Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Wake me when it’s over. Huh! Did someone say something? Gee, I am sooooooooooooo glad that everyone has learned everything possible to know on the KN7000. You all have graduated and are all anxious to move on to new technology – new buttons to push. My, My! The truth of the matter is that there is enough technology in the KN7000 to keep you busy for the next 10 years. Anything and EVERYTHING you could want is in the KN7000. But no, you are anxious to push new buttons in a Yammy or whatever – buttons that someone else has created. Few of you have even ventured into learning how to create your own styles. COMPOSER is intimidating other than maybe bringing up a style in the keyboard and tweaking a drum track or whatever – never creating anything original. I know of a couple on the forum that has NEVER used the sequencer, other than loading someone’s song that has been sent to them. Ninety percent of you can’t find Range Edit or know how to use it. Then there is Chord Modify – Gee, what does that do? Good luck. Oh, let’s not forget, Drum User Kit. Huh?! One pompous member said, “I don’t need to use Drum User Kit because ALL the drum sounds are in the other Drum Kits.” Have you given any thought to actually exploring the Drum User Kit? It not only gives you the option of raising the volume of drum sounds but PLACEMENT and SOUND REVERBERATION on each drum sound. Huh! What do you mean by that? If the majority of you had just one-third the knowledge of Alec (my nemesis – by the way, Alec is short for Smart-Alec – Tee hee) you wouldn’t be so quick to move on to new buttons to push. Personally, I will upgrade from the KN7000 when I can buy a keyboard that I can push a button that states, “Destination Moon.” Oooooops, that is the name of a song, if the uninformed don’t know.

Ta, ta,

kn7

There - feeling better now....chuckle...
I post all my new composer rhythms on www.createsongstyles.com cos it's very straightforward to upload with the message. Maybe that facility here would generate some more action.
Rog

I have experimented with a few things other than pushing buttons and made a right mess of things but does it really matter we all learn something new everyday and the KN will not self destruct instantly if you make a mistake tweaking the sounds etc nothing is ever easy it just takes time, patience and determination maybe we need someone with greater knowledge who would be willing to point us in the right direction with easy tutorials etc, am sure they would be most welcome and appreciated

For starters, you need to experience doing a few technical things and ask questions. Chord Modify on Page 212 explains how to CHORD-innate your fingers to be able to play “Bumble Boogie” backwards. Page 52aa tells you how to Range Edit. That changes the harmonies for songs like “Home On The Range.” Drum User Kit is for all the “Users” of other people’s ideas. Learning some of these things is the reason why you shouldn’t be looking for new buttons to push on a Yammie or whatever. Be lucky you have the fine instrument you have and master it. Look no further.

kn7

Thank you for the information I will certainly take note must agree we do have a fine Instrument in my area of Spain they sell mostly Yamaha keyboards at a price Technics KN what´s that said the Spaniard Ugh!!

With regard to creating new styles on the KN7000, I've been doing this for quite some time now - thanks to the great editing facilities provided for us in the Composer.
I found that although most of the built-in styles are very good, they are mostly designed to be 'General' rather than 'Specific' for a particular song or tune. That comment in no way, is intended to criticise the 'authors' of the built-in styles.
When I construct a sequence - particularly some of the more modern Songs/Tunes, I try to get as close to the 'feel' of the original arrangement, as the KN7000 will allow. I find that one of the most important components of the arrangement, is the Bass Line and it is often not possible to achieve the desired progression, when the notes played in the Bass Part, are just left the Auto Accompaniment 'Intelligence'.

There are two ways to overcome this problem :
1. In a Sequence, write the Bass line as a completely separate track within the sequence and turn off the Bass part in the Auto Accompaniment.
2. Use a facility within the Composer, to force the Composer style to play the desired Bass notes, which you would enter into the Bass Part.
Although the overall Sequence will sound the same, no matter which option is chosen, I prefer to use option 2, since this option allows the Style to be used, with the 'correct' Bass line, without having to use the Sequencer, particularly if someone else wishes to use my Composer Style and play 'live'.

Most of the Songs/Tunes which I have recently sequenced, have used Composer Styles, which I created from scratch, by either listening to the original recordings and determining what is going on in the 'backing' to the melody, or, having in mind, the kind of 'backing' which I feel is suited to the melody. You can listen to them on the WMA page of my website http://www.willumspages.co.uk/page9.html - songs from around Number 90 upward, mostly use my original styles.
Typical examples of a dedicated Bass Line can be found among the Beatles songs : numbers 137, 'All My loving', 142 'Eight Days a Week', 151 'Michelle', 156 'Something', 150 'A little Help from My Friends' and a particularly good example is, number 154 'Penny Lane'.
It should be noted that most of the Variations in these Styles, use either 8 measures or all 16 measures available, since using the usual 2 or 4 measure Variations, would have been too repetitive and would not allow the full scope of a dedicated Bass line.

