Can you use internal and external sounds at the same time.

[OrganTeacher]

Hello everyone, new to this forum, and new to digital technology. I recently bought a Roland Atelier AT60SL, but whilst I love the sounds I want to add more and something different. It has lovely Classical, Home and Theatre sounds, as well as very good sounding solo instruments such as Trumpet and Violin, now whilst this is great for Easy Listening, Pop Classical for example. I want to add more synth type sounds, so I can play 80s Pop and modern dance, and Sci-Fi Themes for example.

The Organ is limited on Synth sounds with only a couple of synth strings. So, can I add a sound module and Vocoder to the Organ and play the internal sounds at the same time, so I can play the the internal rhythms and bass pedals and use both upper and lower manuals?

If not, is it possible to play, layer and add sounds from the sound module to play rhythm, bass pedals and different sounds on upper and lower manuals?

My only other alternative is to buy synth, remove the music stand put a synth on top and find someway of making sure I can plug the synth through the organ. However it would be high up and a bit uncomfortable.

I do have a pair of Yamaha MSP3 speakers Just in case. What I would dearly love is to have the sound module playing through the upper manual along with the Vocoder, whilst playing my internal organ sounds on the lower manual and bass pedals, with the internal rhythm section which is vast and varied, more than the individual sounds of the organ.

I was looking to plug in a Korg-TR Sound Module and a Zoom Vocoder, or if I have to put another keyboard on top of the Organ, a Roland Roland JD-Xi Interactive or a Korg-R3 with a Korg-TR running through that...somehow.

Any ideas because I have no idea about setting up Midi and how it works. My 60SL was made around 2005 and has General Midi and stereo inputs that is all I can tell you.

Unfortunately I have no more room for another synth so need to work everything around my organ.

Yours all very kindly

[ninja6485]

I think I understand exactly what you're trying to do.

Do you see an audio input jack? Something that would allow you to plug a cable into the organ and play external sounds through its speakers? If so, you could connect a sound module's audio output to your organ so you can hear the sounds play through the speakers. That's step one.

If you have a Midi out jack on the organ, you should be able to take a midi cable out from the M.O. Jack and plug it into the midi in on your sound module. That way when you play the organ, it plays the module.

Now midi information is divided into channels. You have 16 channels. Look in the menus for your organ to see if you can change the midi output channel of each manual individually. If so, you can set the upper manual to output on channel 1, and the lower on channel 2. If your Synth is set to channel 1, it will play when you play the keys of the upper manual. If nothing is set to recieve channel 2, you won't hear anything external trigger with the lower manual. At this point, both the organ and the Synth would play simultaneously when you play the upper manual. You would need to scroll through the options of the organ to see if you can switch it to external control only, or if you can use different sounds for each manual and you have separate volume controls, mute the volume of whatever organ sound your top manual is playing.

Hope that helps!