Something so few take into account when talking about drum 'punch' and the like is the vast difference between those that simply play their arranger at home (or even on a gig) relatively quietly, all by itself, and those that sing extensively on top, or have other musicians playing with them and try to rock the house!

Once you ADD in several extra musical elements to the style; a couple of singers, maybe a guitarist, and a competent, full two handed approach to actually PLAYING the arranger (rather than just letting it do it's thing and playing at most a one note melody on top), what at first seems like an adequate drum tone and timbre can rapidly disappear into this expanded mix.

One of the features I would LOVE to see on arrangers (but haven't yet) is a GLOBAL part boost. So, if your sequences and styles are nicely balanced for a polite, background level, and you get into a situation where they are starting to get swamped, especially drums (often the first thing to disappear), there is a global setting that would boost the drum part (or any other you select) and add a specified amount to it to get it back in the mix.

I know you can do this on-the-fly, but having a 'set and forget' would make life a LOT easier...

This would work the other way around, too, if your party mix styles are a bit brash for a cocktail crowd.

What do you think?

Roland already has this ....but you knew that Diki

No it doesn't... (you DIDN'T know that, Donny? )

You can change the volume of the drum part for ONE registration, or ONE SMF, but change registrations (I do the 'one song - one registration' system) and it goes to the registration settings, requiring you to re-up the drums. Or call up another SMF and it reverts to the stored volumes.

I'm talking about a GLOBAL addition, regardless of whether you change UPG's or not...

Korg pa2x has this feature. You can change the balance of the drum, bass, and accompaniment parts on the fly, and it will stay in position even through style and performance changes.

I would hope that Yamaha's T3 assignable fader could do this, but knowing Yamaha, it won't.

Chony

Don’t assign the drum volume to a preset, just set it manually for the show. (Or have different global setup presets for different venues, and select the appropriate one as required)

Bill

Maybe one generic volume for all your styles and sequences is good enough for you, Bill, but in my case, each and every song has an entire registration devoted to it, that calls up the entire state of the instrument with one screen tap.

Sounds, effects, splits, controller assignments, Part mutes, links to SMF's, links to lyrics displays, the total thing I need for each and every song (I don't believe in a bunch of button pushing while you are trying to play and entertain) are all stored in each UPG. And there is no way to add a GLOBAL offset to every UPG I call up just for one Part.

I know a lot of the old time arranger users still use the 'free panel' system, because that's what they got used to. But Roland's have always had the ability to store the entire setup per Registration, and that's what I'm comfortable with (and need, to be honest).

How does that Korg offset system work? Do you have to specify an absolute value for the drum track's volume (and how does it know which tracks are drum tracks in sequencer mode?), or can you say 'take all the drum tracks and add 15 to their value' (which is what I would need)?

Diki,

If you are doing this with registrations, and each song is different, then a global effects to the drum kits would be out of the question I would think.

Pretty easy to do, though, with any keyboard using registrations for each song. It's just a matter of setting the EQs, etc.. for the drum kit for that particular song, then save the information into the registrations. If the next song on your list uses the same drum settings, no problem. If the settings need to be modified, make the changes then save them to that registration.

I doubt that anyone would have more than a dozen or two drum settings they would utilize, nearly all of which would apply to a huge number of songs. It would be a fairly simple task to set up a series of style files with highly tuned drums, rename them by adding a number to designate the settings you use, then select from those style files when you create the registrations. Then, when global EQ changes are necessary for a particular venue configuration, they can be selected without having a dramatic impact on your tuned registrations. In doing this, you can get as much, or as little punch out of the drums that you want.

Cheers,

Gary

Not sure why this would be a problem...

A simple 'add 15 to the drum tracks after the registration loads' seems easy enough. It's how the Makeup Tools already works (offsets to existing values) but that only does it on a per style or SMF basis, and is stored with the style or preset. I would prefer it as a global option.

I know I could program alternative UPG's, styles and sounds, but I'm not anxious to have to duplicate my entire songlist, and fill up my HD with edited pumped up versions, when a simple offset command could do the job!

I'm not really talking about global EQ's (although EQ offsets WOULD be nice, as well ) but simply a volume command (my drums are already punchy enough, thank you very much!) to bring them up in the mix. Right now, when needed, I am doing this by hand, and yes, it ain't all THAT hard to do on the fly (one button push and move a slider), but I'm lazy! Usually, when this is needed, it's needed for EVERYTHING.

A global offset would make it easy to just play and perform, and let the machine do the offset...

This is what I dreamed of for years....a separate output for each of the major parts in the drum kit (bass, snare, cymbals, hi-hat, ALL latin instruments, etc). And then run each line out into a (dedicated) mixer channel. Sure there'd be 20-30 cables coming out, but look at the command you'd have on tweaking each part...tone, volume, reverb....and the best effect of all...."panning"...each part into one of a setup of multiple speakers for a great "wall of sound!"

Of course, there'd be no market for something like this (outside of me) because most players don't tweak ANYTHING on their keyboards...not even "fills."

Hmmmmmmm?.......re-look at that picture of the audience at Pakefiled 2008 & then look at what you want to do with the drums "Wall of Sound".....something tells me its not going to be embraced anytime soon.