Hi George

The four white buttons on the Karma are "merely" chord trigger buttons. They themselves have nothing to do with the autoaccompaniment and other effects produced by the Karma.

Normally, you would enter chords as on any other arranger, i.e., using the black and white keys. However, what effects are triggered and which keys trigger them changes from program to program and combi to combi. (It is as though the split point changes every time you select a new style. A good way to see what is going on it to push the "note" tab on the display (actually the function button below the note tab.

Since, effectively, the section of the keyboard required to trigger an effect changes from program to program, it would be hard to audition the programs and combis from the black and white keys. By pre-assigning chords to the white buttons, Korg has provided a way to audition each program and combi. Think of the white buttons as four program/combi audition buttons. They are not needed to play the Karma.

However, since they are programmable, you can program them with chords of your choice. So if there is a chord that you have trouble fingering, you can assign it to a white button to make life easier.

I hope this helps.

Clif

P.S. The Karma comes with 384 combis (in banks A, B, and E) already programs. Most of these do not act like arrangers at all. An example of an arranger combi is "E087 Caroly".

[This message has been edited by Clif Anderson (edited 03-31-2001).]