PIANO CONTROL (Musical Instruments Control)

User Manuel

TABLE OF CONTENTS
WELCOM ......................................................................................................................................1
Setup and First Use ........................................................................................................................2
Setting midi device ........................................................................................................................4
Main Window Aries layout .............................................................................................................5
Arranger Aria ................................................................................................................................6
Voices Select aria ..........................................................................................................................6
Target channels aria ......................................................................................................................8
Use Hot keys .................................................................................................................................8
Voice Edit .....................................................................................................................................9
Edit Favorites groups ................................................................................................................... 10
Changing Rhythms (HACKING Inner application FILES) .................................................................... 11

WELCOM
Welcome to PIANO CONTROL software. Thank you for join me to that inspiration adventure of playing
music. This software is completely free and design to let as enjoy from more freedom at playing at
home with friends or on the stage. The sort activation that pop up in the first use, is only in propose to
keep in touch in aim to improve that software.

Since I’m also pianist I was always search for the tool that will release me from exhausting setups of
sound's and layers of the amazing Synth available these days. I believe PIANO CONTROL make it easier
to control the instrument. I like you to experience using Piano Control, your opinion is important to me
to improve the application.

PIANO CONTROL enable you to add remove or change the rhythms available to play which construct
from regular midi files, no spatial style files are needed. (see change rhythms and rhythms variations
further)

Also the models list can change by adding voices list file of new model (see the Adding model issue
further)

So I wish you to have a great music using PIANO CONTROL

1. PIANO CONTROL Specifications

 • Arranger
o Full Rhythms Arranger consist on midi files
o Un limit Rhythms number
o Un limit variations, Fills or Endings per rhythm
o Tempo learn mode from player tap notes or from sustain pedal taps
o Add modify Rhythms by editing "json" text file (rhythm configure window is plane to
future version)
• Voices
o Include all instrument voices list of the supported model. Details with the same banks and
categories division as appear in the physical instrument (for now support only "Yamaha
motif XF" model. Enable user to add model by writing new model file detail's the
instrument voices)
o Quick search voice by enter part of voice name.
o Support Favorites voices groups for fast access. Un limit number of favorite groups
o Support drag & drop voices to the target channels – best to use with Touch laptop
o Support configurable Hot keys for wide range of operations: Rhythm select, variation
select, Sync mode, channel and voice select.
• General
o Adjustable arias layout

SETUP AND FIRST USE

• Installing Midi Driver of your keyboard model. Yamaha Instruments usb driver like Motif XF
series can be download at [Link]

• Install Music Instruments Control software by activate - PIANO_CONTROL_INSTALL.exe

• Activation process. In the first time start the application, activation window will appear on the
top of the application

o Enter your Email at the first field and press on the Send button.
o After few second a success sent announce will appear in green (or fail message in
case the activation service not available)

o After about a minute you will receive a message from "Piano Control" with the
activation Code

o Copy the Code to the second field on the activation window and press OK
 After this step the activation window will close and the main window stay on screen. that step
will never engage again unless you will remove PIANO CONTROL installation from your
computer.

SETTING MIDI DEVICE

After application is up, first thing you need to set in aim to connect your keyboard is the midi
device.
• If you didn't install your instrument usb driver yet, install your instrument brand
driver in order to communicate your device.
• Connect your instrument to your computer vie usb cable. Make sure your instrument
turns on.
• Click the settings button in the left down corner of the main window.
setting window will display. The lists should include your instrument input and output
devices. select input and output device from the list and press ok. Notice restart the
app will need to communicate the device
 After restarting the application, the window title should include Midi Connect. Like this

otherwise if midi offline display it's mean the application could not communicate with the
device selected. in that case check if your instrument turns on and his setting to communicate
midi vie usb port. check the midi cable connection.

