Steps for creating a MULTI PAD using MULTI PAD CREATOR
In this post I will explain how you
create a MULTI PAD. It goes without saying that you have to know what you want for your 'counter melody' or 'ditty'. If you listen to a YouTube video of the song you will hear parts of the song that you could programme in as a MULTI PAD .. which you will have to pick up 'by ear' as it is unlikely that what you hear will be written into the sheet music.
The song I want to look at here is
The Story Of My Life, a song sung by Michael Holliday in 1958. Listen to the YouTube video of this (below) and what I have picked up here is the 'whistle' doing a little 'echo' to the melody. This is followed by a similar little 'ditty' done by a male voice choir as the verse ends. This could be done by a 'whistle' too, which would give us two parts of the song where we could programme a whistle into a Multipad.
Michael Holliday - The Story Of My Life ( 1958 )We would first have to set up a
REGISTRATION for playing this tune, and I went for
Slowfox at a Tempo of
120; and VOICES
WarmGrand, with a hint of
WhisperGallery.
Next. If you are going to create a Multipad you will have to play the notes 'to a beat'. In a STYLE there are plenty of PARTS that are playing to a rhythm that you can follow, but in a Multipad there is no existing rhythm to play to.
You have to use the METRONOME. The Metronome puts out a beat, and you hear it, but the sound of the Metronome is not recorded. It is just there to help you 'keep to the beat'.
You can check out the
METRONOME by pressing it and listening to what you've got.
You need to hear the 'beat', with a 'BELL' sound emphasising the first beat of the bar. If you haven't got that, the Metronome 'defaults' are in
MENU,
FUNCTION,
UTILITY .. and the
CONFIG 1 Tab. The quickest way to get to that is to press the
DIRECT ACCESS button followed by the
METRONOME button. The DIRECT ACCESS route is the quickest way to get to
any of the 'set-up' pages.
Pressing the
METRONOME button after seeing the message above gets you to the Display Page where the Metronome is.
To get to the page
showing the METRONOME, move down to "
2" on the left. This is how the METRONOME should be set up. VOLUME =
127; SOUND =
BELL ON. You will see the TIME SIGNATURE displayed in the third box.
To create a new MULTI PAD, in the
MENU, choose
DIGITAL RECORDING ...
... and then choose
MULTI PAD CREATOR.
The current MULTI PAD will show at the top of the screen.
We want to create a
new one, so click on
NEW BANK and the screen will now be showing
NewBank at the top, so you can go ahead and create your new Multipad.
There are 4 Multipads and the first one has a red box around it, indicating that we are setting up
MULTI PAD 1. When you have done the first one, if you want to do a second one you would press the button next to 2 (or 3, or 4 etc. for more).
One MULTI PAD will do me for this song at the moment!
I was saying earlier that you had to decide from the start if you wanted your Multipad to 'follow the rhythm' (ie. to
REPEAT); and whether or not to 'follow the chords you play in the song' (ie.
CHORD MATCH).
For this Multipad I
do want it to 'follow the rhythm' so I can set it off before the end of the previous bar of where I want it to start .. and then it will start
on the first beat of the bar.
I definitely don't want it to REPEAT and will be turning it OFF after it has played it's few notes (and then turning it ON again later for the next verse). Perhaps the word REPEAT showing on the page is a bit misleading. If I didn't switch it OFF then it
would play it again (ie. REPEAT) .. in a place where I didn't want it to .. so that's why I have to turn it OFF.
And for this Multipad I don't want it to follow the chords of my left hand when I am playing the song. So my recording doesn't have to be 'C based'. I will play the actual notes I want thrown back at me.
I have set my screen up for these two things (see the below). Please note: There is a
REC (for Record) on the right.
Don't press that yet as there is still something else we have to set up. Once the
REC is pressed it will start Recording immediately you play a note (or press the STOP/START).
Before we start doing a recording we have to choose a VOICE for doing it. You may not have noticed, but the VOICE the keyboard has chosen to do the recording with is the one you previously had in
Right1 (R1). You can play a few notes to hear which voice is set up to play (probably a Piano). Look over to the right and you will see that R1 has already been set up for doing the notes.
