User manual

Welcome

KEDITOR ORCHESTRA puts an orchestra on a stage and turns it into one Kurzweil K2700 program. Twenty-three instrument groups sit on an amphitheatre with four levels; each group is a layer of the program. Where you put a group mixes it: its pan, its distance and its reverb come from its place on the stage. Over the whole orchestra is the hall's own reverb, on the K2700's knobs and sliders.

• Drag to mix. Left and right set the pan, nearer and farther the level, and the step of the stage a group stands on sets its reverb.
• Each instrument its own window: keymap, volume, transpose, velocity range, a parametric EQ, an amplitude envelope you watch as it plays, and a vibrato with delay and fade-in.
• Programs. Each hall is saved whole, and exported as a .K27 file that the K2700 loads with every sample it needs.

The app plays the orchestra itself: you can seat it, shape it and hear it without the K2700. The K2700 plays it once you load the program you exported.

Getting started

What you need

• A Mac with macOS 12 or later.
• For the K2700: a USB stick (FAT32) to carry the .K27 files, and free sample memory on the K2700 (about 80 MB for one program).
• Optional: KINSPIRATION on the same Mac, whose USER keymaps can then be played by the orchestra's instruments.

First sounds

1. Open KEDITOR ORCHESTRA. The hall opens as you left it; the first time, with the usual orchestra, saved as program 001 ORCHESTRA.
2. Play the keyboard at the bottom with the mouse (higher up a key is softer, lower down louder), or a MIDI keyboard. The whole orchestra plays every key it covers.
3. Drag a group to another place and play again: listen to it move.
4. Right-click a group to open its window.
5. Click SAVE to keep the hall in its program, or open PROGRAMS (a click on the program's name) to save it under another number.

The Mac menus

The window at a glance

The hall

The stage

An amphitheatre stage of four levels around the podium, each one higher than the one in front of it:

Any group can go to any level. Each level has its own reverb (see The reverbs).

The players

Each group is drawn as its players, a little smaller than life, dressed in its family's colour: burgundy for the strings, green for the woodwinds, blue for the brass, rust for the percussion, purple for the choir, teal for the harp. A group switched off on the stage is dressed in grey and its label says · OFF; one heard alone says · SOLO. Labels that would cover each other move up.

Moving a group

• Drag a player or the group's label: the whole group moves, always facing the podium, and switches on. A click that trembles does not move it: a drag starts after 4 pixels.
• Click a group to choose it: the readouts show it and its keys light on the keyboard. Esc lets it go.
• Arrow keys nudge the chosen group by 25 cm; with Shift, by a metre.
• Double-click a group to switch it on or off. One waiting in the row in front of the stage goes to its usual place, on.
• Right-click (or Ctrl-click) a group to open its window (see The instrument's window).

What its place does

The orchestra is heard from a main microphone 5 m in front of the podium and 3 m above the front rows.

Measured with the violins alone: from level 1 at 4 m to level 4 at 12 m they fall 8.5 dB and gain room; panned to the left, the right channel is about 10 dB lower with the hall reverb on, 28 to 35 dB with it off.

The 23 groups

• The TRUMPETS are two different trumpets in one layer, one on each side: the group is stereo.
• The TIMPANI switch to a harder sample from velocity 113.
• ENS STRINGS, CHAM STRINGS and STR QUARTET play their samples' own envelope (Natural) until you give them one.
• Every group carries the same parametric EQ, flat to start, and no filter.

With all 23 on stage, a C4 uses 27 of the K2700's voices (some groups are stereo), and a nine-note chord about 190.

The reverbs

A K2700 program can hold eight insert effect chains, too few for a reverb per instrument. So each level of the stage has one reverb, and a group takes the reverb of the level it stands on. All four feed the hall's general reverb.

The four levels

Each is a 2.2 s hall; its early reflections and its tail grow towards the back of the stage, and the highs darken.

HALL REVERB

The general reverb, on an aux send, at the top right of the window. Its controls are the same K2700 controls KEDITOR GRAND uses for its reverb, so they answer the K2700's panel too.

Moving these on the K2700 (on any MIDI channel) moves them in the app, which shows EDITED: what you set on the instrument is kept in the hall and saved with the program. Loading a program sets its own hall reverb.

Measured on a G4, 2.5 s after the key: as it starts the tail is at −75.5 dB; with AMOUNT at 0 or OFF, −95.9 dB; AMOUNT at the top, −63.8 dB; TIME at 8 s, −51.9 dB; at 1 s, −93.4 dB.

RESET and RESET SEATING

• RESET sends every group to a row on the hall's floor, below the front of the stage: small, switched off, one player each, its name shown when you hover it. Drag the groups you want onto the stage; each one opens out where you let it go and switches on. A clean start for a smaller setup.
• RESET SEATING puts the usual orchestra back, every group in its place and on.
• Both ask first (the button chosen to start with is CANCEL). Then UNDO appears: it puts every group back where it was, on or off, until you load another program.
• Both reset the places only: the volumes, EQs, transposes, keys, velocities, envelopes and vibratos stay.