MAIN WINDOW ARIES LAYOUT

• Arranger aria – operate the rhythms & variation and start sync modes
• Voices Select aria – selecting the voices to assign target channels. Support 3 mode of
arranging voice groups + text search voice
• Target channels aria – present the instrument midi channels. Every channel can set
to voice via select and choose voice or by drag voice shape into the channel.
• Main Manu – select the voices organize mode and special buttons functions
o Main Modes:
▪ order by Bank /sub bank
▪ order by categories /sub categories
▪ user favorites' voices groups
▪ textual search
o special buttons:
▪ Edit Instrument – add/remove from favorite groups, edit details
▪ Edit Favorite Groups – add/remove or rename Favorite groups
▪ Save Layout – save Highs ratio between the arias
ARRANGER ARIA

• Arranger Power – turn on/off all arranger

• Sync Mode Panel – select mode:
o Stop – rhythm stop
o Run – rhythm running
o Sync start – start on player note on arranger note range
o Tap Sustain St – adjust tempo to sustain taps and go to Sync start mode
o Tap play St – adjust tempo to notes play rhythm and go to Sync start mode
o Tap Sustain W - adjust tempo to sustain taps and wait
o Tap play W - adjust tempo to notes play rhythm and wait
• Chord detection – display detected playing chord
• Rhythm Indicator – indicate rhythm progress
• Rhythm selection panel – select rhythm
• Variation selection panel – select rhythm variation fill or ending

VOICES SELECT ARIA

The voice select aria toolbars change according the main mode on the left side menu witch can be
one of those – Voice Banks, Voice Category, Favorite Groups and Voices search.

• Voice Banks mode – in this mode the toolbars present the physical buttons on the real
instrument with the same order, the below screen capture show Motif XF buttons labels.
upper toolbar presents the voice banks as present on instrument buttons; the lower
toolbar represents subgroup of the selection bank (A – H on Motif XF).

Note -although this capture shows Yamaha Motif XF buttons, the application not limit to
that model and even not just to Yamaha models, change model on setting will effect on
the toolbars labels to list other Model buttons, see "Setting Model" section
• Voice Category mode – in this mode the tool bar reorder to the categories of the voices.
upper toolbar presents the main categories of the voices and the lower toolbar the sub-
category

• Favorite Groups mode – this mode created to help user to quick access his favorites
sounds. for maximum comfort and flexibility, The Application enable unlimited favorite
groups number and unlimited voices assign to etch group. Addition to that, one voice can
assign to multiple groups.
In this mode the Toolbar show the Favorites Groups names and the voices aria list the
selected group voices.
(To assign voice to favorite group/groups see "Edit Instrument" section,
To add/remove or rename Favorite group see "Edit Favorite groups " section)

• Voices search mode – this mode uses to search voice with part of his name in all the
instrument voices banks. You can move to this mode by press "Voice Search" button in
the Main menu or simply by locate the cursor on the Search field. etch key stroke at the
search field, update the voices list at the voices aria according the search text.
Note: the toolbars in this mode not relevant.
TARGET CHANNELS ARIA
The 16 shape at channels aria represent the 16 midi channels available at most of the target
instrument.

Set voice to channel can be done by simply drag voice from voices aria to the target channel; or by
select channel first and then choose voice.

USE HOT KEYS

Although using touch to select and drag objects is more intuitive why to operate things; hot keys
are much faster way to act. PIANO CONTROL application support both way especially for using from
laptop without touch screen.
Most of the operation commands can engage by width hot keys.
Here layout the default Hot keys "from the box":

To show or change hot keys press on Setting button (down on the main Manu) and select the
second tab – "Hot keys"
 Expend the tree at the Action column, will expose the assigned hot keys at the Hot key column.
Notice the hot keys affected from "Caps lock" state,"Num lock" state,"Scroll lock" state and even
from language toolbar, if you have few input languages on your computer. So if you wonder why
hot keys not responding sometime, verify if your keyboard state match to the assign hot key.

To change hot key assign chose the hot key press on "Get key" button to light state, and the press
the key you want to assign.
Press on Clear Current Hotkey will reset the hot key to nothing.

VOICE EDIT
Select a voice and press on "Edit Instrument" button at the side main menu, will show this window
 In this window you can change many details of the voice – Instrument Name , category and
instrument Image name. Note that image file name which not exist in "pics" folder will cause to
not display any image. Changing voice details are more likely to use with "USER" banks where the
instrument allow as to change voice.
Part of the field which identify the voice, are read only. That include Instrument Number ,Access
key and instrument bank.

The toolbar "Favorites Groups" in the window bottom present the Favorites groups relationship.
Lighting button group sign the edited instrument is in that group. Add/remove Instrument from
favorite groups simply by press that buttons. Multiple group for voice are enable.

