OT: keyboard music paging, patch switching (was: Re: I'm going to write an Anziowin/scanning interface for filePro...)

[Fairlight]

Simon--er, no...it was Bob Rasmussen--said:
> I can see how that would work for a solo performance, but let me assure 
> you, middle school musicals are NOT that predictable! :-)

Nick is keyboardist for Duran Duran...it was done in a 5-piece lineup.

Then again, they'd been together for years, and they're used to playing
timed tightly to running sequencers...they -are- predictable.  

Point taken.  Just wanted to clarify that Nick wasn't solo.  :)

> I experimented several years ago with a laptop, turned sideways to get 
> portrait orientation. I actually found a USB-connected foot switch, and 
> rigged it to turn pages. I found that my foot was to clumsy, and I would 
> get multiple page-turns from a double-click, for instance, and would lose 
> my place. I'll have to look at the PC approach again, now that I have a 
> touch-enabled laptop and my own PDF viewer software.

So what keyboard(s) do you use?  :)

I've seen setups where you switch whole patch sets and layouts based on
foot pedals.  I really, -really- prefer not to, specifically for the reason
you cite...if you accidentally cycle past the one you want, you have to
cycle straight around the whole group of them to get back to the desired
one--unless you have a second "back" pedal, which I think is kind of a
waste of a pedal slot, even though my synth supports four.  

I prefer on-the-console buttons for this, and I don't even play live with
anyone else.  It's handy just when switching setups while playing with a
CD.  My synth has a quick-pick, where the numeric pad lets you select up
to 10 patches, or if you put whole setups into it, 10 setups...or a mix
of both.  And it has multiple banks (10, I think), so you can effectively
arrange up to 100 things to be accessed at the touch of a few buttons.
It's cool being able to switch patches with one keypress in mid-song, say
from strings to organ and back again.

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.