Korg Karma - Page 51

- 51 -
27. How can I mute/unmute tracks in the sequencer
automatically? I have 4 tracks with drum kit programs, and I
recorded a simple rhythm to each track and set them to loop.
The thing I want to do, is in the beginning of the song, make
ONLY the first track play, then in measure 3, the second track
will start playing, then in measure 5, the third, and in measure 7,
the fourth track.
There several ways you could accomplish this.
First of all, you can’t mute/unmute the tracks (i.e. by using the Mute
Track function) except by doing it manually (you can’t make the
sequencer do it automatically at preset times).
(1) Volume “Envelopes” are one method. Really, this just means
inserting CC 07 (Volume) messages in the tracks at the places where you
want to “hide” the sounds. In other words, if you insert a CC07 Message
of “0” in a track, it turns the volume down to 0, and you no longer hear
it. Set it to “127” or some other value somewhere else, and it “turns on.”
However, this interferes with the normal volume settings you make on
the “Mix” Page, so it makes it difficult to adjust your levels later. So
instead, use CC 11 (Expression), which is like a second Volume control,
except it is independent and relative to the actual Volume setting, so
regardless of what you do with CC 11, you can still use the regular Track
Volume setting to Mix the tracks later.
So in your example, on Track 2, you would insert a CC 11 “0” at the
beginning of the Track, then at Bar 3 insert a CC 11 “127”.
☞ Parameter Guide, Page 96 explains how to use Track Edit to insert
and delete individual events. You want to insert “Control Change (CC)”
messages.
A problem with this approach is that if you are looping say 24 bars, then
it will repeat the build-up over and over, not just one time at the
beginning of the song. If this is not what you want, you need to use the
“Repeat Measure” UTILITY on Track Edit (☞ Parameter Guide, Page 99)
to copy the 4 tracks a number of times so you can turn looping off and
just play the song once from the beginning. Another problem is that
turning Volume or Expression off “hides” the data so you can’t hear it,
but it still uses polyphony.
(2) Another method is just to erase the data where you don’t want to hear
it. In other words, first use the “Repeat Measure” UTILITY to copy the 4
tracks a number of times so that you have a song’s worth of rhythm