Harmony

The Harmony function allows you to add to any (and every, if desired) of the L/R voices other automatically generated notes, in addition to (and/or in place of) the ones actually played. The added notes, to sound less prominent or even subtle, can have an optionally lower volume.

The automatically added notes can be at fixed intervals with the root (= actually played) note, or at intervals dependent on the played chord driving the auto accompaniment. In this case they will dynamically change with your left hand chord, even if you keep fixed the root note (= it is continually harmonized against a changing chords progression).

Some “black magic” behind the scenes will automatically coalesce the ever changing harmonized notes with the ones already in place, so that the final result is quite similar to an human written score, and hence perfectly credible.

The net result is a fully configurable enriched sound, that would be impossible to play by a single player. The obtained result can be as subtle or as bold as you desire, ranging from a fuller strings pad to a screaming big-band jazz quartet.

The factory OTSes of the built-in styles give some good examples. There, to be as general as possible, the harmony function is used sparingly and on the “subtle side”. But you can tweak it and make it very prominent.

Harmony panel

Select a L/R voice for which you want to view/edit the harmony settings. The harmony bar (above the four L/R voice displays) is shown/updated.
Select which harmony type to apply (see later).
Choose how many and which harmony notes to add (the pitch goes down moving from “1” to “3”).
Set the volume of these added harmony notes relative to the actually played root note.
What is actually varied is the midi velocity of the auto generated harmony notes; for most voices the main effect is the perceived volume (although usually also other parameters, such as filter cutoff and attack, are modified).
Set if the root note (the note you actually pressed on the keyboard) must be played or not.

Harmony types

Clicking the HARMO OFF button will select the HARMO CHORD type. Right clicking (long pressing) the button will select the HARMO FIXED type.
A single click on the button when an harmony type is selected (Chord or Fixed) will reset it to off. When harmony is off, no further notes are added to those actually played.
A Fixed harmony will add notes at fixed intervals with respect to the root note actually played.
As shown on the harmony note buttons, you can add notes one octave above or below and a fifth below (i.e.: if you play a C, the added fifth is the G at its left).
A Chord harmony will add notes that are dependent upon the chord actually played (on the left of the split point, and shown in the chord display). If no chord is played (or not recognized), or if the split point is off, no chord harmony notes are added.
If you change the harmony type, or shut it off, the selected harmony notes (and root switch) remain unchanged. This allows you to quickly try different solutions with minimal button pushing.
When harmony is off these added note buttons (and the root switch) will be simply ignored.

Complex harmonized instruments section

Every L/R voice can have its own independent harmony settings. All the L/R voices can be configured as R (R1÷4). You can therefore build quartets of different instruments, each one playing possibly different harmonized notes.

It is extremely easy to find something good sounding:

Select an instrument for each of the R parts. You could try with randomly chosen reeds and/or brasses. You should consider to customize the voice (and other settings you are going to modify) so that you can later recall them without disrupting anything “global”.
Click to each one in turn, select HARMO CHORD, and try to add some harmony notes. Possibly only one, and maybe disabling the root. Select different harmonized notes for different instruments.
Lower a little bit the volume of the added notes.
Pan the instruments in the stereo field. Add insert and/or system effects.

Reiterate these points at will. Save the result in an OTS slot.

Table of content

One Touch Settings (OTS)

Voice editor