Now that all the availible voice editing pamaters have been assigned to the Keystation, its time to move to the drum voices.
The parameters availible for drum editing are quite limited in comparison to the voice settings. Drum editing is different from voice editing in that each drum sound can be edited individually, basically key by key over the 61 keys that make up a drumkit. There are no filter or envelope settings, although this is typical for many Roland drum modules.
As well as being able to edit each drum instrument individually, the general midi controllers that apply to normal voice programming are still availible, but they apply to the entire drumkit as a whole.
CC1 Modulation- Not effective?
CC5 Portomento Time- ?
CC7 Volume- Sets volume limit of entire kit
CC10 Pan- Useful for extreme panning effects?
CC11 Expression- Useful
CC64 Hold- Drum instrumenst do not sustain
CC65 Porto On/Off
CC66 Sostenuto
CC67 Soft
CC84 Porto Control
CC91 Reverb Send
CC93 Chorus Send
NRPN
These are the commands that allow individual drum instruments to be edited
Coarse Pitch
Volume
Pan Random
Reverb Send
Chorus Send
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Laying Out Controllers on a Keystation III
Now the middle row if the group B controllers is where I usually put pitch and LFO related controllers.
GROUP B Second Row
All controllers set to Global Channel 0
B18 CC129 Coarse Tune
B19 CC130 Fine Tune
B20 CC128 MSB 0 LSB 0 Pitch Bend Sensitivity 0-24 semitones. Default value 2 Min val. 0. Max val. 24.
B21 CC141 MSB 0 LSB 2 Master Coarse Tuning +/- 24 Semitones Min. val 24. Max val. 84
B22 Master Fine MSB 0 LSB 1
B23 CC16 System Controller 1
B24 CC17 System Controller 2
B25 CC131 Channel Aftertouch
The three rotaries B23 - B24 cover the two system controllers and aftertouch. These are used as modulation sources along with the pitch and mod wheels, and polyphonic aftertouch. The modulation matrix however, can only be activated and edited by sysex, which is beyond the keystation. A future project for the BCR2000 me thinks. But I'll park them here till I get around to them.
Third Row
All controllers set to global channel 0
B10 CC5 Portomento Speed
B11 CC84 Portomento Control
B12 CC1 Modulation
B13 CC7 Volume
B14 CC11 Expression
B15 CC10 Pan
B16 CC91 Reverb Send
B17 CC93 Chorus Send
I like generally to place portomento, panning and effects controllers on the bottom row of group B.
The modulation, pitch and expression controllers are here only, because they are the most useful controllers out of whats left. I will need to do some more experimentation, to see if there is a more useful function for these. Prehaps a set of the vibrato controllers with the values limited to +2/-2 in value to try and introduce some "analogue wobble" to synth type waves. Although, the PMA's sine wave only LFO's may limit this.
GROUP B Second Row
All controllers set to Global Channel 0
B18 CC129 Coarse Tune
B19 CC130 Fine Tune
B20 CC128 MSB 0 LSB 0 Pitch Bend Sensitivity 0-24 semitones. Default value 2 Min val. 0. Max val. 24.
B21 CC141 MSB 0 LSB 2 Master Coarse Tuning +/- 24 Semitones Min. val 24. Max val. 84
B22 Master Fine MSB 0 LSB 1
B23 CC16 System Controller 1
B24 CC17 System Controller 2
B25 CC131 Channel Aftertouch
The three rotaries B23 - B24 cover the two system controllers and aftertouch. These are used as modulation sources along with the pitch and mod wheels, and polyphonic aftertouch. The modulation matrix however, can only be activated and edited by sysex, which is beyond the keystation. A future project for the BCR2000 me thinks. But I'll park them here till I get around to them.
Third Row
All controllers set to global channel 0
B10 CC5 Portomento Speed
B11 CC84 Portomento Control
B12 CC1 Modulation
B13 CC7 Volume
B14 CC11 Expression
B15 CC10 Pan
B16 CC91 Reverb Send
B17 CC93 Chorus Send
I like generally to place portomento, panning and effects controllers on the bottom row of group B.
The modulation, pitch and expression controllers are here only, because they are the most useful controllers out of whats left. I will need to do some more experimentation, to see if there is a more useful function for these. Prehaps a set of the vibrato controllers with the values limited to +2/-2 in value to try and introduce some "analogue wobble" to synth type waves. Although, the PMA's sine wave only LFO's may limit this.
