Whoa, just got a keyboard.

[Bonhomme Richard]

I've posted before about the hammond A-100 with mod 51 leslie that I was trying to get rid off. My nephew was going to take it and in return give me an ensoniq sampler. It was going to be an even swap as I needed the room and the organ would stay in the family. Well, he bugged out of the deal so I mentioned the organ to a neighbor who is a music producer who has a recording studio in his house. Long story short he is taking the unit because he wants an original leslie sound in his studio and gave me a 2 year old Korg Triton music workstation. It's the 61 key version which seems to suit me better since I don't have a ton of room. I was just screwing around with it and it seems amazing to me. As most of you know I'm a guitarist and not a keyboardist but I like to imitate one from time to time. LOL.
Sounded great and I just wanted to share. Exciting. If anyone has any tips or suggestions the help would be appreciated.
On another note I've gotten back into gigging, which I swore I wasn't going to do. Believe me I tried not to but stuff happens. My band played a corporate christmas party a couple of weeks ago and I'm booked to play a 2 hour set of acoustic guitar New Years eve at a local watering hole.
It appears Life goes on.

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Well Good On You!

That's a nice keyboard. I had a Korg in my live setup for years. I switched to Ensoniq and Alesis several years ago, because i liked the sound for live use better and the keyboards had better action for the money. But, that Korg serviced me well.

The Triton is very powerful with, i think, three different synth engines in it. The only keyboards i know for use that have more utility in the way to create sounds are the Kurzweil and the Yamaha Motif. But, i haven't bought anything new in a long time, so i'm not speaking from anything other than the experience of messing around in a music store with them and reading about them.

Have fun with the new toy.
The Professor

[Bonhomme Richard]

2. Thanks for the reply and I must be thick.......

but I was trying to figure out how to set it up so that I could, for ex., play a piano part and then switch very quickly to organ. I know it should be easy to do but reading the manual was making me crazy.
Any suggestions?

[ProfessorGAC]

3. Sure

Here's an easy way to do it.

First understand the background: Most synth manufacturers will tell anyone who asks that 95% of all returns for repair or modification have the patches that were there, EXACTLY, when it left the factory. So, we'll assume that's the case here.

On all modern synths, there are multiple banks of sounds. Some are in ROM. But, there is also static RAM that allows modifications, original sounds, etc. to be stored. In addition, there may be cards, CD-ROM or hard disk that stores these patches.

Find out from the manual (yeah i know) just how to save a sound. Navigate your way through the control panel until you know where the ROM sounds are and how to get to the RAM storage.

Find piano in ROM. Store it to the first location in RAM. Now, do the same with the organ sound, and save it to location 2. (I don't know the patch nomenclature on the Triton, so i can't be more specific.)

Example: On my Ensoniq SQ-2, i have the first bank of RAM (00 - 09) set as Piano, Electric Piano, Clavinet, B-3, Cellos, Horn Section, Saxophone, Flute, a vocalish pad, and a lead synth sound. Now, i have 10 sounds that i just have to have readily available all just one button push away. I admit that none of those sounds are exactly as they were in ROM. I tweaked filters, modulation, pressure sensitivity, and the like, but i'm a freak about that stuff.

So, if you follow this, and i'll assume the Triton has similar banking, you could easily have 8 or 10 or 12 commonly used sounds just one press of the button away.

Yeah, you'll have to read the manual, but you should be able to find Saving or Storing patches in the index. That way you'll only have to read the one page. We all know that americans don't read instruction manuals. I'm a brute force guy myself.
The Professor

[Bonhomme Richard]

4. Thanks for the help.

I'll give it a try and let you know how I make out.

[FredStembottom]

5. With keyboards there's no substitute for what the professor...

said above. I read my manuals like a novel. I mark them with highlighters, I write explanations that I can understand better in the margins. Most useful of all is to put those little stick-out tabs on the most important pages. I'll take an entire Saturday to read/try/think one little feature. Why do I do all of this?

Because, it turns out that there are huge, amazing capabilities buried deep inside so many keyboards and synths that go unnoticed and unused by entire generations of musicians. (OK...a wee bit of exaggeration).

I plow along with equipment that is 10 years (or more) past their freshness date. Stuff I get for pennies on the dollar! Just because "new" things are now out. And I believe millions of people buy these 'new" things trying to get things that were actually buried deep inside their old stuff! But they didn't know.

(also, many "old" synths can host new things with the installation of newer Op. Systems and/or more memory.)

So sleep with the manual. Eat it for breakfast. Touch it, love it.

My 2 bits. :eyes:

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Touch It? Love It? I Think That's More Than We Wanted To Know!

LOL! Thanks for chiming in, Fred.
The Professor