Roland Verselab MV-1: Keys and Scales
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- Today we take a brief run at scales and keys as they relate to the Verselab. Hope this gives you a bit of a better understanding about how different scales affect the function of the notes on the pads.
People have asked how that can encourage me to make more videos... That's complicated. I have some health issues that make editing videos impossible, so, instead, I spend hours writing outlines, and practicing, then have to make the videos in a single take. It's rough. And my budget is $0 (my life is... Difficult). All that being said, I can always use Amazon gift cards, and if you want to send me some random synth gear, I'd be HAPPY to go over it, explore it, and make videos about it (😂😁), though I don't have any way to ship thjngs back (no money, can't drive, etc). My wishlist is always at the link below, and you can add things to your cart as well:
www.amazon.com...
Whoa...you just taught me how to practice properly.
Thanks!
😆 Glad I could help? I hope to make some project based videos when we get through all the basics, going through the steps we'd take to make an entire song. Obviously there are as many ways to make a song as there are songwriters, but I *would* like to work through some common problems that people ask a lot, like: How do you start a song when you don't already have an idea in mind? How can I improvise to create content? How do you make a song starting with a chord progression? Or a melody? Or a drum beat? I'll make content as long as there are people interested.
Thank you for making a hardware/music theory integration. Been waiting on this before I buy a mv1/mpc1 (haven't had a chance to get hands on with either one yet) and the visual relationship combined with your vocal explanations really hit home and helped me understand scale and note relationships. Thank you for your helpful video. Definitely earned a subscription from me. Now going to binge your other videos 😂. Thank you again!
Thanks. 😊 It's often difficult to find the motivation to make the next video (I've been sitting on the notes for my next video on Vocal Takes for over a month), comments like this are what keep me making more content.
I do intend to make more videos on theory, production, and composition when we get through all the basics of the verselab, but that might be quite some time in the future.
:opinion ahead! Warning! 😆:
Typically I don't recommend the verselab to anyone... the only reason I have it is because I have photosensitive epilepsy, and can't be on my DAW for long enough to do anything useful anymore... the verselab was the most complete (and portable) device I could find that didn't have a screen. Honestly, if I didn't have this limitation, I'd use my DAW. Any DAW is going to be more visual, customizable, and capable than any piece of software, and with the great hardware available these days, you won't be missing out on much, unless you need portability.
Yeah I can relate (in a similar yet different way) I have C.P. so I have done several DAWS. The thing I find is I want to not touch my mouse and just create on the hands on hardware. So then the 2nd part to that equation is efficiency and workflow. the More I have to extend my hands and arms or are further away from my core, it'll be more difficult for me to play the timing I want. So going back and forth from controller to mouse just doesn't fit what I prefer. Mv1 and mpc workflow are the ones that make sense to me (from online videos and blogs at least plus used mpc 2 daw) I just couldn't figure out how to combine the most basic music theory knowledge I do have to the hardware.... until your video. The way you teach really works for me. So I know I'll love it if you keep making videos. Thank you again and have a great one. ✌️
Thank you so much for your Verselab series of videos! You are helping me so much!
My god... I came here just to learn about the mv but I came out as an enlightened beginner more than ready!
@@cyb 😆Glad I could help. The upcoming videos should be more focused, with higher quality, and we'll be branching out of the verselab, exclusively, into other topics like ear training, theory, and composition techniques. Thanks for the encouragement! 😊
@@LeRoy3rd yeah it's amazing my rabbit hole lead me to the mv1 vs mc101 which have so similar functionalities but the major difference i've noticed is mv1 gets your project done(which is what i'm looking for) while grooveboxes are more like infinite loops for live stuffs - but! i've seen the M-series mv1/m101/m707 belong in the same family and they can share clips so I could see myself getting an mc101 for its portability, create a clip in there and import to the mv1!
@@cybUnfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to get hands on with either the 101 or 707, but I believe the 1.8x firmware update did allow clips to be shared across all three devices. Honestly, I don't typically recommend Verselab, the only reason I use it is because of my seizure disorder... before things got worse with being in front of a screen, I loved working with my DAW, and any professional DAW is going to be more capable than any standalone hardware. There are plenty of reasons someone might elect to use hardware, but most people don't realize how much more difficult, and limiting hardware is, and they're looking for a DAW experience, in a standalone box (which is, literally, a laptop, only a laptop is way more powerful,customizable, and upgradeable).
