If you have another keyboard don't stop reading yet as the following may be relevant if your keyboard uses GM files i.e. the GA range. The pro's, con's and ethics of GM files, and how to get the most out of them!

Ethics

Love them or hate them, they are here to stay. Sequences in general can be a good or a bad thing depending on your point of view. Most of the more "serious" musicians I know look down their noses with great disgust if they see them being used. Speaking as a gigging musician I must confess to using them. The reasons for me using them are quite simple really, with them I can get a very large sound. As some of you will know during the summer I work at a large holiday site in Clacton, the audiences I play to range from nine to ninety nine. The older members of the crowds I play to would in the most part be quite happy to listen to an old fashioned accordion just linked to an echo machine with a live drummer playing along. In many ways so would I (and just occasionally do). Most of the middle range of people would quite happily listen to the old accordion I had. For those interested an Elka '83, this had some electronic sounds (six flutes, two strings and two percussion tabs, no drums, I had to use a Roland TR505). The younger audience kids too thirties demand something different though, thus the progression to my current set up with the KN2000. If I have to play in our ballroom and played just an old fashioned accordion, the comments I would get.... well I'm sure you can imagine. The point is, that because of Radio and TV, audiences are coming to expect a sound that is enormous. I simply don't have enough hands to play all the parts to do this, thus the use of sequence files. This brings us to the next argument. "Use other musicians!" This is quite simply down to economics. Everywhere is looking to cut back these days and the money simply just isn't there. For me the transformation started with a KN800. The sequences and patterns I use are just getting more and more complicated as time goes on and this I am sure is the same for most of you. the software market can only get bigger as more and more people demand for one reason or another bigger and better sounds. There are several arguments on the other side of the coin though. A lot of "musicians hate sequence files as they think it does them out of work. This may have some truth in it, but my suspicions though tend to make me think the main reason though is because they take some of the mystic out of music and enable people with very little experience to create a sound that can be quite stunning. At the end of the day I do truly believe though the most important thing is, no matter what your standard of playing you should enjoy your music. If you want a full sound and the way to get this is the use of sequencer files, then so be it. Just because you use sequences doesn't mean you can't play. What you play while they are running is what counts. The morals that concern the use of files are going to be different for every one of us!

I know that a lot of you out there have bought midi files, I am also sure that having loaded them into your keyboard some of you will have been very disappointed. Files vary greatly from place to place. The reason we sell Tune 1000 Midi Files is because we know that they are of a good quality. There are several inherent problems even with good midi files. I have yet to come across a general midi file that was designed to run on the KN2000's GM settings. This means although there is supposed to be common ground across all keyboards that run on GM. the sounds used will probably at best not use the full capabilities of the KN2000 at worst they will sound flippin' awful. This is something we can probably fix though. The second main problem is just what you should play while it is running. Most of the midi files I have come across have information on track one, making it impossible to play along with the thing. Therefore all you get with these files is a glorified and expensive record player. What a waste!

In Practice

O.K. so why not do something about it? Load a midi file into your keyboard. The first thing to do is to try and make the most of the sounds. To do this we are going to put the keyboard into Technics mode by initializing the midi settings.

1) Press Memory and control.

2) Press Initial.

3) Move the highlight to Midi setting and press OK and then Yes.

4) You will find the bass part has dropped and octave. To find it switch off all except one of the green lights in the sequencer section and press start. Don't be too impatient as it could be quite a few bars before that part starts playing. Move along the sounds one at a time making sure at least one green light is on at all times. When you get to the part that is playing the bass, make a note of its channel number and press stop.

5) Press sound and sound setting.

6) Select the part number the bass is being played on and check which instrument is being used. Then turn off all the sequencer lights.

7) Press the bass group button under sound group, then the bass instrument you want, followed by sound edit.

8) Press easy edit, octave shift, and make the value +1

9) Press write and save your sound to a memory location.

10)  Press sequencer, step record and the track number for the bass. click on OK.

11) You should now have a screen that says step record with two cursor buttons on the bottom right hand side. Using these cursor buttons step the little white box along the screen. Every time it says "control" or gives you a sound name press ERS. Do not press ERS if you hear a sound or see a note name on the screen. Once you get to your first note you should be OK to press exit twice.

12) Press Real-time record followed by the track number the bass is on.

13) Now press the sound memory (A or B) that you saves the edited bass sound on, followed by the correct sound..

14) Press sequencer to exit (or exit twice)

15) Now press all the green lights you need to be switched on in the sequencer section.

16) Press start and you should have the bass in the correct place.

You can now use the above process to go through all the tracks to place the sounds you want for any given part. Please note though you will not need to use the sound edit to get the other parts into the correct octave so ignore steps 1,2,3, 7 8. and 9.

I know this sounds a little complicated but don't worry, at worst if you get anything wrong you can always load the track up and start again.

When you get all the sounds as you want, and don't forget the drums, you should save your song onto disk under the All setting. At least now you should have a file that sounds quite reasonable. The next thing to do is to decide just which part you wish to play. By selecting the green buttons one at a time in the sequencer section you can listen to each part on its own. This is the part I can't help with as it is purely down to your own desire. If the part is number one, the easiest thing to do is to turn off track one's button and play along. If there is nothing on part one just turn off the part you wish to play and play along with "right one" switched to the sound you desire. The next option is slightly trickier. If there is information on part one and you want to play another part, you need to do the following.

1) Press sequencer, press edit, press track merge.

2) In the top left box make sure it says track one.

3) In the bottom left hand box select a track that has no information on it (no music).

4) In the right hand box select the same track number as the bottom left hand box.

5) Press OK and yes. Press the sequencer button or exit three times.

The information on track one will now have been moved to a new track enabling you to play along with right one.

There are other things you can do to your song once you have reached this point i.e. set up a control track and record different tempo's into it. you could also change the key the whole thing is written in. Edit the sounds for every track, up or down the appropriate amount of steps and save them to the sound memories. Then set up the sound on each track using those memories. I have got to say though, if you want to go this deep into a file you should probably be using a computer and sequencer package such as Cubase.