Programming music one instrument/note at a time

[Q/WK-7600]

I know this thing can do it,  but I'm not understanding how to create a track one note at a time? Can someone please help me with this? I am using the CTK-6250.

[- T -]

What you are describing is known as STEP recording, or STEP sequencing, or STEP input.  See Page E-93 of the manual for the procedure.

 

 

[Q/WK-7600]

Thank you for your reply... If it's being made up as you go along...Can you step record effectively if it doesn't loop?

[- T -]

On 3/26/2020 at 8:12 AM, Q/6250 said:

If it's being made up as you go along...Can you step record effectively if it doesn't loop?

 

In all honesty, not really . . . . but that answer has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the recorder (sequencer) "loops".  When you "program in" a passage "note-at-a-time" you forego any semblence of the dynamic expression that is possible when you "play-in" that same passage, in real time, with your hands.  Oh, you can fake it by manually randomizing ("humanizing") the individual note velocities as you "type" them in, but then that is exactly what your finished passage will sound like - like you were faking it by manually randomizing ("humanizing") the individual note velocities as you "typed" them in.  BUT THEN . . . . dynamic expressiion was never the strong suit of "loopers", anyway.  Loopers are nothing more than tools that allow for the quick and dirty throwing together of a few tracks of a few bars that repeat over and over and over, ad nauseum, while you play, or improvise, or chill, or jam, or groove over the top of them.  In my previous reply, I used the terms STEP sequencing, or STEP recording, or STEP entry, but a more accurate term would be STEP EDITING, and even more precisely EVENT EDITING, as that is exactly what this feature was designed, and provided, and intended for. It was meant as a means of correcting those occasional "bloopers" that creep in when a passage is "played-in" in real time by hand - adding in that missed note, correcting the pitch of that wrong note, or deleting that extra note when your pinky hit two keys at the same time.  It can also be used to add in some enhancing "bells and whistle's" that are beyond your current playing expertise, but it was never meant for the arduous, immensely tedious, and error prone entry of complete passages or entire works.  Never-the-less, lack of a sequencer's ability to "loop" does not preclude you from making decent backing tracks.  Seasoned keyboardists were generating absolutely beautiful 6 and 8 part backing tracks a couple of decades before 'loopers" were even heard of.  You just "play-in" 2, or 4, or 8, or 16 bars on each track, in real time, and then use the Song Sequencer's edit features to copy and paste bars out to the full length that you need, keeping in mind that none of this will "loop" - not even in playback mode.  If you want 96 bars to comp or improvise over, then you need to generate a 96 bar backing track set.

 

NOW - Applying this specifically to the CTK-6250 (or ANY of the CTK/WK-6XXX/7XXX models): the Song Sequencers in these models are actually 32 track sequencers - 17 real "hardware" tracks, with Track 17, the System Track consisting of 16 virtual (software) tracks - the "A" tracks, which are responsible for recording of ALL elements of an Auto-accompaniment performance, including the Right Hand Upper 1 and Upper 2 and Left Hand Lower parts, using the EASY RECord method.  The other 16 real "hardware" tracks - the "B" Tracks are for ad hoc track recording with the track at a time recording method.  The "B" Tracks are not accessed at all by the EASY RECord method, which is limited exclusively to the virtual "A" Tracks.  I mention this, because there is a huge caveate here.  You can start your work with the EASY RECord method to the virtual "A" tracks, then add any additional tracks to the real ("B") "hardware" tracks, or you can record everything to the "B" tracks, but if you record anything to the virtual "A" Tracks with the EASY RECord method, be aware that that method is a one-shot erase as it records method to the ENTIRE System Track - all 16 virtual "A" tracks simultaneously.  While you can use the Event Editor to correct data on the "A" Tracks, any attempt to record or re-record data on ANY of the "A" Tracks will erase ALL previously recorded data on ALL of the "A" Tracks.

