I noted that many of you use sound modules connected to your arranger keyboard. Have you found a practical way to select the sounds on the module (to create a layered sound) ? With practical I mean something else than using the front panel buttons of the module.

I have Yamaha PSR9k, so any methods available on it would be appreciated.

Here are some of my own attempts:

- Select a panel voice on the 9k which has the same MIDI program change number as the voice you are trying to select on the module. But how do you know the Program number of the panel voice ? After selecting the voice you need to disable sending of program changes, otherwise you will change the sound of the module again. Can you do this in a practical way, without too many button pushes ?

- You could store program change numbers in the registration memories and use these for selecting the voice ? You would need 128 memories for this and a way to prevent sending program change commands after you have selected the sound (see the previous one).

- Create 128 (or whatever number) midifiles on your hard drive each sending a different program change number. Name these according to the voice(s) they select. Play the "midifile" to select the voice(s). Well, you can do this only while you are not playing anything.

If you are using a "backing sequence", (a midifile) then of course that can include the program change commands, but this is not what I'm looking for.

If you have several modules, there's the additional difficulty of selecting the correct midichannel ?

And you still have the difficulty of selecting the right sound bank of the module. For instance, Yamaha and Roland use different ways of indicating the bank number, XG vs. the GS. Only the "play a voice selecting midifile" method seems to work in this case ?

Kari