Ready to play: macros, Set pads and safety

01Set pads and songs

A Set pad is a snapshot of what plays: Patch 1 and Patch 2 whole, their mix and the tempo. Press it and everything comes back at once. Play has four pages of 16 pads, 64 setups in all, at the top of the screen.

Figure 2.5.1

Set pads, songs and recent sounds

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1. Pages 1 to 4 16 pads each
2. Arrows the pad before or after
3. Seamless switch the old sound rings on
4. Rings on or fades out over a time
5. Wheel what the mod wheel does
6. Gig check the set and the rig, before the gig
7. Export, Import, Load sets as files
8. The pad that plays an asterisk once you change it
9. Song the setlist, its note to you
10. Stage view big type for the stage
11. Songs build the setlist
12. Recent the last sounds you loaded

• Recall: click a pad, or press 1 to 9 and 0 for pads 1 to 10 of the page shown. The pad that plays lights up; an asterisk shows once what plays differs from it.
• Store: right-click a pad for Snapshot what plays, Name this pad and Clear.
• Seamless switch on: when you change pads, held notes and the old sound’s delay and reverb tails ring on while new notes play the new pad. The menu beside it chooses whether the old sound rings on or fades out over a time you set.
• A MIDI button, a footswitch or Program Change 1 to 64 can recall the pads too, so your hands never leave the keys.

Under the pads, the Song row steps through your setlist: each song is a list of pads with a note to yourself, and the arrows walk through them in order. Songs opens the setlist to build it; Recent lists the sounds you loaded last, the newest first, one tap to bring one back.

02Stage view

Stage view shows what you need to read from a distance, in big type: the pad and song that play, both patches, what comes next, the time and any warning. Night tints it red and dims it for a dark stage, and Esc brings Play back.

Figure 2.5.2

Stage view

03Macros, the Super Knob and the stage knobs

A macro is one knob that moves several controls of a sound at once: brightness, space, movement, whatever the sound’s designer chose. Each sound has eight, set up in Edit; Play shows 4 or 8 of them (Routing, Stage Settings), right under the Set pads.

Figure 2.5.3

Eight macros and the Super Knob

• The Super Knob, beside the macros, turns the linked macros of both patches at once: one move for the whole setup.
• MIDI Learn puts a macro on a knob of your controller.

Further down, the Stage knobs work on any sound, with no setup at all: Cutoff moves every filter up to 3 octaves either way, Attack and Release make the amp envelope up to 8 times faster or slower, Energy makes the sound brighter and more driven together, and Delay Mix and Reverb Mix set the shared effects. Each starts at the center, the sound as designed, with every new sound or pad; Reset puts them all back. P1, P2 and Both choose which patch they move.

Figure 2.5.4

XY · performance and the Stage knobs

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1. XY pad drag: two macros at once
2. Center the puck back to the middle
3. Trackpad move it without a click (/)
4. Creative tools variations of the sound, MIDI Learn
5. Physics Off, Glide or Gravity
6. X and Y each axis’s macro and range
7. P1, P2, Both which patch the knobs move
8. Reset every knob back
9. Cutoff, Attack, Release from the center, the sound as designed
10. Energy brighter and driven together
11. Delay Mix, Reverb Mix the shared effects
12. MIDI Learn a knob of your controller

Module 14 shows how to build macros for your own sounds. The course patches keep theirs at zero, so that what you hear is exactly what each lesson describes.

04The switches you reach for mid-song

Figure 2.5.5

FX and EQ

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1. Inserts each layer’s two, a tap each
2. Delay the shared delay on or off
3. House EQ Low, Mid, High for the room
4. C centers all three
5. Fade out everything, smoothly
6. No Pedal this patch ignores the pedal
7. Hold released notes ring on
8. Split Patch 1 below a key, Patch 2 above
9. Chord one key plays a chord
10. P1 and P2 which patch plays it

Two rows hold the switches a song may need while your hands are on the keys:

• FX: each layer’s two insert effects, one tap to switch each on or off, and the shared Delay (it becomes a Slow/Fast switch while a rotary speaker runs).
• EQ: the house EQ, for the room and your rig, not for the sound: Low below 180 Hz, Mid from 180 Hz to 1.2 kHz, High above 1.2 kHz, each ±12 dB. It stays as you set it whichever sound plays; C centers all three.
• Fade out fades everything out smoothly; the next note plays at full. No Pedal makes the patch in focus ignore the sustain pedal (a bass under a pedaled piano). Hold keeps released notes and arpeggios ringing until you switch it off.
• Split: tap it, then play a key, and Patch 1 plays below that key, Patch 2 from it up. Tap again to have both over the whole keyboard.
• Chord: hold a chord and press it, and every key then plays that chord built on it; P1 and P2 choose which patch plays the chord.

05Watching, looping and playing by hand

The rest of Play is for seeing and playing the sound:

• Live output: the whole output over the last ten seconds, its spectrum, a third display (stereo, harmonics or a waterfall), and the meters with the loudness in LUFS. Module 1 explains each picture.
• Loop: a looper with overdubs, free or 1 to 8 bars, synced to your first note, with a count-in and a click.
• The instrument: a picture of the patch in focus, as an instrument: a synth’s oscillators and filter, a piano’s strings, an organ’s drawbars.
• XY · performance: drag in the pad to move two macros at once, one per axis; Physics lets the puck glide or fall when you throw it, and the / key lets the trackpad move it without a click.
• The sound path of both patches, the voices that sound and the on-screen keyboard.

Figure 2.5.6

The looper and the instrument

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1. Loop record, play, overdub (Space)
2. Sync starts on your first note
3. Stop, Undo, Clear the loop and its last overdub
4. Mode Free, or 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars
5. Sets tempo the loop’s length sets it
6. Max a free loop’s longest
7. Click Off, Count-in or On
8. Level the loop under what you play
9. The instrument Patch 1’s layer A, here the Piano
10. Hide folds it away

06Safety on stage

Figure 2.5.7

Routing › Stage Settings and Audio output

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1. Master tune A = 440 Hz, or the band’s pitch
2. Macro knobs 4 or 8 on Play
3. Mono output one cable into a mono PA
4. Learned MIDI controls how a knob takes over
5. Program Change 1 to 64 recall the Set pads
6. Gig mode the Mac awake, KiMiA first
7. Setlist songs under the Set pads
8. Gig protection closing keeps playing
9. Lid closed stays awake, for the gig only
10. Output where the sound goes
11. Buffer the audio buffer, in frames
12. Voices 64 or 128 notes at once
13. Crackle guard keep it on

07Cheat sheet

08Try it

1. Snapshot. Load 02 · Split Bass and Pad into Patch 1. Right-click Set pad 1 and choose Snapshot what plays. Load another sound, then press 1.
2. Two pads. Snapshot 02 · Bell Pad Layers on pad 2, and switch between 1 and 2 while you hold a chord, with Seamless switch on and then off.
3. Stage knobs. Hold a chord on any sound and turn Cutoff, then Release. Press Reset.
4. Split on stage. Load a bass into Patch 1 and a pad into Patch 2, switch both on, press Split and play C3.
5. Prepare. Open Routing, find Stage Settings, and read what Gig mode and Gig protection say when you hover them. Then press Gig check.