Balancing Drums and Bass
and Chords and Phrases
When you select a "style" to play along
with, it is like picking your own backup band to accompany
your solo playing. That "band" can include up to 8 individual
players, each with different instruments. When you play a
chord, the whole band starts playing in tune with the chord
you selected. As you change chords, the players alter
their accompaniment to match the new chord. You hear
the whole band playing, but, in fact, there are individual
instruments making up that style and you can listen to each
instrument all by itself. You can turn individual players
on or off and you can adjust the sound of each individual
instrument. (See our previous lesson on changing
accompaniment voices for
a simple method of changing accompaniment instruments as you
play.) You can have any player you choose switch instruments.
You can even decide where your band members sit on the stage!
All of this arranging with your arranger keyboard can change
the overall sound of that backup band (style) quite a bit.
You accomplish all this arranging in the MIXING CONSOLE.
 The
[MIXING CONSOLE] button is found to the left of
your main screen. The MIXING CONSOLE is one of three
features in the DIGITAL STUDIO. Other lessons in this Personalizing
section cover the features found under DIGITAL RECORDING.
Notice that the [MIXING CONSOLE] button has the word "PART"
underneath it with arrows going to and from the button.
There are four different parts that you adjust using the MIXING
CONSOLE:
-- the Panel Part,
-- the Style Part,
-- the Song Part (1st 8 tracks), and
-- the Song Part (last 8 tracks).
Each of these parts has its own dedicated
screen. Repeatedly press the MIXING CONSOLE button and
you see the MIXING CONSOLE screen cycle through each of its
four parts. The part we are going to discuss here is
the Style Part. The screen for that part is
shown below:
MIXING CONSOLE (Style Part)
This Style Part screen actually holds
five 
different subscreens of mixing options as indicated by the
five folder tabs. The first is VOL/VOICE and that is
what we will focus on here. This screen can be somewhat imposing
-- look at all of those options! This screen, like many other
screens you will encounter, shows a variety of options that
you select by using a combination of the [A] ... [J] buttons
on the left and right of the screen and the [1] ... [8] buttons
beneath the screen.
VOICE
There are five rows and eight columns
of information on this screen. In this screen shot,
the third row, the VOICE row, is selected. This row
is bracketed by the [C] and [H] buttons. You can tell that
it is selected because the title of this row is highlighted
and the instrument symbol in column 1 is also highlighted.
PANPOT
If you press the [D] or the [I] button,
you select the 4th row, the PANPOT row. By changing
the settings in this row, you adjust the position of the instrument
in your orchestra. A setting of 64 puts it right in front
of you. Moving counterclockwise toward 0 moves the sound of
that instrument toward the left side of your keyboard. Moving
the setting clockwise toward 128, moves the sound to the right-side
of your keyboard.
VOLUME
The bottom row, which you select by
pressing either the [E] button on the left or the corresponding
[J] button on the right, is for changing the VOLUME for each
individual instrument. Press the various lettered buttons
to see how the highlight line moves when you press each button.
8 Accompaniment Tracks
Note that each of the three bottom
rows ( [C] for VOICE, [D] for PANPOT, and [E] for VOLUME)
have eight possible options, each of which corresponds to
a different accompaniment track. These options are selected
by using the eight numbered keys under the MAIN screen. Press
any of those numbered key buttons (above or below the number)
to see how the highlight moves from column to column as you
press different numbers.
SONG AUTOREVOICE & SETUP
The very first row only has one option:
SONG AUTOREVOICE; press [F] to turn this option ON
or OFF. The second row also only has one option.
Press [G] to examine the SETUP
for the various revoice options. I won't discuss these
options in this lesson.
Changing Track Instruments
 All
styles can have two Rhythm tracks, a Bass track, two Chord
tracks, a Pad track, and two tracks for Phrases. Styles
will seldom use all of the available tracks and the tracks
that are used may vary among the four style variations (A
- D) that come with each style. The third row, VOICE,
shows a small picture to represent the kind of instrument
used in that track. If you select the VOICE row, button
[C] and then press one of the number keys, you will see the
VOICE(REVOICE) screen that shows what instrument is being
used on that track. Press [EXIT] to return to the MIXING
CONSOLE, or, if you want, select a different instrument before
returning to the MIXING CONSOLE.
Exercise
1
While you are in the MIXING CONSOLE, press the [START/STOP]
button to start the style playing. You will immediately
hear the rhythm tracks. Play a chord and you will hear
all the other tracks as well. While the style is playing,
press the [C] and [3] buttons to select the BASS voice.
