Sd90 questions

With my interest for the sd90 getting in the final stages..

- can you use the fs13 pedalboard with the sd90?
Whats the quallity of the pedalboard
And is there enough room between the pedals to prevent mistakes..

- can you get a commercial powersupply as a backup for the official power supply.
I plan to use the sd90 not only in my home studio with the kronos
But also in my living room for preparing and creating styles and performances..

-can you play styles and a midi file at the same time? (Just like on yamaha)

>>>AJ:- Not independently ... unless when using the sync feature.

Thanks for the answers...

This makes the 13 pedal probably my choice
Also happy its easy to get an extra power supply..

Need to find out aboit the sync feature in the manual..
Altough the manuals could use some work...

Please download our version on our downloads page here:- http://www.ajamsonic.com/KETRON%20SD9%20MANUAL%20-%20EN%20Ver%201.5.pdf

Thats an improved version for sure...

The more i read, the more questions arise...

There are GM voices, which can be used in styles
But can i edit them inside the style
Or is there a way to edit a single (gm) voice and save it?

Its hard to figure these things out witouth the actuall instrument..

I guess this is kind of important for me, being able to edit the voices i use in styles

Don't forget to check tip polarity on power supply as well..

Can you explain this?
And why?

Bachus,

I haw not SD90 but SD40 and in this module you can change
voices in Style like you wish.Sems in SD90 can be done to...

I dont mean changing voices to another voice..
I am taking about editing a voice..for example change the release time of a string sound..

Yes, you can edit voices and save as a "user" voice. There are six screens worth of parameters you can mess with. To access simply touch and hold the voice you want to edit for 2-3 seconds, and the edit options become available.

Now, accessing a user voice to use in a style might not be so easy. A quick look and while you can change voices in a style I don't see anything that would allow access to the User bank of voices. Not saying that it can't be done but it isn't an obvious choice.

One other thought on this although I haven't tried it. When in the edit mode for a voice there are two options at the bottom. "Factory Restore and Factory Overwrite." That makes it sound like you could overwrite the factory voice with whatever changes you made and then you would be able to use that modified sound in a style. Thoughts?

I never overwrite factory voices..
I just want to either save what i eddited inside the style..
Or as a user save..

The manual does not show any option for edditing and saving GM voices as a user voice.. (because it seems that Ketron calls all initial voices “GM “ voices)

Maybe this will come when they finally add the sample option, which should include a way to save user voices.

How does this work in the audya?

100% agree with your thoughts on overwriting a factory sound - Exactly why we haven't tried the earlier suggestion. Even though this video was done on SD40, it works the same on SD90 regarding user voices.. https://youtu.be/TuyCHsfSrSE

The catch is accessing the user voices in a style. That seems to be the missing piece for what you would like to do.

Yes, thats a lovely interface..
But its kind of confusing to call this voices too
As they are actually a combination of 4 voices.
Korg pa4x calls these keyboardsets

What Ketron needs to do is add (most of)the 6 pages of edditing parameters for ever style and midifile part... and with an option to save them..

Whenever buying a power supply, check for pos vs neg tip polarity along with other specs. They are not made all the same..

Thats what you said before...
Most powersuplies don’t have a negative...
they have a positive side and a 0 side..

Its obvious that a re-lacement power supply needs exactly the same specs as the orriginal. But thank you for the headsup..

Not trying to state the obvious but it is one thing commonly overlooked when purchasing. Too much theory to go into but it's available to read up on.

I just got comfirmation from Pedro Dera, Holland biggest Ketron dealer, known for his great service..

There is no way to edit and save GM voices, GM voices are the voices used in styles, launchpad and midi files..
You can only edit the right hand voices, which is a combination of up to 3 GM voices, and a 2nd (GM) voice.

No clue if this will change with a possible sample upgrade

I was there to discuss a possible deal which would mean exchanging my pa4x with some money for a sd90..
He will call me back on that deal.. he is also selling the Ajam sonic gold packs...

I was pretty sure, this was to be my next move..
But not being able to edit style and midi voices is really a dissapointment for me..


AJ, can we have your opinion about this?
And chances this will change with the prommised sample upgrade
Saw there was allready place in the file structure for user sounds and pcm samples..

Couple more comments - First, I don't agree with the term "GM" voices. To me, I instantly think of GM as in General MIDI. Not the case in the world of Ketron. This isn't what you are looking for I only share it in the event you haven't see it. It shows more about editing a voice on SDxx. https://youtu.be/be5xI9G_ugc

From your comments, it sounds as though you would like to go one step below what is offered and change the components that make up what Ketron calls a GM Voice. I'm wondering how much is terminology in the disctussion?

I'm making up this example and didn't really look at the SD90 when I typed this. If you take a Ketron GM voice that is made up of let's say two sounds(voices). Let's say Jazz Organ. On the main screen, that is all you see. However, if you go into edit mode you see that that sound is composed of two other sounds let's just say it's organ1 and organ2. Now, you can change a number of things regarding both of those sounds and how they interact to make up the Jazz Organ sound (GM Voice). How different is that from looking at an edit screen and instead of combining organ1 and organ2 the screen is labeled Part A, Part B, or some other description allowing you to mix those elements together to create a new sound or modify an existing sound?

As you can probably tell - We don't do much voice editing other than something as simple as change reverb level, perhaps a little detuning or chorus effects. With hundreds and hundreds of sounds at our fingertips just don't find a need to change them all that much. But I do know some folks that are very deep into voice creation/editing. What do some of the other manufacturers offer in this area and what do they call the various components of a sound/voice?

