Most arrangers have a specific channel used to trigger the arranger engine. Internally, the arranger does this in the background, and you usually get a choice of Left, Right or Whole keyboard as the note recognition area.

But using an external keyboard or a DAW, you have to set one particular channel as the NTA channel, and then it makes no sound from that channel, it simply goes to the chord recognition engine.

The basic idea is, you record yourself playing the guide track (simply play the chords in their correct inversions, nothing fancy, no arpeggios just block chords) and then edit that track in the DAW, hard quantize it so everything is PERFECTLY on time, then set that Track to output on the NTA channel. It now drives the arranger section rather than you playing it. And because you edited it to be perfect, now your arranger output will be perfect..!

Read the manual with regard to NTA channel, and you will also have to clock the arranger from the DAW while you do this (it’s usually better to clock the arranger from the DAW than the other way round). Once you have the DAW controlling the arranger engine, you simply send the guide track to the arranger and record the MIDI out of the arranger to a DAW MIDI track set to record ‘all’ channels (or whatever your DAW calls it) and you will now have a ‘capture’ of the entire song, with all the different Parys on different channels.

Once you have this, now you can go to town editing, changing sounds, using better VSTi sounds like drums and piano, strings etc.. Or you could use the arranger output as a ‘guide track’ for you to play your OWN parts and replace the mechanical ones.

I like to do a fair bit of editing to the drum track, for instance, and will usually go in and edit each of the fills so they are never identical (a sure giveaway of arranger use!) and changing a few random things around, etc.. Humans rarely repeat things EXACTLY no matter how good the player is, and if you want a human ‘feel’ you have to edit those aspects into the arranger output (or replace it completely!).

It’s been 45 years since my college days! I like to think I’ve learned a few things since then! For starters, no DAW’s and arrangers back then!

Look, I know it seems like a lot to learn, but break it down into little exercises (set up the DAW so it records multi-channel, record a short chord sequence in the DAW, learn to clock the arranger from the DAW, learn how to quantize the guide track etc.) one at a time, and DON’T try to record a whole song right from the start. Practice it like you practice a scale or an arpeggio. Once you can do those, THEN you can tackle a whole song.

Trying to create before you have all the basic tools mastered is very frustrating, and makes a lot of people simply give up. Wait until you have the process understood before you even THINK of writing anything, and you will have a much less frustrating time… 🎹😎

Thank you Diki. I will do one step at a time. I just learned the other day to record audio with the BK-9 thru a Yamaha MG-10XU mixer via USB into the Pro Audio 9. When I did the recording I played the keyboard with a MIDI drum track that was played from the Pro Audio9, when I re-played the recording the audio was late couple of milliseconds. I went into the Option and Audio and there was a button to configure the sound card of the PC, or something like that. After that I did another recording and the audio was on time. Was this some kind of latency issue? I even fired up my second BK-9 thinking that the DAW was freaking out the PC's sound card and used the second BK-9 as a sound module with a MIDI cable from the PC, while the first BK-9 was used to provide the audio signal (left and right output) into the mixer(audio interface) and into the PC. It worked, question is -> Is this a bad practice what I did?

I got some books, one of them is called "Cakewalk Power", it deals with Audio Pro9, the other one is called "MIDI Power", this one talks about MIDI in general.

If anyone has suggestions about other MIDI books, let me know.

The better DAW’s automatically compensate for latency on playback. Cakewalk should.

The issue is monitoring while tracking. You need to hear the keyboard directly rather than monitoring after the trip through the DAW, otherwise the interface latency will affect the sound. If you MUST monitor while tracking, you need to set the soundcard’s buffer as low as possible, and with less expensive soundcards this may still be discernible. The Cakewalk book probably explains this…

thank you

With Pro Audio 9, I was able to record on three tracks simultaneously.

On the BK-9 I selected a piano for Up1 (ch4), a strings for Up2 (ch6) for the right hand and a bass guitar for the Lower part (ch11) for the left hand .

If I have Local turned OFF, each track can be heard separately inside the DAW, (depends which track is highlighted) however when I played Up1 and Up2 and Lower all together on the keyboard, the sound comes from whatever track is highlighted within Pro Audio.

