NonTrendyGuy

I've just emailed Dexibell about this. They confirmed that if you customise a sound, then select a different sound, then select the first sound again, it will have the factory default settings, not the customised settings. The only way of storing the customised settings for reuse later is to use memories. And of course this will have the disadvantages that we've already discussed.

Thanks ever so much for the information. It's so useful for someone new to this type of equipment to be able to learn from more experienced guys such as yourself. I might put out a general question inviting strings fans to suggest their favourite MIDI box for generating quality string sounds. By the way, I had a quick peak at your video. I'm definitely going to give myself 40 minutes to watch it in full one evening.

The clarinet example I gave in the original message was a hypothetical one. I chose it in order to illustrate the problem as clearly as possible. The thing that's most important to me is to be able to make orchestral strings non-velocity sensitive; ie no matter how hard you hit the key, they always sound the same - exactly the opposite of a piano. Imaging playing piano chords with soft strings coupled in. For expressive purposes, you might play a sequence of piano chords louder, then another sequence quieter. Meanwhile you want the strings to simply play the harmonies softly without variation in loudness. Then later in the music you want the piano to hold a long chord while the strings gradually swell up in loudness. Similar example might be a harp coupled to strings, or an acoustic guitar. For all this to take place the orchestral strings must be non-velocity sensitive, and under the control of an expression pedal. To make the strings non-velocity sensitive you have to customise them by changing their T2L settings, and as we previously agreed, to later recall those settings they have to be in a global memory. Would an external MIDI box help here? For example Dexibell produce one called SX7. You could set up a selection of string sounds in the memory, along with the correct customisations (T2L settings), and have the expression pedal plugged into the MIDI box. The MIDI box would only be used for strings, and all other sounds would be produced by the synthesiser. The original problem (that the action of recalling a memory changes every setting in the device) is now confined to the MIDI box. Therefore you can recall a memory for a certain string sound, and all the sounds you've set up in the synthesiser and other settings in the synthesiser are left unchanged. You can therefore play the synthesiser in any mix-and-match way you want on the fly. Being so new to electronic keyboards, I hardly have any knowledge about MIDI boxes. Can you tell me if the above logic is correct? From a little bit of searching on the internet I"ve gathered that MIDI can suffer from timing delays and inconsistencies in the delays (referred to as latency and jitter). Am I right in supposing that with mushy sounding strings, this won't be noticeable? Also, do you know which MIDI box will make the nicest sounding orchestral strings; ie as close as possible to the sound of a real orchestra. Dexibell's strings are just about acceptable, but they do sound slightly "electronic". It would be nice to have the option of baroque strings as well. It would also be nice if the MIDI box saved the customised settings for each sound, rather than making you rely on global memories. Thanking you in advance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for such a comprehensive reply (and so quick). I had wondered if I'd misunderstood something in the manual. I'd also tried to find the answer on the internet, and made very little progress. It looks like it's a genuine limitation of the Dexibell. I had no idea that the same limitation is present in so many other synthesisers. It looks like the best approach is to set up in advance a collection of memories for each piece, and assume that trying to change things on the fly (ie while playing a piece) could lead to undesirable or surprising consequences.

I have recently become the happy owner of a Dexibell Combo J7. I have begun experimenting making alterations to the sounds, using what Dexibell calls the T2L editor. However if I select a different sound, then come back to the original sound, all the settings I made are lost, and the default settings are restored. If I save to one of the synthesiser"s memories (of which a total of 36 are available), then I recall that memory, my settings are brought back, but such a scheme of working has many drawbacks. The immediately obvious drawback is that I might want to reserve the 36 memories for complicated set-ups for certain pieces of music, so I don't want to waste then on minor issues like how I re-voiced a certain sound. After all I might want to re-voice dozens of different sounds. But more importantly, saving settings to one of the synthesiser's memories saves every setting for every aspect of the instrument. Suppose you had re-voiced the clarinet sound (ie made alterations to its settings using the T2L editor) and were playing the tune on the clarinet on the upper part of the keyboard while accompanying it with a guitar sound on the lower part of the keyboard. A minute later in the music you change the upper part of the keyboard to a trumpet sound. A bit later you change the lower part of the keyboard to an accordion sound. Suppose even later in the music, you want to change the upper part of the keyboard back to a clarinet sound, if you simply select the clarinet sound, the clarinet that you get will have the default settings, not the setting that you painstakingly set up yourself. However, if just before starting to play the piece you had saved the synthesiser's setting to one of the memories, and then at a late stage in the music recalled that memory, sure enough you'd get back the clarinet sound with your own settings, but the lower part of the keyboard would revert to the guitar sound, which you didn't want because you'd deliberately changed to an accordion sound. Does that all make sense? It's all because each of the 36 memories is a global memory of all the settings in the synthesiser. Does anyone know how to make permanent any alterations you make to a sound (using the T2L editor), so that when you select that sound again it still retains your own settings?