Now try selecting different BASS instruments to see what impact
that has on the style while it is playing. You can do
this with any of the instruments. Experiment and try
out different voices. You can't hurt anything since
the preset styles that come with the PSR-2000 can not be changed.
We'll explain later the various options available for saving
your changes. You might also try out different voices
by the method suggested by Dick Roberts in his article on
Changing Accompaniment Voices
.
Changing Track
Volumes
The volume for each track is adjusted
up or down by using the upper and lower buttons located right
underneath that track. First, make sure you select the
VOLUME row by pressing either button [E] or [J]. Now,
press the buttons above or below the numbers located at the
bottom of the screen to select the appropriate track (voice).
If you wanted to select the BASS voice, you would press one
of the [3] buttons. To select the first chord track
(CHD1), press one of the [4] buttons. Once you have
selected a particular track notice that the volume for the
instrument on that track will go up one number every
time you press the button above and go down one
number every time you press the button below the
number.. If you press the top (bottom) button
and keep it pressed, the numbers will go up (down) rapidly.
The highest possible number is 127 (loud) and the lowest possible
number is 0 (silent). You can adjust the sound even
quicker by turning the Data Entry wheel located to the right
of the number buttons.
How Loud Is Loud?
Master Control
 The
total sound coming out of your PSR-2000 or PSR-2100 speakers
is set by the Master Volume knob. This sets the volume for
the instrument as a whole. No matter how you have set
the balance between accompaniment, left and right hand voices,
moving the Master Control knob moves everything up or down.
When I am adjusting sounds, I like to keep the Master Volume
set about half way. This provides a suitable overall
sound so that I can hear all the voices comfortably in my
study without disturbing a lot of other rooms in the house.
If the various instruments sounds are balanced at this level,
they will continue to be balanced if I move the volume up
all the way. Set at its maximum volume, the PSR-2000
can be pretty loud in my study, but that very same
maximum volume can also be barely adequate in a large
room filled with a crowd of people. Figure out what overall
volume you generally play at and set the Master Volume at
that level before you start balancing parts or adjusting individual
instruments.
Master EQ
The overall loudness and tone of the
sound coming out of your PSR-2000 can be significantly affected
by the Master EQ setting. This allows you to adjust
your keyboard for different playing environments. What
sounds fine in a small room in your house may not be appropriate
if you are playing outdoors or in a large hall. In the
next
lesson in this section, Gary Diamond explains how
you can adjust the Master EQ setting for outside events and
larger rooms.
Balance Control
 The
second level of adjustment is done using the Balance control,
which you can also see from the MIXING CONSOLE (Panel Part).
If you set the volume for the STYLE up to the maximum of 127,
that will be as loud as you can set it. However, if
your master volume is only half way, turning up the master
volume will increase that accompaniment sound (as well as
all other sounds) even more.
When you are changing the volume of
the STYLE, you are changing the overall volume of ALL the
parts in the style. Here, too, just like in finding
a comfortable setting for your overall Master Volume, you
may want to pick a standard setting for your Style volume,
say for example, 90. Then, you adjust all the individual
style parts so they sound good together. That way, depending
on the song you are playing and the panel voices you select
for the main and layer voices, you can always adjust the style
volume higher (or lower) and the volume for all style parts
will move up (or down) in unison. That is, if they were
balanced with the overall STYLE volume at 80, they will remain
balanced when you move the overall STYLE volume to 100.
MIXING CONSOLE
To change the volumes for the individual
tracks in the style, you use the MIXING CONSOLE as described
above. So, if you adjust the sound of, for example,
the drums in the rhythm track [2], how loud they sound to
your ears will be determined by a the combination of the volume
you set for the RHY1 & RHY2 in the MIXING CONSOLE,
the volume set for the STYLE in the Balance Control,
and the overall volume of the keyboard set by the Master
Volume and the EQ setting for the keyboard..
Blending the Four Style Variations
Before I give you some hints on balancing the individual
track volumes, let me warn you right now that changes made
using the MIXING CONSOLE as described here affect ALL four
style variations. So, suppose the track for chord 1
has a piano playing. If you select variation A and set
the volume of that piano to, say 90, then the volume of the
CHD1 track in ALL four style variations (A, B, C, and D) will
be set to 90. This is not necessarily bad, but it does
mean that when you are adjusting the volume for that CHD1
track, you will want to test your setting in all four variations.
In fact, you need to balance all the instruments so they sound
good in all the four style varations.
Similarly, if you change the instrument
in a particular track, for example, changing a GrandPiano
to a HonkyTonk piano, that instrument change will be applied
to all four style variations. In some cases, this is
good and that is what you want to do. But not in all cases.