Labels:
keystation,
keystation pro,
midi controllers,
nrpn,
roland pma-5,
rpn
Monday, December 7, 2009
Laying Out Group Controllers on a Keystation II
Group B Controllers
Righto, now onward to group B; 24 rotary knobs, and 8 buttons. This is where the main sound shaping will take place.
Being able to load the whole 32 controllers in from one of the 10 presets stored in the Keystation opens up a possibile workflow. By creating several presets for different tasks and loading group B encoders for each step, I should be able to push the PMA5 to its limits.
The three preset banks that occur to me are;
Voice editing
Drum Voice Editing
Mixing when used with an external sequencer
GROUP B Bank 1 VOICE EDITING
Upper Row of Rotary Controllers (left to right)
All controllers set to global channel 0
B26 Filter Cutoff
B27 Filter Resonance
B28 Vibrato Delay
B29 Attack (filter & amp)
B30 Decay (filter & amp)
B31 Release (filter & amp)
B32 Vibrato Depth
B33 Vibrato Rate
The eight rotary knobs along the top row are the easiest to find and manipulate, for my fingers. So this is where I tend to put the most useful controllers- usually filters to the left and envelopes to the right.
First up, the filter controls; cutoff, resonance and vibrato delay. While only having one filter type is a bummer, at least Roland included resonance, which was more than some manufacterers were doing in the early nineties, which is when the Sound Canvas range was spawned.
The Vibrato delay deserves special mention. On the face of it I would expect vibrato delay to delay the onset of pitch vibrato, specified by the vibrato depth and rate controllers. Well it low settings it might, but its main effect seems to be on thev filter. If I had to rename it, I would label it "filter chorus". It gives a fairly sparse filter section a valueble boost.
Following that is the attack, decay and release controllers for the filter and amplifier envelope. That these share a single envelope , is probably the biggest limitation of this synth engine.
On the right I'll park the two remaining vibrato controllers- rate and depth. However nothing can wreck a cool solo line faster than yanking a lfo controller by mistake. These two are probationary.
Righto, now onward to group B; 24 rotary knobs, and 8 buttons. This is where the main sound shaping will take place.
Being able to load the whole 32 controllers in from one of the 10 presets stored in the Keystation opens up a possibile workflow. By creating several presets for different tasks and loading group B encoders for each step, I should be able to push the PMA5 to its limits.
The three preset banks that occur to me are;
Voice editing
Drum Voice Editing
Mixing when used with an external sequencer
GROUP B Bank 1 VOICE EDITING
Upper Row of Rotary Controllers (left to right)
All controllers set to global channel 0
B26 Filter Cutoff
B27 Filter Resonance
B28 Vibrato Delay
B29 Attack (filter & amp)
B30 Decay (filter & amp)
B31 Release (filter & amp)
B32 Vibrato Depth
B33 Vibrato Rate
The eight rotary knobs along the top row are the easiest to find and manipulate, for my fingers. So this is where I tend to put the most useful controllers- usually filters to the left and envelopes to the right.
First up, the filter controls; cutoff, resonance and vibrato delay. While only having one filter type is a bummer, at least Roland included resonance, which was more than some manufacterers were doing in the early nineties, which is when the Sound Canvas range was spawned.
The Vibrato delay deserves special mention. On the face of it I would expect vibrato delay to delay the onset of pitch vibrato, specified by the vibrato depth and rate controllers. Well it low settings it might, but its main effect seems to be on thev filter. If I had to rename it, I would label it "filter chorus". It gives a fairly sparse filter section a valueble boost.
Following that is the attack, decay and release controllers for the filter and amplifier envelope. That these share a single envelope , is probably the biggest limitation of this synth engine.
On the right I'll park the two remaining vibrato controllers- rate and depth. However nothing can wreck a cool solo line faster than yanking a lfo controller by mistake. These two are probationary.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Laying Out Midi Controllers on a Keystation Pro
With all those buttons and knobs- 55, the Keystation initially seems to be capable of simulataneously controlling every parameter possible. However even a fairly basic unit like a PMA5 will use them all up fairly quickly.
A useful feature of M-Audios design is the three controller groups- A, B and C. Each group represents a different type of controller on the Keystation.
