Solo mixer mode as a quick way to select up to 16 tones

[AlenK]

Brett's mention in another thread of the "solo" mode of the mixer (you can solo individual parts while the mixer is active) inspired me to try something. What I discovered must have been described somewhere here already at some time, surely. But even so I don't think there is a dedicated thread for it. It's a way to use a performance and a sequence together to allow quick selection from up to 16 tones while playing. The idea is based on the following experimental observations:

 

(1) While I am solo-ing a channel (i.e. I am already in the mixer's solo mode, entered by pressing and holding one of the 1-16 buttons after pressing the MIXER button) I can switch the solo-ed channel just by a light press of one of the other 1 - 16 buttons. I don't have to press and hold the other part's button. The manual doesn't make this clear.

 

(2) I can use a sequence simply to assign suitable tones to parts 8 to 16; I don't have to use it to play notes. 

 

(3) Parts 1 to 4 are of course saved with a Performance. According to my experiments, parts 5 and 6 are also saved with a Performance.

 

(4) To my great surprise my experiments show that Part 7 is not saved in a Performance nor in a sequence. It's data just sits in the machine's volatile memory and hence any changes you make are NOT restored on power up.

 

So, set it up like this: Assign tones to parts 1 to 6 and save in a Performance. Assign tones to parts 8 to 16 and save in a sequence referenced by the Performance. Select the Performance and press MIXER. Press and hold any of the buttons and you will get the tone you assigned to the associated part. (For part 7 you will get P0-0 in the Piano category by default.) To select another tone just press (not hold) the button corresponding to the part you assigned it to.

 

This should work on both the P1 and the G1, even with the G1's mixer bug that Brett described in his thread. But since I only have a P1 I can't be certain about the G1. Someone will have to try it.

 

Note that unlike Brett's technique using MIDI you can't layer anything. You get ONE tone each time.

 

PS. Another thing that might not be obvious to some: Since only part 1 can play a solo-synth, hex-layer or drawbar-organ tone (the latter two only in the P1, of course), you can only have one of those, selected by button "1", in your sixteen-tone set. All the other 15 tones must be PCM tones (melody or rhythm, but you would normally choose melody in this application). 

[BrettM]

My G1 works exactly like this Alen. Part 7 is also not saved in a performance or step sequence. 

 

It's a great way of having many instruments available during a performance at the touch of a button;  so long as it's only a touch, otherwise you drop out of solo mode. The G1 mixer bug means that you can do the same thing simply by moving a slider in the mixer. In this case there's no danger of exiting solo mode but, given that there's only 8 sliders, you do have to use the 1-8/9-16 button.