How to Set Up a Registration File with
Your Favorite Solo Instruments

by Joe Waters

You may want to put your favorite instruments in a registration set.  For example, if you put the GrandPiano at R1 (the first registration button), you would know that, no matter what style you are using, you could always go to R1 and have a GrandPiano available.  Similarly, you may want to set up your left-hand voice a particular way, or you may have a set of voices you like to use for the left-hand voice.  Rather than having to set this up every time you load a style, wouldn't it be great if it were possible to include these in your Favorites Registration file and be able to easily set the left-hand voice for any style loaded.  Well, it is possible to do this.  The solution comes from a trick discovered by Scotty Yee .  Here are the steps:

1. Create a unique style and store it in the USER area.  We have created a BLANK.STY that you can use for this purpose.
    
2. Use this style to set up all of your 8 registrations.
    
3. Once you have your favorite instruments saved in the 8 registration buttons, save that registration set in the USER area under an appropriate name.
    
4. Now, copy your unique style (it is called BLANK.STY if you downloaded the one above) to a floppy disk.  It is useful to keep this style handy on a floppy so that it can be called upon again if you want to modify your registration settings.
    
5. Delete that style from the USER area so that it is no longer available.  (You could have CUT the style and from the USER area and PASTED it to the floppy and achieved the same result.)
    
6. That's it.  You are done.  Your registration set is now available for use with any style you may wish to load.

According to Scotty, this works because when you press one of the Registration buttons, it first tries to load the style saved with that registration button.  In this case, the style would be BLANK.STY.  But that style is no longer available.  Note: a registration button can only load a style that is available in the PRESET memory area or the USER memory area.  It can not load a style from floppy disk.  Since it can not find the style that is specified in the registration button, it gives up looking and defaults to the style that is currently loaded, which is just what we want it to do.

Scotty sent me a registration file he uses, that he calls Acoustic Jazz.  I have a favorite set that I use all the time that I have labeled JazzJW .  The table below shows the Main and Layer voices stored in each of these registration files.

If you want to use a particular left-hand voice, follow this procedure:

1. Load the style you want to play.
    
2. Select the registration button that has the left hand you want, for example, if I were using my favorite registrations (Jazz JW above), if I wanted the Rotor Organ for my left hand voice, I would select registration button 6.
    
3. Turn FREEZE On.  This freezes the style -- and the left-hand voice.
    
4. Now you can use any of the OTS settings and any of the 8 registration main voices with that style and your left-hand voice will remain set to RotorOrgan.

Don Mason's Setup

Don Mason, who you can hear performing in Shreveport, LA, explains how he sets up his PSR-2000:

Basically, I set the entire keyboard up to the song I usually open with. This includes DSPs, footswitch settings, style, split point, fingering mode, vocal harmony settings and R and L voices.  I save this to Registration #1.  Then, I make 7 more registrations for the styles I use most.  I am certain to have a different right-hand voice saved to each one.  I then set my Freeze parameters to freeze everything except the voices.

Therefore, when the Freeze light is on, I have 8 instant voices for immediate use. I have GrandPiano, VintageStrat, PedalSteel, Fiddle, 60'sGuitar, SweetTenorSax, GrowlSax and a layered guitar as my 8 voices.  Right 2 voices (layer) are also set, of course. This gives me instant access to 8 complete registrations when the Freeze is off, and 8 instant voices when the Freeze is on.

Of course, more banks can be used in the same way if needed. Since all of the styles have 4 OTS settings, I always have 12 voices I can call up without ever searching through the voice menus.

I also use the Music Finder Favorites menu to call up additional settings. I play 99% live and only use perhaps 2-3 midi files a night. There are many ways to use the Registrations. This is just one that suits my style of playing.

DonM