Group A comprises mod and pitch wheels, the five buttons above them and three pedals. These controllers are probably best allocated to live proformance controllers such as sustain, and transport duties for controlling modules and software. One feature of this group is that they can be allocated individually to each of the four layers, and can even have differing controllers for each layer. I have'nt grasped yet what to do with that feature, but its on the list.
So I'll start by allocating these controllers to group A
The Two Wheels
Pitch Bend - CC140 (special keystation CC number
Modulation- CC1
The Five Buttons
(left to right)
Mono/Poly- CC126 Mono on toggling to CC127 Poly on
Portomento On/Off- CC65
Soft- CC67 I have'nt noticed any great effect from this as yet.
Sostenuto- CC66 Not quite sure what this does, something about sustaining only the notes active at the time its engaged, rather than all incoming notes, which is sustain
Sustain- CC65 I'm not great with pedals, so here's a useful position to put this.
A useful feature of M-Audios design is the three controller groups- A, B and C. Each group represents a different type of controller on the Keystation.
Group A comprises mod and pitch wheels, the five buttons above them and three pedals. These controllers are probably best allocated to live proformance controllers such as sustain, and transport duties for controlling modules and software. One feature of this group is that they can be allocated individually to each of the four layers, and can even have differing controllers for each layer. I have'nt grasped yet what to do with that feature, but its on the list.
So I'll start by allocating these controllers to group A
The Two Wheels
Pitch Bend - CC140 (special keystation CC number
Modulation- CC1
The Five Buttons
(left to right)
Mono/Poly- CC126 Mono on toggling to CC127 Poly on
Portomento On/Off- CC65
Soft- CC67 I have'nt noticed any great effect from this as yet.
Sostenuto- CC66 Not quite sure what this does, something about sustaining only the notes active at the time its engaged, rather than all incoming notes, which is sustain
Sustain- CC65 I'm not great with pedals, so here's a useful position to put this.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Voice Editing a Roland PMA-5 using a Keystation Pro
As far as controller keyboards go, they dont get much larger than a Keystation Pro. Eighty eight keys, 9 sliders, 24 knobs, 22 buttons, 2 wheels and 3 pedal inputs, should be able to explore most of the PMA's potential.
At this stage I'll be looking at the sound module side of the PMA.
MIDI CONTROLLERS FOR EDITING INDIVIDUAL VOICES FOR A ROLAND PMA5
Standard Midi Control Change Messages that it responds to.
CC1 Modulation
CC5 Portomento time
CC7 Volume
CC10 Panning
CC11 Expression
CC16 Controller 1 (default)
CC17 Controller 2 (default)
CC64 Sustain
CC65 Portomento On/Off
CC66 Sostenuto
CC67 Soft
CC84 Autobend (portomento control)
CC91 Reverb Send
CC93 Chorus send
CC126/CC127 Mono/Poly
CC128 Pitch Bend Sensitivity
CC129 Coarse Tuning
CC130 Fine Tuning
CC131 Aftertouch
NRPN Controllers
M-Audio use a special CC number- 136, which allows NRPN LSB and MSB parameters to be easily allocated to a knob, rather than having to enter CC 98 then CC99 then CC6 sequentially
All of these MRPNs are "offset" parameters with a range of plus or minus 40, centred on 64. It is best to set them up with maximum and minimum values of 24 and 104 respectively.
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 8 =Vibrato Rate
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 9 =Vibrato Depth
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 10 =Vibrato Delay
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 32 =Filter Cutoff
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 33 =Resonance
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 99 =Attack (both filter and amplifier envelopes)
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 100 =Decay (both filter and amplifier enveloopes
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 102 =Release (both filter and amplifier envelopes).
RPN
As with NRPNs M-Audio uses a special CC- 132, to enter RPNs. This avoids having to use CC 100, CC101 and then CC6.
CC132 MSB 0 LSB 0 Pitch bend sensitivity (channel specific)
M-Audio has also put some further device specific
CC128 Pitch bend sesitivity (not sure if this is channel specific)
CC140 Pitch Bend
Some of the later Sound Canvas models supported GM2 controllers, however the PMA does not appear to be one of these.
At this stage I'll be looking at the sound module side of the PMA.