 

The Song Sequencers of these models save their data to a Casio proprietary "CMS" song file.  As long as this data is maintained intact within the CMS Song File, even if transfered to a computer or SD Memory Card for back-up storage, all 32 tracks will remain separate and available to you.  And NO! There is currently no computer based software that will play CMS Song File data from the computer back to the keyboard, and the keyboard will not play CMS Song file data directly from an SD Memory Card.  To play CMS Song file data, it MUST be properly loaded back into the Song Sequencer and played only from there. The problem with the 32 track CMS Song file comes into play when you want to use the keyboard's converter feature to convert it to a Standard MIDI File (SMF).  SMF's are limited, by the MIDI Spec, to 16 tracks, but you have a CMS Song file that may contain up to 32 tracks, so something has to give.  During the conversion process, this is controlled by the Mixer: any "A" Track that is ON in the Mixer will prevent the equivalent numbered "B" Track from transferring its data to the converted SMF file, even if that "A" Track contains no data of its own.  This comes up again and again.  Someone records a performance entirely to the "B" Tracks, with no data on any of the "A" Tracks, yet an SMF conversion comes up completely empty.  That is because, by default, ALL of the "A" Tracks are still ON in the Mixer.  Once they are turned OFF, the SMF conversion will proceed as normal.  If a CMS Song file has data on both "A" and "B" Tracks, some shuffling of data between  different "B" tracks may be necessary to accomodate all of the data.  Personally, I am not a fan of CMS to SMF conversions, as all of the Casio high quality tones and effects are forfeited in favor of the low quality General MIDI (GM) voice set.  The converted SMF file will, in no way, sound anything like the original CMS Song file.  If I want/need to share a CMS Song file with others, I will record it to an audio file with the keyboard's audio recorder (7XXX models) or with the audio recorder in my computer based DAW, so that I can maintain as much as the original tone quality as possibility.

 

Sorry to be so long winded with all of this, but I have tried to show you that you can still accomplish what you wanr, even without a PATTERN SEQUENCER (looper).  If you feel that you absolutely need one, I would suggest contacting a reputable local dealer and see about trading your CTK-6250 for a 61 key CTK-7200, or a 76 key WK-7600.  I think there may still be a few new ones available, but from comments on this and other forums, I take it that used 7XXX boards are pretty rare because of both the Pattern Sequencers and Audio Recorders.  AND . . . . about the Pattern Sequencers (loopers) on those boards, the intent was still that you would 'play-in" the notes in real time with your hands, rather than programing them in with the Event Editor.  See the followng YouTube tutorial by Mike Martin on creating a User Rhythm pattern (loop) on the 7XXX models:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVdFRBmNID4

 

All of the step-by-step how-tos on the above items are in the manual under the key terms I have used above.  I have just included here, some of the more important areas that are not covered in the manual at all, or are not stressed enough to reduce the risk of losing many precious hours of hard work to unforeseen pitfalls.

 

Best of luck!

 

[Q/WK-7600]

@T.... Here's a good question.  I am using the Wk-7600. With the 17 track sequencer,  can each track be played individually as to build to a climax? In other words must everything always build from track one,  regardless? Example: can track one be my intro, and track 2 build on the intro and then build further on track 3 etc.

Or no matter what when I put something on track 2 and 3 they automatically play with track 1 creating one song atty all times? Does this question make sense?

I want to start a base line in track 1 track 2 I want to add an instrument. Then track 3 I want to introduce another to create the song. So on and so forth.  Hope this makes sense as I'm no musician. 

[- T -]

What you have described is exactly how a song is typically built up, track-at-a-time, on a linear sequencer, but on the WK-7600 you do it on Tracks 1 through 16, as Track 17 (the System Track) is reserved for the recording of complete (all parts / 16 tracks simultaneously) Auto-accompaniment performances in a single pass with the Easy RECord method.  And with this, you are about to go beyond my personal expertise with these keyboards. as I never used my CTK-6000, or CTK-7000, or WK-7500 as track-at-a-time "workstations".  Instead, I purchased and used them as typical arranger keyboards ("one man banders"), so my recording experience with them was totally limited to complete performances with Auto-accompaniment in a single pass with the Easy RECord method.  Sorry to say, but I am afraid I will be of very little, if any, assistance with the intricacies of track-at-a-time recording.  That has just never been my area of expertise.  I am a dyed in the wool arranger workstation one-man-bander.

 

 

[Q/WK-7600]

@T.... Here's a good question.  With the 17 track sequencer,  can each track be played individually as to build to a climax? In other words must everything always build from track one,  regardless? Example: can track one be my intro, and track 2 build on the intro and then build further on track 3 etc.

Or no matter what when I put something on track 2 and 3 they automatically play with track 1 creating one song atty all times? Does this question make sense?

