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Keyboards, the Paradigm shift
Keyboards, Gift
from God - for musicians a spectacular tool; for non Musicians - an
attractive novelty; and for me it is also a tax deduction.
An electronic
musical keyboard provides variety of choices that inspires musician to create
better music. Let me jump straight to the Fundamental anatomy of a keyboard.
This is made up of two parts; an Input device, - the keys – that triggers the
second part - the internal sound/tone generator. Keyboards can sense
pressure, weight and different kinds of other parameters, and will pass this
to the tone generator which will react accordingly. There are various types
of keyboards available today. How does a keyboard function? It would a
discussion similar to Dravid’s patient batting. I
will try and keep it simple.
For every sound
found in the keyboard, there is a set of data file. The basic sound wav is
stored as data which would be manipulated using oscillators, envelops to
produce the sounds in different frequencies. These sound data files are
called as samples. “Cheaper the keyboards, cheesier the sound”; Samples are
mapped to corresponding notes on the keyboards. Just like the PC keyboard,
when C is pressed letter C is displayed, like wise, when the Note C is
pressed on the keyboard, it will play the wave file for the C sound. The
manufactures would sample and provide the sounds for you. Price of the
keyboards depends on the quality of these sound samples. Advance workstation/
synthesizers provide elaborate methods to manipulate these sounds. And if you
are able to add your own samples and manipulate it, the keyboard get now
promoted to a something that is called a Sampler. The First generation
keyboard that God sent to the man kind was called Prophet 5 [Yes I am not
making it up] followed by few other keyboards from Roland & Yamaha. They
sounds they offered were mere sophisticated door bells. The world changes
drastically, and today there are various types of keyboards [Controllers,
Work Stations, Domestic etc] that are mind boggling.
Controllers are
just input devices without sound generators. In other words they are dumb
terminals. They don’t provide sounds and they come with the first part of the
above discussed anatomy. Workstations are powerful and come with tons of
options and mind boggling tools to make the composition and music sound
better [a relative term]. There are also these domestic versions from Casio
and Yamaha PSR models. It is an ocean out there; you need define your fishing
area.
Though the keyboard market today is filled with
heterogeneous types, the basics terminology used in every type is almost
same. Each sound in a keyboard is called as a patch or a program. General
midi suggests 128 slots for patches, meaning. GM compliant keyboards will
have standards to address 128 patches. A patch has a various parameters –
volume, sound number and many more. First generation GM keyboards provided
only 128 sounds max, Yep a serious bottle neck. However God interfered again
and sorted this out quickly. , God added one more addressing parameter for
the patch called “Bank”, when addressing a patch – a Bank Name/Number + Patch
number would be used. In Database terms God changed the Primary key to reach
a patch.
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Seeing this push
from God, Humans got creative, next big change was the arrival of the Multi-Timberal keyboards. This sent the music world towards
something spectacular. What is a Multi-Timberal
keyboard? A keyboard that can play 16 midi channels simultaneously; and how
about this - Each channel can be controlled separately. Yes! 16 channels mean
16 different instruments per keyboard, one person band.
Remember our
keyboard companion “Señorita Secuencia”
- Using sequencers musicians started to control 16 channels of a Multi-Timberal keyboard directly. This is when the sequencers
gained an immense popularity. Sequencers provided interface to select channel
number, assign instrument number etc, stored music in different tracks and
permitted user editing. This whole setup can also be saved on a floppy disk.
All said and done the first generations of Sequencers were crude and complex
to use. They were separate unit with dimly lit 1 line LCD display. They came
with multi function buttons and edit options. The most popular one I have
used is the Roland MC50 series sequencers. This had power to handle 8 midi
channels. And frankly when compared to modern day ones, the first generation
sequencers were a tough cookie to master.
Seeing musicians
struggle, at the end of second day God said “thee humans,” Thy pain will be
soon over - world would change”, Birth of MPU 401 silicon chip! Entire
scenario changed when Roland gave the MPU401 Chip. Roland MPU 401 is the
de-facto standard for MIDI interfaces on
Computers. Using this you can connect midi gadgets to a computer. With such a
power at disposal, it was matter of time for inspired human beings to create
Software based sequencers.
Twelve tone
system’s Cakewalk and midi man’s MPU401 card were the popular software
hardware combination I owned, [8 bit PC card]. , I had a PC/XT, Around 90’s I
was a proud owner of this card and software, at the same period Turtle
Beaches [another company] introduced some more serious cards with wav table
synthesis and daughter board combinations. It was out of my middle class
reach.
To me this was clearly
a birth of a new era, a paradigm shift in how I am going to make music in
future. Imo, when it comes to sequencing, Cakewalk [Sonar]–would be most
powerful and complete midi sequencer. They have come a long way in this
industry Their initial versions provided about 128 tracks and supported
various others features that is popular even today, which we will discuss
soon.
Next Creating a domestic
midi setup or I call it the simple midi setup;
All Rights Reserved
(c) Srikanth Devarajan,
Unauthorized copying or re-publishing of this article is prohibited, you have
license to learn! And pass it on to others with the authors name intact. If
you want to syndicate this, kindly contact me at srikanthD
at gmail.
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