Bass Note Programming Bug?

[wagtunes]

Hi All:

I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as I can.

I programmed a style. In the style is a bass part. It's very simple. It's one note. I saved the style with the one touch sounds and went to play it. I hit the root bass note (in this song it's A flat) and what happens is that while I'm holding the note down the A flat changes to an F.

I looked at another preset style to make sure the bass settings were the same. They are. But the bass note still changes from an A flat to an F.

I am so confused. What can possibly be causing this?

[EileenL]

Depends what chord you are playing as the bass follows this.

[wagtunes]

Depends what chord you are playing as the bass follows this.

Well, then this really makes no sense. I'm playing an A flat chord.

[wagtunes]

Depends what chord you are playing as the bass follows this.

You know, the more I think about it, this doesn't make any sense. What if a song calls for you to play a C chord over a G in the bass? You're telling me Genos won't let you do that? I find it very hard to believe that you can't play inversions. So that can't possibly be the problem.

[wagtunes]

Depends what chord you are playing as the bass follows this.

One more thing. If I just play an A Flat in the bass with no chord at all (You can do this) It starts with the A flat but then as I keep holding the key, the note changes to an F.

Something is definitely very wrong.

[Divemaster]

Hi Wagtunes

I suspect that the Fingerings set up on your keyboard is set up differently to the way you want to play. All settings are customisable.
If you go to your Menu you'll see all the settings.
If it's not what you want, it can and will sound horrible, as though it has a mind of its own.

I have the SX-700 and had this exact same problem. It's easily fixed. If you go into your Menu settings, in Menu 1 you'll find a tab called Fingerings and Chord set up... How it's set reflects how the note or chord is played.
It's probably on 1 finger chord or similar. I don't know what the default is for Genos, but try Full Fingered  or Full Fingered with A1  say. I'm pretty sure that's your issue.

If you want go to default then turn off. Then hold down the furthest right hand White key whilst switching on... Keep the ON button held down until your main display appears.
Now it should play properly for you. Check the menu and you'll then know what the default is for your keyboard. Mike be a good idea to make a note of it for future.

Come back and let us know how you get on.

Keith.

[ckobu]

Before you check the settings mentioned by Divemaster, you should make sure that you recorded the bass guitar correctly. Bas line in Style Creator must be in C major. In addition, you must make sure that the Source Root/Chord setting is set to C major. Other combinations are possible, but to begin with, you should go this way.
https://youtu.be/vLGLjvfRJ2s?si=VivQOaKitpbqBLkT&t=261
(activate eng subtitle)

[BogdanH]

hello wagtunes,
Maybe I missed it somewhere, but you didn't tell what single note did you play when you recorded the bass.
I will repeat the following for those who are starting to learn making styles: No matter in what key the style will run later, notes must be recorded in C key (Reference manual, p.23).
That is, if you wish to hear root note A-flat when you're playing in A-flat key, then recorded note must be C (because C is the root note of C chord). Or in general: if you wish to hear the root note of (any) chord you're playing, recorded note must be C note.

Bogdan

[ckobu]

Bogdan, that's the principle, but it doesn't always have to be recorded in C maj. If we set the Root Chord to F in the Style Creator, we can record the phrase in F. The Style will be correct again during the performance.

[wagtunes]

hello wagtunes,
Maybe I missed it somewhere, but you didn't tell what single note did you play when you recorded the bass.
I will repeat the following for those who are starting to learn making styles: No matter in what key the style will run later, notes must be recorded in C key (Reference manual, p.23).
That is, if you wish to hear root note A-flat when you're playing in A-flat key, then recorded note must be C (because C is the root note of C chord). Or in general: if you wish to hear the root note of (any) chord you're playing, recorded note must be C note.

Bogdan

That must be it. I recorded the style in the key the song is in (A flat) but left the style setting to C and M7. So in other words, I have to play a C bass note in order for it to play an A flat when I play the song. Okay, not all that intuitive but I get it. I'll go tinker with it when I get a chance (Genos is at my church) and get back to you and let you know how it goes. Thanks.

