Kurzweil PC3X- How can I Control Leslie with Aftertouch

[daveedsf]

I see that Aftertouch is assignable, but leslie is not in the on-board drop down. Has anyone figured out how to use aftertouch to control leslie on this board. Even if you know how on an earlier Kurzweil, please let me know as it might be the same hard-to-find mechanism.

Thank you,

David

 

[kanthos]

May I ask why you'd want to use aftertouch to control leslie (I'm guessing you mean rotor speed fast/slow or leslie on/off)? This kind of thing is much better suited for a foot pedal that sends an on/off message instead of aftertouch which can send a range of values. You'd have to jump through some serious hoops in order to use aftertouch to control the leslie like a real leslie, including dealing with what happens when you take your fingers off the keys. Aftertouch is best used for subtle variations in something that's already playing as opposed to switching things on and off.

 

[jpscoey]

'

You don't explain what your knowledge / experience of keyboards is, but I agree that a degree in 'gobbledygook'
is advantageous when it comes to working out Kurzweil manuals!

Kanthos is absolutely correct - aftertouch is no use whatsoever for this application.

Aftertouch is a momentary 'shift' in the sound of the note you are playing & only applicable
for the length of time you apply that extra pressure on the key. -

Ideal for such things as (my favourite example) the 'rasping' sound of an 'overblown' saxophone note.

This will, of course, only apply to the particular note you are pressing down
(ie: if you are holding down a chord of, say, 3 notes & you press firmer on one of those notes, the effect will only be applied to that note).

The effect you seem to be seeking is a 'global', or 'overall', effect so forget aftertouch for this purpose!


.

 

[kanthos]

This will, of course, only apply to the particular note you are pressing down
(ie: if you are holding down a chord of, say, 3 notes & you press firmer on one of those notes, the effect will only be applied to that note).

Not entirely true. There are two kinds of aftertouch. Polyphonic aftertouch is exactly what jpscoey describes: each note can have its own amount of aftertouch (so I could play a triad and put a lot more pressure with my middle finger, and only that note would be affected).

The other kind is channel aftertouch, where the aftertouch from *one key* affects all of them. The amount of aftertouch used is usually taken from either the lowest key being played or the key with the most pressure (of all keys, which has the highest value? Use that value).

Channel aftertouch is much easier for keyboard manufacturers to work with, and it's much more common.

 

[thepianoplayer]

Here are the steps to assign monopressure (mpress) to act as the rotary speed control:

1) select the desired KB3
2) press EDIT
3) press PROGFX
4) press EDIT
-take note of how many "KB3b" blocks are used in the chain you are looking at. Some chains will use only one, some will use 2.

5) press MOD1, MOD2 or MOD3. You will be looking for one or two free MOD spaces. You need 1 free MOD for each instance of KB3b in the chain above. So if only one KB3b block you need 1 free FXMOD. If two KB3b blocks are used you'll need 2 free FXMODs.

6) IF only one KB3b, create a MOD with the following settings:

Box Param: Adjust: Source: Depth:
2 Speed slow MPress 1

7) IF two KB3b are present, create one additional MOD with the following settings:

Box Param: Adjust: Source: Depth:
4 Speed slow MPress 1

7) Exit and save each time you are prompted.

 

[Fred Coulter]

The wisdom of using aftertouch to control the Leslie is dependent on how realistic you want to be. If you're going for realism, then aftertouch wouldn't work well. When using a Leslie speaker, players would turn it on and off, not tweak the rotation speed while playing. A foot switch would do this far better than aftertouch.

On the other hand, if you're trying to go beyond realism, then using channel aftertouch could be interesting. However, when releasing all of the keys, the leslie would drop to zero even if the sound hasn't ended yet. This may be what you're looking for, but realistic it's not.

The use of polyphonic aftertouch to control a leslie effect may not be feasible. Most leslie effects I know are located after all the individual key sounds are summed together. As such, I'm not at all sure which key's pressure would affect the speed. On the other hand, if the leslie effect was part of the sound prior to the keys being summed, then you could theoretically have one note only going through the leslie. or each note at a different rotational speed. This could be a very interesting sound, but it definitely throws realism away.

 

[thepianoplayer]

The wisdom of using aftertouch to control the Leslie is dependent on how realistic you want to be. If you're going for realism, then aftertouch wouldn't work well. When using a Leslie speaker, players would turn it on and off, not tweak the rotation speed while playing. A foot switch would do this far better than aftertouch.

On the other hand, if you're trying to go beyond realism, then using channel aftertouch could be interesting. However, when releasing all of the keys, the leslie would drop to zero even if the sound hasn't ended yet. This may be what you're looking for, but realistic it's not.

The use of polyphonic aftertouch to control a leslie effect may not be feasible. Most leslie effects I know are located after all the individual key sounds are summed together. As such, I'm not at all sure which key's pressure would affect the speed. On the other hand, if the leslie effect was part of the sound prior to the keys being summed, then you could theoretically have one note only going through the leslie. or each note at a different rotational speed. This could be a very interesting sound, but it definitely throws realism away.

I am certainly not going to disagree with all your comments as I also use a footswitch to control the Leslie speed (plugged into the Sostenuto MIDI CC rear jack).

The reason for posting the method of how to achieve it, was solely as information for the original poster of this thread. I realise that was a long time ago, but as it is not easily deciphered on a Kurzweil instrument I thought I would make the information known.

 

[christofus]

i have a pc3 and would like help assigning the rotary speed to the mod wheel. i am used to doing this with my midi setup and it works best for me. Mod up is fast, mod down is slow. I can assign it to the mod wheel now but it changes with each increment (every half millimeter) and i can't use that. Looking for help. Thanks all. is there a better thread for this question?

 

[happyrat1]

Best place to ask this is over at the Kurzweil Forums.

http://forums.godlike.com.au/

Those guys are insanely thorough when it comes to programming Kurzweil boards.

Gary

 

[christofus]

thanks I'll check that out!