The Keymap Editor - Kurzweil K2000 - MUSICIANS GUIDE Musician's Manual

Sampling and Sample Editing

The Keymap Editor

press the Progs button to load program information in addition to the samples, or the Samps
button to load only the samples.
The Keymap Editor
The Keymap Editor lets you customize the K2vxÕs factory preset keymaps and save them to
RAM. You can also build your own keymaps from scratch.
Keymaps are an integral part of every layer of a program. Each keymap contains a set of
parameters determining which sample(s) the K2vx will play when you trigger a note. Each
layer has at least one keymap, but it can have two keymaps when youÕre working with stereo
samples. Each of these stereo keymaps uses two of the 48 available voices.
Each keymap consists of a set of key (note) rangesÑC 4 to G 4, for example. The entire span of
each keymap is from C 0 to G 10. Each range has a sample root assigned within the range. Each
sample root is a distinct ROM or RAM sample. Within each key range, the sample root is
transposed up and down to play on each of the rangeÕs notes. You can view each range by
changing the value of the Key Range parameter on the Keymap Editor page. You can mix
samples of different timbres within a single keymap, and even tune individual keys to any
pitch by deÞning key ranges to single notes and assigning samples to each of those notes.
When you trigger a note, the K2vx identiÞes the key range where the Note On event occurred.
It also checks the attack velocity value of the note. It then addresses its memory, and retrieves
the sample root thatÕs assigned to that key range and attack velocity value. If the note thatÕs
triggered is not the note where the sample root is assigned, the sample is transposed to play at
the correct pitch. The K2vx then generates the digital signal that represents the sound of the
note. At this point the keymapÕs job is done, and the signal proceeds through the layerÕs
algorithm and on to the audio outputs.
You can assign as many key ranges to a keymap as you like, even creating a separate range for
each note. This would allow you to tune each key independently, to create microtonal tunings.
For keymaps that use a single timbre, like the Grand Piano, thereÕs a key range for each sample
root stored in memory. For acoustic instrumental sounds, the more key ranges you have for a
keymap, the more realistic the sound will be, since there will be less pitch shifting of the sample
root within the key range.
Of course, you can assign sample roots with different timbres within the same keymap. Many
of the drum kit keymaps in ROM, for example, have about 20 key ranges, with several different
timbres assigned as the sample roots. You can also create a keymap with a single key range that
spans from C 0 to G 10, if you want to stretch a single sample root from C 0 to G 10. Keep in
mind, however, that samples can be transposed upward only to a limit of 96 KHz for the
playback rate. For 48K samples, thatÕs an octave of upward transposition. Samples can be
transposed downward without limit.
Think of a keymap as if it were a single piece of string, divided into different sections that
adjoin one another. Sections can not overlap. If you have one range that goes from C4 to F4 and
another that goes from F#4 to C5, then if you change the Þrst range to be C4 to G4, the second
one will change to be G#4 to C5.
Also, you can't have "nothing" assigned to a key range. Even if it is Silence (#168), there will
always be a sample assigned to every range in the keymap. This is something to watch out for
when creating drum programs. For example, lets say you are creating a program with 20 layers.
Each layer has its own keymap, which has just one sample assigned to part of the keyboard
with the rest of the key range assigned to Silence. Make sure that you limit the note range of
each layer using the LoKey and HiKey parameters on the Layer page in the Program Editor. If
each layer covers the entire range, then each note you played would trigger 20 voices (one for
each layer). You would only hear one drum per note because all the other layers are triggering
"Silence". Because of the voice stealing algorithms in the K2vx, the voices would almost
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