tips&tricks:

scrolling message in a midi song

you can easily add a text to a midi track which scrolls through the display while the song is being played; this is especially useful if you want to spread your music over the web (besides, it looks cool). what you need for this trick is CS1xEdit; open your file in the "player" window, select "scrolling message..." from the file menu and enter the message. in very complex songs this might possibly cause timing problems, because the text is sent as sysex data (see the CS1xEdit help file for details); but usually, it works well.

by crowley

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resetting the CS1x

it is possible to reset all CS1x settings to factory defaults: just turn the power off, then press (and hold) the buttons "7", "8" and "9" while turning the power back on. beware: all changes you made (including the user performances) will be lost! so before doing this you should backup your user performances (see the manual on how to do that).
if something is wrong with your synth and you've already tried everything else, this reset is a kind of "last chance" before throwing it away (or having it repaired by somebody ;)

by crowley

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using the delay and echo effects

the variation effect allows several interesting delay/echo fx. unfortunately, you have to enter the delay-time in ms (milliseconds); this is impractical because the correct setting depends on the song tempo. You can get the basic delay time according to this formula: time [msec] = 240 / tempo [BPM] * 1000. the result is the duration of four quarter notes (beats); this means that if your song has 140 bpm, one bar (four beats) takes 1714.3 msec. If you set the delay time to 1/4 of that value, 428.6 msec, you'll hear the echo of a note exactly a quarter note later.
but that kind of echo is rather boring: you can achieve much more interesting effects if you multiply the time by 1/6, 1/12, 3/16 or other odd values (example: 120 bpm » bar time = 2000 msec » delay time = 1/6 * 2000 msec = 333.3 msec).
this might sound difficult now, but it becomes quite clear if you just try it. and the whole thing gets even funnier with different delay times for left and right channel...

by crowley

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muting separate midi channels

i thought this was an easy thing to do, but since i was asked how to switch off certain channels quite often, i decided to write it down here.
turning off channels on the CS1x is necessary if you have another midi device, e. g. a drum machine, connected to the midi thru port of the CS1x and want to access it without letting the CS1x play the same notes.
press the UTILITY button, then the RCV CH button; select the channel which you want to turn off using the PART +/- buttons left of the display. Set the midi channel for this part to "off" with RCV CH. that's it!

by crowley

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