@@LeRoy3rd i find the beauty of the mv1 is it holds your hand from start to end to finish something. Someone in the comments mentioned it's like finishing a game(workflow), i honestly have zero idea how finishing up projects work for music and mv1 is the only one that really binds you to that. It's kinda like the saying "the biggest enemy of creativity is the absence of limits" or something like that
great video! thank You
I appreciate the support. I'm always so frustrated that I can't take the time to edit my videos, and I can get pretty self conscious about it. 🙂
Definitely worth watching some videos on music theory... Great video!
Great video
JAJAJAJAJAJAJAAA....ANIMO CON ALEGRIAS..VERY GOOD VERSELAB
Small correction: at 7:52 youre playing A minor but saying that youre playing C minor. You probably just misspoke, but for the people that are not (yet) into music theory.. C minor is not played on all the white notes.
Yep, correct, misspoke. It's been so long since I made this video that I don't remember what all I covered, I *think* I was discussing modes at that point? I'm pretty sure I also covered the intervals that make up major and minor scales, but that may have been another video. I do intend, at some point, to make an entire series on theory, and make shorter, more concise, bite-sized lessons, but I want to get through the basic concepts on the verselab before I start that. Thanks for the correction, I appreciate when people are paying attention. 🙂
@@LeRoy3rd Yeah, no biggie, just put it out there for someone who might be confused. Am currently binging your MV1 videos after recently purchasing the device :), thanks for that. I also own the MC707 since recently; man, I wish there was a way to combine their functionalities into 1 machine :(. Anyway, I for one (in regards to the MV1 tutorials) would be interested in more of the production/mixing/mastering side of things, since that is what makes this piece of equipment rather unique. One question though, the save time seems to be really long, as in my last project took 3min to save, is that normal? I already did a factory reset and formatted the SD card, it made it a little bit faster but not much...
@@Akoeistic I've never had it take more that a few seconds to save a project, but I have noticed that the more samples I use, the longer it takes (as the file size gets larger, it seems to embed the dependencies in the project file, but I haven't taken the time to specifically verify this).
As far as videos on the more verselab-specific stuff, and production stuff, I do plan to make videos on that in the future... by February I'll either be making videos again, or unable to make videos. If there's anything specific you want, I'm happy to discuss it... I typically hang out in the verselab groups on Facebook, and you can always find more contact info at my webpage LeRoy3rd dot com.
15:27 Sounds like the simpsons theme
Exactly. Once you start diving into more modal scales, you'll notice a lot of melodies that aren't strictly diatonic. 🙂
@12:54 you talk about playing Chords in Note mode, I can only play one note at a time in note mode, if you are playing 3 notes simultaneously to make a chord, how do you set the Verselab up to do that in note mode?
Thanks for the time code, that made it really easy for me to figure out what you were referencing! I was definitely, perhaps, a bit unclear here. Using CHORD mode, you can record the chords onto the step sequencer, but that's not what I meant here. I just meant that when you're in NOTE mode, and it's set to a CHROMATIC scale, you have just over an octave, and not every note is in the scale, so it's not possible to make large chords, and you have to be careful because many notes are out of the scale. Using a scale, like major or minor, however, the pads will only have notes OF that scale, so you now don't have to worry about playing "wrong" notes, and since a major, minor, etc, scale only has 7 notes (as opposed to the chromatic scale which has 12), you have a much larger range of notes (several octaves) on the pads, so making larger and more interesting chords (by playing multiple pads at once), is much easier.
I can see how that wasn't as clear as it could have been, in the video, but if you watch again, notice that when mention making chords, I'm playing several pads. Hope that helped, sorry for the confusion. 😊
Thanks for the great and detailed videos so far, your explanations about the Verselab have gotten into a lot of stuff that I've wondered about but haven't heard anyone else explain in as much detail as you have. I have a question on a different topic that's a bit off the beaten path about the versatility of the Verselab, and that question is: Apart from making music, if I wanted to use my Verselab to let's say record a voiceover or narration like a podcast or audiobook narration (because I want to get away from my computer), and I simply plugged in an XLR microphone and hit record, then would it be possible to record decent enough sounding or high quality voiceover or narration into it as opposed to recording a voiceover into a DAW on a computer? I mean, the Verselab is like a DAW in a box, and since we can record voiceovers or narrations in DAWs like Reaper or Logic or whatever, then couldn't the Verselab (like other DAWs) handle non-music applications like a voiceover or narration just as well? And if it's possible to do something like that, what would the best workflow be? Or would it be so troublesome as to not even be worth it? And lastly, would there be any advantages or benefits at all to using the Verselab in such a manner over using a DAW on a computer? I get the Verselab was made for music (like all DAWs), and I used to make beats on the MV-8000 way back in the day and just recently got a Verselab after years of not touching hardware gear, and relearning things, and was just wondering how versatile of a DAW in a box the Verselab really is, and if it's capable of doing non-musical recording tasks like voiceovers and if it's even worth it to attempt such an endeavor with it. My theory at the moment is that it's possible as far as recording, but would probably be editing that voiceover on my computer afterwards. Still though, if I could record voiceovers into it and edit them on the computer later that would be more fun than doing everything on the computer, but even better would be if I could just do everything on the Verselab.