[BogdanH]

hi ckobu,
You are absolutely right 
When I was explaining, I had default settings in mind (Root C), because the way wagtunes described the issue, I assumed that was what he used. And because he only used root note in bass, I also didn't mention Chord settings (which is M7 by default).
Anyway, when recorded note sequence doesn't sound the way I expect (or the way I wish), then I first check SFF Edit paramaters in Style Creator. ...and I'm still learning 

Bogdan

[wagtunes]

hi ckobu,
You are absolutely right 
When I was explaining, I had default settings in mind (Root C), because the way wagtunes described the issue, I assumed that was what he used. And because he only used root note in bass, I also didn't mention Chord settings (which is M7 by default).
Anyway, when recorded note sequence doesn't sound the way I expect (or the way I wish), then I first check SFF Edit paramaters in Style Creator. ...and I'm still learning 

Bogdan

See, I'm used to recording in Cubase. What you play is what you get. Genos is a whole different animal, obviously.

[maartenb]

Genos is a whole different animal, obviously.

No, style programming is a whole different animal. Recording tracks gives you the usual "what you play is what you get".

Style programming is an adventure. Make sure to have fun while doing it!


Maarten

[wagtunes]

No, style programming is a whole different animal. Recording tracks gives you the usual "what you play is what you get".

Style programming is an adventure. Make sure to have fun while doing it!


Maarten

Oh I'm definitely having a blast. Just wish I had the keyboard at home.

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Record songs on the Genos , then transfer to Cubase

[wagtunes]

Record songs on the Genos , then transfer to Cubase

Any particular advantage to doing that?

[pedro_pedroc]

Hello.

For sure it's a mistake when programming the style. The arranger just do what the style tell it to do it.
If you record using Ab, and not set up this on style creator, for sure the style will sound another note when playing. Ab on bass, it's some semi tons below C. That's the reason when playing an Ab chord, the bass sounded F (some semi tons below Ab).

Also, it's important to set the changing mode (shift, retrigger and so on).

I have three tutorials about style creation at my YouTube channel.
Take a look:

This is the first: https://youtu.be/iQBeKyPmxs8?si=72ddqhSNNWGizeCI

And then look for the second and third. Make sure to turn on subtitles (my English is not perfect).

Regards
Pedro

[wagtunes]

Hello.

For sure it's a mistake when programming the style. The arranger just do what the style tell it to do it.
If you record using Ab, and not set up this on style creator, for sure the style will sound another note when playing. Ab on bass, it's some semi tons below C. That's the reason when playing an Ab chord, the bass sounded F (some semi tons below Ab).

Also, it's important to set the changing mode (shift, retrigger and so on).

I have three tutorials about style creation at my YouTube channel.
Take a look:

This is the first: https://youtu.be/iQBeKyPmxs8?si=72ddqhSNNWGizeCI

And then look for the second and third. Make sure to turn on subtitles (my English is not perfect).

Regards
Pedro

Thanks for this. Much appreciated. And your English is just fine.

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Any particular advantage to doing that?

Hi WagTunes


Well, As you know you can layer music in Cubase with VST easily.
If you have an idea on The Genos play the song into the sequencer .
First get your song together and make registrations and use pads and fills etc.
Get that together and bang out your song full length.
It can take me a few plays to get the song as near as i can and then it is transported over to Cubase for editing.
Being a 100% midi track that you have created  it is up to you what you want to do.
Once all ok i split the top lead track up and drag them to different tracks and name them.
I go throuh each section of the style and get the flack out of the style ( it is lots of little partials that get left over because we are not robots and we cannot play to a millionth of a second and the Genos is a machine). You can do this by going to Function in Cubase and set a little length up and delete in bulk by highlighting up the selection. if there are a few gaps , just make them up to a note length or hit quantize. After a while you get used to it. Once you play songs on the Genos and play them back you can hear glitches and that is those partials and can happen on any track. A lot of people do not notice the little glitches, but i hear them and find it annoying. When you are just practicing you do not notice them . It is only when you start editing it hits you.
You can do this in Cubase easily.