It's at this stage that we can choose another VOICE for R1. In my case I want a
Whistle. Note that pressing the lit up R1 will
not show the VOICE currently in R1. To find out what
is currently in R1 look in the VOICE Section.
One of the Categories will have a green light showing. Press that button and the current VOICE in R1 will show.
I want a
Whistle for my Voice, and I select that by pressing the keyboard's top right
VOICE Category button,
FLUTE/CLARINET .. and my Whistle is on
Page 2.
At this point it is a good idea to make sure the VOLUME of the Voice you are about to play is at a reasonable level.
So press the
BALANCE button ..
.. and all the Volumes across the board will show.
My Whistle in R1 is at a Volume of 100, so that's fine.
Having chosen the voice we want to use (and checked it's Volume), we need to get back to the
MULTI PAD NewBank screen. To do this, press the
EXIT button. You'll probably have to press the EXIT button twice. Just keep pressing it until you get back to the Multipad screen you had when you started.
We are now ready to start the Recording. Don't press the
REC yet!
Set the
METRONOME going. Maybe try playing that little 'ditty' just to practice it (you have to know what you want to play in your head). Keep in time with the METRONOME, particularly noting where the first beat of every bar comes in. So long as you haven't pressed the REC it won't start recording anything.
When you are ready, press the
REC. It says
WAITING .. so you can relax a bit before you trigger your recording.
OK. Ready for the off. It is
WAITING for you to start your recording.
Two things .. how do you START the recording; and how do you STOP it (and
when do you Stop it).
The recording is controlled by the
SYNC START &
START/STOP buttons. As soon as you press the
REC the
SYNC START button will be lit up; and the
START/STOP button will be "flashing".
Because the SYNC START is ON, it will start recording as soon as you play a 'melody' note. This is fine if your 'ditty' does actually start on the first beat of the bar. Listen to the METRONOME and play a note
on the first beat of the bar (when the BELL sounds). Continue counting the beats you hear from the Metronome and play the notes of your Counter Melody in time with the rhythm.
In what
I want to record, my Whistle starts on the
second beat of the
second bar. To
start the recording
on the first beat of the bar with no melody notes being played you press the
START/STOP button. Once the recording is started you can sing the actual song to yourself in your head whilst listening to the Metronome, and play the rest of the Multipad notes in the right places.
As soon as you get your recording going you will get this screen below. Probably, if you're like me, you won't even glance at it as all your concentration will be on singing the song to yourself, listening to the Metronome, and playing the right notes for the Multipad. There is a
STOP showing for you to stop the recording when you get to the end .. but I don't use this. Read on!
How long do you keep your Multipad going before you stop it? How long is a piece of string? I have kept the Multipad going for 12 bars (that's 48 'beats'). For a lot of it I have played no notes at all .. so there are bars of 'nothing'. Thing is, the whistle has to come in only at the places where I want to hear it.
Having reached the end of my 12 bars (that is actually one whole Verse) I STOP the recording as it goes into the first beat of the 13th bar.
And
how do you stop it? You press the
START/STOP button.
Not the STOP button by the MULTI PADS. The START/STOP by SYNC START.
In the handbook it tells you that you can also stop the recording by pressing the button next to STOP on the screen. I find that more difficult to do, as the screen is at an angle. And it's further away to get to.
As soon as you stop the recording you get this screen.
On the left it says
NAME. This is for you to replace the words
Pad1 with some words of your own. Don't see the point in doing that.
But you do have to
SAVE what you have done, so press the button next to that, and you get this screen.
Press the
SAVE which will save it in
USER.
Press and HOLD the
DELETE button to remove the words
NewBank.
And type in a name of your own. This is saved in USER.
And now the moment you've been waiting for! With all this explanation above (that looks so complicated) what exactly have I ended up recording?
Click the below to listen, and click the back arrow after to get back to this page.MULTI PAD for Story of my LifePlease note that in the above the 'drum beat' you hear is
not the METRONOME. You
hear the METRONOME .. but it doesn't record. So I have added a normal Style Rhythm to it so you can hear how the Whistle is inserted into the beat.
And click this link below if you want to hear how the whole piece sounds with the MULTI PAD doing it's bit in the right places.
Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.https://app.box.com/s/7ghmqhyr1zeoigmef1qdselyl6cyyqtd