Fantom-X 2.0 live sound switching tutorial

[Kakaroto]

Ok, now for my questions!

1. About V1 against V2: I want to understand more about why V2 is better for this method. In case the only thing is SVQ's in a live play, I don't know how helpful it is for ME, as with this method I'll just make one performance per song probably, and use the same SVQ with all of the 16 pads.

In case 16 pads won't be enough- Is it possible to make another 16 patterns that will use the pads again, and make another pattern to mute the first patterns, so that only the new patterns will make the changes (so the performance won't change according to two patterns at the same time)? Hope I was clear about this one.

2. Is it possible to use the pads (the patterns) through a control pedal (for example, the FS-5U) so that the pedal will activate the patterns in a sequence? My idea is that if yes, In the end, it will result in a change of sounds similar to live play with a pedal, just REALY FAST. This will realy be cool.

thank you

Yours, Guy

A proud owner of a Fantom X8 !!
"Life is not a waffle" - G.a.b.a.b

[DonPhilippo]

Kakaroto wrote:

> 2. Is it possible to use the pads (the patterns) through
> a control pedal (for example, the FS-5U) so that the
> pedal will activate the patterns in a sequence?

Pedal, no, I guess not. But you can program the d-beam to "page" through RPS-patterns assigned to the pads, as described in this very thread under Using the D-Beam to trigger Sysex.

> My idea is that if yes, In the end, it will result in a
> change of sounds similar to live play with a pedal,
> just REALY FAST. This will realy be cool.

Now you can do it by a mere wave of your left hand, which is even cooler!

XXX, Don Philippo

[Kakaroto]

hehe, even cooler..maybe.. Better? I guess not:(
The things I play live usually demand two hands, so I can't just stop playing with one of my hands.
However, D-Beam is certainly better than pads because its on the second side, which is near my left hand:P
This is the last thing that I need. If this will be possible, with this new method, it will just be SUPERB.

I tried to do it with no success. Maybe its possible to set the pads or live play to be controled by...ehm...modulation for example? If yes, I'll just adjust the pedal to control modulation (or whatever), and voila!!...

Yours, Guy

A proud owner of a Fantom X8 !!
"Life is not a waffle" - G.a.b.a.b

[Kakaroto]

Where's Lazeeboy?:(

I saw in another thread a talk about changing performances, so I have this question that somehow I havn't think of before...

If I indead want to change the entire settings of a performance, means all the MFX's and patterns, it will realy take a lot of time! lol I almost thought that using this method will megically demolish this changing time.

Lazeeboy's reply was something about better using a different SVQ for each performance. Why? What will be better in it than having one performance per song, that will be changed all the time?

Another annoying thought of mine: In case the only things I wanna change in the performance are the parts (patches) and the MFX's. Means all other data remains the same. (maybe except parts volume). And also, lets say I don't want 16 parts buy only....6 for instance.
Is it possible to use Sysex and change only those individual things instead of completely change a performance, and from here, extremely reduce changing time?
Well, I guess it is, but because I'm no expert in this, I can't know how impossible it will be to find and locate only the sysex messages that are needed, which still, will be quite a lot.


I truly think Lazeeboy and everyone else that was involved in this deserve lots of respect. I also think that with more learning and discussing, many more possibilities are to be found using Sysex. And some will surely be used by many owners.

It will be very funny (and great) if we'll keep working on it, and after all this work, Roland will present a new OS that includes an easy to use program that will do all this, in seconds! haha...dreams...

8am and I haven't slept all night, d*mn! good...ehm...morning guys!!

Yours, Guy

A proud owner of a Fantom X8 !!
"Life is not a waffle" - G.a.b.a.b

[lazeeboy]

Sorry Karakoto for the slow reply. I've not been notified of additions to this thread and lately I've not frequented this site as often as I would've liked.

V2 is indeed in this case only the better choice because it lets you assign SVQ's in Live Play mode. But using the song list you can also quickly recall any SVQ by just pressing the play button. This way the song list view is retained and further recalling is again a quick dial away. This is also possible using V1 so it's not neccesary to buy V2 to do the stuff you read in this thread.