That's a good question! I think the quality of the processing should be suitable, and the option to do real-time compression and de_essing could be useful, depending on your situation. When you install the verselab drivers on your computer, and put your verselab into Vendor driver mode, this makes your verselab into an interface. So then you can record all MIDI data from the tracks, vocal takes, audio out from each track, AND live audio from either the XLR input, line-in, or built-in mic (only one live input) all simultaneously, and in real time, right into your DAW. if you, instead, use the generic driver, you can only record a stereo audio file into your DAW, but, again, for voice over work, or something, that would be plenty useful.
If you wanted to record something long stand alone, like an audiobook, the most difficult part would be the 12 minute vocal take limit. And, as there's no way to export vocal takes directly, you'd have to save it out as a WAV by playing it back in real time. That would definitely be frustrating. Another option would be to use the sampler engine... The cons with that are that you could only record 1 minute at a time, and it would be in stereo, but the pros would be being able to export the WAV directly after you'd recorded it.
So, the short answer is: Yes, I think the verselab could be used as an audio interface (especially useful if you don't have an audio interface) very well to record live into your DAW, using the generic driver, or vendor driver, depending on your need. As far as using the verselab for long audio, stand-alone? It's possible, but it would be frustrating, and I probably wouldn't recommend it if you have other options.
Thanks for the highly detailed response. Originally was thinking to do under 12 min takes standalone, but you’ve given me a lot to think about and experiment with regardng vendor and generic driver modes.
Look forward to you doing more vids, especially vids related to recording vocals and different way to do things, but also vids related to any and everthing Verselab. Keep up the good work making these highly informative kinds of videos!
Hi ! Thanks so much for your video ! I have always been a bit skeptical about playing with the pads after setting a scale... Most written music (and people improvising) constantly use alterations and borrow from other scales / modes. So that implies to edit notes afterwards (or using an external keyboard, or the pads in chromatic mode). What's your take on this ? :) Thanks !
Absolutely. I was classically trained, so even using the pads for melodies or chords AT ALL was really foreign to me when I got this... I stuck with it, though, and now I'm pretty proficient at using the pads for basic stuff. That being said, I rarely use a scale, and opt for chromatic, but, then, that limits the range, and makes large or complicated chords much more difficult. For melodies, drums, and basslines, the pads are... fine. If I'm away from home, and using the pads (I nearly always use a midi controller at home), there are several strategies I might use. First, CHORD mode is REALLY useful. It's a bit frustrating because of the scale root bug, and annoying how you have to program the chords, and the fact that you can only have 4 notes per pad is very limiting. HOWEVER, you can play more than one pad at a time, and change the color of the pads. This makes grouping multiple pads for complicated chords much easier (after the initial setup). The other technique I sometimes use when I only have pads is, I'll play random notes IN TIME, then once the rhythm is how i want it, since the sequencer is all midi data, I can easily go back and edit the notes on each step to get the melody, or even complicated chords, at the correct pitches. If I want, say a Gm9 with chord tones over multiple octaves, I just play the NUMBER of notes I want, in time, then adjust the notes. It's a bit time consuming, but definitely possible.
The final thing I tend to do when I don't have a midi controller is SIMPLIFY. If I want a complicated full chord, I'll just put one down that's a more thinly voiced version, then I can expand on the idea later.
Hope that helped!
@@LeRoy3rd Hi ! That definitely helped, thanks a lot for taking the time to answer :) I did try to work without an external keyboard but that was really time-consuming - actually I used to own an MC-101 but switched to the MV-1 and do not regret it at all :) But you give me the idea of writing a kind of skeleton and editing stuff afterwards. -- BTW, I currently have a Minifreak which I use as a MIDI controller (and which I can sample). That means 37 minikeys. I wonder if it wouldn't be more relevant to get a bigger MIDI keyboard instead... Improvising over 3 octaves is not ideal... Take care !
@@Mahenounet I've got a couple of 25 key controllers (super portable, great to use on the go), a Keystep 37, and an 88-key controller. Typically, unless I'm doing specifically piano music, and even then only in certain genres like jazz, I will use the 37 key controller, but even then, I can do pretty much everything I need with the 25 key controllers. Especially if you're working on electronic music, or pop, two octaves is usually plenty, since you'll be recording a single track at a time.
