Recording on the "run"?

[kenackr]

I'm trying to be as diligent as possible about reading the "Quick Start Guide" and when needed, the full operating guide for my new Pa4X. In fact, I read parts on one or the other every day, but this machine is quite deep compared to something like the Oasys I have & love.

Yesterday after installing the 128GB SD card, the 128GB Flash drive, etc, I declared it was time for some hands-on fun time. There are many times when I just shut my mind off and let my fingers wander.

Lo & behold out jumped this "sexy" groove that was speaking to me and I held on to the reins as best I could. When enough patterns, turnabouts and other neat things coalesced I thought, "hit the record button before you loose this real good stuff"!

Well, I did hit it and as you might guess, the "world's great song" came to an immediate and screeching halt.

I'm hoping that someone will shout out here " yo, noodle head, you hit the wrong button", as opposed to " What button? We don't need no stinken' button"!

My question is: Can this keyboard allow you to instantly, in the middle of riding the muse groove, allow you to flip on some kind of record switch so you don't loose the entire ball of wax? Or hasn't that occurred to a maker of an arranger yet? Or did I just not read the right thing where a pudin' head like me hasn't gotten to yet?

I get that for the past 5000 years keyboard players have started at the beginning of their song and while not yet riding that magnificent groove, with cold fingers still fumbling about, plowed through until their AUDIO scribe cried: It's a wrap!

Ladies & Germs, it's the 21st century, have we really been sleeping that long? And we don't yet have that bombastic bridge in the middle of a groove button yet?

I beg you all, tell me it exists. Let me wake up and smell the simulated Ivory and Ebony burning at Groove 6 intensity.

I mean, doesn't every one get some of those moments when you levitate without thinking about it and the muse has you on auto pilot and wouldn't you want to be able to hit that EC5 pedal to capture/ record without lifting a finger off the board?

Do we have it in this Pa4x or don't we?

[DonM]

Well, you could switch on the Chord Sequencer with one push and record all the chords to your song. Then you could go back and play along with it while you record the whole thing.

[Paolo@Korg]

There are a couple things I could suggest. They were conceived exactly for what you are looking for: immediate recording of an instant idea.

A) If you want to record a MIDI Song, go to Style Play mode, and then press the RECORD button. Choose "Backing Sequence (Quick Record)", and when the Seq Record page appear, press START/STOP to start recording. When done, press START/STOP again and save your MIDI Song.
This is detailed in the "Quick recording a Backing Sequence Song" chapter of the User Manual.

B) If you want to record an MP3 Song, while in Style Play or Song Play mode keep the RECORD button pressed for about one second, then touch the Rec button in the display. When done recording, touch the Stop button and save the MP3 Song.

Hope this helps.

Paolo

[kenackr]

DonM,

Not ignoring you, I haven't gotten far enough to see if that would be the answer to the maidens' prayer for me. I'm still cogitating about the whole thing, but haven't had the the time to lock out the rest of the world to get it done.

[kenackr]

Paolo,

I'm willing to admit a lot of things, like my inspiration takes a while to getting up to speed, so it's not like just sitting there with lots of stuff organized & ready to go in either my brain or my fingers. That means it's not until I stumble onto a groove after I'm "warmed up" that I start to produce viable song ideas. It sounds messy and it is at the beginning.

None of my creations ever had anything to do with midi songs either, I barely understand what that is. I'm used to playing my T1, Oasys, Wavestation, etc and if I do something with Midi it's simply to trigger another unit to bring in different sounds at different times.

For example: when I put together a "Rainforest album" It starts with Brazilian drums and a Wavestation groove that got intermittent layers of forest animals, tribal instruments, and varying melodies, etc. each piece built upon another, and so on. If I had started with just some "assumed" "quick" sounds that had no real "fit" or "foundation" It never would have turned out as well.

Since this my first time with an arranger ever, I'm just bumping around like a billiard ball on a table. At this point, I have scanned the "Quick recording a backing sequence song" and it just doesn't make any sense to me yet. How can you record a backing "song" when you don't yet know what it or the melody, etc is going to sound like? Thats what my process is and has been (in song creation) until purchasing the Pa4X. I'll go back and re-read the Quick record stuff. Perhaps I'm seeking to go where many others do not. Yes, like many others I want to put a repertoire of recognized songs together, but my focus is to speed up production of my own original songs. I'm not going to last forever

For your suggestion B, with the MP3 song, I understand that styles are prebuilt "backgrounds" and the only thing I understand about "song play" is that it doesn't Have to Have styles in them, but it might.

Do I understand you correctly that pressing Record for one second and then the Rec button, that the Pa4X will be recording even if you or it is not making sound? If that is correct, it seems like a high probability that would work well. Once you stop the recording can it then be edited and layered with other sounds?

As you can see, I'm firmly rooted in the "old" recording method.

Please let me know if I got anything correct there.

[Paolo@Korg]

Kenackr,

You can record in three ways:

A) A MIDI Song based on Styles, using the Quick Record procedure. This does not allow traditional multitrack recording.

B) A MIDI Song based on what you play on the keybord, one track at a time. This is equivalent to the multitrack sequencers you can find as computer software or old dedicated machines.

C) An MP3 Song, grabbing everything you record on the keyboard, let a Player play (as a MIDI Song or MP3 Song in Song Play mode), or receive from the audio inputs. You can layer MP3 recordings by playing what you already recorded with a Player, but multiple recording of MP3 files may in the end result in data compression artifacts.

Working with the multitrack sequencer is often the best way to later edit the recorded events, and alway preserve maximum audio quality.

Paolo

[kenackr]

I have never seen any company less interested in selling an accessory product than Korg wants to sell the EC 5 foot switch!

After a few weeks of searching, I discovered there is a page in the Pa4X User guide (PG 754) {NOT QUICK guide} under controllers, that says any one of the pedal switches can be programed to do a punch in /punch out recording function in addition to about 70 functions, any of which can be "programed" in according to your preference.

The switches are the "on/off" type, so with each of the five pedals you get the ability to determine which of the pairs of functions your foot can control.

Now, does anyone including Paolo know if anything else is required when using the EC 5 to turn on the start of record and the end of record to satisfy my rampant hunger for instant recording with no fingers required?

[kenackr]

Please note that the term "programmed" is misleading. No actual programing is required.

According to the Pa4X user guide, once the pedal is connected and you start the Pa4X back up again, go to Global> Controllers > EC 5 page and you will see a page that has a selectable box for each of the 5 pedals.

It's as simple as looking at the Pa4X User Guide table (the next page in the UG) that lists all of the things the switches can do and picking the set of 5 that will be the most useful to you. So no actual "programming" is required even though that's how the user guide describes it.