At the time I started the thread I was inspired by the added functionality of V2 to assign SVQ's in Live Play; hence the title but I must admit it's a bit confusing and might fend off people that don't have V2 and are just reading the header.

At the moment I think it's only possible to trigger patterns using the 16 pads. You cannot go beyond 16 patterns because there's no more pads. You COULD make another SVQ with it's own patterns and switch between the SVQ's using Live Play(V2) and/or Song List(V1 and V2). The D-Beam can only trigger patterns that are assigned to a pad so you cannot use the D-Beam to go beyond the 16 pads either. Also I know of no external controller that's capable of triggering patterns. There's simply no MIDI implementation for this. Maybe in a future update?

I myselft don't use the D-Beam for triggering patterns anymore because I use it for leslying up organ sounds a lot so it got confusing when to use the D-Beam for switching and when to use it for the lesly effect. Also it happened that I accidentally switched (or a bandmember right b4 getting a punch) when this was not yet required thus resulting in a wrong soundset.

Oh BTW, you CAN go beyond 16 patterns using the keyboard. Assign the patterns to the lower keys. This will solve your problem of not being able to use your right hand to switch. Also I believe the entire range of the keyboard is capable of triggering patterns. Maybe if you use it in conjunction with the octave function you could work around the diminished keyboard range. I would have to check this. It's probably not a very practical solution but with practice it could work. And perhaps, just maybe, you could use an external keyboard to trigger these notes and thus the assigned patterns. You could assign patterns to the notes below the playable keyboard range so as not to lose any actual keys. Again this would have to be checked. It all depends on wether the patterns are assigned to key or notes. A guitar pedal that's capable of sending MIDI notes in addition to the usual Program Changes and Control Changes would then suffice.

Using patterns to switch entire performances will indeed result in the approximately same delay as you would have by just changing to another performance. This is because the MFX's are reprogrammed and/or rerouted. In this thread I explored a method to change an MFX beforehand thus reducing the switching time. I even use this method in a few cases. It's a bitch to program though and even bitchier to alter as you tend to forget it's concealed settings.

You asked if it would be considerably faster to just program the changes that are needed instead of the entire performance. I think it will be faster but if it will be enough I don't know; it's situation dependent I guess. Be sure to set all sysex messages to the very beginning of the pattern and put the messages that are needed first at the beginning to be sure to get the fastest result. Of course reprogramming the MFXs will alwas be slow as the units themselves are slow. I don't think it has much to do with the amount of sysex messages required to reprogram the MFX rather then the delay buffer of the MFXs that need to be refilled or some other technical issue. You could use a technique of first deactivating the MFX using sysex, then reprogramming and then re-activating it to minimize switching noises. Perhaps this will help those of you who still have an older motherboard to switch without noises.

Also Karakoto bear in mind that the performance data itself is saved within the SVQ so using an SVQ to switch performances that are already present in memory or card is maybe not a very good use but who knows... My method is not intended to speed up switching between performances. It's designed to speed up switching WITHIN 1 performance and altering a performance's settings.

I have created several SVQ in which I change the entire performance thus giving me the ability to switch beween 64 patches using 16 pads devided into 8 banks of 8 patches. Just search this forum for XV-5080 and you're bound to find it.

Regards,
Laurenz Nitert

[Kakaroto]

wow I didn't even notice you wrote back! sorry.

Anyway, thx for the reply.
About the SVQ's. I didn't mean I want to change performances using a SVQ, I meant (just like you) that I want to change the 1 performance.

