Question 1 :  Who exactly is the Midijay plus designed for?

Answer:           This machine packs tons of features for many performers, musicians and artist in today's world who are seeking for an inspirational tool that will get them going right away without spending too much time at the controls or with a manual.

A. Keyboard, Organists & Piano players - who are looking to add more drum tracks, more styles and accompaniments, more authentic Natural sounds, capability to play wave, MP3 and MIDI files along thier existing song or take existing songs and enhance them with live sounds, live drums, remix midifiles ... etc.

B. Accordion & Guitar Players - who are looking to add more realistic and natural sounds to their current Midi setup (midi or accoustic), add a 'band' as you perform live or record live into the Midijay (stored as a wave file), add real accoustic accordion or guitar or any other instrument parts to existing midifiles, put up One man band shows ... etc.

C. Studio Artists, Composers and Engineers - Rather than having musicians in the studio (too expensive these days), the Midijay plus is the next closest thing to live Guitar, Sax, Brass ... etc. You can also replace the lead (mechanical) parts of midifiles with the acutal Wave/MP3 files recorded onto the Midijay. Using the live auto accompaniment backing tracks withi any Midi controller or software is also a breeze.

D. DJ Players and Performers - Playback Wave, MP3 and Midfiles and automatically (or manually crossfade) from one to the other, change the pitch of a wave while maintaining the temp or vis versa, remove the lead singer's voice from a wave file and replace with yours (or an instrument plugged into the LINE IN jack).

E. Karaoke Artists - Display the lyrics to Wave, MP3 or Midifiles on an external monitor or screen, add lyrics to existing wave or mp3 songs and scrollk through manually or automatically, remove vocal parts from songs and replace with yours.Re-record directly to the internal Hard Disk all performances for future use (e.g training purposes).

Question 2 :  How would I use the Midijay with my existing Keyboard (Yamaha, Roland or Korg ...etc)?

Answer:         First of all, make sure your unit has the GM (General Midi logo). Go into the Midi settings of your keyboard and set the OMNI/GLOBAL transmit channel = 1. Next make sure the GLOBAL channel on the Midijay Plus is also set to receive on channel 1 (MENU - MIDI - CHANNEL RX - GLOBAL - 1). Next, make sure the PLAY MODE in the Midijay plus is set to KEYBOARD (check mark next to Keyboard) -(MENU - PLAYMODE - KEYBOARD). This tells the MIDIJAY plus you'll be using a Keyboard as the controller. Now you can simply select a style (press STYLE and select the internal preset styles OR press STYLE and press EXIT to access the styles within the Hard Drive of the Midijay in the STYLES folder. Once highlighted, press ENTER to load it in.

A. ARRANGER CONTROLS

    * KEY/SYNC START - In order for the style to start playing when you press a key to the left of the split point (ARRANGER MODE), press the "<" data button (an asterix will appear after the transposer value "  * [ ] ").

    * KEY/SYNC STOP - In order for the style to stop playing when you quickly play and release a chord to the left of the split point (ARRANGER MODE), press the "." data button (an asterix will appear after the transposer value "  [ ] * "). If both asterix are on, the style plays onlt when a chord is played and stops when the chord is released ( *[ ]* ).

    * HOLD - By pessing the "v" data button, the hold function is activated " [H] " is displayed next to the Transposer value. The accompaniment parts (bass and chords) are held even when the chord played is released. If this function is off (no H is displayed), when the chord played is released, only the drums will be left playing ( [ ] ).

B. KEYBOARD MODES.

    * PIANIST - This allows you to play the entire keyboard (without a split point). To activate this, press the EDIT button (while the STYLE button is lit). Highlight PIANIST with the data wheel and press ENTER to check it

    * BASSIST - This allows you to play the arranger while playing the bass notes manually to the left of the split point and controlling the arranger with chords played to the right of the split point. Access this function by pressing the EDIT button (while the STYLE button is lit) - highlight MANUAL BASS and press ENTER to turn it on.

