Acmp voices
The Acmp (accompaniment) Voices panel allows you to visualize, change and edit the 8 voices of the style parts.
Additionally you can set and manage the APG (Active Parts Group) bank for the current style (explained later).
Voice Panels
Click the ACMP VOICES button to select (bring in foreground) the Acmp Voices panel. If the button is already selected (highlighted) and you click it again, then also the Mixer will visualize the accompaniment parts (if not already shown). So that both views show the same thing.
The voices for the various parts are shown here, with their bank MSB:LSB:PC triplet and the voice type (regular, mega, super articulation, drumkit).
If a voice is missing (because a particular style does not use that part) the display shows “—“. Missing voices cannot be selected nor edited.
A voice customised for the current style section is shown with green background, a global (not customised) voice has white background. The currently selected voice (and the corresponding mixer strip, see next screenshot) are highlighted.
This label shows the name of the mixer strip the voice belongs to.
Clicking this button will open the Voice Editor panel for the corresponding voice.
APG buttons and panel (explained below).
OTS panel. This panel logically belongs to the Lead Voices, but nonetheless it is also shown here so that you can operate on it even when accessing Acmp voices.
Temporary Voice memory slots, explained here.
The highlighted voice and mixer strip are always in sync (selecting one will select the other altogether). There are 2 separate and independent selections: one for the acmp voices, and one for the lead voices. Each selection is displayed in the corresponding voice panel and mixer strip view.
Clicking on these buttons will highlight the mixer strip (and select the corresponding voice in the Acmp Voice panel).
To further make it clear which is which and what is going on, the volume meters are also shown in the Acmp Voice panel.
You can quickly balance the volume of Acmp voices and Lead voices with this slider. This setting is saved with the style. Anyway you should strive to get a “more or less” correct volume balance using each strip’s volume fader and balance knob.
This global balance fader is better used to momentarily place more emphasis on accompaniment vs lead voices, rather than fix a poor volume balance in the mixer.
Active Parts Group
For each acmp part you have a global SWITCH button that allows you to enable/disable (mute/unmute) that part. This button acts in series to the part ENABLE button (shown at the bottom of the mixer strip) and the MUTE button (shown below the Volume fader in the mixer strip).
To hear a part (voice) all these 3 buttons, being in series, must be “on” (= allow the part to play). But their use is different:
MUTE buttons operates globally at the mixer desk level: they maintain the last set state indefinitely, even when you change styles, OTSes, voices. They cannot be automated, you have to manually click them when you want to change their state. They are best used (in conjunction with their twins SOLO buttons) when you need to check in isolation a (few) mixer channel(s), without interference from the others. This is maintenance activity, useful for setup before going live in front of your audience.
ENABLE buttons can be customised for each section (for style parts) or for each OTS (for lead parts). They are saved with the style (when you change style they change as well) and are automated (when you change section/OTS a customised ENABLE button will take automatically effect). They are best used for preprogrammed automation of what parts have to play in a given context (section/OTS).
SWITCH buttons are saved with the style as well (and hence are style specific), but you activate/deactivate them manually. For the style parts you can save the state of the whole group and recall the whole group (8 parts) at the press of a button. You have 8 group memory locations to play with (all saved with the given style). We call the set of the 8 style parts switch buttons an APG (Active Parts Group). APGs are best used for on-the-fly (manually initiated and improvised) variation while performing, that superimposes in an orthogonal (= independent) way to what preprogrammed with the ENABLE buttons.
Let us see how it works in practice:
These are the switch buttons (one for each part).
Select/deselect them as you see fit. They take effect immediately and you hear the result.
The whole set of the 8 switch buttons' state can be saved into an APG memory slot: right click (long press) on the slot button.
A slot is grey if empty, blue if contains something. Conventionally, a slot is considered empty if all the switch buttons are “on” (they have no effect on the style parts).
If you click a slot memory button, the whole set of 8 switches is recalled. To give a musically pleasing result they will take effect at the next measure start; in the meanwhile the slot button’s led will flash to remind you that something is going to happen soon.
The last selected slot button remains highlighted until you change something by activating/deactivating some switch button.
The currently highlighted slot can be moved with these arrows. To reorder the whole set of memory slots as you like, just click on them to see/hear what is inside, then move in place.
Repeat the process as many times as needed. While moving, the slots are linked circularly: the first and the last are adjacent!
If you edited the APGs, do not forget to save the style as well!! Otherwise they will be lost forever as you switch style.