Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    The great minimoog soloists always used a mod pedal on the filter.
    I have not yet found a way of emulating this sort of control (not
    on a minimoog) with aftertouch/velocity, but I'm sure there must be a way. 
    
    Anyone managed to get our newfangled digital junk to do this?
    KArl Moeller did a sax solo on one of the commusic tapes that I
    thought had a tinge of the sort of expressivity I'm after. Was that
    achieved at least in part by crossfading multisampled sax, Karl?
    
    Richard.




                        

    re .0
    
    I wonder if you could emulate this two controller tactic using release
    velocity to trigger, say, a second/tweeked gittar sample (not that
    my gear has release velocity!)
    
    Richard.
    
    P.S. good topic, and much underrated.

    re .1
    
    I can do this using the footpedal controller on my Chroma Polaris.
    The footpedal can be assigned to control/modullate several other 
    parameters also. I still maintain that the Chroma Polaris is a highly 
    underrated keyboard.
    
    Mike D

    This may a bit off target, since it deals just with the ESQ, but I
    wrote a patch that uses two OSCs for the "main voice", which is a lead
    synth/guitar type sound.  The 3rd OSC is one octave+5 above the other 2
    tunings.  Aftertouch fades the 1+5 in and fades the other two out, so
    it sounds like you're going into a feedback harmonic. 

    I use the breah controller on the same patch to open/close the filter,
    and the mod wheel for vibrato.  Very expressive patch - and very easy
    to do on the ESQ. 

    If I ever get around to it, I'd like to try mapping BC to a sampled sax
    on some other machine, using the amount of modulation for xfade to a
    growl.  Bet it'd work ... 

-b

    re EMAX sax on Commusic IV's "Seven".. it was indeed a multisampled
    'soft sax' patch using crossfading between samples. I used both
    the pitch wheel and Yamaha breath controller (thru KX88) for volume
    #07.
    
    Re guitar emulation.. I haven't been reading Keyboard lately, 'cause
    they wouldn't publish my articles I guess.. but using two keyboards
    to emulate strumming sounds interesting, AND it would eat available
    SGU voices at an amazing rate.. of course the voice cutoffs would
    be fast, so maybe an 8voice SGU would do.

    Another thought.. if one doesn't have two keyboards and a MIDI merger,
    some keyboards can be split, and transpose the lefthand section up
    to perfectly overlap the righthand section, thus allowing two-hand
    'strums' from a single keyboard.  I think the KX88 can do that,
    though I've not attempted it.
    
    Of course, if your manual arpegggiation technique is good enough 
    you can do it on ONE keyboard, with no splits. (self-deprecating 
    shuffle and sly grin)  
karl    
    

    Nope, no arppegiation chops (and yours are quite good) are gonna
    cover what the 2 keyboard approach does, although good chops will
    certainly enhance it.
    
    The split/transpose scheme works, but that does eat up the voices.
    The two keyboard technique doesn't (apparently) eat up any more
    voices than a single chord would normally.
    
    I wish I had a merger-dooley....
    
    Edd

        < Note 1758.6 by WEFXEM::COTE "The Ether Bunny" >
>    The split/transpose scheme works, but that does eat up the voices.
>    The two keyboard technique doesn't (apparently) eat up any more
>    voices than a single chord would normally.

    say again ?? should be the same number of note-ons per second whether
    using two separate keyboards or the one-keyboard split/transpose
    trick.

    kall    

Please mention issues and where the articles are.  I read everything
in keyboard  (i thouhgts i dids) since may and don't recall anything.

This looks interesting.

Thanks

CHad

    If you hit a note, hit the sustain pedal, and then hit the note
    again, does that eat up a second voice? (I don't bleeve so, but
    I could be wrong...) This technique operates on a similar principal.
    
    The article has been going on for the last 3 or 4 months. Try looking
    in the "rap" issue...
    
    Edd

RE: hit note, hit sustain, hit note again (ouch!)

    Depends on the synth.  Some steal back the same voice if the env isn't
    completed.  Some steal the next note in the wheel.  Some do neither. 

-b

    > Some steal the same voice,... some steal the next note...
    
