Doubling Keyboards

[Docdb04]

Not sure what to call this, so I'll explain it.  I've seen in some cases, when a keyboardist has two keyboards they are using.  They put the top keyboard on strings and leave the bottom keyboard on piano.  It is patched (I guess that is the word) together so when he/she plays the piano, the strings play along, but when he/she turns the volume down on the top keyboard, they just have the piano sounds.  In other words, they are able to fade the strings in and out, whenever needed.  Does anyone else use this effect?  If so, how do you do it? 

[under13]

I tried this the other day using midi cables, but I couldnt get it to work the way I wanted. but thats probably what they use.

[betnich]

That's a good effect - some synths have layered patches, that are string pads if played softly, but play harder and the piano bites through...

[TheReturn]

Yeah I do this all of the time. A VERY GOOD example of some well known people who use this all of the time is Mike Bereal and Jason White. From what I hear they use it either with a E.Piano and Synth Brass/Synth Pad or A.Piano and Strings/Synth Pad. (you can youtube them and find exactly what I'm talking about)

I mainly use it just to add more dynamics to my playing. When I play more soft and mellow I'd play with the strings/synth pad/synth brass/or whatever volume turned down a little. But when the music gets more intense I bring up the volume on whatever secondary patch I'm using.

The different equipment that people use varies from musician to musician. Mike Bereal and Jason White mainly use a Motif Es 8 as their main keyboard and they have a midi module rack which is either a Roland MKS-20 or a Roland P-330. Some musicians that dont have or cant afford the racks just use other keyboard and midi them together. Basically when you use two keyboards, whatever keyboard you would mainly play would be connected to the other keyboard that you only what the secondary sounds out of.

For Ex. If you have a "top" and "bottom" keyboard and you will be only playing the "bottom" keyboard. You'd take a midi cable and connect it to the midi OUT on the bottom keyboard and connect it to the midi IN on the top.

Some musicians just use multiple sounds inside the same keyboard. I HATE doing this because most keyboards only have about 64 or 128 note polyphony. And that basically is the number of different notes of keys you can play at one time. So if you create a layer of sounds that has 3 different patches, one of the patches uses two samples per note that means if you play a 10 finger chord you are already using 20 notes out of the 64 of 128 polyphony. And if another patches does 2 samples per note and the 3rd does only 1 sample, that means in the same 10 finger chords, you use 50 notes of polyphony. That may be fine for some people but if you program drum loops of tracks inside your keyboard also (like me) thats uses ADDITIONAL polyphony. SO eventually, you might run out.

And the other/last thing I've seen people do is, they'll bring laptops with them. It is in theory the same thing as the "RACKS" that I explained earlier but instead of carrying around a big case full of gear, all you'd have to carry is a laptop and a good interface. I use protools plugins (plugins are basically the same things as racks but their virtual)

I really hope I didnt confuse you! lol If I did just ask and I'll try to help out! lol


HOLLA
CATRON/TheReturn

[under13]

Thanks for not using all caps!

I tried exactly what you said, and I could play the sounds from the top keyboard  on the bottom, but I could not use the bottom keyboard for anything. So I have no Idea of what settings I need to change in the lower leyboard

[docjohn]

look at your MIDI transmit /sends/receives on all keyboards.If one board is set to send on channel 1,and you midi to one set on 2-16;nothing going to happen.Also,careful what buttons /sliders you push,you can be turn different parameters  on/off.If thats' the case,unplug your Midi cables,re-initiate your board and hook up again.

When I midied my Alesis q seris to my Roland module,if I wasn't careful-it would turn the roland sound off.I learned what sliders did/change what-part of the learning corve.

[Kevykev388]

There's a guy....Ray Brasswell who used a rack with his keyboard whenever he played with Keith Wonderboy Johnson. I noticed he used one keyboard (mainly piano) and with the simple push on his expression pedal....he'd layer the piano with a brass from his rack. Thats one thing I NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW how to do with my xp80 and rd-5 considering the band i play with has been reduced to a 3piece...just me, bass, and drummer! If anyone could help me out on how to midi brass from another keyboard to my xp80 please send me a message. But i wanna control the secondary sound with my volume/expression pedal!

[under13]

There's a guy....Ray Brasswell who used a rack with his keyboard whenever he played with Keith Wonderboy Johnson. I noticed he used one keyboard (mainly piano) and with the simple push on his expression pedal....he'd layer the piano with a brass from his rack. Thats one thing I NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW how to do with my xp80 and rd-5 considering the band i play with has been reduced to a 3piece...just me, bass, and drummer! If anyone could help me out on how to midi brass from another keyboard to my xp80 please send me a message. But i wanna control the secondary sound with my volume/expression pedal!

why cant you just use the brass from the XP-80? doesent it have sliders to fade the sounds?