Everything depends on what quality of finish that you want really
Once all tidy and tight i record each track to wave.
You can also use the midi on an Instrument track and use vst.
So it means that Genos is great to combine both midi and vst 

My dad used to say to me bass notes on sheet music are two notes down from the lead line

[wagtunes]

Hi WagTunes


Well, As you know you can layer music in Cubase with VST easily.
If you have an idea on The Genos play the song into the sequencer .
First get your song together and make registrations and use pads and fills etc.
Get that together and bang out your song full length.
It can take me a few plays to get the song as near as i can and then it is transported over to Cubase for editing.
Being a 100% midi track that you have created  it is up to you what you want to do.
Once all ok i split the top lead track up and drag them to different tracks and name them.
I go throuh each section of the style and get the flack out of the style ( it is lots of little partials that get left over because we are not robots and we cannot play to a millionth of a second and the Genos is a machine). You can do this by going to Function in Cubase and set a little length up and delete in bulk by highlighting up the selection. if there are a few gaps , just make them up to a note length or hit quantize. After a while you get used to it. Once you play songs on the Genos and play them back you can hear glitches and that is those partials and can happen on any track. A lot of people do not notice the little glitches, but i hear them and find it annoying. When you are just practicing you do not notice them . It is only when you start editing it hits you.
You can do this in Cubase easily.

Everything depends on what quality of finish that you want really
Once all tidy and tight i record each track to wave.
You can also use the midi on an Instrument track and use vst.
So it means that Genos is great to combine both midi and vst 

My dad used to say to me bass notes on sheet music are two notes down from the lead line

I don't know. It seems like an awful lot of work to do something that I do quite easily in Cubase, having been using it since 2014. Right now I just take each part of the song, record it onto its own MIDI track and continue until the song is finished. I can add as many parts as I want (I've had songs with as many as 40 MIDI track including complete orchestrations) and it's all quite seamless.

Genos just seems like more work to do something that is quite easy.

In fact, we bought Genos for the church as a performance keyboard rather than just play a regular piano. This way we can have a basic arrangement (piano, bass, drum, strings) to make the anthems a little more interesting. I'd never want to use Cubase for something like this. Genos serves its purpose quite nicely. In fact, I'd say it's the best investment the church has made in years.

But for creating full blown songs, Cubase by itself is more than sufficient.

[maartenb]

Hi Wagtunes,

Please allow me to give you a little tip for using this forum. 

If you reply directly to a post, you don't need to quote the whole post. Use Reply instead. Otherwise the thread gets harder to read with the repetitions of text.

When you want to respond to a certain part of a post, by all means use Quote, and remove all text from the quote that you don't need.

Thank you, and welcome to this great forum!


Maarten

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

The Genos is great to play songs into the sequencer and that way to keep the human feel.
Afterwards just tighten things up.
It is certainly better than making lots of little pieces up to make a song.
You can split drums and tracks in Cubase easily.

[overover]

Record songs on the Genos , then transfer to Cubase

Any particular advantage to doing that?

Hi wagtunes,

If you first record on the Genos as a MIDI file, you automatically have all control commands (e.g. Bank Select, Program Change, Voice Set parameters, Effect settings / Sy***) in the file. If you then import this MIDI file into the DAW, it will sound exactly the same as when you recorded it (played back over the Genos via USB-MIDI connection). If you record directly into the DAW as MIDI, you will have to laboriously enter all the control commands mentioned, starting with the GM and XG resets.

Even if you work with Registrations on the Genos but record directly into the DAW, you won't have all the necessary control commands automatically in the DAW.

It is therefore highly recommended to proceed as described here.


Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Chris

[wagtunes]

Reading the above post, I am getting the feeling that maybe I'm using Cubase differently than you imagine I'd be using it. I don't bother with control commands or GM. Maybe I should give a detailed explanation of exactly how I use Cubase so you can understand why I feel using Genos is just adding more work.

Let's take a song I recently did. I'll post it below so you can listen to it.

The song's title is "Growing Pains". There are a total of 40 tracks including vocals.

The first track I recorded is the piano part. I use an Arturia Keylab 49 controller. The VST I used for the piano sound is Modartt's Pianoteq 7. I play the piano part in real time. I don't do step recording. I play it live. I then freeze the track because I know with all the tracks I'm going to need, I will run out of system resources quickly. In essence, this is rendering the track to audio on the spot.

The second track I recorded was the drums so I can get the beat down. I use IK Multimedia's MODO Drums. Again, I play in real time and then render to audio.

The third track I record is the bass part. I use IK Multimedia's MODO Bass. Same process as above. I now have the basic rhythm section down. All that's left is filling in the orchestration and the various synth parts.