MIDI CONTROLLERS FOR EDITING INDIVIDUAL VOICES FOR A ROLAND PMA5
Standard Midi Control Change Messages that it responds to.
CC1 Modulation
CC5 Portomento time
CC7 Volume
CC10 Panning
CC11 Expression
CC16 Controller 1 (default)
CC17 Controller 2 (default)
CC64 Sustain
CC65 Portomento On/Off
CC66 Sostenuto
CC67 Soft
CC84 Autobend (portomento control)
CC91 Reverb Send
CC93 Chorus send
CC126/CC127 Mono/Poly
CC128 Pitch Bend Sensitivity
CC129 Coarse Tuning
CC130 Fine Tuning
CC131 Aftertouch
NRPN Controllers
M-Audio use a special CC number- 136, which allows NRPN LSB and MSB parameters to be easily allocated to a knob, rather than having to enter CC 98 then CC99 then CC6 sequentially
All of these MRPNs are "offset" parameters with a range of plus or minus 40, centred on 64. It is best to set them up with maximum and minimum values of 24 and 104 respectively.
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 8 =Vibrato Rate
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 9 =Vibrato Depth
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 10 =Vibrato Delay
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 32 =Filter Cutoff
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 33 =Resonance
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 99 =Attack (both filter and amplifier envelopes)
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 100 =Decay (both filter and amplifier enveloopes
CC 134 MSB 1 LSB 102 =Release (both filter and amplifier envelopes).
RPN
As with NRPNs M-Audio uses a special CC- 132, to enter RPNs. This avoids having to use CC 100, CC101 and then CC6.
CC132 MSB 0 LSB 0 Pitch bend sensitivity (channel specific)
M-Audio has also put some further device specific
CC128 Pitch bend sesitivity (not sure if this is channel specific)
CC140 Pitch Bend
Some of the later Sound Canvas models supported GM2 controllers, however the PMA does not appear to be one of these.
Labels:
keystation pro,
midi,
midi cc,
nrpn,
pma-5,
PMA5,
roland,
roland pma-5,
rpn
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Roland PMA-5 Personal Music Assistant
This amazing little box was the first electronic instrument I ever bought. In about 1997 from memory. At the time I played guitar and was looking for something to help me understand music transcriptions and act as a practise tool.
My main memory of when I started using it, was how incredibly powerful and clever the unit was. Like most guitarists in the 90's, I was completley ignorant of electronic instruments. The PMA made me feel like a caveman who suddenly encounters a TV.
Within no time I was turning out the worst "plink plink plink" midi renditions of my favourite guitar epics, you will ever hear. Luckily you won't, because it died about 3 years later, completly worn out.
Anyway last week l won my second PMA on ebay for $100. Its like meeting an old friend after a long time.
I think that whenever someone learns a whole new instrument or technology, the initial tools you use can still strongly shape the way you work, long after they have been replaced by newer methods and equipment.
Thats how I feel about the now ancient PMA5. Over the years I've bought and used several more synths, all of which were far more powerful and more professinal. But many times found my self thinking of the PMA5
Questions I would like to answer.
How useful is the chord track feature as an arpegiator?
Is a sound canvas unit still capable of interesting synthesis?
Can a controller keyboard make the PMA5 a viable live insrument?
How do I acess the sysex perameters?
How can I backlight the screen?
My main memory of when I started using it, was how incredibly powerful and clever the unit was. Like most guitarists in the 90's, I was completley ignorant of electronic instruments. The PMA made me feel like a caveman who suddenly encounters a TV.
Within no time I was turning out the worst "plink plink plink" midi renditions of my favourite guitar epics, you will ever hear. Luckily you won't, because it died about 3 years later, completly worn out.
Anyway last week l won my second PMA on ebay for $100. Its like meeting an old friend after a long time.
I think that whenever someone learns a whole new instrument or technology, the initial tools you use can still strongly shape the way you work, long after they have been replaced by newer methods and equipment.
Thats how I feel about the now ancient PMA5. Over the years I've bought and used several more synths, all of which were far more powerful and more professinal. But many times found my self thinking of the PMA5
Questions I would like to answer.
How useful is the chord track feature as an arpegiator?
Is a sound canvas unit still capable of interesting synthesis?
Can a controller keyboard make the PMA5 a viable live insrument?
How do I acess the sysex perameters?
How can I backlight the screen?
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