The button "Edit Favorite" show the favorites group mange window, the same as push on "Edit
Favorite Groups" from main menu.

EDIT FAVORITES GROUPS

Press on "Edit Favorite Groups" from main menu or "Edit Favorite" from "Voice Edit" window ,will show
the Edit Favorites Groups
This window allows you to add/delete or rename group.

Delete – choose the group and press "Del" button and then OK. Note – if the group is not empty the
delete will not allow.

Rename – choose the group and press "Rename" button and then OK.

Add group- press "Add" button, default next free name will fill in the name field like "MyVoices3".
change the name and press OK.

CHANGING RHYTHMS (HACKING INNER APPLICATION FILES)

Piano Control arranger use standard midi files to generate rhythms and automatic bass & chords, what
make it very flexible and easy to get amazing rhythms. There are thousands of free rhythm and songs
midi files in the internet. You can download complete midi song and make one of his Bar to looping
rhythm without any modification of the midi file. More than that you can set the rhythm to use just
part of the tracks in the midi file (sometime midi file contain a solo track which not need in the rhythm
auto repeating tracks). All you need to do for that is edit the "[Link]" file, or as sometime called
hack" the file to set your rhythms.

Note -Hacking sometime relate to hidden or forbidden options. edit the rhythms file indeed can cause the
application to crash or to enable to load, But It's absolutely ok from me to let you try to edit rhythms by yourself
editing that file, as long you know the danger for the application. for your safe I recommend to backup the file
before start to edit for any case, and if you didn't you always can reinstall PIANO CONTROL. In next versions I plane
to add a comfortable edit window, which allow the user to edit rhythms in more friendly and secure why,
meanwhile you invited to try the hard" way.

The file which hold the rhythms settings is "[Link]" found at "data" folder in the install directory.
If you choose the defaults directory, it's will found at "C:\Program Files (x86)\PIANO CONTROL\data"

This file is json" file, if you familiar with Jason' format this section will be very easy for you, this file
contains all the rhythms details as tree levels.

Each Rhythm haze a "Name" multiple "Variations" section and multiple "Tracks" section.
"Name": "song",
"Variations": […]
"Tracks": […]
Which mean that rhythm name is "song", that name will appear on the rhythm button text. The
functionality off that rhythm details in the "Variations" and "Tracks" multipart:

Each Variation contains "Name","Midifile","StartBar" and "EndBar". Example:

"Name": "Var 1",

"MidiFile": "Rock 2\\Song 03 4-4 072\\072 Intro Stick Tom
F2_bass.mid",
"StartBar": 0,
"EndBar": 2
"nextVar": "var 2" (optional)

That mean the variation button text will be "Var 1". This variation will loop on midi file called "072 Intro
Stick Tom F2_bass.mid" which found in directory " Rock 2\Song 03 4-4 072". Note this directory is
reference to "midi_files" directory normally found at " "C:\Program Files (x86)\PIANO
CONTROL\midi_files". That rhythm variation will be looping on bars 0 to 2 of the midi file. If the
variation also contains the field "nextVar", that mean this variation is a Fill' or brake', which mean that
at the end of running once on this Fill' the arranger will move to the variation mention on that field
("var 2" in this example).

Each track detail the use of one track from the midi file. Tracks which not list for that rhythm will not
use.

"Track":9,
"FixChanel":10, (optional)
"Name": "Drums", (optional)
"CordAfected": false,
"BankLsb": 32,
"BankMsb": 63,
"VoiceNum":0,
"Controls":{"7":50} (optional)

The field "Track" contain the track number to use from the midi file. The field "CordAfected" determine
if the notes on that track should transfer according the player chord – use for bass or chord section. If
that track is a drums or percussions track like in this example, that field value should be "false". The
fields "BankLsb","BankMsb","VoiceNum" identify the voice from the instrument to use playing that
track. The optional field "FixChanel" use to determine a fix channel to use for playing the track. If the
field not exist, the software will automatic assign free channel starting from 16 count down. The
optional field "Controls" use to send controls command to the instrument channel before starting to
run. In this example sending control 7 which set the volume of the channel to the value 50. You can
send multiple controls command with coma separator like this - {"7":50}, {"12":20}. The control "12"
set the "effect control 1". For more details about the available controls options, search for midi control
code table on the web.