    * PARAMETER/ARRANGER VOLUMES/EFFECTS...etc - This allows you to adjust volume, reverb, pan, effects ...etc for the individual arranger parts. Access this by pressing the EDIT button (while the STYLE button is lit), select PARAMTER and press ENTER - now use the data cursor buttons to select the value you want and change with the data value wheel.

C. TEXT DISPLAY/KARAOKE. You can also control the size (small/more lines on the screen or large/less lines on the screen) of the text displayed on the screen when you play midifiles with karaoke or wave/mp3 files with text. To set the size, press MENU - DISPLAY.

    * LYRICS ZOOM OFF (text are small and more lines are displayed per page).

    * LYRICS ZOOM ON (text are large and less lines displayed per page).

         ** TEXT LINE NUMBER (found by pressing MENU - MONITOR - scroll down to TEXT LINE NUMBER which is used to set the number of lines (5/10) displayed per page.

    * TEXT AUTO LOAD ON - Whenever a wave or mp3 file is loaded and has an associated text file (text file must have the same name as the music file selected), the text file is automatically displayed as soon as the music starts playing.

    * TEXT AUTO LOAD OFF - User has to manually load any text file when a song file is loaded.

Question 3 :   How would I use the MIDIJAY PLUS with my MIDI ACCORDION/MIDI GUITAR?

Answer:         With the Midi accordion, you would have to set the Midijay Plus to receive on the fundamental midi accordion transmit channels (so both units speak the same language on the same pathway). Press MENU - PLAY MODES and select ACCORDION. Select the TYPE of accordion next (based on the Midi accordion you have). NB: If playing a MIDI GUITAR, this step need not be done. You can also manually map/select the accordion's bass, right and chord midi channel settings by pressing MENU - MIDI - CHANNEL RX - and for each channel, manually set the corresponding channel on the Midijay plus. In this case, set the PLAYMODE (mentioned above) to ACCORDION - MANUAL.

Question 4 :   As a KARAOKE person, how would the Midijay benefit me in my performances?

Answer:         This little guy is capable of hosting thousands of midifiles, hundreds of wave and Mp3 files. If you load in a midifile with embedded lyrics, the lyrics are displayed as the midifile plays. Connecting the Midijay plus to an external monitor or TV (optional TV adaptor need for TV connection), will allow you to display all the lyrics on an external screen. You can change the foreground, background, font size ...etc by pressing MENU, selecting MONITOR and accessing the monitor settings.

    * Adding TEXT files to your current MP3 or Wave files and using the Karaoke feature. When you have a song file e.g Zouk.mp3, you can download/type up the lyrics to this song using a Word Processor and save the file as Zouk.txt in the same folder where the song file resides (in this case the MP3 folder). Make sure MENU - DISPLAY - TXT AUTO LOAD is set ON so that whenever this song is selected and played, the associated lyrics will be displayed.

    * Programming the MIDIJAY such that the pages change automatically. Once the text file is loaded and the song starts to play, manually change the page using the ">" data button at the appropriate time. Once the song is completed, press SAVE and proceed to save the new Page settings. Next time this song is played, the pages will change automatically.

Question 5 :- How do I automatically switch from one song to another (crossfade) without stopping?

Answer:         CROSSFADE. This feature allows you to automatically fade out of one song into another (Wave  <-> Wave, Wave <-> Midi, Midi <-> Midi) and fade out of Mp3 <-> Mp3. With this button on, simply select and play the next song.

    * WAVE/MIDI Crossfade curves- With the WAVE or MIDI button on (using Wave/Midi files), press EDIT - CROSSFADE CURVE to set how fast/slow Midijay Plus crossfades from one song to another.

    * MP3 Fade Out - With the MP3 button lit, press EDIT - FADE OUT EDIT to select the CURVE (EXPonential/LINer), START (how soon after the CROSSFADE button is pressed should the function be activated [127-immediately; 0 - gradually] and END - at what point in the song should this future terminate?

Question 6 :   As a DJ, how do I change the pitch of a song or change the tempo to match the BMP of another song?

Answer:         Here is where some organization starts to play an important roll.

   * TRANSPOSE - When playing a Wave file/song, you can transpose (by pressing the TRANSPOSE button and using the "<" or ">" data buttons or data wheel to transpose down or up.