More videous please🙏🫡
Thanks for this. Unrelated: I made a kit track and tried to replace each pad with samples that aren't one-shot drum samples. Even though I cleared the track before adding them, I noticed the longer samples are trailing off and decreasing in volume as they play along further from their pad trigger. When trying to stop that so the volume is constant, I couldn't figure it out but I did notice it seemed when I cleared the kit track or other tracks like bass, the parameters on there were still holding over from the previous track (like compression, reverb, etc.). Is that normal for the parameters to do that? I didn't think to look if they were different for something like bass vs hi hat, i.e. instrument-specific or just general. Any idea on how to keep the sample volume constant and stop trailing off?
By default they assume your kit samples are going to be short, so they assign a short decay and release. I'm not in front of my verselab at the moment, so this my be a little off (I intend to make tips and tricks videos in the future covering this and other things). Here's what you can do, in SEQ, NOTE, select the kit track with the long sample, hit EDIT then the pad you want to change. Scroll to INST EDIT, set decay offset and release offset to +100. I think that should solve your fading issue, though I can't remember if there are other steps necessary. Hope that helps!
In the future can you show some sound design (if there is one)on mv1?.
That's a good suggestion. Currently sound design is a bit limited on the Verselab, but since the mc-101 was given more capabilities, it is *possible* we could see more options in the future. That being said, while our options for creating and designing sound from scratch is a bit limited, we do have a lot of options to alter and mangle sound, including an amp envelope, filter, and effects. I hope to dive into all of these a bit later, once we've covered more of the basics. To that end, I did create a free sample library with some synthetic waveforms meant to be used as a starting point for some sound design. Thanks for the suggestion, and support. 😀
Here's the link to the free samples I made as a starting point for some sound design:
www.dropbox.com/s/xym4b31c6lq2c1c/Synthetic%20Samples.zip?dl=0
So how do I transpose a section? When I try (being in SEQ/NOTE Mode) and push NOTE plus a pad, the display shows PAD TRANSPOSE, but only for a second and then it vanishes. No editing possible. With EDIT -> SONG I checked that the transpose parameter for that track is set to ON. Any idea?
First, by holding note and pressing a pad, you're transposing the PADS (aka the notes that sound when you play a pad). If you hold NOTE you'll see that the value changes each time you press a pad, until you release NOTE. You can transpose the pads up 6 half steps (+6, that's an augmented 4th), or down 5 half steps (-5, a perfect 4th). Pad transpose only changes the notes being played on the pads (so, live playing, not notes on the sequencer). To change the scale and root note for the pads, you can also use EDIT+NOTE.
Second, transposing in the SONG portion of the workflow. There are two things you can do here, and they both can only change sequences (so, it won't change samples, only notes on the sequencer). If you press EDIT, then a section that you've placed on the step sequencer pads, you can transpose the entire sequence up or down, and this is per section, so you could have a different transposition in each section, if you wanted. There's one other way to do transpositions in the SONG portion of the workflow. EDIT+SONG. This will transpose the entire song (not samples), instead of just the individual SECTIONS, but there are a couple of caveats. First, scroll down to the section labeled "SONG(TRANSPOS)". This turns on and off each track for the ABILITY to transpose. You probably wouldn't want, say, your snare to transpose, but since you can put whatever you want on each track, make sure that all of the tracks you want to transpose are set to ON. Anything set to OFF will not be transposed.
The next caveat is, for this to work, you MUST set the key for EACH CLIP that you want to transpose. You do this in the SEQ portion of the workflow. You'll select a track, then press SECTION SELECT. Here you'll press EDIT+PAD (each pad here is one section, or, in this case, one clip, the clips for this single track, so you'll have to do this for each track, and each clip/section. I suggest, if you'll want to use the song transpose feature, to get in the habit of setting the key and scale each time you start working on a new clip). Select CLIP SETTING, then scroll down to the bottom of the list where you'll see KEY and SCALE. Notice that these are each set to NONE. If you don't set these, the song transpose feature won't work. After you've set all of your clips to have a key and scale, there's one more frustration before we can go to the SONG portion of the workflow, and make this work. You have to save each clip (SECTION SELECT, SAVE CLIP), then reload that clip, now that the key and scale is set... just changing key and scale doesn't work, also, saving the project, and reloading it doesn't work. You have to save each clip, after you've changed the key and scale, THEN load that saved clip, with the changed key and scale, back in. It's frustrating, and ridiculous. It should not work this way. From what I can tell, the idea is that you'd buy clips from Roland, and load them into your project, and, since your project could be in any key, this will allow you to use these imported clips into your project, and change the key of the clip to match your project... it's dumb. There's no reason we should have to save every clip we make and reload them back in to do a simple transposition of our songs (which, in my opinion, makes this feature nearly useless). At any rate, once you've saved and reloaded EVERY INDIVIDUAL CLIP, then at the SONG portion of the workflow you can use EDIT+SONG to transpose the entire song by setting a scale and key for the entire song. Again, this will do nothing if the individual tracks in this menu are set to transpose off, or if any of the clips don't have a key and scale set. Also, one other caveat, if you change from major to minor (if a clip was major, and your song is minor, for instance, or you just decide to change your entire song from major to minor), there's another bug (so I'd suggest not doing this). If you're in, say C minor, and you change it to major, you'd expect, since now the key is C, and the scale is major, that it would play C major. No. For some reason it takes the relative key (in this case the relative major to c minor is Eb major) and uses those notes, and then transposes the key to use the root of that key... In this case it would transpose everything up +3, playing in Eb major.
