When I was a teenager I listened to the usual bits and pieces that were on the radio at the time. Before too long it all seemed a bit samey and going in a direction that was no longer interesting.

Around that same time a friend lent me a cassette full of great classic metal, Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax – the "big four" – among others. From then on, I was in…

I loved, then and now, the energy of metal music. The pure heaviness of it was energising. A lot of this of course comes from huge distortion, flat out and powerful drumming, break-neck speed and precision. Very little could ever be attributed to the presence of a keyboard player.

Faith No More were an early inspiration for me. Roddy Bottom’s atmospheric synths, strings, and piano added something extra to the sound. But metal? Not really…

Deep Purple had the rock power and energy, and the brilliance of Jon Lord’s overdriven Hammond organ was certainly a defining element of their sound. But metal? Hmmm…

It has only been since the early 90s that I’ve really found the keyboardist’s contribution stepping up to become an irreplaceable element of the metal mix, primarily through “progressive” bands such as Dream Theater, Symphony X, and the many projects of Arjen Lucassen. The tide had turned. Keyboard players could play metal.

Partly through the need to do something different, partly because I thoroughly enjoyed it, and partly tired of the age-old keytar jibes at being a keyboard player interested in the heavier side of music, I recorded an album a short time ago titled "Keyboard Players Can’t Play Metal".

Every note and rhythm on this album was created by myself as a keyboard player, using only a keyboard. Sounds lame, right? Keyboard players can’t play metal. Really….?

Having been a fan and avid user of the Yamaha Motif XS keyboard for several years, I wanted to post on one of its basic functions: quantizing.

For those who don’t own a synth or other audio editing tools but are interested none-the-less, quantizing is essentially the process of “rounding off” the timing of notes you have recorded to ensure they are more in time than they may have originally been recorded. This can be useful if correcting slight issues of losing the beat here or there, however should be used sparingly to ensure your music remains human and musical, rather than exact and robotic.

For anyone wishing to do this on a Motix XS, as I was asked tonight on Twitter, the process is as follows…

Once you’ve recorded your music, follow these steps:

- Press the track number of the track you want to quantize
- Press the Job button
- Press F2 for the Note menu
- Select job 1, Quantize
- Choose the start and end point of the selection you would like to quantize
- Select the quantize amount i.e. quantize to the nearest 1/4 beat, 1/8 beat, etc
- Press Enter to complete the quantize

If the result is not quite what you wanted, you can straight away undo (still in Job mode) by pressing F1 for the Undo / Redo job, and pressing Enter.

It can sometimes be trial and error to get the result you’re after. You may not need to quantize a whole phrase, but only a few bars within in. Also, if you’ve tried various quantize amounts (1/4 beat, 1/8 beat etc) and it’s rounding the notes a bit too far apart or a bit too close together no matter how you do it, it may be best to go back to basics and rerecord the take.

Trust this is helpful!