    * PITCH - You can change the song's pitch by pressing the TEMPO button, selecting PITCH and using the data buttons to increase/decrease the pitch.

    * TEMPO - You can change the song's tempo by pressing the TEMPO button, selecting STRETCH and using the data button to increase/decrease the tempo without changing the pitch. This works best within +/- 15% of the original tempo.

Question 7 : What are some of the main purposes of the LEAD MUTE button and how would it benefit me?

Answer:      The LEAD MUTE can be used by various people for various reasons.

* Midifile user:- The LEAD MUTE button comes pre-assigned to track 4 of General Midi files (where most files have the lead voice programmed). This ofcourse can be re-programmed to any of the 16 Midi channes (EDIT - MIDI- LEAD MUTE). When playing a Midifile, pressing this button instantly mutes the lead voice (e.g sax, guitar ... etc used to play the melody line of a song). You can now play this part yourself live using  a real sax, guitar ... etc. Also, if conntected to the LINE IN jacks on the side, you can re-record this entire performance and the Midijay will save this as a WAVE file. When next this wave file is played, you will hear the midi background files together with the new sax (or vocal - depending on what was recorded). The fun is even if you used the sax, you can now play this new wave file, press the RECORD button and record a new one (now with a mic plugged in) and record a vocal track ontop of what was previously recorded. The oppertunities are endless ... and you can now see the multi-recording function in great use.

* Kareoke user:- When playing back a WAVE file, by pressing the LEAD MUTE button, the lead voice within the wave file is taken out (about 95% off it that is). You can now sing over the music with your voice (which now replaced the initial lead voice). Use the TRANSPOSE button to bring the song up or down to YOUR key ... and if you want, press RECORD to record this performance - what a versatile machine!

Question 8 :  With so many buttons to push during a live performance, is there an alternative?

Answer:      Yes - the optional FS13 (13 pedals) or FS (6 pedal)s) pedal board. By going into MENU - FOOTSWITCH, you can use the cursor "^" and "v" buttons to highlight which pedal you want to edit and change it's value using the data value wheel. So repetitive features such as Start/Stop, Fill ins, voice changes, Vocalizer on/off ... etc can all be asigned to the footswitch pedals - thus freeing up your hands to do what you like to do - play!

Question 9:   How do I benefit from the PLAYLIST feature?

Answer:       This nice feature gives you the performer or the DJ that change to 'take a break' while the Midijay plays 10 songs. Turn on the CROSSFADE future and these songs (depending on the CROSSFADE settings) are played back-to-back automatically. Also, you can use this feature to quickly access 10 songs at any given time (without having to search the massive HD for 'stuff'' (which is what your files appear to be after a while). You can also organize different playlists for different scenarios as the playlist is saved with a name (e.g. Wedding-Intro, Wedding-Boddy, Wedding-Dance, Wedding-Easy_listening ..etc where by calling up and loading any of these files, 10 songs are instantly loaded into RAM ready for play.

Question  10:      With so many songs to perform for one night, how can I quickly go from song to song with hardly any time laps between? With all these buttons to push, I fear I might press the wrong one in the heat of the moment - or might just forget what style to use with which song?

Answer:        Here is where the REGISTRATIONS come in. A Register is a location in memory which stores the entire setting of the Midijay at any given time. To use this feature, simply -

* Set the midijay up for a song ... any song (style, tempo, key, voice .. etc).

* When satisfied, press the REGISTERATION button.

* Press SAVE and use the PLAYLIST buttons to name the new file - maybe naming it the same name as the song (e.g Woman No Cry) would help. Now you can set the Midijay up for the next song and save it's settings the same way mentioned above.

* During a performance, to recall a song setting, simply press the REGISTRATION button, scroll down to highlight the song you want and press ENTER. The Midijay is instantly ready to play the selected song ... as soon as you start playing ofcourse. You may also use the ALPHABETICAL search feature (by pressing the ALPHA SEARCH button and using the PLAYLIST buttons to search for the song). Once found, press ENTER to load in the settings ... then play.