The instrument's window

Right-click a group (or Ctrl-click it) to open its window. It opens beside the group and above the keyboard, so you keep playing while you change it; on a small screen it scrolls. A click outside it closes it and does nothing else; × closes it too.

The title gives the group and its layer in the program. The left column holds the sound and the level; the right column the envelope and the vibrato. Double-click a slider to bring it back to its starting value.

KEYMAP

The keymap the group plays: AS MADE (its own) or one of the keymaps ticked in SETTINGS. LIST opens SETTINGS and comes back to the window. Another keymap is set to sound as loud as the group's own, and the window says by how much: SET +2.2 dB TO SOUND AS LOUD AS ITS OWN. Two different keymaps make the group stereo (see Keymaps).

VOLUME and TRANSPOSE

• VOLUME: −30 to +10 dB, on top of what the distance gives.
• TRANSPOSE: −36 to +36 semitones. As on the K2700, it moves the pitch and the samples the keymap chooses; it does not move the keys the group plays (the key bar does, see The keys of an instrument).

VELOCITY

The velocities the group plays, from 0 to 127, to the value: soft strings under a loud section, or a group that only enters when you play hard. The bar shows the range lit over the dynamics, PPP to FFF, as a guide.

• Drag an end to move it; drag the middle to move the whole range; click outside it to stretch the nearer end to there.
• The arrow keys move the last end you dragged by 1 (with Shift, 10). Double-click: every velocity.
• The amber mark is the velocity of the last note you played on the screen's keyboard. The VELOCITY readout under the stage shows the range, or ALL.

On the K2700 this is a velocity window on the layer, as the factory pianos use for fine splits. One case cannot be told apart exactly: a velocity of 64 counts on both sides of a split at 63 / 64.

PARAMETRIC EQ

LAYER ON, SOLO, TO THE ROW

• LAYER ON: whether the group plays. Off, its players turn grey. A group waiting in the row that you switch on here goes to its usual place.
• SOLO: only this group is heard; the others dim. Again: everyone. SOLO is not saved, and switching off the group in SOLO ends it.
• TO THE ROW: off, and back to its place in the row in front of the stage. To set its values back, use AS MADE in each section.

The note under the buttons says which reverb the group takes and how far it is from the microphone.

AMP ENV

The group's amplitude envelope, in the K2700's own steps: how it starts, holds and dies away.

• Each segment has a TIME, one of the K2700's 256 steps from 0 to 60 s, and a LEVEL it goes to. A segment with time 0 is skipped and its level does not count, as on the K2700: its level is dimmed.
• LOOP: OFF, or segments 1 to 3 repeated forward (SEG 1 FW … SEG 3 FW) or both ways (SEG 1 BID … SEG 3 BID); LOOPS: INF (until the key is let go) or 1 to 31.
• NATURAL / USER, on the groups that play their samples' own envelope (ENS STRINGS, CHAM STRINGS, STR QUARTET). Switched to USER for the first time, they start with a gentle envelope (40 ms up, 0.5 s release) so they do not click.
• AS MADE brings the envelope back as the group came.

The graph

Each segment is drawn as wide as the square root of its time, so the short ones stay visible; the sustain is a plateau, KEY HELD, between DEC1 and REL1. Drag a point: up and down its level, left and right its time. With a loop on, an amber line marks the part that repeats.

Watching it play

While the window is open, an amber dot follows the newest note of the group through its envelope, about 30 times a second, leaving a trail: along the attack, across the plateau while the key is down, down the release, back and forth in a two-way loop. The title says the note, the segment and the level, for example G4 · REL1 · 89 %. A Natural envelope is drawn as the level over time since the note, up to 8 s. The values come from the sound engine itself, so they count everything: the pedal, the loop, a key let go in the middle of the attack.

LFO 1 · VIBRATO

The group's LFO 1 and the vibrato it makes on the pitch.

• Most groups come with their vibrato on the wheel only; DEPTH gives one that is always there.
• The string sections, the solo clarinet and the trombones come with a delayed vibrato already; DELAY and FADE IN change it. On the others, giving the vibrato a delay sets it up for you.
• A group without a vibrato of its own (the brass, the horns, the choir, the harp, the snare) gets one on the wheel as soon as you give it depth; a shape set to None becomes a 5 Hz sine.
• The note under the section says what moves the vibrato and its depth on this group.
• AS MADE brings the LFO and the vibrato back as the group came.

The keys of an instrument

Click a group: the keys its layer plays light up in pale blue, and a bar with the same extent appears over the keyboard, with the group's name and its keys (VIOLINS · G3 – G7). The bar sits above the keys so that the keys keep playing.

• Drag the middle of the bar to move the whole range, a semitone at a time, within the 88 keys. The octave follows: the transpose changes by whole octaves the other way, so the group keeps sounding where it did. Move it an octave to the left and the transpose gains +12; it changes octave once the range has moved more than a tritone. Hold ⌥ to move the keys alone.
• Drag an end key to play fewer or more keys, without touching the transpose.
• Double-click the bar: the keys as the group came, and the octaves the moves added taken out of the transpose. A transpose set by hand in the window stays.

