Song Sequencer in the PX-5s: Question?

[Brad Saucier]

Hey Mike,

 

 

I see a PX5 in my future so.....  I was reading the pdf manual on the PX5 and noticed a section on the Song sequencer.    My first instinct was to assume that this is a 16 track sequencer (and maybe that 17th system track)  just like in the MZ-2000.   But after reading more I am unsure.    The basic manual describes it as "a way to combine phrases into a song".   The tutorial manual shows how to edit a song and lists the mixer parameters,  but I am still unsure about exactly what the "Song Sequencer" is.   

 

Is it the MZ-2000 type sequencer or something for arranging phrases?  I know there is no mention of a song sequencer in product descriptions.

 

How many tracks is it? 

 

Thanks.

 

and Mike,  I truly appreciate your time spent answering questions here.  and Thanks again.  

[Mike Martin]

Brad,

I'll be straight with you on this subject.  I would not recommend the PX-5S if you're looking to do sequencing.  It is not a traditional song writing sequencer at all.  

 

The PX-5S has a phrase sequencer in it.  The primary purpose of this is to provide a way to trigger riffs or patterns from the keyboard.  This could be a bass line, a drum pattern or a horn riff that otherwise you couldn't do because you're playing other things at the same time.  It can also be used to create incredible animation to parts (like an arpeggiator).

 

So each of the 4 zones can trigger either an arpeggiator or a phrase.

 

In addition to that the PX-5S has a 8 track, Song Sequencer.  This allows you to take phrases and chain them together into a longer song.  It is much like working with a drum machine where you tell it to play a particular pattern x number of times then go to the next pattern.  You can do this with multiple instruments and multiple tracks.  To be honest, I have yet to use it the song sequencer, although I've looked at it to get an understanding of how it works.  There are some plans to make some improvements to it in another firmware update, but I would not let the inclusion of a sequencer influence your buying decision.

[Brad Saucier]

Thanks Mike,

 

 

That clears it up for me.  I suspected this was the case but was unsure.  I still like it anyway.  I'm not looking to duplicate the functions on my MZ2000.   I want a different beast for live performance and this seems to fit nicely.  

 

One more question:  Can a completely custom drum set be made by mapping the px5's individual drum samples to each of the 88 keys?

[Mike Martin]

One more question:  Can a completely custom drum set be made by mapping the px5's individual drum samples to each of the 88 keys?

 

Yes, you can tune them and apply filters to them too.  

[Brad Saucier]

Great!  You answered the part I forgot to ask (tuning them).  It seems that the px5 gives you total control over every sample to do with what you please. 

 

Thanks again.

[Guillermo]

Hello to all!

 

I'm from Spain and I'm the very happy owner of a new PX5S.    It's an amazing DP with a great key action and impresive set of sounds and synthesizer possibilities. I only see two minor faults. The sound and parameter edition is a very difficult task within the keyboard controls. Fortunately, this problem will soon be solved with the release of PC editor.

 

And two, the sequencer. Will we get a future firmware update including a step sequencer or improved phrase sequencer?    Thanks in advance.

 

And the last question is, where's the metronome?

[Joe Muscara]

There is a metronome in the phrase recorder but I don't know if it's available anywhere else.

[Brad Saucier]

I will add this:

 

If the metronome is not available outside of "phrase recording" and you really want one to be.   I would create a phrase with the bell and click sounds myself (the bell and click sounds are in drum "standard set 1" just below the kick drums).     Then I could recall the metronome phrase when I wanted to play along to it.   

 

[dc2k]

Could anyone point out some metronome phrases in the downloads. I had look around but I can't find any. I also searched for them which brought me to this post.

I think should be listed here if there are any:

http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/files/category/7-px-5s-phrases/

[Brad Saucier]

Check this category...  These use a phrase I created.

 

http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/files/category/20-miscellaneous/

[Hugh O Kelly]

Has anybody used the 8 track sequencer on the PX-5s ?

[Brad Saucier]

Nobody I know of.   I never did much beyond trying it out for test drive.  I've been meaning to do more with it one day.  In fact, I just had a brainstorm for it.  LOL

[Choppin]

I've used it.  Did a few simple things on it.  Created a drum pattern or 2, put 'em down on one track; used one of the pre-made phrases to lay down a bass line.  Let the song play and played piano over that to mess around.  Works quite well.  I really like the sequencer.