    And the ESQ-1 and SQ-80 let you pick which method you'd prefer
    
    	db

< Note 1758.6 by WEFXEM::COTE "The Ether Bunny" >
    
>    I wish I had a merger-dooley....
    
	See note 12.57.

	Dan

    I checked.... the article is in the "rap" issue, written by
    Steve (sounds like) Fursia or DeFursia or something like that.
    You know, the guy with the long hair....
    
    Edd

Thanks

I quickly glanced at the article last night.
It seemed by the glance that his idea was to have chords sound
successively without 1 single click between them.  He mentioned
much when playing about how a guitar player strums down, and while
the chord is still sounding, strumming back up.  A keyboard
player on the other hand goes down, backup up, and then down again for
the same thing.  Pluse he mentioned about slight arpeggiating (spelling)
while strumming.  His idea was to coordinate your playing on two keyboards
to approximate the action of a guitar player.  

For those with sequencers, this shouldn't be too hard to fake.

I hope I understand this correctly.

Chad

    OK, now that you've all got your guitar chops down (you *have* been
    practicing, haven't you??), let's get down to another nasty instrument
    to try and emulate - the saxophone.
    
    I think for a convincing sax technique you need at least 2 things,
    a MONO sample or patch and some decent pitch bending chops. 
    
    I've been using a Mirage sample called "Velocity Tenor Sax" which
    is as close to the John Coltrane sound as I've been able to find
    for the Mirage, as it has a preety good timbre change via velocity.
    
    The first thing I do is set the PB range to 1 semitone. I find this
    useful for the last note in a phrase where it's likely a sax player
    would be running out of air. I grab the desired note by hitting
    it 1 semitone flat and bending up into it quickly, never quite
    establishing the initial (flat) pitch. My PB wheel on the Mirage
    is kinda grainy so it's difficult for me to hit a pitch inside
    the range of the wheel.
    
    Setting the sample to MONO really lets me get some Coltrane outta
    the Mirage. Ensoniq implemented a primitive note assignment scheme,
    *low note priority*. Dumb, but once I new about it exploitation
    was easy. For a nice sustained trill, hit the high note and then
    just "flutter" your fingers on the low note. Every time you lift
    your finger from the low note, the higher one sounds. The advantage
    to holding the high note is that you don't have to worry about
    retriggering the envelope.
    
    I've found that a 2 semitone "flutter" works best, but don't know
    why. Maybe someone familiar with the Boehm layout could shed some
    light???
    
    A little mod wheel with a fairly quick (3-7 CPS) rate works great
    on sustained notes. Just nudge it a bit, or even leave it nudged
    a bit...
    
    Edd

    re: .16
>        A little mod wheel with a fairly quick (3-7 CPS) rate works great
>    on sustained notes. Just nudge it a bit, or even leave it nudged
>    a bit...

    
    Uhhh.. what kind of a mod?  A VCF or LFO mod? and if LFO, what kind
    of waveform do you suggest?
    
    Ashley
    

    
    re: .-2, .-1
    
       Jeez. That's too much work. 
    
       They way I am doing it (and you will hear on Commusic VI) is
    to start by playing the DH100 as controller so I get my breath breaks
    straight. 
    
       Then, use the EPS sax with the aftertouch mapped to vibrato,
    velocity mapped to volume, and the patch buttons (controller 70
    etc) for the other wavesamples (like diggin in, squeals etc).
    
        Polyphonic aftertouch comes in really handy here.
    
    /pjh

The convention on trills (if that is what you meant by "flutter") is that
they go in a scale step unless marked otherwise.  So sometimes it is one
semitone and sometimes it is two, depending what key you are in.

For example, if you were in the key of C, a trill on C would go down to
B natural, and a trill on G would go down to F.  But if you were playing
in the key of D, a trill on G would go down to F sharp, and you wouldn't
be playing any C naturals in the first place.

A conventional trill uses the diatonic note above the written note. A jazz 
player would use whatever whatever he felt like using, and often this is a note
that's not in the scale, or it might be a note more than a step away, which
would be called a tremolo or shake officially, depending on how fast it was.

At any rate, good luck determining the "key of the moment" from the key 
signature. It's better to look at the chord changes. Most modern jazz tunes
don'teven bother with a key signature -- it's a waste of time.