Tag Archives: knob

21 Scenes: Super Knob Presets

In the previous video we stored Keyboard Control on/off switches for different Parts under the Scene buttons, after which we were able to switch Parts with the press of a button. This is by far not the only parameter we can store in a Scene.

In this video we’ll see how we can store different Super Knob settings, via which we can create presets of a sound with, say, different filter cutoff frequencies and different amplifier attack times. We’ll also have a look at how we can work around the fact that assignable knob settings can not be stored in a Scene.

Scroll down below the video to read on. Images can be clicked to enlarge.

To start with a blank slate, press the Category button and find the Init Normal (AWM2) Performance. This way we’re sure there aren’t any Assigned Knobs and Scenes in use.

Press the STORE button and store it under a new name.

We’ll use the ‘Saw Pad’ as the base for our experiments.

Tap Part 1, then tap the Category Search field and find the ‘Saw Pad’. I used filter ‘Single’ and typed ‘pad’ in the search field to zoom in. I deselected the three ‘Param. with part’ fields at the bottom to load this Part without any Mixing parameters, Arp/MS or Scenes it might have.

Tap Part 1 to activate it and tap the Edit field, or press the EDIT button. Go to the Mod/Control > Control Assign screen, activate Auto Select and rotate Assignable Knob 1 to auto select it.

Delete any possible assignments that may be there and then press the ‘+’ of slot 1. Select Element > Cutoff.

We now have Filter Cutoff under Part 1 Knob 1.

The settings:
Curve Type: Standard
Polarity: Bi
Ratio: Tune to your liking. For me 8 was OK.
Param1: 5.

Now rotate Assignable Knob 2 to auto select it.

Delete any assignment that might be there and the tap the ‘+’ and select Element > AEG Attack.

AEG stands for Amplifier Envelope Generator and the Attack time defines how quick the amplitude rises when we play a note.

Settings: same as above, with Ratio = 32.

We now assign Common Knobs 1 and 2 to control Part 1 knobs 1 and 2. We do this because the Super Knob controls the Common Knobs.

In the bottom left blue field, select Common.

Rotate Knob 1, then tap slot 1 and select Part 1 > Part 1 Assign 1. Do the same for Knob 2, but now select Part 1 > Part 1 Assign 2.

Try Knobs 1&2 while playing some notes. If both the filter cutoff and the amp attack respond well, we’re ready to assign the Super Knob.

Press the EXIT button to leave edit mode and go to the Motion Control > Super Knob screen. Switch links 3-8 to OFF. In range fields 1&2 fill in the numbers as shown in the picture, or any other numbers to your liking.

Rotate the Super Knob while playing and hear how the sound changes.

We’ve made all the necessary preparations to now store three Super Knob presets under three Scene buttons.

Tap the Scene field and press Scene button 1. Switch the Kbd Ctrl ON. Take care that Part 1 Kbd Ctrl is On and Part 2 is OFF.

Switch the Super Knob ON and select the value for the Super Knob you like to use for this Scene.

Press SHIFT + SCENE 1 to store the Scene. Note: while rotating the Super Knob we don’t see the value change, we only hear the change. Only once we stored the Scene the value is updated.

Repeat the above for Scene 2 and 3. The values I used for Scenes 1-3 are 0, 65 and 98.

What we have accomplished now is that we’ve created three different sounding presets of the Saw Pad which we can recall by pressing SCENE buttons 1-3. We used the Super Knob to create the Scenes. The Super Knob itself is controlling Assignable Common Knobs 1&2, which in turn are controlling Part 1 Assignable Knob 1 for filter cutoff and 2 for AEG (Amplifier Envelope Generator) attack time.

So far so good … but the Super Knob always rotates assigned knobs simultaneously. If we open up the cutoff frequency, the AEG attack time increases too. What if we like to have a preset where the filter is open, but the attack time is short?

Unfortunately, the s themselves can not directly be stored in a Scene, we always have to use the Super Knob to store Assignable Knob settings in Scenes, which means that they rotate simultaneously (unless we switched off the Link to the knob in the Scene > Super Knob tab) and all we can influence is their direction and range in the Super Knob tab.

What we can do to have different knob settings is to revert to the workaround we’ve used before …. which was to make a copy of the Part and create a Scene that switches Parts on/off via Kbd Ctrl. These are the actions to take:

We had already made a copy of Part 1. Go to the Mod/Control > Control Assign screen and Assign Part 2 Knob 1 to Element > Filter Cutoff and assign Part 2 Knob 3 to Element > AEG Attack.

Bottom left switch to Common and add the assignment of Common Knob 1 to Part 2 > Assign 1 and assign Common Knob 3 to Part 2 > Part 2 Assign 3. We can now use Common Knob 3 to control Part2 attack.

Go to the Scene screen and press SCENE 4. On the Kbd Ctrl tab switch Part 1 OFF and switch Part 2 ON.

What we achieved now is that the Super Knob controls the Filter Cutoff of Part 1 and also of Part 2, but the AEG attack of only Part 1.