I was hoping that somehow I can get those 3 sounds (piano/string + bass), to sound each on it's own (together), but that's not the case, even though the Source channels are selected appropriately (ch4 to Up1, ch6 to Up2, ch11 to Lower).

So I figured, what if I select the computer's onboard sound module for output PORT instead of feeding the MIDI signals from the DAW back to the BK-9's sound module, this way I can turn Local ON again so I can hear the right Tones, and then I was able to do the recording, however, to play back my recording I either used the computer's sound card (which sounds like %$#@), or I changed back the Port to my keyboard's sound module.

Is this the right way for recording 3 channels simultaneously, or that's not? I was hoping that as the MIDI signals would go into the DAW, it would feed back those three MIDI track signals simultaneously to the Sound Module inside the keyboard so I can hear it properly, but that I couldn't do so, is that even possible?


(Recording a single track is no problem) I hope I explained well, if not let me know and I'll try again.

Not familiar with Pro Audio 9, however whatever you have played should play back the same as it was recorded, (Assuming the board allows it) unless the track has been soloed, check to see if highlighting the track actually solo's it, if so, just leave the tracks either un-highlighted or all highlighted and see how that goes.

Bill

Thank you abacus.

So what ever I record it does play back properly. I should've used only two Tones for my explanation. Imagine the keyboard is split in two sections, a Bass tone on the left (Lower with ch 11) , piano on the right (Upper 1 on Ch4)

Two tracks on the DAW, each track has the Source set to the appropriate channels (Ch4 and Ch11) .

I go on the BK-9, I split the keyboard in half at C4, or middle C.

If I let the DAW use the sound module inside the BK-9, I press a note on the UP1 section, and a note on the Lower section, both sections will play either a piano, or a bass depends on which track was last highlighted, 'cause even if I select an empty track, both sections will use the same Tone from the track that was previously selected (or highlighted)

So technically both sections play either Piano or Bass, while LOCAL is OFF on the BK-9.

To hear both sections properly during recording, I turn LOCAL to ON on the BK-9, and I tell the DAW not to use the BK-9's sound module by selecting a different output PORT, this way I don't hear what the DAW would be feeding to the BK-9's sound module. I record it this way, and it records everything the way it should.

The DAW recognizes that Lower section of the keyboard, and it records it to the lower (bass) track, it also recognizes the piano (in the right hand) and it records it to the piano track.

My problem is, when I play on the keyboard with LOCAL OFF, both sections share the same Tone, even though the DAW records it properly. It bothers me, cause how can you record with a Bass sound in both sections, when you want a piano on the right section, that's why I turn Local ON again during recording, and stop the DAW feeding the sound module of the BK-9.

Is this the way it's supposed to be?

When I record a single track LOCAL is OFF. I arm the track for record, and I use only the Upper 1 (the entire keyboard), and things are OK.

But with multiple sections it's a different story that I described above.

You only need to turn local off on the keyboard if you wish to hear the BK9 through the computer.

When you record with local on, the DAW will only record the Midi (It should not send the sound back to the keyboard) so no need to change the output port.

If it does send back to the keyboard while you are recording Midi, then you have altered a setting in your DAW to make this happen. (Unless that's the way your DAW works by default but is not normal in other DAWs)

Bill

Thank you abacus. I'll have to look into it, maybe that's how the DAW is.


A different question, this in relation to the BK-9's onboard sequencer.

Let's say I recorded the background for a song using a style in MIDI format. I know how to record additional tracks into the MIDI sequencer, but what if I wanted to record with one of my saved performances? Like Strings in the left hand, piano in the right hand. This would require two tracks, but how can you record two tracks (or more) at the same time with the BK-9's 16 track sequencer? Is it even possible?

Also, within the BK-9's onboard sequencer where the 16 tracks are, for channels 4,6,11, 12 it displays Up1, Up2, Lwr., M.Bass, for the rest it says STD.

I read the book, I didn't find anywhere what this means. I wonder if there is a possibility to record with a performance Up1, Up2, Lwr, M.Bass into the 16 track sequencer. If I could do this inside the BK-9, that would be excellent. I don't know if that's possible.

Thank you again.