel -- Pressing this gives you another screen in the center again. Use you Cursor buttons to get to LFOamp and set the value with the Value buttons to "On". Do the same with LFOfilt. Turn it on. Then Cursor back up to LFOpitch and turn it off. Note: you cannot turn LFOpitch off until you turn something else on.
F10 -- Yet another screen display! Using the above procedure toggle down to LFO2 Rate and set it to 56. Go to DFC Depth and set to 49.

What we have done on the the F9 and F10 settings is change the action of the Modulation wheel. Instead of changing pitch it will have a Tremolo effect like the old Wurlitzer piano and some of the Rhodes pianos.

Press Save/Enter and F10 to keep this setting.

You have 128 voices that you can do with what you wish. The way these voices come defaulted from the factory, are very similar to the regular voices in your voice banks. Using these techniques, you can choose to have a very different set of voices.
One further item. You can use the voices in your program settings to give your program voices a different sound. However, the effects, will not follow the voice since you set the effects in program.

Have fun and let me know some of the ideas you come up with on your own. If they are good I'll just put them in the newsletter and give you credit. See Below:

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Special Tip: This tip is from Harald Kolodziej who noticed something that I had also noticed, but since it was not a live performance issue I didn't pay much attention to it and just figured it was an occasional quirk.

Sometimes when playing, pressing a chord button, and adjusting "right"
volume at the same time.
The right volume adjustment no longer steps up/down multiple increments
when
holding volume button. I have to press the button once to change "right"
volume by 1 increment. To change 5 increments I must press and release
volume button 5 times.
To put this to normal I must turn unit off then on.
This is not good while performing.

This function which I think of as scrolling the volume setting is actually called autorepeat.
My industrious friend Harald sent an inquiry to the Ketron factory and got the following answer:

About the autorepeat , this can happen if the style is too fast or full
of events , in that case the processor does have the time to manage this
function that is at lowest priority .

Best regards ,

Maurizio Leonardi
KETRON s.r.l.
Via G. Taliercio , 7
60020 Ancona
Italy

I especially appreciate tips from Ketron users that may help other people. Thanks Harald!

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

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*Remember: ". . . Federal Funds . . .a Washington D.C. euphemism for the billions of dollars extracted from taxpaying people."-Richard Prather

"Happiness can only come from within. Pleasure, gratification and much more may come from outside ourselves, but we must find our own happiness. -- Clerd Farnsworth

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