how to use the Arrangment function on my Kurzweil?

Using the Arrangement Editor for creating Songs in the K2000/K2500/K2600

The Arrangement editor in the Kurzweil allows you a variety of ways to create and perform songs on the Kurzweil. The following tutorial is designed to walk you through the steps of creating songs, using the Arrangement editor.

There are several ways to use the Arrangement Editor

Using the Arrangement Editor to string together sections in a Song
Sequencing extra tracks over Arranged grooves
Sequencing with more than 16 tracks
Using the Arrangement Editor for Live Triggering of Sequences

We will cover each of these applications, in the order listed above, providing step by step directions.

Part 1 – Using the Arrangement Editor to string together sections in a Song

This method involves saving each section of your final piece of music as a separate Song, then using an Arrangement Song to string together the sections in any order you choose. There are a couple reasons you might want to do this.

First of all, many pieces of music tend to be composed in sections. If your music tends to feature various sections which are repeated in varying order, using the Arrangement Editor can be easier than copying those sections and pasting them into a single song.

The second reason has to do with the limitations of the Kurzweil itself. In the Kurzweil, no objects other than samples can be larger than 64k. If your final piece of music is going to be longer than that, then you will have to use this approach of breaking the song into sections and stringing the sections together.

1. The first step, of course, is to create 2 or more sequences, saving each one as a separate song. It can be helpful to name the songs Part 1, Part 2, etc. or Chorus, Verse, etc. That way, when you are putting together the Arrangement, you can quickly identify each section.

2. Go to 1 New Song. Press Edit, and set the Tempo parameter for this song to be the same as the tempo of the songs you will be using in the arrangement. (This assumes they are all the same tempo. We will cover more on how to deal with different tempos later on.) Next press either of the “more” buttons. Select Save. At this point, you will probably want to use the Rename button to change the name from New Song to the name of your choice. You will then choose an empty ID number to save the song to. It is important to start on a New Song, not start on one of the songs with your sequenced data in it.

Tip – What I like to do is to save the individual song sections starting from the second location in a bank (for example, 201, 202, 203, etc.) then save the Arrangement Song into the first slot (in this example, 200). This way, when you load in a file with all the songs together, the first song you dial up will be the one that you want to play.

3. After saving, press the ARRANG button (you are still in the Song Editor). You will be on Step 1. Cursor down to the Song parameter and select the song number of the song you want to use for the first step in the arrangement.

4. Press Add to add another step. Select the song you want for the second step. Continue adding steps and selecting songs as needed. If you need to get rid of a step, select the step and press the Delete soft button. If you press the Play soft button while on this page, the Kurzweil will play the currently selected Step. Once you have more than one step, you can use the Chan/Bank buttons to the left of the display to scroll through the steps. Notice that the upper left hand corner of the display shows you the step you are currently on, and how many steps you have.

5. Once you have created the steps you need, press Done to return to the Edit Song COMMON page and then exit back to Play mode, or simply press Exit from the Arrangement editor. Make sure to save the changes you have made. Now if you look at the display, below the Program parameter you will see three dashes. Once you press Play, you will see the song number currently being played, followed by the step number. The Locate parameter will show the bar number of the Arrangement Song, not the bar within a single step. In other words, if you have two step and step 1 is 16 bars, when bar 1 of step 2 is playing, Locate will show 17:1, not 1:1.

Now lets take a look at some of the parameters on the ARRANGE page.

Go back into the Song editor and go to the Arrange page to look at the following.

Mutes: You can mute any track or tracks in a specific step. To mute a track, change that track from a “-” to “M”. This can be a good way to build a song in which you repeat a groove with different things added – you can sequence a song with all of the parts on various tracks, then create a series of steps in which each step is the same song, but different tracks are muted in different steps. In this way, you can bring different parts in and out.

Xpose: You can transpose any step up or down. This allows you to transpose the song without having to go and edit the actual song data. But what happens to the drums? If you transpose a track with drums on it, you may end up with the wrong drum sounds since specific drums are assigned to specific keys. To solve this problem, you can designate a track as a Drum track. Press Done and then Exit to leave the Song Editor, saving if necessary. Select one of the songs that you are using as steps in the Arrangement. Press Edit. You will see 16 Drum Track parameters. To mark a track as a Drum Track, change that track from “-” to “D”. Every track marked as a Drum Track will not transpose if the step in the arrangement is transposed. It is important to note that the tracks must be designated as Drum tracks in the actual songs which contain data, not the Arrangement song.

Exit out of the editor, call up your Arrangement song again, then go back to the ARRANGE page in the editor.

Times: You can set any step to repeat a specific number of times before continuing on to the next step.

Mode: This is normally set to Next. In this case, the song will continue on to the next step once the current step is finished. If the last step is set to Next, the Song will go back to step 1 and start again. To make sure the song stops after the last step, set the Mode on the last step to Stop.

A couple of Arrangement parameters on the COMMON page:

Start Step: This determines the step number the song will start at. This would normally be set to 1.

