Korg pa 900 User Manual page 276

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272
Harmony and Tuning with the Voice Processor
Scale (Scalic) mode
Harmonies use key and scale information to create musically
correct, diatonic harmonies. Most popular music uses a single
scale, so you usually only have to input the information at the
beginning of your song. "Scalic" harmonies are more dynamic
than the chordal harmonies because there are unique harmony
notes for each input note. The subsequent illustration shows the
harmony notes for the C major scale with a voicing selection of a
C major scale and a single "third above" harmony voice. You can
see from the next diagram that the "Scalic" harmonies are intelli-
gent and closely follow your lead voice for a tighter sound.
Black = Lead, Grey = Harmony
Under the Harmony page, is a parameter called "Smooth". When
set to 100% the harmony voices follow your input pitch, errors
and all, but when set to 0% the harmonies will jump directly to
the scalic harmony notes, kind of like a hard pitch correction on
the harmony voice. Setting the Smooth parameter between 0 and
100% is like having variable amounts of pitch correction on the
harmonies. Voice Processor has five preprogrammed harmony
scales: three major, three minor and one custom per preset. To
Lead Voice
MAJ1
3rd above
5th above
MAJ2
3rd above
5th above
MAJ3
3rd above
5th above
MIN1
3rd above
5th above
MIN2
3rd above
5th above
MIN3
3rd above
5th above
C
C#
D
Eb
E
nc
F
nc
G
nc
A
nc
E
nc
F
nc
G
nc
A
nc
E
nc
F
nc
G
nc
A
nc
Eb
nc
F
G
G
nc
Bb
Bb
Eb
nc
F
G
G
nc
A
Bb
Eb
nc
F
G
G
nc
A
Bb
create a custom scale or pitch map see the parameter description
under "Custom Voice Mapping" on page 267.
It is also tricky to pick out the key in some songs. An example is
"Sweet Home Alabama". Listening, you might think this song is
in the key of "D", as that's the first chord, but the harmonies actu-
ally work best in the key of "G" – try running the song through
Voice Processor to hear for yourself.
Setting the scale can also take a bit of practice: for songs centered
around the third or root of the scale it might not sound like
there's any noticeable differences between the three major or
three minor scales. This is because your song doesn't hit any of
the scale's altered notes. A melody centered around the fifth of
the scale, (such as B in the key of E), highlights the differences
between the scales. Try the "Sha Lala Lala ... La Tee Daa" chorus
of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" (key: E, scale: major, 3rd
above voicing) with each major scale to hear the audible differ-
ence between them. For the minor scales, Santana's "Evil Ways"
(key: G, scale: minor, 3rd above voicing) highlights the differ-
ences between the three minor scales.
The following table illustrates the third and fifth above for a
given input note to illustrate the differences between the six dif-
ferent scales. "nc" means no change, in that the harmony voice
will simply keep its previous pitch until the lead voice pitch
changes to a non "nc" note.
E
F
F#
G
G
A
nc
B
B
C
nc
D
G
A
nc
C
C
C
nc
E
G
A
nc
Bb
Bb
C
nc
D
nc
Ab
nc
Bb
nc
C
nc
D
nc
A
nc
Bb
nc
C
nc
D
nc
Ab
nc
B
nc
C
nc
D
G#
A
Bb
B
nc
C
D
D
nc
E
F
F
nc
C
D
D
nc
E
F
F
nc
C
D
D
nc
E
F
F
C
nc
D
nc
Eb
nc
F
nc
C
nc
D
nc
Eb
nc
F
nc
C
nc
D
nc
Eb
nc
F
nc

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