They are in this order.

Orch 1
Orch 2
Strings
Horn
Harp
Orch 3
Orch 4
Trumpets
Strings 2
Cymbals
Timpani
Clarinet
English Horn
Orchestra Bells

After the orchestration was recorded I then recorded 16 different synth parts using a variety of VSTs.

I then double tracked Music Lab's Real Les Paul guitars.

I finished off with 4 vocal tracks. Some real and some synth vocals.

Finally, 1 MIDI track to control some of the vocal harmony FX.

All the above tracks used a variety of FX processing from companies such as Fabfilter, Waves, Leapwing Audio, Valhalla, Peavy and IK Multinmedia.

It was a real production but it was easily managed because I recorded one track at a time and didn't move on to the next track until the track before it was perfect.

And then of course there is the output buss which had 7 different FX on it.

The visual you get with Cubase, especially when you have to go into the piano roll to quantize and maybe even move or change some notes, makes the process something I can't even imagine doing with Genos which doesn't have nearly as detailed an interface.

Here is the finished track.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim/growing-pains

The thought of attempting all that in Genos doesn't even register. I can't imagine how Genos can make this process any easier.

Again, it's great for what it does, but I can't imagine Yamaha (who actually owns Steinberg and makes Cubase) had what Cubase does in mind for Genos. I think the purpose of each product was made for two different things. One is for performance and one is for recording.

At least that's the way my mind sees it.

If you feel you can do what I did above easier with Genos, I tip my cap to you, but I wouldn't even attempt it.

[wagtunes]

https://soundcloud.com/silver-machine/mrblue-sky

I gave this a listen. Excellent. I wouldn't even know where to begin to do something like that with Genos so I'll leave using it for this purpose to the pros.

I do have one question. What did you use to get the "Mr Blue Sky" vocoder sound? It is very close to the original.

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi M8 If i can do it, you can too as i am 72 and self taught .
I took this down as i am not interested in hits or brownie points, as i have put this song on here before.
When i started to do this song ,it took me quite some time getting it in my head as it has lots of parts to it.
I practiced and practiced each section until i got the confidence to have a go at the whole song.
Yes, it took some time making the sounds.
I then split the styles for each part into registrations and manually changed or incremented my way through them until the end of the song.
It took quite a little practice to vocode, but again it is practice.
I did not think at first that i could do it, but just kept going at it it.
Now i am having a go at John Miles Music  instrumentally  and that also is quite a complicated song and parts of it are in different keys..
I just learn all the scales slowly and after a while you get used to playing in any key, but it taxes the old brain a bit.
I am at the moment holding out from making music as i do not want any print on my Genos wearing out. I have a thin 1 and 2 on my registrations and a forward slash disappeared on my start and stop button and i am covinced this or early next month the new Genos will be here.Just want a good trade in price. Practicing at the moment and studying Wavlab.
I am considering getting Spectral Layers as i could with that resurrect some older recordings and remix them.
Also i will get more into vst and do some songs of my own when this new Genos appears.
It would be a great Christmas if so.
Just keep plugging on and you will surprise yourself.

Ps  To get that vocoder sound , you have to go to the Vocal Harmony on the Genos and choose a vocoder sound.
The fun begins after that. Just trying to play the chords and singing into the microphone is difficult at first  and that also takes practice to get a good take. It is all fun though. Just to let you know that i am not a Pro and i have had to struggle to get to the stage i am at this moment.
Dedicate to practice, practice practice, you will get there.

[wagtunes]

Ah, so you used the built in Genos vocoder. I have to admit, it sounds very good.

You did a great job with the song. You should be very proud.

[Joe H]

Hi All:

I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as I can.

I programmed a style. In the style is a bass part. It's very simple. It's one note. I saved the style with the one touch sounds and went to play it. I hit the root bass note (in this song it's A flat) and what happens is that while I'm holding the note down the A flat changes to an F.

I looked at another preset style to make sure the bass settings were the same. They are. But the bass note still changes from an A flat to an F.

I am so confused. What can possibly be causing this?

The A minor scale uses the same notes as the C scale... so try changing the A flat to an A.  It should work OK then.  If I'm wrong... let me know.

Joe H