Tempo Control: You can choose whether the tempo is controlled by the Arrangement Song itself or by the Songs called up as steps. When set to “Song” it will use the tempo and time signature set in the current Arrangement song itself. When set to “Arrange”, it will use the various tempos and time signatures used in songs called up as steps.

Timing issues when using the Arrangement Editor

Users often encounter timing problems when using the Arrangement Editor – notes can be delayed when the arrangement switches from step to step. Following is an explanation of what causes the problem and how you can prevent it.

Each time you record a track for the first time, the Kurzweil places four events right at the beginning of the track: Bank Change, Program Change, Volume and Pan. If you go into the Event Editor, you will see these four messages appearing at 1:1:000. Normally they will be the first four events you will see.

By the time you have recorded several tracks, these events start to become a large number of events all occurring at the exact same point in time. The processor can only handle so many events at the exact same moment and if it gets too many events, some end up being delayed. For example, if you have 10 tracks, then you will have 40 of those initial events, PLUS any note and controller info that also exist at 1:1:000 in a track.

To prevent the delays caused by too many events, you can delete unneeded events. Typically, you are probably not changing the Program, Volume and Pan settings for each track when you are switching from step to step. For example, quite often you might have the same program on a MIDI channel for all the steps. In this case, all of the program and bank change messages after the first step are not needed, and can be deleted. You will need to edit each song used in a step, after step 1.

There are two different methods you can use to get rid of these messages in a track. The simplest way is to go into the Event Editor. Use the Chan/Bank buttons to select the track that you want to work on. Just hilight the event and press Cut. You can select each track individually to see those events in one track or set track to All to see all the Events for all tracks on one screen.

The second way is to use the Erase function in the Track Editor. Again, you choose the track with the Chan/Bank buttons. Set the From parameter to 1:1 and the To parameter also to 1:1. Of course, you won’t want to have the Events set to All, or you will be erasing any note events that occur at 1:1, as well as the unwanted events. If you set it to Program Change and press Go, you will erase the Program and Bank change events. You can then set it to Controllers. At this point, if you leave Ctl set to All, you can delete both the Pan and Volume events with one operation. But if you have other controller info that occur at 1:1 (such as mod wheel or sustain pedal) then you would also be erasing those event. So you can use the Ctl parameter to select just Volume and just Pan, pressing Go after each selection.

In general, the Event editor method is quicker if you are working on one track at a time. But if you have a bunch of tracks and know that you want to erase these events from all the tracks, then using the Track Editor with Track set to All will be faster.

Of course, if you ARE changing the program, pan or volume in a track when the song changes from step to step, you need to leave those events in, but typically you might be doing that in only one track, while six or seven other tracks stay the same.

Another, simpler cause of timing problems that happen as the arrangement switched steps, is if the individual songs don’t have their end points set correctly. You should always check in the Event editor to make sure the end point falls on the downbeat. For example, if your step is 8 beats long, the end point should be at 9:1:000.

Working with the initial Events in the Step 1 Song

Since you will want to have Program, Bank, Volume and Pan events at the beginning of the song to set things up correctly when the song starts playing, you might want to have those events in each track in the Song that used for Step 1. But what if that same song is used in a later step, or you have step 1 set to repeat a number of times? In this case, as soon as it repeats the step, you can run into the same delay problems that occurred in the other steps before deleting those extra events.

In this case, the solution is to take those initial events out of the step 1 song, and instead record them into the Current Song (the one in which you have created steps in the Arrangement editor). This is easily done. In the Arrangement Song, select a Record Track, press Record, then hilight the Program parameter and select the program you want for the track. You can also select the Pan and Volume parameters if you want to set them to a specific volume. Once you have these parameters set, press Stop. That’s it. You need to do this for each track that you are using in the Song.

Part 2 – Sequencing extra tracks over Arranged grooves

In part 1, all of the actual recording of notes was done in the individual songs used as steps. The Arrangement Song itself had no data in it, unless you went back to record in the initial program, volume, and pan messages.

But you can also record track in the Arrangement Song. For example, you might want to record a series of rhythm section grooves – just bass, drums, and maybe some comping parts. Now you can string together those grooves and then record lead lines that play across the individual steps.

1. Follow steps 1-5 in Part 1 to create an Arrangement song, using some different grooves you have created.

2. Once you have exited back to the main Song page, you can now start recording new tracks in the Arrangement Song. The important thing to remember is that only one program can be on a MIDI channel at a time. Therefore you want to record onto tracks which are assigned to MIDI channels that are not being used by the groove songs.

Part 3 – Sequencing with more than 16 tracks

This is similar to the example in part 2, but instead of arranging a series of grooves, you have to songs playing together for the purpose of having more than 16 tracks.

It is important to remember that there are still only 16 MIDI channels, and you can only call up one program at a time on a MIDI channel. Therefore there is no way to have more than 16 different programs playing at the same time. But there are two reasons why you would want to use more than 16 tracks.

First, you can have two or more tracks assigned to the same MIDI channel. For instance, if you were recording drums, you might want to put different drums from the same program on different tracks, to make recording and editing easier. On the bottom line of the display in Play mode, there are 16 channel parameter, one for each track. Users sometimes assume that the numbers refer to the track number, but they are actually the channel number. You can set any track to any MIDI channel.