I want to start a base line in track 1 track 2 I want to add an instrument. Then track 3 I want to introduce another to create the song. So on and so forth.  Hope this makes sense as I'm no musician. 

2 hours ago, - T - said:

What you have described is exactly how a song is typically built up, track-at-a-time, on a linear sequencer, but on the WK-7600 you do it on Tracks 1 through 16, as Track 17 (the System Track) is reserved for the recording of complete (all parts / 16 tracks simultaneously) Auto-accompaniment performances in a single pass with the Easy RECord method.  And with this, you are about to go beyond my personal expertise with these keyboards. as I never used my CTK-6000, or CTK-7000, or WK-7500 as track-at-a-time "workstations".  Instead, I purchased and used them as typical arranger keyboards ("one man banders"), so my recording experience with them was totally limited to complete performances with Auto-accompaniment in a single pass with the Easy RECord method.  Sorry to say, but I am afraid I will be of very little, if any, assistance with the intricacies of track-at-a-time recording.  That has just never been my area of expertise.  I am a dyed in the wool arranger workstation one-man-bander.

 

 

Do you know if there is a way to play each individual track on a loop as long as you wish and change tracks during the song as the song progresses?

Is there a page that may cover that?

And...I really appreciate your help.  Allow me to thank you for your patiience and assistance...Truly

[Jokeyman123]

I briefly owned the CTK6200, fairly similar to the 6250-am pretty familiar with the recording sequencer-I never came across a function that allows you to create separate loops on separate tracks-I think that's what you want to do...what you want unfortunately because you will need  a different keyboard-is the XW-P1 which can do exactly that, it is designed more as a loop dance machine-in the tradition of the RM1X. Roland MC-505/303 and others. Sounds like you have been familiar with this type of function with music software that can do this such as "Fruity Loops" originally did but most DAWs can now accomplish-creating separate sections of music and then setting each up as a loop. I could be wrong, but again, i do not think this is possible with the WK/CTKs, which are designed more for "linear" recording. With the XW-P1 which I've had now for a few years- i can use the 16-step sequencer-create a looping phrase on one track, then create a different instrument loop on a separate track and do this for several different tracks. i then copy that collection of loops to another "part" and create variations on my original set of loops-to add or delete parts-again with the 16-step sequencer, and i can do this with 8 separate "parts' and access each part individually with dedicated "part" buttons. So my first "part" can have just a bassline, simple percussion track-and loop it. Then I copy this part to an additional part-add a trumpet, brass or whatever i want to this part, and loop that. Then can switch back and forth to either "part" instantly-and can do that for 6 more "parts".  I  can then play and record a separate "phrase" and have that triggered to play at the same time-a true loop factory in a keyboard. I think this is more like what you want do do? Or go for the Yamaha RM1x or Roland MC-505 or similar still available on the used market. Not solving your problem with just the CTK-but you could record the CTK into a midi software program and create loops to play on the CTK with the USB connection. That would work. I can''t recall which specific software does this, I think Reaper and many of the more advanced software programs can, and there is probably 'freeware" that is designed specifically to do this. I have a program somewhere in my computer "archives" that I used for this-I will lupload it when I find it-I have to look through 4 different computers..its in there somewhere! 

[Jokeyman123]

Q6250-here it is. It's a "compressed" or zip file for Windows-just unzip it-everything you need to install this is in there-including registration info-read the txt file, this is a fully working version of the program. This is an amazing loop program, thought you might have some fun with it-if you can't do what you want with the WK. it is more advanced than some-but it is the best of the bunch for freeware that I have found. You can create amazing loops with this. and I also use Coolsoft virtual synth with an Arachno soundfont if you want to record and play midi files straight to the computer with the CTK. look at Coolsoft's website-freeware again, i use it for all my midi files.

Making Waves Studio 5.32.zip

[- T -]

Do you know if there is a way to play each individual track on a loop as long as you wish and change tracks during the song as the song progresses?

 

On your WK-7600, you can do that with the Pattern Sequencer per that Mike Martin tutorial that I referred you to some time ago, but there is no way to loop any of the tracks of the linear (Song) Sequencer.  If they did, then it would not be a linear sequencer.   In the Pattern Sequencer, the loop tracks can be up to 16 bars long.