There are quite a lot of things i change in voices..
- attack and release.. for obvious reasons
- filter and eq for changing soundcharacteristics.
- lfo’s for adding vibration and things like wha
- modulation, reverb, delay and dsp.. altough these are effects, and more like added to the sound..

And much much more...
All these things are available in the edit section for the right hand sounds..
Sadly not for the midi file and style voices...

For me its more important to be able to edit these basic voices then it is to add my own samples...but i have high hopes that the sample option also adds this much needed option to create basic user voices..

Another thing i noticed that there are only 12*12=144 GM voices available for styles.. even tough there seem to be 4 banks of 128 GM voices in the SD instruments... so many of them are not available in styles and midi files..

I went back to the thought that we both agreed on which was to not modify a factory voice. Tried a quick test to see what would happen:

I made a simple change to one of the factory voices and rather than save it as a user voice I overwrote the factory voice. Next I tested the "button" labeled restore factory voice, and it did work so you can "get back" to the original voice should you decide to change one. Here's what I didn't expect - Even though I modified and overwrote the original voice when I went to a style and selected that voice the style still plays the original factory sound - not the modified factory sound that I "overwrote."

In summary what you said appears to be true - You can modify a voice and either overwrite it or save it as a user voice. You can select and use that "new" voice as a right-hand voice - What you can't do is use that voice in a style, even though you assign it from the factory sound location. Hmm...

Simpy save revoiced style like User Style and change a name of Style.Shuld work.

No, it will not...

We are not talking about changing voices to other voices
But about editing the voices in the style..

Which is a neccesarity to make styles coverted from other brands work..

Gentlemen,
There is one other extremely important issue with the Ketron OS when creating and saving USER VOICES. This issue has to do with how the Ketron OS finds voices for selected styles. The voices are NOT saved within the style. Instead the OS looks for the position the voice holds in its folder. Example: Say you are creating a style that will be in the USER SWING folder. If that folder contains 10 voices your newly created voice MUST be put in the 11th position in order not to mess up voicing of other styles using voices from this folder. The work-a-around for this problems is to number EVERY voice in every USER VOICE folder and simply add any newly created USER VOICES to the end of your folder as you create them. This problem existed on my Ketron SD7 keyboards, my SD90 when I had it, and my new SD40. AJ knows about this issues and so does Italy but they have not seen fit to have the voices saved within a style in their OS yet. I hope this info is helpful.

Deane

I am aware of the voice numbering and the way that works (not a fan). What I didn't see was a way to assign a user voice to a style. Now, I didn't try it from a user style, only a factory style. I'll take another look at that, and I also have one other idea that I was going to try this morning. More coming later this morning.

Curt,
With both the SD90 and the SD40 I was able to add a USER VOICE to a style. That said, I then must save that style as a USER STYLE and rename it.


Deane

Darn - I just don't see a way to do that! I've been messing around for that past hour, and I can clearly change to any factory sound that I want, but nothing gives me the option to select from the user sound bank (so far).

Sad to admit but this must be the moment of RTM (Read The Manual)! What fun is that? I'd much rather explore, push buttons and learn as I go. (Even if I pull out some of my hair in the process)!

It's been quite a while since we did a Ketron video. Once (if) I get this figured out it might warrant filming something to share with others. Am I the only one struggling with this simple concept?

Folks,

You cannot use a User voice within a style or midifile ... and here is why.

Due to the design implementation of USER VOICES, you can have up to 3 individual voices/tracks which make up 1 USER VOICE. With the right hand/lead voice, you simply play and even though you 'see' this as a voice, it is actually 3 voices which are being played on 3 Midi tracks. Now the Arranger/Style has a maximum of 10 tracks it can use out of 16 and the Midifile engine has a maximum of 16 tracks.... if you edit a voice which uses 3 individual voices (let's say), then you will run out of tracks in either case when you want to use a bunch of USER VOICES within either a style or midifile.
Just imagine you have 3 USER VOICES you want to use for Chord 1, Chord 2 and Chord 3 ... (that is already 3 X 3 = 9 tracks in voices ALONE ...) but the ARRAGNER has a max of 10 tracks... what/where do the other tracks go (Drums (2 tracks), Bass ... etc)? This is th problem which stems from the way we route the signal on KETRON products. To change it would require a hardware modification.

Hope this explains it better.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas to you all!

AJ

So much was clear to me...


But it should be possible to edit the gm voices inside the Styles?
Just dont see how?

Can't be done due to hardware limitations.

Thats a game killer..

It really is, as thats one of the things i use to addapt styles from other brands..

Maybe some cc messages can be added inside the style's track within the instrument or other pc tools?

Could be a work around..

But if this is possible, then it is offcourse not a hardware limitation, as AJ indicates, but a software limitation..


Also i been looking for a midi cc implementation list of the sd90, but is not easy to find, so far it seems not out there, all i have foun courtesy of Kurt is an sd40 sysex list..

Close to the idea I was going to try which was to offload the style, rename to *.mid, open in Logic, change voice assignment from factory to a User Bank, save, rename back to *.kst and see if it would play. Based on AJ's comments - Might / Might not. I'll keep you posted.

I have to correct my previous post. I did NOT use USER VOICES to replace voices within a style - I was replacing OTS voices with USER-VOICES. Sorry for the confusion.

Deane

Thank you Dean, for clearing that up.