How do I expand the key range?

JoeTheSauce
JoeTheSauce Member Posts: 1 Newcomer

Hey all,

Title says it all. I've really fallen in love with Playbox, but I'm honestly surprised by it's stunning lack of flexibility. Perhaps it's user error here, but whenever I load a new patch, the keyboard at the bottom of the Kontakt player (full version, not trial or demo) highlights seven red keys that are playable with all the rest being blue and mute. They play no sound. I've experimented with the settings under KSP menu and mapping editor feature to no avail. You get 56 samples in Playbox so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have only 7 keys available to the user.

I've searched high and low on NI and YouTube and can't find anything.

How can I expand the keyboard to accept more keystrokes, on Playbox and other instruments?

Thank you kindly,

Joe

Comments

  • Gee_Flat
    Gee_Flat Member Posts: 906 Guru
    edited February 2023

    It's actually 8 keys. That's how it was designed. In 'Piano' mode you can play the keyboard, but it's purpose is to create your own custom chords that you can trigger with any of the 8 keyswitches.

    Expanding the keyboard range on other instruments depends on the instrument itself. Real world instruments, like Orchestrals, are meant to emulate the absolute range of those instruments, so not every key will produce sound.

    Read the book.

  • DjNandoe
    DjNandoe Member Posts: 1 Newcomer

    Understandably so, this is just sad. Creativity has failed due to limitations.

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,198 Expert

    @JoeTheSauce if you check the picture you published, you will see that the 8 keys correspond to the 8 columns you see in the UI. Yes, there are more samples, but all the samples in a column play together to create a chord. Therefore one key on the keyboard plays multiple samples together.

    If you are really interested in the single samples, I think you could alternatively use them one by one to create your own instrument (maybe in Kontakt) with all the keys in your keyboard containing a single sound/sample. You should have access to them in your folders.

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,198 Expert
    edited April 2023

    Take a look to this video to understand better what Playbox is all about:

    I’m kinda promoting Jeff Gibbons a lot in these days, but he is really a good teacher and very clear and informative, so…why not? ☺️

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