Cool T ip #1

This tip is valid for both the Ketron SD series and the Ketron X and XD series.

WHEELS

There are two wheels to the left side of the keyboard and above the keys, except on the Vega and SD5 where you will find joysticks.

The one on the farthest left is a pitch wheel and the one next to it is a modulation wheel, while on the joysticks pitch bend is left and right, modulation is up and down.

These wheels can do a lot of different things.

The default setting from the factory is for pitch bend only in the amount of 2 half-steps, both up and down, but it can do much, much more.

It can bend the pitch up or down from 1 half-step to 24 half-steps (2 full octaves). You can choose your own setting.

It can be used for LFO (vibrato).

It can be used for DCF (wha wha).

It can be used for DCA (volume control).

And it can do any and all these things at the same time.

These functions will only affect the right hand section of the keyboard when you are in accompaniment mode or the entire keyboard when in the pianist mode, but will not affect the styles.

HOW TO ASSIGN FUNCTIONS TO YOUR PITCH WHEEL:

Press exit repeatedly until you are at the main screen.
Press F3 (utility)
Press F4 (pitch)
You are now at the point where you can modify the settings.

PITCH BEND: To change the amount of pitch bend, press F6. The "bend value" on the screen will be highlighted. Use the "Value +/-" keys to change the amount of pitch bend (in half-steps).

You can return to the factory default by pressing both "Value +/-" keys at the same time.

LFO: To change the amount of LFO (vibrato), press F7. The "bend LFO" on the screen will be highlighted. Use the "Value +/-" keys to assign LFO to the pitch bend wheel. You may assign amounts from 0 (no vibrato) to 127 (a lot of vibrato) to the wheel.

You can return to the factory default by pressing both "Value +/-" keys at the same time.

DCF: To change the amount of DCF, which is really a high frequency filter, (wha wha), press F8. The "bend DCF" on the screen will be highlighted. Use the "Value +/-" keys to assign DCF amounts to the pitch bend wheel. The default value is 64. If you raise the value, the muffled sound will be at the bottom of the wheel and the bright sound will be at the top of the wheel. If you lower the value, the muffled sound will be at the top of the wheel and the bright sound at the bottom. The "normal" sound will be at the center of the wheel in either case.

You can return to the factory default by pressing both "Value +/-" keys at the same time.

DCA: To change the amount of DCA, which is really a volume control, (much like a volume pedal), press F8. The "bend DCA" on the screen will be highlighted. Use the "Value +/-" keys to assign DCA amounts to the pitch bend wheel. The default value is 64. If you raise the value, the sound will be quieter at the bottom of the wheel. If you lower the value, the sound will be quieter at the top of the wheel. The "normal" sound will be at the center of the wheel in either case.

You can return to the factory default by pressing both "Value +/-" keys at the same time.

*NOTE: The above-described functions will return to factory default settings when the SD1 is turned off except when saved as a registration element.

The modulation wheel can do a lot of different things as did the pitch wheel.

The default setting from the factory is for modulation only with the amount of modulation determined by F8 (speed) and F9 (depth).

It can be used for LFO PITCH(vibrato).

It can be used for LFO DCF (tremolo, varying tone).

It can be used for LFO DCA (tremolo, varying volume).

It can be used for CUTOFF (manual tone control)

It can be used for WHA WHA (mid-range filter sweep).

And it can do many of these things at the same time.

These functions will only affect the right hand section of the keyboard.

HOW TO ASSIGN FUNCTIONS TO YOUR MODULATION WHEEL:

Press exit repeatedly until you are at the main screen.
Press F3 (utility)
Press F3 (modulat.)
You are now at the point where you can modify the settings.

LFO PITCH: You can turn off the LFO PITCH by pressing F1, but ONLY if you have turned on one of the other functions by pressing the appropriate Function key. You cannot disable this wheel completely.

To change the amount (or depth) of LFO, press F9. The "mod. amou" on the screen will be highlighted. Use the "Value +/-" keys to modify the amount of modulation. You may assign amounts from 0 (no vibrato) to 63 (a lot of vibrato) to the wheel.

To change the speed of the LFO, press F8. The "mod. rate" on the screen will be highlighted. Use the "Value +/-" keys to modify the speed of modulation. You can go from 0 (no change) to 100 (very fast)

You can return to the factory default by pressing both "Value +/-" keys at the same time.

LFO DCF: To change the amount of DCF, which is really a variable high frequency filter, press F2. The "LCO DCF" on the screen will change from "off" to "on". Use the F8 and F9 keys to assign DCF amount and rate to the modulation wheel as described above. At this point you may leave the LFO PITCH on or you may press F1 and the LFO PITCH will switch to "off".

LFO DCA: This is assigned to Function key F3 and it works exactly the same as LFO DCF except what will be modulated is volume instead of tone (LFO DCF) or pitch (LFO PITCH).

CUTOFF: This works as a manual tone control which is much like a tone control on your stereo receiver (similar to wha wha). You can not affect the speed (F8) since this is manual, but you can vary the intensity of the setting by using F9. You can go from 0 (no effect) to 63 (maximum effect).

WHA WHA: This works exactly like CUTOFF except the effect is one of midrange frequency sweep instead of high frequency roll-off.

You can use most of these settings at the same time, although some combinations will not be very musical. Experimentation will help you decide which combinations are right for you.

*NOTE: The above-described functions will return to factory default settings when the SD1 is turned off unless saved as a registration.

You may wonder why this is so cool since it doen't save as part of the power-on setup. These features are useful for sequencing to the keyboard or to a computer or for performing live in some situations.
Furthermore, if you save these features as part of a registration, they will stay on your keyboard if you then turn the registration off. Or you can defeat these by going to a registration that does not have these settings and then turn the registration off.

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