OTS and Style Variations

There is a special bonus provided to owners of the PSR-2100/2000 family called One Touch Settings (OTS). When you load any style from all those preset styles in your keyboard, you will also be loading four one-touch settings. You call up any of these settings by pressing one of the four OTS buttons located on the right-side of the keyboard. This will instantly set your main voice, your layer voice, and your left-hand voice. It may also set other parameters such as the harmony/echo effect or left-hand hold. You don't have to worry about selecting anything. Just press OTS1 and the keyboard is all set up with voices meant to go with the style you just selected. At any time while you are playing, you can press another OTS button and the keyboard configuration switches to another set of voices.

To examine the OTS for any style, load the style and then press OTS1 and then look at the value in the main screen for the MAIN and LAYER voices. Press each OTS button in turn and watch how these settings change. Load another style and take a look at the settings. The particular instruments selected to go with a POLKA style are clearly different from what might be selected for a COUNTRY style, which are different from those selected for ROCK or for BIG BAND. When your keyboard is new and you're just learning to navigate it and learn everything that is there, these OTS buttons are great help in getting everything set up so you can simply start playing and not worry about how to set up your keyboard.

Understanding the STYLE CONTROL Buttons

Each style includes four different variations of accompaniment. You select the variation you want by using the buttons under STYLE CONTROL located on the left side of your keyboard. The four variations are called by pressing one of the four buttons "MAIN" buttons.

Let's take a little closer look at the STYLE CONTROL. The button on the far left is the ACMP (for accompaniment) button. The accompaniment voices can be turned on or off. When they are ON, the light by ACMP will be lit. When the accompaniment is OFF, the light will be off. If ACMP is OFF, pressing START/STOP will start the rhythm but no accompaniment voices will be heard. All the lights above the four MAIN buttons are always ON. Three will be green, but one will be red. The red light indicates the currently selected style variation. Press a different button and you'll hear a different variation in the accompaniment pattern.

The BREAK button is used to introduce a one-measure drum break into your performance whenever you push it. The "break" is included in the style itself and will differ with the different styles. The INTRO button when ON will play a short intro for the style. On the MAIN screen you'll see an INTRO ENDING window (button [E]) that will allow you to change the intro or ending, but only one of the possible variations is stored permanently with the style. The ENDING button is shown just to the right of the four MAIN buttons. Pressing ENDING will play a short ending for your performance. Below ENDING, in small italicized print, is .rit (ritard). This means to gradually slow down. If you press the ENDING button twice quickly, you will activate the ritard function and the ending will play but also gradually slow down as the song ends. The next button is AUTO FILL IN. If this is ON, a short drum fill will be played when you move from one main variation to another.

I'll discuss OTS Link in this next section, but before we go there, let's finish with the two remaining buttons. SYNC STOP and SYNC START. When SYNC START is ON, the accompaniment will start as soon as you hit a key in the accompaniment section of your keyboard. When you do, and the accompaniment starts, the SYNC START goes OFF because it has done its job. When SYNC STOP is ON, the accompaniment will STOP as soon as you take your fingers off of the accompaniment keys. At that point, the SYNC START is automatically turned ON and the next time you press a key, everything starts again. There may be times in a performance where the accompaniment is to stop for a few beats. You can use SYNC STOP to accomplish this. Of course, you may also want to turn it off while things are stopped, because it is pretty difficult to constantly have your fingers touching the keyboard. Another case when you can use this setting is if you want to start with a slow beat and gradually increase the tempo to the correct speed for the style. Turn SYNC STOP ON and then use your left hand to set the tempo. Hit the keyboard for each beat, gradually increasing the speed. Every time you do, you'll hear the first beat of the accompaniment (drums, bass, other instruments), but his ends as soon as you take your fingers off the keyboard. Try it out. You may find this a useful technique sometime.

Linking Style Variations and OTS

Finally, notice that button labeled OTS LINK. This, too, can be ON or OFF. When it is ON, the four main variations are linked to the four OTS settings. When you play Main 1, you will also be using OTS1. When you switch to MAIN 2 (or 3 or 4), the OTS will automatically switch to OTS2 (or OTS3 or OTS4). Every time you change the Main style variation, the OTS setting will change with it. Note that this does not work both ways! If you switch from OTS4 to OTS3, the MAIN style variation does not change. You can set one style variation and use all four OTS settings if you want. Experiment with this to get a feeling for how it works. Turn OTS LINK on, go to Main 1 and start the accompaniment. Then watch the MAIN screen voices as you press Main 2, Main3, and Main4. You'll see the voices change to what is saved in OTS2, OTS3, and OTS4. Now try changing the OTS settings by pressing different OTS buttons. Notice that the style variation does not change.

Making Your Own OTS

Although some of the settings by Yamaha may be just fine for a style, they may or may not meet your own tastes. Every PSR player seems to have their own particular style and favorite voices. You can change the main/layer/left voices of course, but what if you wanted your changes to be permanently stored in the OTS of the style? Can that be done? Well, Yes! and No!. You can never change the OTS that is in the preset styles since you can not change anything in the preset styles. But if you are willing to save a copy of that style, in USER area or on a FLOPPY DISK, yes, you can then put in whatever OTS you want. Take a look at the REGISTRATION MEMORY area on the right-hand side of the keyboard. I won't discuss registration memory right now, but I will discuss that MEMORY button at the far right side of the 8 registration memory buttons.

If you press the MEMORY button and then press one of the OTS buttons, your currently selected voices (main/layer/left) and their volumes and other settings will be saved to that OTS button. You will see a message saying that the OTS has been changed and you need to SAVE the results if you want to keep these new settings. You can respond YES to that. The SAVE screen that comes up only allows you to save the style in the USER area or on a FLOPPY. To experiment, save it in the USER area. If you haven't renamed the style when you saved it, you will see that style name in the PRESET area as well as in the USER area. It's the same style, but the one in the USER area has your OTS settings in it.

So, changing OTS and saving the new values in the style is not at all difficult. You just have to save them in a version of the style that you put in the USER area or on a floppy disk. You may want to save other variations of the set up, such as the style tempo. However, the tempo, like the accompaniment voices and their volumes, are stored elsewhere in the style file. They will not be saved by the simple procedure outlined here. To save these settings you have to go into the Style Creator and resave the whole style. The steps involved in doing that are explained in detail in the Personalize section in the lessons that discuss adjusting accompaniments in a style.