Tutorial: Song Mode
15-15
Part 7: Learning More About Song Mode
Factory ROM Songs
The PC3A includes a number of pre-recorded songs stored in the factory ROM. Investigate these
songs to see the possibilities of Song mode. Feel free to edit or add to any of these songs in order
to learn more about song mode. You can save the demo songs you’ve experimented with under
new ID numbers so that you can compare between your version and the original. Also, if you
replace a factory ROM song, you can revert to the original song by deleting the song using the
Song Mode
Delete
soft button.
Quantizing
Quantizing is a method of adjusting the timing of notes recorded into a sequence. It can be used
to
adjust note timing in order to fix mistakes in a performance, or to make notes adhere to a strict
timing grid as a stylistic choice (as in much modern electronic music.) Quantized notes have
technically perfect timing but tend to sound less like a human performance. Quantization can be
applied automatically to each track as it is recorded, or it can be applied after recording to only
specific selections. For details see the
Quant
parameter on
page 12-17
in the
Song Mode: The MISC
Page
section, and the
Quantize
function on
page 12-27
in the
Song Editor: Track Functions
section.
Creating Loops With The Big Time Page
On the Big Time page you can set the sequencer to loop a selection of bars. Set the
Loop
parameter to
Loop
, and set a time for the
Time In
and
Time Out
parameters. Now, pressing
Play/
Pause
on the front panel will cause your selection to play repeatedly and seamlessly. You will
most commonly want to set your Time In and Time Out points to equal an even number of bars
such as 2, 4, 8, etc. Recording into a looped section of bars is a common technique for recording
sequence based music. For example, with a drum program selected for a track, you could record
a drum part by playing one drum sound each time through a 2 bar loop, until the entire 2 bar
drum “beat” sounds complete.
Next, you could set the
RecMode
parameter to Unloop.
(To use the
UnLoop
setting, the
Loop
parameter must be set to
Loop
,
and a loop length must be set with the Time In and Time Out parameters
on the BIG page.)
With the RecMode parameter set to
Unloop
, any existing tracks will be played
back as if they were looping from the Time In to the Time Out point, but they are actually being
re-recorded linearly over absolute Bars and Beats until you press Stop. UnLoop allows you to
record a linear track over a short looping section without first having to copy the section over and
over again to achieve a new desired Song length. The End point of the Song is extended to the
downbeat of the (empty) Bar immediately following the last Bar you were recording when Stop
was pressed. See
RecMode
on page 12-11
for details.
You can also copy, paste, duplicate, or delete sections of the song if you want to reuse sections or
make sections shorter or longer (see
Song Editing And Structure With Track Functions
below for
details.) Keep in mind that you can loop any length of a song, and record into a loop with
multiple layers of instruments on different tracks. This is also a common method for recording
sequence based music, in which you create each section of your song from looped sequences, and
then arrange the loops into the desired order for your song’s structure. Afterwards you can make
variations to each section if you want the song to have less of a “looped” sound.