20 Scenes: Switch Parts On/Off

In the previous video we created an on/off switch for an Insert Effect, using an Assign Button to change the volumes of two Parts. One Part contains the Insert Effect while the other does not. It worked, but for something simple like a switch programming those inverted volumes was somewhat cumbersome. Luckily there is a much easier way … we can make use of Scenes.

The Yamaha Montage has 8 Scene buttons, the MODX has 2 x 4.

Scenes are variations of a Performance. These can be subtle, like switching an Insert Effect, or more drastic, like change to a completely different instrument in a multi Part Performance.

Scroll down below the video for more text and images. The images can be clicked to enlarge.

The parameters that can saved in Scenes are shown on the Scene page. For each of the 8 Scenes here’s where the choices are made.

In this example we programmed Scene 2: Keyboard Control is switched on for Part 1 & 3, and off for Part 2. We can save this Scene by pressing the SHIFT + SCENE 2 buttons.

Now, when Scene 2 is active, we’ll only hear Part 1 & 3. All other parameters stay as they were because they were OFF when we saved Scene 2.

We can put this Part switching to good use for our desired Phaser Insert Effect on/off switch.

We start again where we left off at video 18, a Performance with Piano in Part 1 and Electric Piano in Part 2, to which we added a Phaser Insert Effect, that we now want to switch.

The first thing we’ll do is press STORE and save it as a new Performance with a new name.

First we’ll make a copy of Part 2.

Tap Part 2 and then tap Copy.

Make sure Copy is active at the top and that Part 3 is mentioned as the target, then tap Copy.

Tap Part 2 and then tap Copy.

We now have two Electric Pianos, both have the Phaser Insert Effect. We’ll take that out for Part 2.

Tap Part 2 and then tap Edit, or press the EDIT button.

Go to the Effect > Routing screen and tap the Ins A Category or -Type field.

Select Thru from the list.

This removes the Ins A Effect from Part 2, the signal goes thru unaffected (lol, this actually is uneffected :).

In Part 3 we still have the Ins A Phaser effect in the sound chain.

In Part 3 we still have the Ins A Phaser effect in the sound chain.

We can confirm everything works as expected by trying both Parts using the Solo field.

Part 2 should sound dry.
Part 3 should have the Phaser effect, of which we can control the Depth with Assign knob 3.

Now go to the Scene screen and select Scene 1, or press the Scene 1 button.

Tap the main switches at the top such that only Kbd Ctrl is ON and all others are OFF.

Now switch Kbd Ctrl to green (ON) for Parts 1 & 2 and to grey (OFF) for Part 3.

Save the Scene by pressing the SHIFT + SCENE 1 buttons simultaneously. ‘Scene stored’ shows.

Do the same for Scene 2, but this time switch Kbd Ctrl to green (ON) for Parts 1 & 3 and to grey (OFF) for Part 2.

Save the Scene by pressing the SHIFT + SCENE 2 buttons simultaneously.

This covered our Phaser Insert Effect on/off switch. During play we can select Scene 1 for E-piano without Phaser and select Scene 2 to switch the Phaser on.

Let’s do something completely different now … let’s add a Tone Wheel Organ to the Performance.

Tap the ‘+’of Part 4 and find a Tone Wheel Organ on the Performance Merge screen.

Press the Performance / Home button to return to the Performance screen.

We now have a Tone Wheel Organ in Part 4.

Return to the Scene screen and select Scene 3.

Take care Kbd Ctrl is the only main switch that is ON and Parts 1,2 & 3 are grey (OFF) … only Part 4 is green (ON).

Press the SHIFT + SCENE 3 buttons simultaneously to save this as Scene 3.

Three Scene buttons should now be lit, these are the ones in use with this Performance.

Have fun playing, switching the Phaser on and off with Scenes 1 and 2, and be astonished how in one and the same Performance we can switch from piano to organ with the press of a button, Scene 3.

Don’t forget to store our work: press STORE and tap ‘Save current Performance’.

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12 How To Assign Knobs

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:

1. Give the parameter the desired minimum value.
2. Set the Knob at the desired startup value.
3. Store the Performance with these values.
4. 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.