The option which allows you to FIX the Bass line notes - irrespective of which Chords you play in your Left hand - and indeed the notes in any of the other component parts of the Composer style, can be found in the Composer Editor. This can be useful if you wish the Bass Line to play a series of so called 'Pedal Notes' during all or part of a Variation. For example, You may wish the Bass Line to play a series of just 'C1' notes while your Left Hand chords play a riff such as, Cmajor, Dm7, Em7, Dm7, Cmajor............... Assuming that the Bass part just contains a series of 'C1' notes on the 1st and 3rd beats of each measure, if left to the normal Auto Accompaniment process, the Bass Line would probably play C, D, E, D, C.......... which may not be what you want! Try getting a realistic Bass line for 'Tuxedo Junction' on any of the Built-in Big Band styles!!

You will find this 'Magic' option here : Program Menus > Composer > Record Memory (A, B or C whichever you wish to work on) > select a Variation > OK then 'Chord Modify Change'. Move the Red cursor over the BASS part (if it's not already there) and in the Second column, change the entry to 'SPECIAL'. In the Third column, change the entry to 'THROUGH'. The 'Function' column will then show 'CHANGE'. Press 'OK' to confirm. Carrying out this procedure, will force the Auto Accompaniment to play exactly, all the Bass notes which you enter into the BASS track of the Composer, when building the Style, using either Step Time, or Real Time recording. Note that this will affect EVERY single note in the Bass part.

If it is desired to only have certain notes, or groups of notes 'Fixed' and the remainder of the Bass part determined by the Auto Accompaniment, then this can also be achieved as follows : Do not change the option in the 'Chord Modify Change' for the entire Bass part, as described above. When you enter the notes in the Bass part of the Composer Editor, you will see at the bottom of the Step Recording Page, a small rectangular window which contains the data for every Note in the Bass part: i.e. NOTE (Pitch), VEL(Velocity), LEN(Length) and under CHORD MODIFY, (GROUP and TYPE). For each Note in the Bass Part, the GROUP and TYPE parameters can be altered to one of 23 different responses, to the Chords which are played in the Left hand. The option which allows individual notes within the Bass part, to be played 'as written', irrespective of the chord played in the left hand, can be selected by setting the GROUP to 'SPECIAL' and the TYPE to 'THROUGH', for the specific notes. Notes which are not set to 'SPECIAL'/'THROUGH' will follow the Chords in the Left hand, as determined by an alternative Chord Modify setting

Hello KN7

I agree with most of what you say about the KN7000. I still have both mine plus the PR900 piano but, for how long - who knows?
I appreciate you and many others like to delve into the heart of the technology, but most people like myself just like to play.
I do 'tweak' the built-in styles sometimes, but I find I just do not have the time or patience to do much else.

I recently had a 'live' two hours, one-to-one demonstration on the Tyros 3 given by Richard Bower one of Yamaha's leading musicians and I have to say I was greatly impressed. He didn't waste time playing the best preset styles as so many demonstrators do, but spent a great deal of time clearly answering all of my questions (I took a list with me ha! ha!) taking me through each action step by step.

When he was going through the styles and sounds, it sounded to me like some of the Technics 'know-how' has been used on the T3
making it very 'User Friendly'. I particularly liked the Grand Piano. I liked the fact that MP3 CDs could be made direct using the 80gb Hard Drive (although I did wonder whether it would be large enough for some). I liked several other features particularly the two pads for Pitch Bend and Modulation, the super articulation (which really does do what it claims to do) and the fact that with the OTS on if you press the three lower notes in the lefthand, you can knock out the accompaniment and just have a drum/or any other instrumental solo. I wasn't too happy about not being able to 'contrast' the screen but I was assured that now TFT is being used, this wouldn't be neccesary - thinking of one of my venues which is held in a large conservatory and you're in the sun most of the time, that remains to be seen. I also said I thought the Keyboard was overpriced but no comment was made....

I am finding it increasingly more difficult to transport all my gear, and the T3 is much lighter in weight which is the main reason I am interested in it.

My overall impression is that Yamaha have caught up with the Technics KN7 if not in the technology, certainly in the 'User Friendly' approach to playing the Tyros 3.

So, please remember, there are a number of reasons why people make changes in their lives.

Happy playing....