The second way you can use more than 16 tracks is if you have an external sound module in addition to the Kurzweil. Each track can be assigned to play only the internal Kurzweil sounds or to be sent only to the MIDI Out. In this way, you can actually have 32 independent MIDI channels. To assign the track, go into the Song Editor and on the COMMON page you will see 16 Track Destination parameters. If a track is set to “-“, it is both Local and MIDI. If it is set to “L”, it will play the Kurzweil only. If it is set to “M”, it will be sent to the MIDI Out only. If the track is set to “x”, it is muted.

1. Create a song with 16 tracks and save it. Set your MIDI channels and/or track destinations as needed.

2. Start with 1 New Song, go into the Arrangement editor and call up the first song you created.

3. Now exit back to Play mode (after saving) and start recording your additional tracks, again setting the MIDI channels and track destinations as needed. The original 16 tracks will play along as you record these additional tracks.

Part 4 – Using the Arrangement Editor for Live Triggering of Sequences

Each step in an Arrangement can be triggered by playing a key or keys on the keyboard. This can be great for live performance in which you want to loop sequenced sections and be able to control how long each section will last while you are performing.

1. Create an Arrangement Song, following steps 1-4 in part 1.

2. Go to the COMMON page in the Song Editor. There are two parameters on this page for use with key triggering of steps:

Trigger Chan: This is the channel in which a key can be used to trigger an arrangement step. All notes from other channels will not trigger the steps. So you want to make sure this channel you are sending on from your keyboard.

Trigger Ctl: This parameter allows you to choose a controller to determine if the keys will trigger the steps. If it is set to On, then when you send the appropriate note on the Trigger Channel, the step will start playing. But if you set it to a MIDI controller number assigned to a mod wheel, pedal, or slider, then the keys will only trigger the step when the controller has been turned on (in the case of a continuous controller, this would be anything above halfway).

3. Now go to the ARRANGE page and select step 1. On the bottom line of the display you will see a series of parameters, used for triggering the step. As you will notice, there are both Low Key and High Key parameters. If you set them to the same note, then only that note will trigger the step. But if the High Key is set to a different key from the Low key, then you can actually trigger the step, transposed to different keys, by striking the various keys. The Low key will play back the step without any transposition (unless you have selected a transpose amount with the Xpose parameter). As you play up the keyboard chromatically, the song will be transposed in half step increments. As with the Xpose parameter, any tracks designated as Drum Tracks on the COMMON page in the actual songs used as steps (not in the Arrangement song) will not be transposed.

Press the SetRng soft button. The display will ask you to strike a key for the low key and again for the high key. This method is usually faster than setting the individual parameter is the display. Choose a range of notes for step 1 and try playing them on your keyboard. (Make sure you are sending on the Trigger Channel, and that Trigger Control is On.) Notice that as soon as you strike the key, the step starts again. Only one step and one transposition can be playing at a time, and striking the key immediately starts the step (more on this later).

4. Now lets take a look at the other two parameters:

Latch: If this is Off, as soon as you let go of the key, the sequence stops. If you turn it On, then you can let go of the key and the step will play to its end, unless you press Stop, or retrigger a step.

VelTrk: If this parameter is Off, then the sequence will play back exactly as it was originally recorded. But if you turn this On, then you can control the dynamics of the step with your key strike. Depending on how hard you strike the key, the Kurzweil will adjust the velocities of the notes in the song. The velocity of your key strike is treated as a percentage (scaling factor), so a trigger velocity of 100 would give you the original velocities. A triggering velocity of 50 would scale all velocities to 1/2 of their original values. And a triggering velocity of 127 would scale all velocities to increase them by about 1 and 1/4 of their original value. (Of course, any value above 127 would be pinned at 127.)

5. Now select step 2, and assign it to a key or range of keys. If you have more steps, assign each step to a key or range of keys. Set the Latch to On for each Step. Now strike one of the keys assigned to step 1 and let it play through the entire step. Notice that it begins playing step 2 after step 1 is finished. As long as the Mode is set to Next, the Kurzweil will always move to the next step after finishing the current step, whether or not the steps are assigned to keys. If you only want a step to play if you strike the appropriate key and not advance to the next step, make sure the Mode for each step is set to Stop.

Triggering Steps in Advance of the Beat

Normally, a step is triggered the moment you strike the key.

But if you have a K2500 with KDFX, and have version 4.17 or later of the operating system, a new feature has been added which will allow you to strike the key in advance of the down beat (beat number 1) and not have the new step start until the end of the current bar is finished.

To set the Kurzweil to perform this function, you will need to edit the Control Setup. Go to the MIDI Transmit page, select the Control Setup parameter and press Edit. You will jump into the Setup Editor. Press the left More button, then the COMMON button. Turn the Sync parameter On. Then save this Setup (you may want to Rename it). That’s it.

Of course, a regular Setup can be used to call up a Song when the Setup is selected. If you are doing this, you would want to edit the Sync parameter in that Setup, instead of editing the Control Setup.

Knowledge Base