Hi.
> Ok, I'm in the market for an RM1X.. I have one sitting in reserve and
> am quite tempted to purchase it.. but I need some info first
>
I'll try...
> #1) I have ascertained that NO official software revisions
> have been made for this, although yamaha has indeed realized
> one that corrected some bugs in the early models, no?
>
> Has Yamaha ever publicly stated that they were adopting the
> upgrade philosophy to this machine? Regardless of even that..
> do you think we will be seeing it with the next 5 months.
>
> Is the machine's OS flash rom'd (ala my nord modular) or eeprom?
>
It's in rom. Duon't know how easy it is to switch. As far as i know, there
has been no updates yet.
> #2) You get acces to 16 tracks, eh? Do these trax correspond to
> the "trax" I currently use in cubase? What I am getting at is, I
> plan on using this machine for live work and studio work.. but
> when I gig, I'd like the luxuary of loading some linear tracks
> to play (generated on cubase and loaded as an SMF midi file_)
>
I use Cubase and RM1x just like this. It works beautifully. What I do is
this: In my Cubase arrangement I copy some parts that I feel will make up a
nice pattern in the rm1x. I paste these parts in a temporary arrangement
(remember to put 'em on bar 1). I then export this arrangement as a MIDI
file (type 0) that I can transfer to the rm1x on a floppy. Then I start over
again. Transferring a song typically takes half an hour as compared to the
don't know how many hours I used to spend moving tracks from Cubase to my
EPS 16+ sequencer.
When the MIDI file is loaded into the RM1x, all the MIDI channels are mapped
to their respective track. MIDI ch 1 on track one etc.
> *but* what if I loaded a cubase song that had 30 "tracks" within it?
> How would the RM1X handle and convert these? as you can seem,
> I am not very aquainted with the notion of saving data as a MF
> for reloading into another sequencer.. until now, I have never had to
> deal with it.
A type 0 MIDI file has only 16 tracks. All Cubase tracks for MIDI channel 1
will be merged to track one and so on.
>
> #3) all drum elements need to be on the same track, or you can't
> hear the other rhythms, right? This isn't a super large problem
> (I can use the mutes on my mixer), but if I am using the internal
> sounds, I do not get the mc303 users luxury of selectively muting the
> snare/bass/hats/mis perc/cymbals..ect separately (without eating
> up other data tracks)??..
>
Eh... - not sure what you mean about that first part. Other rhythms? Anyway
- having elements of the rhythm laid out over several tracks is very nice as
you mentioned, especially for live jamming. There are functions in the rm1x
to split rhythm tracks to separate channels, but I'm not sure how it works.
I mainly use ReCycled loops, so my rhythms are already on separate tracks.
---
One thing to watch out for when using imported MIDI files. The rm1x handles
note data in a way that can drive you nuts before you get it. Here it comes:
A section has 16 tracks and each track can hold a phrase. A phrase is a
piece of note data that can be copied to other tracks or sections. When you
copy a section, the rm1x creates a new section, but it will still use the
same phrases. This saves lots of memory (memory is a weak spot in the rm1x),
but you have to make sure to explicitly create a new phrase if you don't
want changes to span all instances of that phrase.
When importing tracks from MIDI files, this gets even more acute. I filled
up the memory with just four of my songs and it really pissed me off, but
then I realized that by putting together the patterns in the rm1x rather
than in Cubase I could reuse most of the phrases. If I have a hihat pattern
that stays basically the same in the whole track i can reuse this phrase
instead of importing it over and over again. This is much like the ghost
parts in Cubase actually.
Hope this sheds some light on the problem. Some of my live tracks can be
heard at http://www.skank.com/puff
Regards
Tage Widsell
