Which real time controls do you use while playing?

[funkyhammond]

3 hours ago, Jose EB5AGV said:

I already own three FC-7

Ah, ok, when you said an expression pedal was in order it sounded like maybe you didn't have one yet. In actuality, you can set up two and still have a backup. You're all set!

[NewImprov]

In my "normal" bands, playing funk, rock and reggae, I use expression pedals and aftertouch a lot on my synth leads, since I usually have to solo while still keeping chords going on rhodes or organ, I don't have a hand free for pitch or mod wheels. I love having a lot of expressive control over leads and having a lot of modulation available. I'll use aftertouch for vibrato, and expression for other parameters, often filter, sometimes, PWM on a square wave lead. One of the things I've been playing with lately is triggering a new random value for the the vibrato LFO, so every note has a slightly different vibrato speed, and using aftertouch for the depth.

 

On my experimental gigs, I bring my Touche, which is an amazing and intuitive controller.

[Bill W]

On 6/23/2024 at 10:37 PM, Moonglow said:

I’m not sure I understand how this works, can you please explain/give an example? When I need lower or higher notes, I use octave shift or change to an adjacent patch that contains the range of notes I need. Thanks!

I play guitar and keys and I use those two switches to trigger samples with my foot when I'm doing things that tie up my hands, such as the vibraslap at the beginning of Crazy Train, the clapping in More Than a Feeling choruses, and that fast chromatic synth run in Take on Me as it heads back into a verse after the middle section. The Logidy comes with software that lets you set each of the 3 switches to notes or CC messages.

[vonnor]

Well... I'm afraid my answer is a far departure from what most players consider to be "Real Time Controls"

 

Since I use Cantabile3 live MIDI/VST host on a Win10 laptop to control all patch-changes, layers, splits, etc., I run with LOCAL-CONTROL=OFF on both my boards, And I really prefer to only touch keys and PB/MOD thingies during performance,  here are some of the crazy "Real-Time Controls" I have implemented:

 

1. Livin' On a Prayer: I have one routing setup on my NS3 for the intro and select it by pushing the MOD wheel past 64, then for the rest of the song as I chop the synth chords on the Kronos I return the Nord MOD wheel to zero which sets it up for the high strings line, the bridge and chorus.

 

2. Alone (Heart): Before start, I rock the Nord's FC-7 pedal to full on - which layers the bigass synth over the EP - but then I hit the Kronos damper pedal which sets the bigass synth layer's volume to zero. I start the intro with just the EP sound on the NS3. When the bridge/chorus hits and everybody comes in balls-to-the-wall on the Dm, I have the D3 key on the Nord triggering a volume command to set the synth layer back to 127. After the chorus, I slowly rock the FC-7 to fade out the synth layer and get to just EP for the 2nd verse. Leaving the FC-7 at zero - but when the next bridge-to-chorus part hits, the low D note also instantly sets the synth layer to 127 and it's balls-to-the-wall time again.

 

3. One Thing Leads To Another: I use the nord's FC-7 to control a filter/sync-sweep morph. The FC-7 sends only midi cc11 events to Cantabile, which maps them to cc01 (Mod) and sends them back to the Nord, which thinks someone is fiddling with the mod wheel and the morph works accordingly.

 

4. You Give Love a Bad Name: On the tail end of the intro there's a synth walk-down that repeats twice. My technical proficiency disallows for playing it manually, so I setup a midi delay where every other note triggers from the note I play in the C blues scale. The audience hears the run just like the record, but I'm not playing it just like the record. This echo triggering is only active when the nord FC-7 pedal is at zero. After the intro I rock the pedal back to 127 so it's ready for the synth hits that come before the 2nd verse.

 

I came from the mid 80's full-time touring, and MIDI was a fascination of mine. Since around 1988 I have always run my rig through a MIDI hub of some sort (Digital Music MX-8 with Midi Mitigator floor controller back then). So my brain tend to think in terms of MIDI events that can be passed around from ANY controller to ANY sound source live... even if the sound source(s) is/are in the same instrument as the controller (keys, levers, wheels, pedals, switches, etc), like in the Kronos or the Nord.

 

~ vonnor