Members,

As some of you know we have an annual Keyboard Jam in Florida. March 2007 will be the third. As the organizer, I have asked our members for topics for Work Shops during the Jam. I have received several.

To spur some interest in the Forum and provide input for our work Shops I will be asking input on different subjects for use in our Work Shops and at the same time forum members will gain knowledge through your replies. Lets start with:

How Do You Organize Your SD's???????????

Fran in SC

Hi Fran,

All FOLDERS on my SD Cards are typed in UPPER CASE and Songs in Lower Case. Doing it this way, if I am looking for a particular song, using the Alphabet facility I can immediately find any song under any letter I choose.

My music is marked with the size of the SD Card followed by the Folder and Song number.

e.g. "My Best Friend" would have on it
1GB 03A-19

My first 'Country' Folder being Folder 03A and "My Best Friend" is Song No.19.

I like to group my tunes together as often as I can then if someone asks "can you play
any Country, Boogie, Jazz or whatever, I am then able to find it quickly using either the alphabetical or numerical search.

Works for me anyway. It'll be interesting to hear how others use their SD Cards.

Regards,

Aud (U.K.)

Aud,

Thanks for your reply. Like the idea of Upper and Lower case. I am sure we will all get some ideas from others that we can use.

Fran in SC

Since you can use all 16 characters on an SD Card, I use folders to indicate either origin or style. For example songs which I downloaded from the KESO site are stored in folders like Banfield_1, Banfield_2, etc. Or when it is about styles I call the Ballad_1, Ballad_2, Jazz_1, etc.
And with SD-Explorer I can easily shuffle and move songs from one folder to another.

Nevertheless I have not yet found the right system. I mean I have not added info about the SD Card. The idea of mentioning the size is nice, but irrelevant to me. I am thinking of writing numbers on the SD-Cards and then add this number to the folders and songs. But I did't get to it yet.

I have two distinct ways of using SD cards.

Songs I have recorded in KN7 format.
I have tried various methods of storing to SD cards, by styles, name etc., most of them had their limitations as they were not flexible enough and I finished up with combinations of songs, styles, on various small (64MB) SD cards always thinking there must be a better way than this! With the advent of the excellent SDExplorer tool which allows quick and easy manipulation of folders within the SD card and also to other SD cards I have moved things around in various ways and I am to a point where I feel that I can easily find/retrieve files/styles/settings easily and quickly.

I have recorded most of my favorite melodies and these I have filed in folders which are named A1, A2 B1, B2 etc the name of the song starting with A being filed in a folder named A1, A2 etc.

I have also scanned music scores and filed these alphabetically in, at present, but this can keep growing, 10 Ring Binders named A to Z etc.

If I want to sit down and just play without setting up various panels, styles etc., then I take, at random, Ring Binder J-M etc, and then knowing that my recording/settings will be in the folders J to M I can quickly play-along to the song I have recorded OR turn off the Sequencer part and play the song again or another song which I think would fit the same set-up. This allows me to sit down and play for quite a good session without having to work out which rhythm to use with which sounds etc,.

I add to these folder lists of recordings on the SD card and the alphabetical folders as and when I record more.

I am not a performer, I play purely for my own pleasure so I can well understand that this method would not be suitable for playing before an audience where requests are made to the performer to play their favourites but playing requests, type of Rhythms etc.,

Work in Progress:
I have plenty of spare capacity on my main card which is 512MB and I also have in Folders 50 onwards, various Work in Progress files and Styles I think I may be of use etc.,

Not an ideal solution but it may give someone some ideas………………..Joan

Hmmmm, let me see what I do.

1-I use a lap top for music written music, Midi files and audio files.

2-All my music in 3 hole binders is now in my laptop in the same order as it is in the 3 hole binders. The songs are arranged in dance order, that is mixed songs to fit certain dances. Ballad—Latin—Big Band Up—Cha Cha ect.

