A making of a concert - Episode 3: keyboards programming

Hi everyone !
This post follows the previous one about choosing gear.
I finally know which gear I'll use. I chose to use only one keyboard, my Kurzweil PC3.

Now is the time to program the keyboard, but what does that mean ?

In music, programming is used for several things:
- Programming could be the process of creating or editing a sound
- Programming could be the process to create a sequence of sounds (that is widely used on drum programming)
- Programming could be the process of setting up the hardware for live. It includes many things, including sounds changes, sequences, effects parameters ...
This post is about this last programming process. This summer, I will do a little series of mini tutorials about synthesis, in which I will tell you how to make a sound from scratch.

Multis , splits and layers
These are complicated words which require explanations, since they are the basics of programming.
A keyboard has several modes of operation:
- We are talking about single or sound mode when using a single sound (a piano, for example).
- When it comes to use multiple sounds, we talk about multi mode, and of course, it is possible to use sounds together or each one on a portion of the keyboard.
- The word layer is used when multiple tones are played together at the same time, on the same zones of the keyboard.
- If a part of the keyboard uses one sound, and another one uses another sound, we say that the keyboard is splited into several zones.
Obviously, it is possible to combine several splits and layers.

Action!
I am now going to explain a "multi" programming with a concrete example for the concert of Clara Neville.
Let's see the programming I made for the song "Je t'aime à bout portant"
On this song, I need a Wurlitzer electric piano sound, a Rhodes electric piano sound, and some strings. Wurlitzer and Rhodes play on the verses, but not at the same time .
Rhodes and strings play on the chorus.
- As the Wurlitzer only plays on the verses, alone, it will have its own zone, my keyboard is now splited into two zones
- The Rhodes and strings layers will be on another zone.

The four sounds that I use, with their respective zones.

But it's not finished yet. To make some evolutions during the song, specially during the choruses, I chose to add another sound, some synthetic strings (the "buzzy strings").

So here are the sounds:



Everything is under control !
On the Rhodes track, you can hear tremolo and distortion effects. They are all controlled live . A modulation wheel allows me to control the tremolo depth, and a fader allows me to manage distortion. These are the same controls for the Wurlitzer sound.
I also use other faders to handle the volume of each part.

The PC3's 9 faders, 2 modulation wheels, and the delay pedal.

In addition to that, I chose to add a delay effect (in this case, my Eventide TimeFactor pedal) . It also can be controlled. I control two parameters: the effect ON/OFF, and the mix setting, a mix between the normal sound and the repetitions (I control this via a pedal).
So here are the results on a chorus with in order:
Rhodes, then I add the strings layer, the synthetic strings layer, then I turn the delay on, and I raise the mix level, then I gradually go back to the Rhodes sound. It's not very fine, but you have an idea !



The same kind of job is done for every songs. The next step is to check that everything is fine in rehearsals...