 

Right now I'm learning some old 80s tracks, tampering with the synth sounds, and building a sequence or 2.  It's quite easy to use.  The patterns (phrases) don't have to be the same length.  You can overlap a 6 measure phrase on top of 3, 2 measure phrases if you like.  The number of measures don't have to match up.  I could just as well have an 8 measure phrase in one "cell" on a track and a 1 measure phrase in the same cell on another track.  The 8 measure phrase will continue to play after the 1 measure cell has stopped.  It's probably a good idea to keep things even and synced though so you don't lose your place.  I'd still need 7 additional 1 measure phrases to catch up to the 8 measure phrase if I wanted to keep the song parts all playing together.  

 

I'm not a huge fan of the phrase recorder.  It's ok, but I would like the ability to switch from an overdub mode to an "undo" mode were you can hold down keys and those note events are removed from the pattern.  Corrections are hard to make in phrases and unless you nail it, at least in my case, I have to rerecord the whole thing.  The undo option currently available only removes what was last played and I need a little more control - like removing specific events.

 

The phrases can always be built in an external program, but I would like some keyboard "hands on" tools that make the phrase recording a little more editable.

[Hugh O Kelly]

After my two drum machines died I had to learn to use the phrase function as a drum pattern

It is a pain to do but since we guys have the tenacity to play the piano/program computers etc…..

perhaps we can learn another talent…..programming phrases

Over the last few days I've put in patterns that really work

I was listening to Leon Russel's "Roll in my sweet baby's arms" and managed to get the feel right

(better than my drum machine)

So with a bit of blood and sweat I am now getting the hang of the phrases

 

I never have found a midi drum loop that works for me yet so I end up doing my own even though I dread it

 

Choppin,my good friend,

if you could talk us through how to get all 8 tracks going there will be a lot of us listening     

[Brad Saucier]

Some of the phrases I made for my stage settings are so complicated that it's impossible to record them live on the 5s.  I use my MZ-2000 sequencer to make a .mid file and then convert it to a phrase using the data editor.  I may use the Song Sequencer to expand some of my old stage settings into longer songs since all I really need to do is move the existing phrases to the Song Sequencer and then tack on some more to finish out the song. 

[Choppin]

@Hugh

 

All 8 tracks? ok, something simple for demo purposes: Row Row Row your boat as a round.  I do type a lot, so be patient.  I'll try to keep it short.

 

Make sure you don't have any media (wav files and such) loaded and ready to play when you hit start.  Make sure the [song] button is off.

 

We'll create the phrase we need first.

Press [Phrase] so that the phrase light is on (not flashing)  Use the + and - keys to bring up a phrase number you don't mind changing.  I chose 107.

Press[Edit] and set the beat to 4/4 - Press [Exit]

Press [Phrase] one more time to get the phrase light and the recording light flashing.

Rec Mode should be New;  I use Quantize off for this but if you want it on it should probably be triplet 8th or triplet 16th notes; End measure should be 04 to create a 4 measure phrase - the whole tune of Row Row your boat.

 

When you are ready, either start playing or press [Record] - record the tune.  Save your phrase with the [Write] button.  Make sure you change the phrase number so it matches the number you want to write to.  It seems to always default to the first empty phrase.

 

Press [Exit].  Turn off Phrase by pressing phrase several times until it is no longer lit.

 

Ok, let's build a song out of row row your boat.  Press [song] so that the button is lit. Press [Edit]

 

Alright, I'll demonstrate a couple of different things.  First, lets talk about adding Hex layers.  In a stage setting, zones 1 and 2 can play back Hex layers.  In the Song Sequencer, we specifically have to set the Midi channels to 1 or 2.  Any track set to either of those channels can play back a hex layer.  To keep this discussion on track, I have to refrain myself from launching into what seems possible in theory as far as midi control and so forth.  I'll just say this, a phrase records midi events and control messages - you may be able to control stage settings automatically through the song sequencer and... well, back to the task at hand.

 

In the edit mode for the song, I want to make the first and second tracks Hex layers.  By default, track 1 is set to midi channel 5, and track 2 is set to midi channel 6.  This is so the song sequencer is avoiding channels 1-4 that the stage settings default to.  So on the menu, select Song mixer > Channel and set it to 1

Cursor Back until you see Bank Select MSB.  For Hex layers, change this to 97

Below that, you'll see Program Change.  Change that to 19 - synth voice (could be any hex layer, but we'll just use this for demo purposes).

