S.M.F's need a bit more OOMPH!!

Hello from Wintery Melbourne. I have not posted for ages. I have had a short holiday, but the big Aussie trip is postphoned till next year as my friend developed a heart problem.
But to my present query - I wonder if anyone is adding extra tracks to S.M.F.s.
Because my choir and groups use so much music, I often use a commercial S.M.F. if it is available - but some of them need a little extra, even just an extra track with some strings. What is the best way of doing it?
I have loaded the Commercial S.M.F. and changed all the voices to Technics voices in the Step recorder ( Thanks to Alec who explained to me how to do this successfully)
There are still some empty tracks and I would like to use one of them to add Soft Strings but so far no luck. Is there any information on this proceedure anywhere? Maybe some one does this and can help me.
I have done this before, but used 2 Keyboards - recording the extra voice in on the second board straight on to a tape,playing along with the first board. The disadvantage of this is that you finish up with a tape and if the choir want a change of key, you have to go through the whole process again to get another tape or minidisc. It must be possible to do it on the 6500. Can anyone help, please.
I have not lost touch. I read the posts every day but am a bit out of it with my old 6500. Cheers Jean.

Hi Jean

Load your midi file then go to Program Menu>Sequencer>Record & Edit>Realtime Record.
Select an empty track, choose the sound you want to use, press record and play along to the midi file.
Alternatively instead of Realtime recording, you could step record.

John

Thanks John. I tried again and had no trouble.I don't know what I was doing but the new track kept reverting to piano. I have no trouble with my own songs that I multi track but think I was putting in an extra step somewhere along the line and cancelling myself out. I didn't touch the panel write button or the reset or panel memory this time and it worked fine.Thanks again. Jean.

John. I am managing to record in the extra tracks now- realise I was going about it the wrong way. I am finding it a problem to get the added track loud enough to balance against the other tracks from the S.M.F. I have increased the volume to 127 on the mixer page, also increased the touch sensitivity to 9 and increased the velocity change to +16 but the added track is still too soft. Is the only way to balance the tracks now to lower all the volumes of the S.M.F. tracks or is there a trick I don't know about? There is quite a bit of variation in how loud the different S.M.F.s sound. I have about a hundred and with some I only have the Main Volume Lever on 3 and this particular song is one of them.Any information would be greatly appreciated. Cheers Jean.

Jean
The easiest method I can think of is as follows:
Program Menu>Sequencer>Range Edit>Velocity Change. Select ALL tracks for all the measures of the song and use a minus value of e.g. -30. Then select your 'quiet' track and give it a plus value of e.g. +50.
It will need a bit of 'guesstimating' with the + and - values, but should do the trick for you.
John

Hello Jean, Good to see you back on the Forum.
Further to John's suggestion, if you use the Sound Edit function on the particular voice you wish to add, you may be able to increase the Volume level and then store the 'new' voice in Sound Memory. I often do this when I find a particular instrument is a bit lacking in volume. Select the sound then Program Menu/Sound Edit/Tone and increase the Level setting. If the sound has more than one component, then try to keep the level proportions the same after the increase.


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Willum

Thank you John and Bill for the information.
I will get busy now and see if I can "improve" a few S.M.F.'s that have been annoying me. Reguards to you both. Jean.

Joan
If you do choose Bill's method of Sound Editing, and intend to save the song as a SMF - be careful. You will need to make sure that when you play the SMF the SAME sound memory is loaded into your KN, because the SMF will use the sound memory 'location' and whatever sound is there at the time.
Alternatively you could save as a Technics sequenced file and save the Sound Memory at the same time.
On the night of your performance, I'd hate for your edited Slow Strings to turn out to be a banjo
John

GOOD Point John I doubt if a Banjo goes well in a smooth Waltz could be worse - Bagpipes!!

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Willum