Knob 3 controls AEG attack of Part 2, but it is not connected to the Super Knob. If we switch to Scene 4, we can have a fast AEG attack there, because under the hood we activated Part 2 and switched Part 1 off.

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This is part of a series of articles on the Yamaha Montage & MODX synthesizer / keyboard.

This article shows how to store Super Knob settings in Scenes for quick recall.

13 Super Knob – Create a Morph

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In the previous video we made a Performance with a one Part, an acoustic piano, and we assigned Volume and Reverb to two Assignable Knobs. The goal we set ourselves in this video is:

Add Part 2 to the Performance, with a Fender Rhodes sound.
Assign Common Knob 2 to control the volume of Part 2.
Assign the Super Knob to control the volume of Parts 1 and 2 simultaneously. However, for Part 1 we’ll do this reversed such that when we rotate the Super Knob to the right the volume of the piano lowers, while the volume of the Fender Rhodes increases. This is called ‘morphing’.
We want to leave Part 1 Reverb on Assigned Knob 4 untouched by the Super Knob so we can control this separately.

We start with the Performance we created in the previous video.

The first thing we’ll do is to add a second Part, for which I like to find a warm sounding Fender Rhodes.

We’re on the lookout for a Single Part, these show in green text. To make things easy we can apply ‘Single’ as a filter, that way only the Single Part Performances show.

Tap the Attribute field at the top and select Single from the list.

To find Fender Rhodes keyboards we can further filter on Keyboard and on Electric Piano.

Tap the Vintage Case piano to add it to our Performance.

Our Performance now looks like this.

Tap the Arp field to switch it off. Then use Slider 2 or tap the volume field and use the Dial Wheel to bring Part 2 volume to zero. We do this because we like zero to be our start value for the Volume Knob we’re now going to assign.

Press the EDIT button to enter edit mode.

Go to Mod/Control > Control Assign.

Select Part 2 in the blue field bottom left.

Tap Auto Select and rotate Knob 1 to select AsgnKnob1.

Most Preset Parts already have Assigned Knobs. Often these can be of use, but when we want to start with a clean slate we first have to delete any available Knob Assignments.

With Auto Select on, rotate Knob 1 and if it has any Assignments, delete them by tapping Delete bottom right.

There can also be assignments for Knobs 2 – 8, so best also check those and delete any Assignment you come across.

We now have a clean Part 2 to start creating our own Assignments. We want to control the volume with Knob 1 … Part 2 Knob 1 that is. Tap the + and select Part Param > Volume as the parameter to be controlled by Part 2 Knob 1.

Set the Curve Type to Standard, set Polarity to Uni, set the Ratio to 32 and set Param 1 to 5. (Param 1 controls the curve shape as we’ll see later on).

We’ve now made the settings needed to control the Volume of Part 2 with Part 2 AsgnKnob 1.

What we want though is to control it with Common Knob 2, so we’re now going to assign Part 2 Knob 1 to Common Knob 2.

Select Common in the blue field bottom left and rotate Knob 2 to select Common AsgnKnob 2.

Tap the + and then select Part 2 > Part Assign 1.

We can change the Display Name to Volume 2.

The complete assignment should now look like the image.

The result on Performance screen now should look like this.

We can try out the Knobs for Volume 1 and 2 and Reverb 1, they should all work as planned.

If they do, it’s time to get to work on the Super Knob now.

Go to the Motion Control > Super Knob screen.

Switch Knobs 3 – 8 OFF. This way our Knob 4, the Reverb of the piano, is under control of only the Knob itself, the Super Knob won’t change it.

What we do want though is to set the min and max values if Knob 1: we want the piano volume to start at 127 and to go to 0 when the Super Knob is turned to the right. At the same time Knob 2, the Fender Rhodes piano will increase, which creates the ‘morph’ between the two.

Time to try it out. Let’s turn the Super Knob and listen. Well … yes … the piano volume decreases and the Fender Rhodes increases. But … in the middle the total volume feels a bit softer than at the extremes.

We can change that. Let’s go back to edit mode (press the EDIT button) and change the Param 1 setting of the curve from 5 to 3. Notice how this changes the graph from linear to curved. Do this for both Part 1 and 2 and we’ll definitely have some more volume in the middle.

Two more things … important:

1. Set all the Knobs and the Super Knob to the setting you like them to have when you startup this Performance.
2. Press STORE to save the Performance and give it a name.

In the next video we’ll see how we can add attributes (instrument categories) to a Performance such that it becomes easier to find them back using Performance Category Search.

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12 How To Assign Knobs

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We can program Assignable Knobs to make them control parameters that we can choose from a list. In this video we’ll start simple, with a Performance that has just one Part.

Our goal is to assign the Part 1 volume to Common Knob 1 and to assign Part 1 Reverb to Common Knob 4.

Why assign volume while that can already be controlled by the slider? Because in one of the next videos we are going to make the Super Knobs morph the volume of two Parts, one becomes louder while the pother becomes softer.