 

If you press the zone + button, it will switch to track 2.  Change the midi channel to 2, and change this to a hex layer also, but use program 34 (or another if you like)

 

For the rest of the tracks, leave them as defaults or change them to other midi channels you desire.  In theory you could change them all to 1 and/or 2 and use hex layers, but it's likely only to register the last program change for that channel.

 

Feel free to change any of the mixer settings for the particular track.  I left them alone.  Once satisfied, use the zone - and + to set the track number back to 1.  Press [Exit] and then select Track Edit and press [Enter]

 

There is a measure counter in the upper right.  From what I can tell, this is based on the time signature of the phrase on the first track playing.  So in our case, if our phrase plays 1 time, it will count up 4 measures.  We can keep track of where musically we are in the demo.

 

Okay, right now, our song shouldn't have any cells that have phrases stored in them.  In general, the song sequencer stores a series of cells of phrases on the various tracks.  Each cell for each track can be repeated in sequence up to 99 times.  That gives us a lot of options when structuring our song.   I will demonstrate a little bit of this flexibility.  We will add 4 cells to track 1.  Do this by pressing the Number 1 key (insert) 4 times.

 

The knobs can be used to control the individual parameters or you can use the cursors keys and the + and -.  You'll notice numbers 001 through 004 on the left hand side.  These are cell numbers for that track.  To switch between cells use Knob 1.  Next to the number is the phrase that will play.  You see it defaults to Ph000.   We'll want to change this to 107.  Use Knob 2 to change this. Next to that you'll see 01.  This is the number of times that particular cell will repeat.  Use Knob 3 to change this - but we'll leave it at 01 for now.  The last number is a pitch shift.  Use Knob 4 to change it.

 

For the 4 cells we added, change each Ph to 107.  Leave the other values alone.  When done, advance to the next track use the zone + key.

 

For Track 2, we'll set things a little differently just to show the flexibility of the song sequencer.  Insert 1 cell.  Since our song is going to be a round, we need 4 beats before we start playing on this track.  I've never used phrase 108, so by default, it is an empty 1 measure 4/4 phrase.  I'm going to set this cell to Ph108.  After that, I'm going to insert another cell so press the 1 key again.  This new cell labeled 002, will have our tune playing again so I will set the phrase number to 107.  Now, instead of adding 4 individual cells each playing 107 one after the other, I'm going to use the repeat option for this cell.  After the phrase number, set the repeat number to 4.  

 

If you press the Start/Stop button, track one will start with the hex layer synthvoice and after 4 beats, track 2 will play the phrase with the other sound we set it to.  

 

Go through the rest of the tracks, add blank phrases - you can use the repeat option - and then add a cell (or group of cells) with phrase 107.  You'll probably need more than 4 cells or repeats, probably at least 8 so that all of the tracks sound at least once during the round.

 

That's the concept and the basic operation of the track sequencer.  The difference when making your own songs would be using multiple phrases with different musical parts and melodies.

 

Note, the measure numbers do not correspond to the number of cells added, so don't get that mixed up.  If you have a long song, I'm not sure if the limit is the number of cells or the number of measures that can be played.

 

 

If you need to remove cells from a track, press the 0 key (delete).  If you need to remove an entire track, when you press the [Edit] button when you are in song mode, you'll be in Sing Edit mode.  This is where we found the slections for Track Edit and Song mixer.  If you continue scrolling, you'll see Track Clear.  Choose this to clear the selected track.  If you want to reset the entire song, choose Song Initialize.

[Brad Saucier]

 I'll just say this, a phrase records midi events and control messages - you may be able to control stage settings automatically through the song sequencer 

I thought the same thing.  Have you tested that?  It's a great idea.

 

 

BTW, Great outline of the Song Sequencer!

[Choppin]

Thanks Brad. 

 

I've done some minor testing.  If you set the midi channels to the same channels as the zones in the song sequencer, you can change the tones using the program change.  However, I haven't been able to change the stage setting through a phrase, even after recording the MSB and LSB, but I have been able to have the volume swell and decrease by recording slider values in a phrase.  It would take more testing to really see what can be done, but I do see the possibilities.  Right now I don't know enough to confidently say one way or the other under what settings and circumstances midi controls can be used from phrases and/or the song sequencer. 

