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This has been brushed upon before - and there was a followup by BM - but indulge me.
I have a performance setup where there is a string part in the lower half of the keyboard for the main string lines - a lead part in the upper voice - and a repeated string part so the octave of the layered-with-lead string part is properly set (the "main" lower part of the keyboard string part would be too high to match with the lead).
This works fine in terms of the sounds I want to come out when I push scene buttons which mute different parts depending on the section of the song.
Now the two string parts are non-overlapping. Meaning the note ranges never layer "main-string" with "lead-string".
There's a part where I want to switch between having the lead voice set while holding the lower main string part. What I notice is that switching between having the "main-string"+"lead-string" and just "main-string" brings the volume of "main-string" down. Not the value of the volume - but the actual volume.
I think what's going on here is that a fancy mixing board auto-leveler is seeing more sounds and giving more headroom for each sound when there are more parts vs. less parts. The problem with this is that if half of the parts "stop playing" via. volume changes to zero - I do not want volume fluctuations of the musicians who are playing across the exit (before and after the part goes away).
You can see what I mean by creating a multi-part performance. Set scene 1 to have both parts playing at say volume 120 and have scene 2 bring Part 2 down to volume 0. Not sure if it's necessary, but go ahead and make the key range of part 1 be between the lowest key and middle C - and part 2 range between middle C# and the highest key (non overlapping "split").
Now play the lower part (including or below middle C) and switch scenes from 1 to 2. You'll notice when scene 2 is pressed (which brings part 2 to volume 0) - the part 1 volume sounds much louder.
I'm not aware there's a way to shut off this behavior. Otherwise, the game will be to lower part 1's volume for scene 2 so it matches scene 1. Which seems like a mess to manage.
I believe the tools are there to work around this issue (which is good) - but the "musicians in the room" analogy of why this is implemented falls apart with certain usage models.
Also letting others in on a possible "gotcha" of using scenes which adjust volume.
Be sure to slowly play your parts around scene changes and listen for "artifacts" which are musically questionable (such as a sudden dynamic change).
Posted : 12/09/2016 9:15 am
I tried to reproduce that, but no "luck". It just does not change the volume at all. I can certainly not hear any change when switching between the scenes. I am using the scenes a lot, have never had such a thing, unless the SuperKnob (or something else in the mix) was involved and was changed between scenes.
Could it be that you have a compressor to the overall sound?
Or maybe is there a programmed change in the SuperKob - should be visible. Or in some other knob. To verify I would suggest you go to the scene screen and switch off storage of everything except the "Mixing" blocks. Then you can go to the Mixing1 / Mixing 2 screens in the scene and switch between the two scenes and see what's actually changing.
Alternatively select scene 1, press Shift+Scene 2 to copy over. Then make sure to only change the Volume of the muted part. And press Shift+Scene2 again to store. Then the effect should be gone...
Hope that helps!
Posted : 13/09/2016 7:24 pm
I do recognize this problem in some of my performances, though I am not sure in which ones and under what circumstances. It is also not stable, in a way in which I can reproduce this flaw. It looks almost arbitrary to me. I sometimes have it with "In the Stone" of EWF with lots of split/layered brass, piano, strings, arpeggiated percussion and indeed when switching/muting scenes. As I am a live player, my work around is to immediate reload the performance, select the scene and continue playing or use my volume pedal (spring-default 70%) to compensate when there is no time.
I know it's not much of help, but it is a confirmation that the problem occasionally actually exists.
Now I am aware that more people have this experience I will keep my ears and memory open and will try to recreate the event.
Posted : 13/09/2016 9:57 pm
Topic starter
Followup:
Thanks for the feedback, Stefan. Although I do not NEED to save the super-knob state - I've turned everything ON (in scene save) to avoid missing out on something I want to save. For now, this is my less-than-surgical procedure for using scenes. However, the consequence is that if you modify the super-knob position, this will be saved and will most likely alter the sound as super-knob has been a big focus of this instrument.
When taking a look at the super-knob while changing scenes I was able to see it move. Then when I manually moved the super-knob without changing scenes, I could tell this was the effect I was hearing.
Taking a look at mixing mode doesn't show this - but it did show that different scenes have different Reverb and Chorus(Var) sends for some voices (argh - I mean parts) that are always at full volume. Use of scenes can cause lots of remnant settings if not careful. I can see an equal justification for leaving the workflow as it is as there would be to have a "apply changes to all scenes?" type interface - so I'm fine for the way things are.
Therefore, I believe there is no such "too smart" volume control that does anything less than musical. In this case, the ghost in the machine was certainly the super-knob setting.
Case closed (from this seat).
Posted : 14/09/2016 10:43 pm
Great to hear that this helped. And that there is (probably) no such secret flaw...
Posted : 15/09/2016 9:57 pm
Follow-up:
I think I found mine too. No flaw (just cheap design 🙂
I am using a self-made pedal-board (see image). From left to right:
- FC7-volume
- FC7-motion
- FC5-switch
- FC3-sustain
- Nektar-sustain (for connected 88 midi keyboard controling Montage)
- Boss -FS7 footswitch (Boss RC202 loop station)
- upper box: Morley ABY switch (switching A/D input L signal for alternation between microphones)
My FC7-volume pedal is spring-set to 70% for accents/expression. When I accidentally touch it (e,g, when using FC7 motion control) it takes over the volume.
That seems to cause my annoyance. My own mistake.
In my set-up I have the controllers (UTILITY > SETTINGS > MIDI I/O > CONTROLLER) set to "RESET"
It would be nice that the pedal (also the MC) could be read-out and that for each performance preference settings could be stored and when loading the performance all draw-bars and pedals would be motor-controlled set (like with mixing panels).
The FC5 and FC3 are separated so I can use them with one foot side-ways. Toes on the sustain and heel on the switch, which is set to Mod Wheel (Leslie).
Another typical cheap design is the single A/D input. Only the left/mono channel has envelope following attached. In general I have the microphone of the kick drum synchronizing. But sometimes I need to use the vocoder. That is where the Morley splitter comes in. Is is too much to ask for a separate synchronization slot?
A third part of cheap design: I have just one cable going up from pedal to keyboard. The jacks are labled. I use the Konig and Meyer Omega keyboard stand and have the cable running along the stand. Not visible to the public. When sitting down there is no problem, but when standing it all just fits. Just some 20 cm of additional cable to the pedals would be nice.
Posted : 16/09/2016 3:08 am
Topic starter
Certainly the cable length issue can be solved with extenders and more tape (or tie) to keep them from disconnecting at the mid-point.
I'm kind of with you on the I/O choices of the Montage, though. My S90XS has an XLR A/D input for the mic. Even though the inputs are balanced - I'd still prefer an XLR for the mic. I got the wrong gender of cable to translate between balanced out to XLR - so I'll use this to plug into a mic. Have TRS to XLR (male) on order now so I can just hook up directly to the snake - but it'd be great to have XLR out as well.
A dedicated "sidechain" port would be great. It's unlikely that the resolution/quality of the A/D converter needs to be nearly as high for detecting tempo vs. for doing true signal input. This could help bring the cost down - perhaps even just an RCA or unbalanced 1/4 (still retaining the option to use the existing port if higher fidelity is wanted - like mixing the audio to the output).
... RCA may be going to far in providing a cheap solution (burden of adapters/cables) - but also thinking about the smallest space requirement which still has cables and adapters one could find locally.
Posted : 16/09/2016 7:57 pm