Audrey

Bill, you gave a very nice response. I and others, I am sure appreciate the time you spent stating how you use some of the fine features in COMPOSER. The KN7000 gives you so many ways of using the keyboard to create fine work. I do not use the CHORD MODIFY the way you use it for a bass line. The way I compose a bass line works in ANY SONG that is meant to be played in the style that I have composed. I use CHORD MODIFY for what it was primarily meant to be used for – chords. However, I also use it as an example of playing a piano riff in a style that I have created. As you and some know, playing certain notes in a style doesn’t necessarily play back the way you composed them. More often than not, they don’t play back correctly because of the harmony changes. When this happens, I go into Step Record and change NOT ALL but some of the notes in the piano riff or whatever instrument that has a melodic passage to play back correctly when hitting various harmonies, using CHORD MODIFY. I find that this takes a bit of experimenting to do this. Composing chords – I find that generally but not always, BASIC C, E, G works best for chords. The placement of the chord in your style is very important. I find that if you play E, G and C position is best. You can vary the position by changing it to G, C and E. Going to a higher position will make your chord sound weak and not right. This is especially true when using 7th chords. One Chord Modify that I also like and is a bit more interesting is changing CHORD MODIFY to Chord Tension. (C, E, G, A) Your chord position should be E, G, A, C. It is surprising how well complex harmonies work with using this. If doing a guitar strum, however, I prefer CHORD MODIFY be BASIC C, E, G and in the position aforementioned.

I’ll be so bold as to state that I have plenty of criticism for the “authors” of built in styles. By their using a bass line that is all over the map shows that the style really is intended to sell the instrument. The one and only way you can even come close to a built in style to sound OK in a song is to make damn sure you use simple harmony and don’t make very many changes. To prove my point, play a song with a built in style with all the tracks muted but the bass line. In your right hand, play a song with a lot of harmonies using Tech-chord and try to separate your playing and listen to the wrong notes the bass is playing with the harmony that you have played. Speaking of this, it would be great if Nigel had a way of allowing us to present examples on the forum. I am speaking of uploading something created that can be heard correctly by everyone to know exactly what the person is conveying. Sending files through email is time consuming and everyone can not hear exactly what is being presented. Perhaps this is the wrong forum for this. I have never visited another forum on arranging. Bill, people like you and Larry Gosmeyer that have beautiful websites may have an answer for this. I don’t know the technicalities involved in what a site needs for uploading songs.

The above is barely touching on the possibilities that can be achieved with this fine instrument.

In closing, I want to clear up a couple of things. Firstly, I apologize for being over the top on what (I’m starting to laugh) CHORD MODIFY, RANGE EDIT and DRUM USER KIT is for. I was in an irritated mood because many of you want to switch to a new keyboard when there is much to learn in the KNs. Anything and everything is there, folks – you just have to learn how to use it. There are still things that I do not know and am learning all the time. Secondly, this is directed to Audrey. You speak of having to carry so much when performing but I have to ask the question regarding the Yamaha Tyros 3. Has the company come to their senses by having the speakers in the keyboard? As we know, the Tyros 2 has to have the external speakers, which to me, not only is a pain to have to bring on a gig but also quite ugly sitting on top of the keyboard. It might be a lighter keyboard but in the long run, is it worth having to take all the extra baggage?

Member casarosa, please forgive me for misleading you on what the three things I mentioned did. Oh, my! I was having a little mischievous fun with the forum.

Kn7

Hi Kn7,

You mentioned Quote ".....playing certain notes in a style doesn’t necessarily play back the way you composed them. More often than not, they don’t play back correctly because of the harmony changes. When this happens, I go into Step Record and change NOT ALL but some of the notes in the piano riff or whatever instrument that has a melodic passage to play back correctly when hitting various harmonies, using CHORD MODIFY. I find that this takes a bit of experimenting to do this."

You can use the 'Special/Through' option in Chord Modify, to make a piano riff sound exactly as you compose it, irrespective of the chords played in the Left Hand. I use this facility quite often, in other parts of a style - not just in the Bass part - if I want say a Guitar or Vocal 'figure' playing, without being affected by the APC chords. It works well and doesn't need any experimentation

Hello KN7

Yes! the T3 speakers are still an option and I take your point about extra baggage, but as you can almost put them in your pocket, it will not be an issue particularly as I mostly use the Yamaha Stagepas 300 Portable PA System which is very compact and transported on wheels -(you should hear the
KN7 through them, wow!) so I doubt whether I will buy the speakers and there lies the reason Yamaha have gone down this road - the choice is yours.

However, the Technics instruments I have are still my favourites and always will be. I have had, and still do get, so much pleasure playing them and of course, I have learned so much and have made so many 'like-minded' friends from visiting this site which is priceless. Long may it reign.

Audrey