Posted by JG on August 31, 1999 at 21:11:38:
I've been working on a tune using Cakewalk and a QS7 with a Roland JV1080. The 1080 is a great
box, but the QS e-pianos are definitely better (1080 doesn't have anything like that "Titanium88",
either). In particular "RayzRoadz", preset1 #5. So, to utilize this sound for a Cake track I made a Mix
with RayzRoadz on channel 1, all other channels disabled, and efx set to channel 1.
And then.. oh no, here we go again with the Mix version of a sound not having the brightness of its
original Program. So, I combed through the message database here, looking for relevent feedback
on this dilemma (using many keywords.. trying to be thorough). There was the one about "A question
no one has asked.." plus several others. The answers always seemed to be "just set your efx
channel to the Program you want to use for efx" etc. But.. been there done that, as they say.
Looking in the ed/lib this Program is just VeloRhodes1 on Sound1 and Sound2 (panned full
right & left), with +/- 10 cents detune between them, and some differences in Pitch envelope and
MW settings, etc. with the efx on config #5 (presumably to get the overdrive there).
Anyway, I figured what the hell, before I squawk let's see if we can figure out why this discrepancy
happens and what to do about it, if anything. First thing I tried was to turn down the L/R faders on my
audio mixer one by one to see what the individual stereo channels of RayzRoadz sound like (with
neutral eq and panpots full L/R).
In Program mode you can hear the two sounds distinctly when working the audio faders.. but when
you go over to Mix mode, it _sounds_ as though the entire Program has been mixed to mono, and
this mono signal is then fed to both stereo ouput channels. Try it.
I really don't know.. maybe there's some other button(s) I havn't pushed, but it really sounds like this
instrument is sort of crippled for doing midi.
So, I put the old "workaround hat" on to see what could be done.. (I really WANT that e-piano sound
in my tune, with its full stereo brightness). I made a Program labeled "Rayz1", with Sound1 only
enabled and an identical one labeled "Rayz2" with only Sound2 enabled. I assigned these in a Mix
on channels 1 & 2.. and BINGO!!.. full stereo RayzRoadz! (not quite as crystalline as the original
Program.. maybe that just calls for some tweaking or something).
I tried this on some other sounds (including Titanium88).. same results. Curiously, though, one of
my other fave QS sounds, "Waterfalls" (User #59, in the same Mix slot) doesn't seem to have this
problem.
I'M CONFUSED!!
I'd love to hear from anyone else who's been doing some head-scratching over this.. compare notes,
etc.
rgds,
John