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Ever wonder why, when Keyboard Control is turned off for a given part - the part still plays when you mash keyboard keys?
I did, and found that when turning on/off keyboard control for different parts in a multi-part performance - the keyboard would "jump around" as sometimes playing the part - and sometimes not playing the part.
Today, I looked up "keyboard control" in the reference manual and found my answer in montage_en_rm_a0.pdf page 27:
"Keyboard Control switch
Determines whether the Keyboard Control for each Part is on or off. When this switch is set to off, the Part will not sound even you play the keyboard (unless the Part is selected)."
The part which I did not intuitively realize is --> "unless the Part is selected" <--
When pressing the small keyboard-looking icon in the performance home screen for a part - this would also automatically place a white box around the part - thereby automatically selecting this part. Now, with the part selected - the keyboard control on/off is overridden and forced to ON even if the keyboard control is OFF.
There's no problem here - but it may not be obvious what is going on here unless you read the manual and understand why you still hear the part sounding when pressing a keyboard part with keyboard control turned off.
Speculating now - perhaps the reason for this is so you can still hear ("audition") changes to a PART you are editing even when keyboard control is off. Pressing [PERFORMANCE] (HOME) will unselect all parts so you can get more of what you expect out of the keyboard control settings.
Comment which I'm not 100% solid on yet (secondary effect):
Understanding this - there are also some "consequences" of this policy. For instance, if you want your assignable knobs for the PART which has keyboard control OFF to control parameters of a PART - then these appear sort of mutually exclusive. Selecting a part so you can mode the knobs to part #X control seems to also force selecting part #x - which overrides your keyboard control setting if it is set to OFF for part #X.
Maybe there's a way to have the assignable knobs set to part #X while NOT having part #X selected so that keyboard control will not be overridden by the documented policy? I don't have any ideas yet beyond some of how to change the policy to retain the override while also allowing for a non-override mode. But there may already be something available I'm not aware of.
Also, I could be off on my speculation of why the override exists - maybe there's some use case that really needs this override other than hearing what you're editing.
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 21/09/2016 2:16 pm
Hearing what you are editing would as basic as looking where you are going when driving! 🙂
Work with the Montage a bit you will realize that the Parts under KBD CTRL will play whenever you are HOME, whenever the upper COMMON button is selected, or whenever one of the KBD CTRL Part's [PART SELECT] button is lit. If you select a PART not under KBD CTRL you will be playing just that Part and all controllers will apply to that PART.
Posted : 21/09/2016 6:55 pm
I've come to think of the Keyboard Control function as a sort-of "Local Off" switch at the performance level.
Due to my setup, I use the DIN midi connections with midi set to Local Off on the Montage. Midi info goes out of the Montage, into my midi system, and back into the Montage to do all the stuff it's supposed to do.
If I turn Kbd Ctrl off, it works as expected, nothing sounds (with the exception of the conditions in Phil's post above, I understand how and why that is the way it is).
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If I'm working in Cubase (Multi-Mode in the Montage, Midi "Any" in a track) the same thing occurs. In order to record, you have to have Kbd Ctrl on.
On playback however, even if the Kbd Ctrl is off, the incoming midi plays fine (as it should).
The way I understand it (correctly or not), the Montage sees the incoming midi commands and seems to compare it to commands coming in from the keyboard. If Kbd Ctrl is on, the information is allowed to pass to the sound generator, if not, no sound generation. Remember I have Local Off in midi. So, some sort of comparative discernment between the midi stream and key press is going on, otherwise the keypress wouldn't work with the midi stream.
Or something like that. Haven't really thought through it 100%. I was mystified with Kbd Ctrl for a while, but looking at it in the above manner, I haven't found any situation that didn't easily make sense. And Kbd Ctrl comes in handy when working in a daw.
Posted : 21/09/2016 10:59 pm
