I’ve got a lot more experience with the Yamaha Mobile Music Sequencer (MMS), so it’s worth passing along an update. I’ve been composing backing tracks for classic soul jazz tunes. If you would like to hear the results, please browse over to the Music Gallery.

MMS is a phrase- and section- oriented composition tool. A song is a sequence of one or more sections and a section is a group of phrases that play together. The phrases follow the section’s chord progression. Thus, it’s easy to pull a section together given a chord progression from a lead sheet and a library of drum, bass, guitar and piano phrases (MIDI loops).

This approach works great for a simple tune like “Memphis Underground.” Memphis Underground is built on a single chord (C7) and simple bass figure that repeats ad infinitum. Just set the chord progression for each section to C7 and stack drum, bass, guitar and electric piano phrases. Vary the arrangement by stacking different phrases in each section and lay down the different sections in the song. I recorded the simple flute part that makes up the head (the main melodic theme) into a phrase of its own. Finally, I recorded solo parts into the MMS song screen because it didn’t make sense to split the solos into separate phrases. Overall, this approach worked out pretty well.

Life got a little more interesting with “Watermelon Man” and “Comin’ Home Baby.” These tunes are 16- and 12-bar blues. It would be great to arrange the songs from short 4-bar phrases and just let the phrases follow the chord progression. However, when fills are placed at the end of a 4-bar phrase, the fills do not always play at the most musically appropriate points in the tune! I resolved this problem by increasing the phrase length to 8 bars. I also recorded the head into a phrase of its own. It’s handy to play back the head while stacking phrases even if you intend to record the head along with the solos in the MMS song tracks. Melodic phrases such as these must be set to by-pass transposition.

Then there are tunes like “Tough Talk” and “Put It Where You Want It.” These tunes are based on one or more musical hooks that are essential to the character of the song. Generic bass or piano phrases just don’t cut it. I had to record phrases to cover the hooks and the head. Now, on-the-fly transposition guided by the section chord progression really starts to fight you! I wound up recording full, chorus-long phrases (all 12-bars), effectively ignoring (defeating) chord transposition by the sequencer. Each section has only one chord (e.g., F7 or C7) which simply determines the key for the tune. The hook phrases must be set for “parallel” transposition.

Put It Where You Want It is a work in progress. This tune is even more complicated to sequence because it has three major sections, each with a distinctive hook and theme. Stay tuned!

Overall workflow with MMS has been good. The Mixdown feature makes it easy to create a WAV file. MIDI (SMF) export is also easy. I’m using iTunes File Sharing to move the WAV and MID files to a PC where I convert the WAV to MP3 and add General MIDI (GM) SysEx and voices to the SMF file. iTunes File Sharing is a lot less hassle than I originally anticipated. The latest version (3.1) of MMS adds Dropbox, but I haven’t updated as yet.

There is one minor recurring problem. The MMS tone generator is a subset of the Yamaha XG standard and includes extended XG drum kits. This is good for musicians who are working on XG-compatible and/or Yamaha instruments because the GM drum kit is quite limited. However, the extended MIDI notes outside of the GM range do not map to the same percussion sounds on non-XG equipment, e.g., Roland Sound Canvas. So, I have had to edit the MIDI file and remap notes to make the drum parts truly General MIDI compatible.

Workflow is essentially in one direction only. I think the software developers see MMS as a mobile sketchpad where a musician jots down ideas that are transferred to and finished on a computer-based DAW. MMS cannot import results from the DAW. So, once you start editing with your DAW (e.g., SONAR or Cubase), you’re committed.

Well, there you have it. The true worth and limitations of a software tool like MMS are only apparent when taking on complicated, real-world problems. I’m still enthusiastic about MMS, but I’m also more knowledgeable and wary of its limitations. The song/section/phrase structure can definitely fight back at times!