KB Trans mode - small alteration request

[Saltech]

Hi, Regarding the KB Trans mode, would it be possible to allow the black keys to actually play "wrong" / non-diatonic notes, instead of just doubling up on the nearest "right" note? I'm thinking that the best way to implement this would be for the black keys to play one semitone down from the next white key. This would allow you to play "out" and then back "in" as a great way to jazz up a solo and also to use the black keys for passing notes and slurs. It wouldn't take away from the 'safety' of playing in transpose mode - you'd just need to stick to the white keys for that, but it would open up a whole lot of expressive jazz / blues potential for soloing over a chord or chord progression.

[Jesse Johannesen]

Neat idea, but doesn't the placement of the black keys only line up with the white keys in a few modes/scales? Like if we're in Am then there is a Black key between 1&2, 3&4, 4&5, 6&7, and 7&8, so these wouldn't align with the existing key placement. It would be cool to have a way to just transpose a number of semitones, like we have on the MRCC, so that you could just play whatever scale shape in C and have it output MIDI transposed to the Root you are set to, although I can see that becoming a little bit confusing too.

[House de Kris]

Hi, Regarding the KB Trans mode, would it be possible to allow the black keys to actually play "wrong" / non-diatonic notes, instead of just doubling up on the nearest "right" note? I'm thinking that the best way to implement this would be for the black keys to play one semitone down from the next white key. This would allow you to play "out" and then back "in" as a great way to jazz up a solo and also to use the black keys for passing notes and slurs. It wouldn't take away from the 'safety' of playing in transpose mode - you'd just need to stick to the white keys for that, but it would open up a whole lot of expressive jazz / blues potential for soloing over a chord or chord progression.

I'm starting off by stating right away that I don't work for Conductive Labs, so my answer does not reflect their official view. It's just that this post has languished here for over 48 hours and no one has responded to it yet. The horror of it all.

I'm not sure your suggestion would work as you envision it. I made a quick graphic to illustrate the issue I see with your request.



The left side represents the keyboard you play, and it sends data to the NDLR on a channel that is processed by KB Trans, and then goes on to your desired synth. If the NDLR were set to C Ionian (Major), what is sent to the synth is the same data as played on the keyboard. In this case, your suggestion of allowing black keys for jazzy accidentals works, and is indicated by the parenthetical notes offset to the right a bit. All is good. Now, let's consider what happens if the NDLR is set to F# Ionian. Again, the black keys are denoted by parenthetical notes offset to the right. (Please excuse the error is this column for the response to A# being pressed, it should be E, not D as in the graphic.) So far, so good. Finally, let's consider if the NDLR is set to some mode other than Ionian, in the example supplied, Dorian. Suddenly, this idea of allowing "wrong" black keys to jazz things up falls apart completely. If you were to hit the G# on the keyboard, it would give you a D (because that is between C# and D#). BUT, if you were to hit the A# key in your jazzy interlude, there is no accidental that the NDLR could supply that would give you a "wrong" note between D# and E. It would have to translate your jazzy "wrong" note into a "right" note. Thus, destroying any tip-o-the-hat to the world of jazz.

This is just a single example of a key and mode chosen at random. But, the important thing is, ANY mode other than Ionian will result in a couple black keys no longer adding jazzy spice to your playing. I could be wrong, but I feel this is probably why the NDLR was designed to only want white keys in the C-Maj key to be played as input to the KB Trans function. The feature of translating C-Maj playing into any other Key and Mode is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful features of the NDLR. You aren't the first to ask for accidentals in KB Trans, and probably won't be the last, either.

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Neat idea, but doesn't the placement of the black keys only line up with the white keys in a few modes/scales? Like if we're in Am then there is a Black key between 1&2, 3&4, 4&5, 6&7, and 7&8, so these wouldn't align with the existing key placement. It would be cool to have a way to just transpose a number of semitones, like we have on the MRCC, so that you could just play whatever scale shape in C and have it output MIDI transposed to the Root you are set to, although I can see that becoming a little bit confusing too.

Jeepers Jesse, you posted this at the same time I posted my response. I hang my head in shame for saying that the OP was allowed to languish for so long.

[Jesse Johannesen]

Ha! Nice timing, and great visual aide!

[Saltech]

Even with these limitations, I still think it would be better to have access to some 'wrong' notes rather than none. If they are there on the black keys via the "black key is one semitone lower than the next white key" formula then that's a win for jazziness, if the formula results in a repeated 'right' note because there is only a semitone between adjacent white notes for that part of that scale / mode, then that's where we are already and that's a neutral outcome. So, overall it's a win for Jazziness, not a perfect result, but perfection is not available and so this could be an example of “perfect is the enemy of good”.

Looking at the modes of the major scale, there are never less than 3 useful black keys (i.e. giving access to 'wrong' notes) - 3 out of 5. And for Lydian and Mixolydian there are 4 useful black keys. That's a 60% to 80% success rate for modes of the major scale, or to think of it slightly differently, access to 10 or 11 notes out of 12 of the chromatic scale. It's got to be worth a try as there's no downside - all the right notes are still there on the white keys if you want to play it safe, and one or two black keys would also give right notes, no loss there. But most of the black keys would add the jazz / dissonance / tension which is essential for that 'tension / release' thing which works so well in music. I think it could be good fun - all the 'in' stuff on the white keys and all the dangerous tones set aside and locked to the black keys. Hit one if you like, then slide off to a white key like you know what you're doing...

[edit, for extra info] In this image below, whenever a W (for whole tone) lines up vertically with the W's in the C Ionian row, then the black key will work to give a useful non-diatonic note:



Thinking about it, there are only 2 places in a C major scale where the white notes are next to each other, so for all 7 note scales there would be a maximum of 2 notes unavailable / black keys which don't add Jazz - Except for any scales which include an interval of a tone and a half e.g. gypsy minor (2 usable black keys/ 'wrong' notes) and Harmonic minor (3 usable black keys / 'wrong' notes).

[Jesse Johannesen]

I appreciate that it may add ~some~ useful access to notes, and I can see the potential, however when determining whether to add new functionality one of the most important questions we have to ask is "Does this modification make the device more difficult to use or less?" and in this case I'm afraid that it would add more questions than it would answer, and for this reason, I don't see this as being something we would likely change, at least for the time being.

Unfortunately the other limiting factor for modifying the NDLR is that the device memory is quite nearly full, and what we have left is mainly set aside as "just in case" for bug fixes.

That said, I could see making a keybed with 8 white keys and 8 black keys per octave, and maybe having some Root and Mode selection keys to change between them on the fly while keeping the White keys as "In Scale" keys and each black key would be one note above or below the next white key each direction (or something). It would be nice to have a keybed like those Keith McMillan soft keyboards...

[duncanrmi]

I wish it could process more incoming channels & force them to scale. I want to use it to straighten out a doepfer maq sequencer, which has three channels of purely chromatic note output, which is a bit high-risk when you use it on stage like we do.

I've used a number of strategies in the past- creating special patches in synths that allow custom scales, using a sequentix P3 to process the maq into whatever scale the P3 is set to, lately a blokas midihub....

[Jesse Johannesen]

This would be a cool idea for a product. Just a MIDI filter with a 12 note keyboard of buttons to select the notes and all MIDI through is constrained to the given scale.