While you drag, the bar, the message on the stage and the KEYS and TRANSPOSE readouts show the notes.

The keyboard and VOICES

• The keyboard has 88 keys and plays the whole program: every group whose keys cover the note. The velocity comes from where you press: 1 at the top of a key, 127 at its front. VEL shows the last one.
• SUSTAIN holds the pedal down (CC 64) until you click it again.
• A MIDI keyboard plays it too; choose it in the MIDI menu.
• If the page reloads or the window loses focus, the notes and the pedal held from the screen are let go.

VOICES

The voices sounding, the highest since the last reading (every 0.4 s). The K2700 has 256; a full orchestra uses many of them for every key, since each group is a layer and stereo groups take two. The count turns amber from 168 and red at 224, with CUT: past 224 the oldest notes fade out in 3 ms to make room. A C4 with the whole orchestra on is 27 voices; a nine-note chord from C2 to C5 about 190; two chords held with the pedal reach 224.

Programs

A program is the whole hall: every group's place, volume, on / off, keymap, keys, transpose, velocities, EQ, AMP ENV, LFO and vibrato, and the hall reverb. SOLO is not part of it.

The PROGRAM box

• It shows the number and name of the program the hall came from, and EDITED when the hall no longer matches it. The pans and distances are not compared: they follow from the places.
• ◀ ▶ load the program before or after. Clicks in a row do not cross: one program comes in at a time.
• SAVE writes the hall into its program (without one, it opens PROGRAMS).

The PROGRAMS window

A click on the program's name opens it. The list: a click chooses a program, a double-click loads it. Below: NUMBER (FREE gives the first free one) and NAME.

Names are the K2700's: up to 16 characters, plain letters (accents are taken out; º and ª become o and a).

Nothing lost by accident

• Loading another program while the hall is EDITED asks: SAVE (first), DISCARD or CANCEL. Without a program, it offers SAVE AS. Every question starts on CANCEL: Return never loses anything, and Esc is CANCEL.
• What could not be done (a program not saved, renamed or deleted) is said in a NOT DONE window. If the hall's own file cannot be written, a red warning appears in the corner of the stage, and the app tries again every half second.
• A program that names a keymap no longer on your list loads with the group's own keymap and says which: tick the keymap again in SETTINGS and load the program again to have it back.
• When the orchestra itself changed since a program was saved (after an update), loading it says THE ORCHESTRA CHANGED SINCE IT WAS SAVED: its export stays as it was saved until you save it again.

The hall as it is, saved or not, is kept as you work and opens again with the app.

Keymaps

Each group plays its own keymap, or another from a list you choose in SETTINGS (the button in the hall's title bar).

• The list holds the orchestra's own keymaps first, then, with KINSPIRATION on the same Mac, its USER keymaps. Each row gives the keymap's number and name, whether it is stereo, its size and who plays it (groups and programs).
• FIND by name or number; TICKED shows only the ticked ones.
• Tick a keymap and every group's KEYMAP list offers it. A KINSPIRATION keymap is copied, with the samples the orchestra does not have yet, into the orchestra's folder, and loaded at once.
• Untick it and the groups that played it go back to their own; its files leave the folder.
• Stereo pairs come together (for example a left and a right keymap): the pair is one row.
• A keymap that plays the K2700's own built-in samples is marked ROM · SILENT and cannot be ticked: the app does not have those sounds.

Matched in level

A group given another keymap sounds as loud as on its own: the app plays both, without reverb, at a quarter, half and three quarters of the group's keys, and sets the difference. Along the keyboard each keymap has its own curve, so a single note can still differ; the group's VOLUME sets the rest.

EXPORT to the K2700

In the PROGRAMS window:

• EXPORT writes the chosen program; EXPORT ALL every program, into one file.
• The file goes to the data folder's K2700 folder, named ORCH 001 ORCHESTRA.K27 (or ORCH 3 PROGRAMS.K27); a file of the same name is replaced only after your yes. SHOW FILE shows it in the Finder.
• Each program goes as it was saved. When the hall has changes not yet saved to its program, EXPORT asks first: SAVE, EXPORT AS SAVED or CANCEL.
• The .K27 holds the programs (from USER ID 4096, in order), the keymaps they play, the five effect chains and the samples with their sound, each once. It is written in the background, sample by sample.
• Before writing, the app checks the K2700's limits: 32 layers in a program, 8 insert chains, USER IDs up to 8191, and that all the programs in a file were saved with the same orchestra. It also says when two programs share a name.

On the K2700

1. Copy the file to a USB stick (FAT32) and plug it in.
2. GLOBAL > FILE > LOAD, choose the file, then FILL (and FILL again if the K2700 asks). Never OVWRITE.
3. Find the program by its name (in the USER programs, or with Search) and play. The hall reverb is on slider 9 (AMOUNT), knob 9 (TIME), knob 8 (TONE) and button 9 (ON).

Files and folders

Everything is in Documents/KEDITOR ORCHESTRA (File > Open Data Folder).

KINSPIRATION's own folder is only ever read, never written.

When something is not right