[Hugh O Kelly]

Choppin,

What I can do is write a phrase of any length.  (now……….easy)

 

What I don't get yet is how to join them together in a song     (if that is what you do)

 

There is a song I want to do

1. I've got the drums   ( 2  bars)

 2.then I will write a new with the bass line ( 8 bars )

 3. Then a guitar riff another 8 bars

 

How do I join them

 

Sorry Choppin I didn't get it

Hugh

[Brad Saucier]

@Hugh

 

Press [song] so that the button is lit. Press [Edit]

 

Okay, right now, our song shouldn't have any cells that have phrases stored in them.   the song sequencer stores a series of cells of phrases on the various tracks.  Each cell for each track can be repeated in sequence up to 99 times.    We will add cells to track 1.  Do this by pressing the Number 1 key (insert) .

 

The knobs can be used to control the individual parameters or you can use the cursors keys and the + and -.  You'll notice numbers 001 through 004 on the left hand side.  These are cell numbers for that track.  To switch between cells use Knob 1.  Next to the number is the phrase that will play.  You see it defaults to Ph000.   We'll want to change this to (your phrase#).  Use Knob 2 to change this. Next to that you'll see 01.  This is the number of times that particular cell will repeat.  Use Knob 3 to change this.  The last number is a pitch shift.  Use Knob 4 to change it.

 

For the cells we added, change each Ph to (your phrase #).  When done, advance to the next track use the zone + key.

 

Go through the rest of the tracks, and then add a cell (or group of cells).  

That's the concept and the basic operation of the track sequencer. 

 

If you need to remove cells from a track, press the 0 key (delete).  If you need to remove an entire track,  press the [Edit] button when you are in song mode,.  This is where we found the slections for Track Edit and Song mixer.  If you continue scrolling, you'll see Track Clear.  Choose this to clear the selected track.  If you want to reset the entire song, choose Song Initialize.

 

What specifically do you need to know Hugh?

[Hugh O Kelly]

Thanks Choppin

That detailed information is enough for me to get on with.

I will shortly let you know how I did.

cell ………..I don't know what that is

 

What I do need to know is,

Is a song made of phrases just added together

or do you write each ph. on top 'as it were' of the other

meaning you write the next ph. say bass as ph. 1 drums is running

 

anyhow I will give it a go

 

Thanks

[Hugh O Kelly]

Thanks Choppin,

With your help I have managed to get into the track edit window.

Now I am beginning to se how the "song" works

 

I will experiment a bit further

ALL THE BEST

Hugh

[Choppin]

A "cell", as I refer to it is a single line in the track builder.  If you look at the track builder as a table, then a cell is a row.  I use the term cell for my own way of looking at the song sequencer.  There won't necessarily be the same number of rows in each track of a song so for me, it's easier to think of a single row of information as a cell.   See the attachment example track.  Change cell to row and I think you'll be good to go.  I can see how this could be confusing to others so I may go back and edit the previous post and change cell to row.

 

Your second question, I'm not really sure I understand; but each track is made up of a series of phrases that run in sequence from the time the start button is pressed.  Each track plays at the same time like a multi-track recorder.  In the case of the row row row your boat example, we have each track playing the same phrase.  The tracks each play the phrase with their own instrument (if you changed the program in the song mixer) at the same time.  So, we don't need unique phrases, any phrase can be used on any track.  You just have to make sure you've figured out the timing correctly so the phrase you want on whatever track is sounding at the same time.

 

 

[Brad Saucier]

[Choppin]

Here's something that may not be obvious.  There's a pitch shift in the track builder as the last item in a row.  This may not seem useful, because you could always change the key in the song mixer so the whole track is changed, BUT, if you recall the nature of a single phrase, the phrase can be recorded in any key.  Instead of changing the key of the entire track, you can just change those phrases that are in a different key than your song.  So if you wrote some bass grove phrase that plays real nice with a guitar in e min, you can still use that phrase for a g min jam for that song that features piano in the sequencer.  And the rest of your bass lines for that track may already be in g min so you only have to change that one phrase.

 

Also, there may be advantages and disadvantages of using the repeat phrase option as opposed to just adding a single row for each time you want the phrase to repeat.

 

 Advantages: Repeating a phrase probably saves memory as opposed to adding an entire new line for the same phrase.  That depends on the internal processes of the machine.  And I'm still not clear on whether it's 999 measures that is the limit or 999 rows.  Definitely repeating a phrase saves effort - you don't have to keep adding rows to a track.

 

Disadvantages: The main disadvantage is not being able to keep track of the structure of your song.  There doesn't seem to be a way to view the entire song at once, so one would have to map out what's happening with each track before hand.