Donny, trust me; no one mistakes anything you say. You're way to transparent for that. BTW, thanks for correcting my spelling. But why is "N's" capitalized? Could that be another iNNuendo, pray tell? May I also make the following grammatical suggestions in your statement above.

1. Double quotes around "gang mentality" and "gangbanger" in that usage.

2. Period (.) or semi-colon ( after Thesaurus. Capital "T" for "there" if you choose to use the period.

3. Add "s" to "meaning" (multiple implies more than one, remember?).

4. You could try a beginning quote (") instead of a colon ( in front of "innuendo", you know, with the two "N's".

You may want to try out that ol' Thesaurus yourself once in awhile. Just a thought.

chas

Oh Chas I love when your humorous it makes the SZ so much fun to peruse!!! Now can we get back on topic?



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 01-09-2008).]

Oh Man they weighed a ton.....but oh man they could do a mean Light My Fire...but then again back then Mike everything weighed a ton...I used it with a 147 Leslie that I had to cut in half horizontally to make it fit in my little car.....but the folding legs was very kool concept!

Yes... let's just keep this one ON TOPIC if possible.

I have always liked the 'swing' knobs from old drum machines. The trick is for the style to ONLY use simple 8th or 16th beats and fills. Anything more complicated (ghost notes, triplet figures, etc.) and it goes to hell in a handbasket real fast.

Perhaps some sort of 'simple style' flag could be put into the style's metadata so that ONLY these styles respond to the swing knob (and I liked it when the swing could be easily varied, rather than off or on) and more complex styles remain the way they are...?

OK... here's another one...

Why not have a 'clone' MIDI setting, especially for Yamaha PSR range and others that have very light, 61 note keyboards. You plug ANY MIDI keyboard into it, send to it on ONE MIDI channel, and it reads the external controller as if it was still reading it's own, actual keyboard. Splits, Layers, Chord recognition, controllers (pitchbend, mod and sustain and expression, at the least), ...everything.

That way you could buy a nice 76 or 88, set it to send on just one channel (nice and simple!), and set the PSR on it SO close (you don't need to access the 76's display or knobs) that it is still relatively easy to get to the PSR's variation buttons, etc..

Even better would be that once 'clone mode' was engaged, it might free up the PSR's keyboard to be assigned to a sound of your choice, maybe for the organ sounds.

Kurzweil K2500 has this very feature... no matter HOW complicated a split and layer scheme you use, if you connect another MIDI keyboard to it and activate the mirror function, it re-routes the one MIDI channel coming in to whatever sounds the real keyboard would play.

This might be a great boon to those who like Yamaha arrangers, but can't stand the action...

Diki, I don't think I understand your 'clone midi' suggestion. How would this differ from a flexible 76/88 controller and a module such as the Midjay or similar. Wouldn't it be better just to have more manufaturers produce modules to be used with great controllers (ie. lightweight, good keyfeel, ergonomic controls, etc.). Since it couldn't be this simple, I'm sure I'm missing something important here.

Along those lines, how about a nice purpose-built controller, specifically built to control 'arranger-type' functions across most manufaturer's lines. Maybe some of the newest ones already do, I dunno'.

chas

I would like to see all arranger keyboards with at least 8 sliders dedicated to STYLE PARTS. Along with the style part sliders, there would be a 3-4 mode toggle button with the following modes:

Mode 1: Style Composition
Similar to the Korg Karma functions, this function would allow the sliders to manipulate the groove, timing, measures, speed, bounce of all the style parts like drums (bass/snare/cymbals separately), bass, rhythm, etc.

So for example take a rock 4/4 beat and play around with the slider 1 for drums would change the position of the kick from 2 and 4 to maybe 1 and 3. Or it can even throw in double beats or triplets every so often to make the beat more interesting.

Or maybe change the base 4/4 rhythm to 7/8 or 3/4 or 12/8. Maybe do the same with the snare or hi-hat by doing beat displacement. While in this mode, you can scroll through the drum kits to select new drum patches.

I would also like to see larger measures for styles; say 16-24 bar styles. This would allow for greater variations in the base style.

Naturally, once you are satisfied with your changes, you can save them to a totally new style!!

Mode 2: Style Parts Volume. Would allow the each style part volumes to be controlled real-time.

Mode 3: Draw bars. Allows organ patch footage to be manipulated real-time.

Mode 4: Equalizer. in this mode, the sliders would change the display to a parametric equalizer which would adjust the current style or maybe the entire keyboard or just the vocal harmonizer.

That's just a start, but I think you have the idea.

------------------
Al Giordano http://www.arrangerworld.com


Tyros 2, Yamaha P-250, Korg Triton Extreme 76, Roland VK8-M, DW Collectors Series Drums, Roland SPD-S.


[This message has been edited by kbrkr (edited 01-10-2008).]

[This message has been edited by kbrkr (edited 01-10-2008).]

Great to see new ideas, but please remember that arranger manufactures make their products specifically for the Home Player, and having too many sophisticated features would put these buyers off, (And the manufactures would loose considerable sales) however if you can make a point of how the feature will make it a Must Have/Buy for the Home User, then the manufactures will definitely sit up and take notice, otherwise I am afraid the suggestions will fall on deaf ears.

Bill

Therein lies the problem ... how do we get them to hear that sooooo many of these boards are used by working musicians !?!?!?

t.

Tony, the reality is......probably less than 2% of working musicians.

chas