You may be adjusting a style that had a GrandPiano in the
CHD1 track for style variations A and B, but has a JazzGuitar
playing in that track for variations C and D. If you
changed the Piano in variation A to a JazzOrgan, that track
would have a JazzOrgan in variations B, C, and D. You
would have replaced not only the original GrandPiano sound
in A and B, but also the JazzGuitar sound in C and D.
For many styles, the restrictions
mentioned above won't be a problem. You can make these
"higher level" adjustments and the style will sound just the
way you want it in all four variations. But for some
styles, this blending of the volume and instrument selection
across all the variations may not work well. You may
have a style that uses a pad voice in PHR1 for variations
A and B and a TromboneSection in that PHR1 track for variations
C and D. It may not be possible to pick a volume level
for that track that sounded good in all the variations.
In a case like this, you will need to adjust the instrument
and volume individually for each style variation. You
will use the MIXING CONSOLE to do this, BUT YOU DO IT FROM
WITHIN THE DIGITAL RECORDING section. The lesson on
Fine Tuning Volume Adjustments
explains how to do that. I just wanted you to be aware
that adjusting voices and volumes at this level impacts all
four style variations equally.
Ready to Try!
OK, how about another exercise to see
if you can adjust a style. Beguine
is one of the styles that was converted from a batch of styles
originally on the Technics KN5000 arranger keyboard.
Click on that style name to download the style. Put it on
a floppy disk and take it to your PSR. From the Main
screen, press [D] to load a style, and press [Next] a couple
of times to get to the floppy disk folder. You should
see a style named BEGUIN there. Load it. Press
SYNC START and then play a chord with your left hand to start
the style playing. Press the four variation buttons (A-D)
to see what it sounds like in all variations. When your
done trying it out, press STOP.
Tempo
The conversion software set the tempo
of every style to 120. For a slow ballad or a fast swing,
this would obviously be the wrong speed. In this case,
however, the original tempo on the KN5000 was 118 so the 120
is close. But move the tempo down to 118 anyway.
Volume
Press the [MIXING CONSOLE] button
to go to the Mixer. If you are not looking at the MIXING CONSOLE(STYLE
PART) screen, press the [MIXING CONSOLE] button again
until you get to the STYLE PART page (which is shown at the
top of this article.) Notice all those volumes set to
100. Try moving the 8 individual volume levels (counting
from left to right) to these settings: RHY1=56, RHY2=85,
BASS=85, CHD1=75, CHD2=75, PAD=60, PHR1=68, and PHR2=100.
Now press SYNC START and try a chord to start off the style
again. Press the different variations while the style
is playing. You should hear a big difference from the
original flat 100 settings.
 If
you press the CHANNEL ON/OFF key, the lower part of the main
screen will show what is going on in the 16 song tracks or
8 style tracks. Notice that this button also has a [PART}
indication below it meaning that as you press this button,
it cycles between various channel parts. In this case,
there are only two parts: SONG and STYLE. The Song part
is shown below:
When you are looking at the STYLE Channel,
you will see the 8 style tracks each with a little picture
of the kind of instrument and whether it is ON or OFF:
Some tracks are OFF because there is
nothing recorded in that track. If the track is ON,
there is an instrument playing in the style. If you
press the corresponding number button, you can turn that instrument
off. Try it now, with your style playing (remember to
play a chord to hear all the parts). Turn everything
off except the drums. Then turn on the instruments one
at a time so you can clearly hear what that instrument is
playing.
In adjusting a style, you may find
it helpful to do that adjustment one at a time. Get
the rhythm tracks set to the right volume in all four variations.
Then, turn the BASS track on and adjust its volume until it
sounds fine in all the variations. Now, add the CHD1
track and adjust it. You get the idea.
If you are in the MIXING CONSOLE,
press the [E] or [J] buttons to see the volume adjustment.
Adjust up or down using either the top or bottom numbered
buttons below the instrument or the Data Wheel to make large
adjustments very quickly. Using the Data Entry Wheel,
for example, you may move the CHD1 volume up to its maximum,
then begin lowering it until it sounds right to you (or move
it all the way down to where you do not hear it, and then
move it up until the sound is balanced with the other instruments).
When it is where you want it to be, press the CHANNEL ON/OFF
button again to see all the parts and turn another part on
and adjust it.
OK, everything is tuned just the way you
want for this style. But now, the next, CRITICAL step, is
to SAVE your work. The next lesson details the six
steps needed to SAVE your creation.
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