Kurzweil PC3K6, Musician'S Manual

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Program Mode
The COMMON Page
Pitch Bend Range Up and Down
Use these parameters to define how much the pitch will change when you move your Pitch
Wheel. For both Pitch Bend Range parameters, positive values will cause the pitch to bend up,
while negative values will cause the pitch to bend down. Large positive values can cause
samples to bend to their maximum upward pitch shift before the Pitch Wheel is fully up (or
down). This will not happen when bending pitch down.
Monophonic
When off, the program is polyphonic—it can play up to 128 notes at a time. Notice that when the
Monophonic parameter is off, the LegatoPlay parameter and the three Portamento parameters
do not appear on the COMMON page. This is because only monophonic programs can use
portamento.
When On, the program will play only one note at a time. This makes it possible to use and to
determine the behavior of the portamento feature. Do not set Ignore Release On (page 6 ‐ 25)
when you are using Monophonic programs, since the lack of Note Off messages will prevent
you from switching programs properly.
Legato Play
When Legato Play is on, a note will play its attack only when all other notes have been released.
This is useful for realistic instrumental sounds.
Portamento
This parameter is either on or off. The default value of Off means that portamento is disabled
for the current program.
Portamento is a glide between pitches. On actual acoustic instruments like violin and bass, it’s
achieved by sliding a finger along a vibrating string. On most keyboards that offer portamento,
it’s achieved by holding down a key that triggers the starting note, then striking and releasing
other keys. The pitch glides toward the most recently triggered note, and remains at that pitch as
long as the note remains on. The PC3K gives you two ways to get portamento. See the Attack
Portamento parameter below.
When you’re applying large amounts of portamento to multi ‐ sampled sounds (Acoustic Guitar,
for example), the PC3K will play more than one sample root as the pitch glides from the starting
pitch to the ending pitch. This may cause a small click at each sample root transition. You can
reduce the number of clicks you’ll hear by entering the Program Editor and adjusting the
KeyTrk parameter on both the KEYMAP and PITCH pages. The quickest way is to set the
KeyTrk value on the KEYMAP page to 0 , and to 100 on the PITCH page. This will stretch the
sample root that plays at C 4 across the entire keyboard. Now any amount of portamento will
play only one sample root, and the clicks will disappear.