My T2L settings of sounds are lost in Dexibell Combo J7

[NonTrendyGuy]

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?

[AnotherScott]

The fact that you can only save 36 custom sounds is one of the biggest limitations of the Dexibell. However, you can swap in different sets of 36 from an attached USB thumb drive, so it's workable if you have known set lists and don't need more than 36 custom sounds per set. (Plus, of course, besides those 36, you can always recall the factory sounds from the front panel as needed.) The Vox Continental used to be the skimpiest board of its type in this respect, supporting only 16 saved user locations, but since the 2.0 system update, they're at 64, leaving Dexibell as the holder of this dubious distinction. Numa Compact 2/2X, Roland VR09/VR730, Hammond SK1 have 100; Yamaha YC61/73/88 have 160; and numerous boards have lots more.

 

And yes, the 36 saved sounds are similar to Korg Combis, Kurzweil Multis/Setups, Casio Registrations, Yamaha Performances (pre Montage, when there was a separate Voice mode), Roland FA Studio Sets, etc.... they include all split/layer info, and recalling one will recall all that saved split/layer info.

 

Many keyboards do let you save customized individual sounds as well as customized full multi-sound setups, but some, like the Dexibell, only do the latter, and the only way to save a single customized sound is to save it as a multi-sound setup that just happens to have only one sound in it. Other boards that work the way the Dexibell does include the Yamaha YC61/73/88 and CP73/CP88, Nord Electro, Vox Continental, Numa Compact 2/2X, Roland VR09/VR730, Hammind SK1, some Casios. And yes, it limits the ability to mix-and-match customized sounds, you can't really do it on the fly.

 

All that said, my time with the Dexibell was limited, and it's not impossible that I missed something. But the above is my understanding/recollection.

[NonTrendyGuy]

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.

[NonTrendyGuy]

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.

[AnotherScott]

IIRC, each of the 36 Dexibell user memories includes not only all the settings for your saved combination of internal sounds, but also up to 4 zones' worth of external sounds, so yes, an external sound source gives you that much more flexibility. In this case, whatever that external source is, you'd have to make sure it had a setting to make its strings non-velocity-sensitive. Besides an SX7, that external sound source could be any sound module at all, or an iPhone or iPad, whatever.

 

Latency is essentially a non-issue when driving external hardware modules, but it can become a factor when driving a sound from a laptop or iOS device. Either way, though, you are correct that with a non-percussive soft-attack sound like strings, it's not something you really need to worry about. Your fingers are unlikely to notice a string or pad sound coming in 10 milliseconds later, whereas it would be much more apparent if you were playing a piano sound.

[NonTrendyGuy]

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.

[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.

[Delaware Dave]

This is how most synths work. the problem with the J7 is its limited number of user-defined slots, plus about a dozen other issues i found when i demo'd it.

[AnotherScott]

This is how most synths work.

While there are indeed many boards that work this way (I listed a bunch earlier), I'm not sure it's "most"... or at least there are also a whole lot of boards that DO let you save your own customized sounds in their "single sound" mode, rather than only in their "multi sound" mode, so you can recall/split/layer your customized individual sounds at will. For example, every Korg workstation allows you to save, not only user Combis, but also user Programs. Almost all Kurzweil boards have supported this (all but the really low-end ones), though sometimes the computer editor is required. All the Yamaha Motifs, as well as Montage/MODX (their architecture is a little different, but you can still accomplish the task at hand). Lots of Rolands, including Juno DS and FA.