Example; Book A --- Set the Panel memory to EXPANDED
Take each song and set the Style, Variation, Transpose, Tempo, Instrumentation, Volumes and whatever.

Place the set up in one or two panel memories for each song (Registrations)
Name the Bank which is normally the same as the first song in the Bank. Then the name of the song in each panel memory.

That gives me aprox. 8 X 10 = 75 to 80 songs in my KN 7 which fall in the same order as the laptop and the 3 hole binder.

Using the Bank View I can scan through 75 to 80 song set-ups while I am playing. Very little time is lost between songs.

My window displays; (Custom window)
1-The current bank – with 8 panel memories (Song names)
2-The six pads
3-Transpose
4-Chord being played
5-Right 1,2, Left
6-All Volumes for playing live
7-Name of style and variation
8-Tempo

After completing all ten banks all is saved on the SD card with Title.
Now to the next 75 to 80 Song set-ups. At the present I have about 400 songs set up to play. The songs are constantly being improved on. Or reorganized.

If the song is Bank #1 and registration #1 then my laptop will show as #11. Indicating #1 Bank -- #1 registration. If the bank is #7 and the registration is #5 then the laptop reads #7

Sometimes I might have the same song in a few different play lists. You can have a play list for a younger crowd, one for Seniors or even one for a show you are going to play for. Each complete set-up (75 to 80 songs) is set under set-ups on my SD card.

I try to use the same sounds in memory for all my set-ups.

I set up my favorites, right side of keyboard for styles and instruments.
I think there is room for 36.

I also have 15 line dances, original recordings (Audio) on my SD card.

No thought about midi files right now.

Hope this helps, John C.

How I use my Keyboard Part II

Panel memory ---- Set to Normal

Ten banks with ten different types of bands.

Examples; ---- Big Band Medium
1-Piano/ Vibes
2-Trumpet/Tenor
3-Bone. Clarinet
4-Sax section
5-Clarinet section
6-Mute Bone/Mute Trumpet
7-Strong brass
8-High note strong brass.

Soft Big band would have the same name instruments but of a different kind and less volume.
Waltzes would have 8 different set ups.

Now you can use the keyboard instrument set ups or your own, or both for each style.

All this is only limited by our imaginations.

Hope this helps.

John C.

An idea.
If any of you have registrations all over the place in various folders, for one song or another, and you want them in a particular order try the following...
Press SD Load - the big yellow one.
Select Favorite songs.
and there you have space to put a reference/link to those registrations one after the other in 40 favorites folders each with 9 'songs' without taking up any more space on your SD Card and still keeping them whereever they currently reside.

What an interesting idea Roger. I hadn't thought of that. However, I don't seem able to get My Favourites to hold the input I make, must be doing something wrong. What I mean is if I were to load info into My Favourites tonight, it wouldn't be there tomorrow - any ideas why?

Aud (U.K.)

Audrey, I asked the same question a while back. You are leaving a step out of the procedure, if done correctly the songs stay where you put them.
Be sure to press OK.

John C.

John's hit it on the head, you need to press OK at the end of the process - it's on the screen bottom r/h side.
Rog
Good luck

I don't do any of the systems put forward.
I just load each registration onto the sd cards then enter them in a binder (ie sd1 sd2
etc) and rely on the alphabet system to
recall them. As I don't do gigs other than playing at our Organ & Keyboard club when its my turn, it is not nescessary to have a more sophisticated system.

Derek Munson

My thanks to all of you who suggest I'm leaving out the O.K. when saving to Favourites. I cannot recall NOT pressing the O.K. but then I do have many 'senior moments' these days, so I'll not rule out the possibility of this lack of attention to detail.

However, now that you have all pointed me in the right direction, I will make sure I do finish with O.K. in the future. Should the problem not be resolved, I'll be back - you betcha!

Many thanks again.

Aud (U.K.)

[This message has been edited by Audrey Turner (edited 05-25-2006).]