Hello,

I just bought a PA 800 and I am about to transfer hundreds of SMF into it (from my Roland G-70).

I am having some problems making the SMFs work with the Harmonizer. Anybody can help?

Thank you
MARCO

Marco is a very good customer of mine and he is getting into stuff I don't know about at my music store in California. I would appreciate any of you PA800 people that can help him learn how to use the songbook function with midi files and settings for the vocal harmonizer.
I know you will all come through for Marco (and me too!)


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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Marco, the G70 analyze all the tracks of a SMF..so the harmonizer is easier and more efficient to use..

Most likely on the Korg , you will have to select a single track with in the SMF..unfortunately this best track can change from one SMF to another..The Yamaha , and Ketron work along the same principle as Korg..

I think you are going to find the G70 was a better harmonizer design..

Thank you Frank,
if that is the case, how do I identify which track to assign on each specific SMF? In better words, which track in a SMF should be selected for the harmonizer to work best? The bass track? Or the melody track? Or the piano track? I tried the piano or guitar track but every time the track stop performing the harmonizer stops as well interrupting the flow of the background vocals performance.

what is the best thing to do?

Thank you for your help
Marco

Marco,

SMF's that follow the Gm1/Gm2 spec will ALWAYS have the harmonising data on track 5, melody is on 4 and bass on 2, everyone knows drums are on 10.

All commercial midi file creators follow this, however if you get "freebies" you are getting what you pay for. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

You can set the PA800 to ANY track you want as the harmony (I personally use channel 15 but I do not use SMF's anyway, they are tweaked in many ways and fully utilise upper bank sounds and effects rather than the stock GM set).

I have written a tutorial on the Korg forums that explains how to use the harmoniser and set it up, it is under "External Midi setup Guide"

Dennis

Marco,
on the tune 1000 standard midi files that have a vocal harmony track written into the song (many of them do), they always use track 5. For non tune 1000 songs this might be different.
Hey Fran, can you get Uncle Dave to chime in here. I'm thinking since he uses the PA800 and sings and uses the vocal harmonizer he might have some good suggestions for Marco.


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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Dennis,
Your reply just posted at the same time as mine. We are both right! Thanks for your support.

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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Marco, George, The Tune 1000 SMF's with channel 5 assigned utilizes vocoder mode..

Marco this is why the harmony stops when their is no data being sent from any particular channel..

Although the Roland can also work as this in vocoder mode..Roland uses a better concept sending chord data to the preset harmonies..allowing you to switch on and off at will..The harmonies are always ready to sound...
You may want to experiment with the piano track usually channel 3..It is usually the busiest channel ..3 or 4 notes....

George, Dave works nearly always in vocoder mode, voicing the harmonies with his right hand..

thank you all for the quick responses.
I tried with a commercial SMF (A tune 1000) and assign the harmonizer to channel 5 but the harmonizer does not play in tune with the SMF...
in fact I have tried many different channels and many different SMF but the harmonizer never respond in tune with the SMFs..