So, final caveat. Let's say you've saved all your clips, setting the key and scale that they're in. You then loaded the new clip into your track... you go to SONG, and press EDIT+SONG, and set the key to a different note... and nothing happens... this is because, not only do you have to load the saved clip in (one at a time, for every clip), but the key and scale in EDIT+SONG doesn't do anything UNLESS it's set to the key and scale you want BEFORE you load the clips in. So, you have to set the key and scale of your song, THEN load on clips that have been saved with the proper key and scale. It's ridiculous, to the point of being (in my opinion), useless.
(It seems like, what's happening here is, when you load a clip, it checks the key and scale of the song in EDIT+SONG, then sets an appropriate transposition in the clip that it just loaded in... you can see this if the song scale and/or key are different than the clip being loaded... once you load the clip, in clip settings, you'll see that it has a - or + in "transpose". Literally all it's doing is transposing the clip up or down based on the scale and key you set in song, but it only does this calculation when a clip is loaded... that's why you have to already have the song key set, and that's why you have to load a clip in if you set the keys in scale of a clip)
Hope that helps. If I've been unclear, or you still don't understand, let me know, and I'll break it down a bit more. ☺️
@@LeRoy3rd Wow, that’s probably 50 times longer than the most detailed answer I’ve ever received on RUclips :) A big thank you for that!
You really seem to know this device inside and out. I haven’t dived that deep yet, since I’ve only had it recently and still need to familiarize myself with it. (And unfortunately, learning slows down significantly after 60.)
I’m wondering how you figured all this out. You must have really thought of trying to save first, then reload, etc.
I’ve saved your answer and I’ll probably have to take my time to try everything out. You’ve definitely saved me a lot of frustration, thanks again!
However, one thing is still unclear: The question I originally asked had to do with the fact that transposing with NOTE + pressing a pad *doesn’t* work, probably because some setting deep inside the device is off. Do you have any idea what might be causing that?
@wolfgang4468 Hmmm... I'm not sure. Try this, just to make sure we're understanding what NOTE+PAD will do. From a default project (what comes up when you first turn on the device), press SEQ, then INST1. This, by default is the bell sound, just to give us something to work with. Press pad 1 a few times, just to get the pitch of it in your ear (this is a C). Now hold NOTE, and while you're holding it, press pad 4. The screen should say +4. Now release pad 4, then release note. Press pad 1 again. It *should* sound higher than it did before (it should now sound like an E). To put it back to normal, hold NOTE, then press pad 1. This NOTE+PAD function will only change what the notes played on the pads sound like, it won't change anything you've previously played or programmed into the step sequencer. In the same way EDIT+NOTE allows you to change the scale and key, but this, also, only affects things you're playing live on the pads.
As to how I learn this stuff? Lol, I get super frustrated, and just, stupidly, keep working until I understand (also I'm super poor, and have some disabilities, so I have a lot of time on my hands). 😆 I have a degree in music, so I've put a lot of time into understanding different instruments and concepts in this area, which can give me a bit of an unfair advantage when learning a challenging new piece of hardware (which the verselab certainly is). Give it some time, you'll get how the verselab thinks, it's not you, the verselab really does have a steep learning curve, and it's a bit odd, compared to other hardware.
@@LeRoy3rd Again, thank you very much for taking your time to reply in this depth! I had completely misunderstood this function and now know how it works. Great! :)
9:36
I appreciate the time code, but you're going to have to elaborate a bit more. I'm not sure if you're asking a question, making a comment, or, perhaps, just leaving yourself a bookmark? 😆