1. Select Common in the blue field, bottom left
2. With Auto Select on, rotate knob 1.
3. Tap the ‘+‘ to add a destination.
4. 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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07 Anatomy of a Performance

In video 5 we saw how we can use Category Search to find a sound, called a Performance, in the vast collection of over 2700 that are available.

In video 6 we saw how we can quickly select Performances via the Live Set screens, either from one of the Presets Pages or from a User Page that we created ourselves.

In this video we’ll see that a Performance contains a lot more than just sounds. There’s a multitude of parameters and effects and arpeggios and ‘motion’, and there are 8 scenes which are variations of the Performance that can be recalled by the push of a button. Performances are incredibly versatile. Scroll down for the text with images. Click the images to enlarge.

After we activated a Performance, either via a Live Set screen or via Category Search, we can open the Performance screen by pressing the Performance (Home) button.

In the Performance screen we can see that for example the ‘Pearly Gates’ Performance does not contain just one sound, it contains three Parts.

A Performance can have a maximum of 16 Parts, 8 of which can be controlled via the keyboard.

If we zoom further in on a Part (tap one of the part names and tap Edit or press the Edit button … more on this in a later video) we’ll see that also a Part is not one single sound, it’s a collection of up to 8 sounds, called Elements.

In this example an acoustic piano Part is made up of multiple samples that each play in a different velocity range.

So, a Performance can have up to 16 Parts, and each Part can contain up to 8 Elements.

But that’s only the sounds. There’s a whole lot more … there are parameters that can be altered live and there are effects like reverb and phasing and more.

The knobs and buttons and wheels can be used to alter the sound. What these do in a particular Performance is programmable.

What follows is a quick overview of what can be programmed and saved with a Performance. Future videos will be on how to do it.

The Motion Control > Overview screen shows which buttons and knobs do have a function in this Performance. This screen just gives a visual clue, it doesn’t show what is being controlled and we can’t actually control anything from here.

The Super Knob can control the 8 (Montage) or 4×2 (MODX) rotary knobs, which each can change one or more parameters. How, and to what extent, the 8 parameter knobs are controlled via the Super Knob is managed in the Motion Control > Super Knob screen.

The Super Knob can also turn fully automatic. This automation is programmed in the Motion Control > Knob Auto screen.

The 8 knobs can be used to tune the parameters that are written above them, while the button and LED on the left are used to scroll through the four rows of parameters.

The same and even some more parameters are found on the Motion Control > Quick Edit screen. We can operate them from there too.

When the Assign button is pressed and lit, the knobs have their alternative use, to tune a parameter that we assigned to it ourselves.

The 8 (Montage) or 4×2 (MODX) sliders can be used to change the volume of the Parts.

This can also be done via the Mixing screen, where we can also control Effect Send and -Return values and Pan.

The 8 (Montage) or 4×2 (MODX) SCENE buttons allow to quickly recall one of the max eight sets of parameter settings that may be programmed and stored in the Performance.

Every Part can have its own arpeggio, which can make for immensely complex sound structures. Arpeggios can be chosen and switched on the Motion Control > Arpeggio screen.

Every Part can also have its own Motion Sequencer that automatically changes a parameter over time, thus crating ‘moving’ sounds, sounds with ‘life’ in them. We can control this via the Motion Control > Motion Sequencer screen.

The Modulation Wheel and the two Assign buttons can also be used to change parameters.

Which parameters are influenced by which knobs or buttons or wheels is defined in the Control > Control Assign screen that’s available in Edit > Common/Audio mode.

And this still is not all … the synths have over 70 effects on board, from phasing, chorus, reverb, delay to amps, equalizers and compressors.

There are three levels of effects:
– Master MFX. Choose one effect from amps, EQ, compression and some modern sound effects.
– Performance. Here we have several types of Reverb available plus a Variation effect that can be chosen from a list with chorus, phaser, delay, wah and more.
– Part. Every Part can have two Insert effects that can be chosen from a long list.

All and all the above involves an incredible amount of data, all of which is stored in a Performance.

It may already take a lifetime to figure out all the tweaking possibilities of the Preset sounds, but that’s not where it ends, it’s only the start … just imagine the fun of creating our own sounds with these synthesizers.

The options and screens described above will all be subject of future videos.

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