Why assign Reverb to knob 4 while it already is available as a parameter under knob 4? This is for ease of use. To tune Part 1 Reverb we would first have to press the Parameter Tune Button, then select Part 1 in the Performance screen and then rotate the knob … far too much work when in a live performance. By assigning it to Common Knob 4 the Reverb for Part 1 is readily available from the moment we activated the Performance.

Let’s open the ‘Init Normal (AWM2)’ Performance. This can be found via a press on the CATEGORY button and tapping the ‘Init’ category.

This is a one Past basic piano sound without any knobs assignmed and with only a Reverb effect.

This is the goal we set ourselves to accomplish:
– Assign Common Knob 1 to Part 1 Volume.
– Assign Common Knob 4 to Part 1 Reverb Send.

Press the EDIT button to enter Performance Edit Mode and tap Control > Control Assign.

Tap the Auto Select field and rotate Knob 1.

It’ll be automatically selected and it now is the knob that we can edit.

Bottom left it shows we’re in the Common section. Tap this field and select Part 1. It should look like the picture now.

Now tap the + to create a new assignment for Knob 1. We can now selects a parameter to be controlled by Part 1 AsgnKnob1, which is called the source.

By default parameter InsA Param 1 is shown. This is called the Destination.

We want to change this to Part 1 Volume.

Tap Destination 1.

We can now select a parameter from the left side menu.

Volume can be found under Part Param.

In the screen that opens we can set the details of this source / destination couple to our liking.

One of these settingsis Polarity. By default Uni is selected. The graph shows what it does … when we rotate Knob 1 the parameter will increase. Notice how the graph does not start at zero. The value at Knob = 0 will be the volume the Performance was stored with … with this Uni curve this is the minimum value. The Uni curve will increase this value from its minimum to max 127.

The minimum volume can be set in the Mixer screen.

If we set the default volume to zero this does not mean the Performance has to start with Part 1 volume zero … we can set Knob 1 at any position we like, say 73, and then store the Performance. Both the Mixer value of zero as well as the Knob value of 73 are stored, and now at startup the volume will be 73.

We could also set the Polarity to Bi … this makes the knob can both add to (turn right) or subtract from (turn left) from the default value.

If for example the default Mixer volume was set at 40, we can increase the volume by turning right, or decrease the volume by turning left. With the Uni curve we can only increase and 40 would be the minimum volume.

Volume on Knob 1 is done. Let’s now make Knob 4 control the Reverb.

Rotate Knob 4 … with Auto Select turned on it’ll automatically become selected.

Take care Part 1 is still selected in the blue field bottom left.

Press the ‘+‘ to add a destination and select Part Param > Rev Send.

Select Uni or Bi as to your liking. Personally I use Uni most of the time because to me it’s easy to understand:

Give the parameter the desired minimum value.
Set the Knob at the desired startup value.
Store the Performance with these values.
Done. From here the knob varies the parameter between the stored minimum and the maximum of 127.

Knob 4 now controls Reverb Send of Part 1. We can only hear the effect when the value of Reverb Return on the Mixer Master channel is larger than zero.

Got to the Mixer screen. Set the minimum Reverb Send to your liking (zero means you can go to a completely dry sound). Set the Reverb Return, it controls the maximum amount of reverb we’ll hear in the sound mix.

Set Knob 1 to the desired volume and Knob 4 to the desired Reverb level and press the STORE button to save the Performance. These Knob values will now be the default after startup.

OK, looks we’re ready, let’s try it out.

Hm, it looks like as long as Part 1 is selected in the Performance screen all is working well, but if Common is selected (tap the Performance name), which will be the case after opening the Performance via Live Set or via Category Search, the knobs control Common but nothing seems to be assigned to them!?

That’s because Knobs (can) do different things on Common level as on Part level, which they are on when a Part is selected / active on the Performance screen.

To make them work for a Part while we are in Common, we need to assign the Knob on the Common level to control the Part level.

Select Common in the blue field, bottom left
With Auto Select on, rotate knob 1.
Tap the ‘+‘ to add a destination.
Select Part 1 > Part 1 Assign 1 as destination.

Rotate Knob 4 to auto select it. This time select Part 1 > Part 1 Assign 4.

The result now is that on Common level Knobs 1 and 4 control Knobs 1 and 4 of Part 1.

Let’s give the knobs a useful name. Tap the Display Name field and enter a name. Let’s rename Knob 1 to ‘Volume 1’ and knob 4 to ‘Reverb 1’.

Now the Performance screen looks like this. We can see what each knob does. If you prefer an even cleaner screen you could also rename the other knobs so Assign# does not show there.

Don’t forget to now press the STORE button and save our hard work. As soon as we (accidentally) select another Performance not having saved this one first it has all been in vain.

It has happened to me that I touched the Dial Wheel while the Performance name was the active field, which made the next Performance become active … and all work was lost!

The next step is control the knobs via the Super Knob. The Super Knob can operate the 8 Assignable Knobs simultaneously. What we just did is transfer Common control to Part control, this makes it possible to control Part 1 volume via the Super Knob. Now imagine we add another Part, with reversed volume control, then we have created a Morph between two Parts. This is what we’ll do in the next video.

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