And then I asked, why should I need V2 to do it if I only use one SVQ? (unless I need more than 16 changes). Thats just for general knowlege. I'm going to buy v2 for recording soon, anyway.

thx again for all of this! Great info

Yours, Guy

A proud owner of a Fantom X8 !!
"Life is not a waffle" - G.a.b.a.b

[Ettinger]

Hi Laurenz,
congratulations for your great work. It´s really very useful your template file for switching parts. I´ve read another of your posts and you are making the difference.
I´m a beginner, very stressed and frustated for the difficulties about programing my X6.Every experienced musician that I know advised me to buy Korg. Fortunately your posts are making things easier. The Roland suport is awful , they don´t know how to program their own keyboards or they don´t care about their customer.
About your template file for switching parts could you tell me how can I set up a file in accord to my needs. I mean, what´s the step by step procedure to choose which parts are selected by which pad.
Regards
P.S. you are my hope of don't regret myself about having bought a Roland keyboard.
kind regards

[lazeeboy]

Read this thread for a tutorial on using template.svq.

Good Luck!

Regards,
Laurenz Nitert

____________________________________________________
Now, if you'll excuse me; i've got some more cuddling to do

[Ettinger]

Hi Laurenz,
I've been trying your tutorial, I followed it step-by-step, but there are some problems:
at the top of page 7 you say “As you can see only the Receive switch for layer 1 is turned on...” in my keyboard all the receive switches are turned on at this step.
I turned off all of the Rx and left only the layer 1 on. I carried on proceding the next steps until page 16.
It happens that when I tap pad 2 it turns off rx1 but it doesn´t turn on rx2. So all rx stay off.
If I tap any of pads (1or2) nothing happens, this is, neither rx1 or rx2 are turned on.
I turned on again the rx1- and in another test the rx2 – through the part view page. In short, the pad 1 mutes rx2 , pad2 mutes rx1 but none of them turn on any of the rx.
What´s wrong Laurenz, please?
regards

[lazeeboy]

Are you sure the Rx switches are turned ON for all parts? Because they should be OFF when you first load template.svq Perhaps you confused them with the KB switches? They should all be turned ON.

You say only the Rx switches are turned OFF when pressing a Pad. That says to me that you probably got the Microeditting steps wrong on pages 10 through 12. Check them out again and don't forget to press [F8] (Execute) after you microedit a pattern, otherwise your settings won't be saved. Also be sure you're editting the right patterns (1 and 2). Patterns 1 through 16 indeed turn OFF all Rx switches right after you load the template.svq, so this is consistent with an unaltered pattern in your case. Only after you specify which parts should be turned ON by using microedit (set 00->01 page 10-12) are the parts turned ON (but only after the sysex is run by e.g. pressing a Pad).

To be sure your template.svq is still correct, download it again and overwite it with the one in your Fantom and try the tutorial again.

Hope this helpes.

Regards,
Laurenz Nitert

____________________________________________________
Now, if you'll excuse me; i've got some more cuddling to do

[Ettinger]

Hi Laurenz,
I met a friend of mine who owns an X8. We downloaded your template again and the same problem about the Rx is happening, this is, right after we have uploaded the file into the X8 we verified that all 16 Rx are turned on. Even so, we did the procedures to set up the pads but it did not work.Could it be that the Rx are causing everything else to fail ?

[Ettinger]

Another strange thing that I've noticed is that your template file is transposed to G instead of the standard C.Is that right?
Is there any other system configuration besides that one you mentioned at the beginning of your tutorial that I have to check in order to make your template file work properly?
looking forward to hearing from you.

[lazeeboy]

Hmm, I'll check soon. The transpose thing is easily corrected by loading the template.svq, transposing to C and saving again.

Regards,
Laurenz Nitert

____________________________________________________
Now, if you'll excuse me; i've got some more cuddling to do

[lazeeboy]

Ok, in the template.svq all the Rx switches were indeed turned ON. I turned them OFF. Also I turned ON all the Kb switches and set all RPS modes to ONCE and I corrected the Transpose setting. Get the updated version here.

Now the tutorial should work exactly to the letter.

Here's the result of the Tutorial after I went through it.

Try again.

Regards,
Laurenz Nitert

____________________________________________________
Now, if you'll excuse me; i've got some more cuddling to do

[Ettinger]

Hi Laurenz,
Now everything is working properly.This configuration that you've worked out is very useful and important for me cause I only use the X6 on stage.Thanks a lot. God bless you.
regards
Alexandre Ettinger

P.S. a minor detail: the playback mode are still set to LOOP1.