Thank you bfields and AnotherScott for pointing out the possible problem with a 61 note keyboard. I hadn't thought of it before, but if I'm going to split the keyboard and sometimes play the right hand with a sub-octave transposer on, I could run off the top of a 61 note keyboard. I studied the details of many of the suggested makes, and found it a bit confusing trying to understand how one gets multiple sounds set up (eg for a split). Also I couldn't see how to set them up so that they play the "pedal" division from the keyboard (ie the leftmost note played on the keyboard invokes the sounds selected for pedals in addition to the sounds selected for keyboard). I think this is sometimes referred to as "auto-bass" or "auto-pedal". From now on I will call it "auto-pedal" because "auto-bass" also has another meaning (referring to the machine composing a bass line, such as 12-bar blues). Then I looked at the Dexibell Classico L3, and it shone out like a bright light. Thank you analogman1 for suggesting it. It has the ability to select individual sounds with the press of a single button, and to combine them by selecting more than one button. It has "auto-pedal". It also has some combination pistons that work in the same way as on a church organ. But it does seem like an electronic church organ which has timidly dipped its toes into the world of orchestral sounds, which is opposite way round from what I wanted. There aren't that many orchestral sounds, and from reading a customer review I learned that some of the orchestral sounds are deliberately made monophonic, so that they only work on the rightmost note played on the keyboard, with the result that they reinforce the tune line. This would sometimes be useful, but I would like it as an option that can be turned on and off. Then I looked at the Dexibell Combo J7. Thank you AnotherScott and Radagast for suggesting it. It also has "auto-pedal", but doesn't have the other features I just described about the Dexibell Classico L3. The Combo J7 obviously requires many more key presses than the Classico L3 to set up the sounds for a layer or a split. However, I think I can gradually get used to its method of setting things up. And from listening to some demos on YouTube, it seems to have an incredible selection of very appealing sounds. This looks like my best option, and I will arrange to try one out. I will also try out the Dexibell Classico L3.

Wow! That's an amazing response! I've never posted to this kind of forum before. I didn't realise that I'd receive so many useful replies. It's Monday now, so of course I'm busy, but I will use my spare time over the next few days to investigate all the suggestions that you've made. You'll be hearing back from me soon. Once again, thanks a million.

Thanks for bringing theses points up. I don't want weighted hammer-action keyboard, as I'll probably be spending most of the time playing non-piano sounds, and to me hammer-action only feels right when playing piano sounds. I hadn't thought as far as realising that I'd be saving weight by that. By the way, 10 kg limit was just a wish. I may well have to put up with more weight than that. I didn't explain the "sounds in any combination" bit very well. I was thinking in terms of what you get on a church organ (which I've played a bit in the past). For example you might have a stop labelled "Flute", a stop labelled "Oboe", and lots of other stops. If you pull out the "Flute" stop, you play on the ranks of flute pipes. If you pull out the "Oboe" stop, you play on the rank of oboe pipes. If you pull out both stops together, you play on both the flute pipes and the oboe pipes at the same time. Likewise, any combination of the other stops available on that organ. I was wondering if any manufacturer had followed this type of scheme for sampled orchestral instruments. I've been doing more exploring round the web in the last few hours, and I get the impression that this is not the case with synthesisers. They tend to have samples labelled "Soft Strings", "Strings", "Full Brass", "Full Orchestra" etc, and you just pick one of these at a time. I was hoping to have the option to get the instrument to play the bottom note of chord played on the keyboard with extra deep sounds. Glancing at some websites, I see that the deep sounds are labelled "pedal section", or something similar. I may have confused people in the way I described this. I wasn't envisaging getting in instrument with a built-in pedalboard, as this would stop it being portable. Cheers, NonTrendyGuy.

As I'm so new to this area, it's hard to put an exact budget on it, but roughly speaking I could reckon on up to $2500 for the basic instrument (and allow a bit extra for accessories like sustain and expression pedals and a stand etc). But if I can find a satisfactory instrument for much less than this, I'll be really happy. I'm in England, but I assume that the range of instruments available is usually the same whichever country you are in, so I'll happily study responses from people all over the world.

I am completely new to electronic keyboards, and I've been looking around the web and getting very confused. Perhaps you could help me to start going in the right direction. I'm planning to buy a keyboard that will play orchestral sounds. I don't expect to find a keyboard with everything on my wish-list, but hopefully I'll find one with a fair amount that's right for me. This is my wish-list: - A variety of orchestral sounds, accessible via a simple action (ie not by delving into a menu system each time). - The ability to use these sounds in any combination, in the same way that church organ sounds can be used in any combination. - If it isn't possible to use the sounds in combination, then a good selection of ready-made combinations should be provided. - Piano sound. - Harpsichord sound. - Some church organ sounds, at least a stopped flute 8'. - The ability to split the keyboard for playing accompaniment and solo line. - A pedal section playable from the keyboard (ie deep bass notes for the bottom of a chord). - Something comparable to a church organ's combination pistons (ie the ability to quickly recall a collection of settings). I do not need to have any facility for laying down tracks and then playing along with such tracks - I simply want to play music "straight" onto the keyboard, often accompanying a singer or an acoustic instruments. I won't be playing large-scale piano compositions on it, so there is no need for an 88 note keyboard. I'm sure a 61 note keyboard will be big enough. The instrument must be portable. I'll be extremely happy if it weighs 10 kg or less, but I accept that such an instrument may be quite a bit heavier than this. Please can anyone point me in the right direction at least, even if you don't wish to single out an exact instrument. I will be grateful for any suggestions. Thanking you in advance.