Tag Archives: Yamaha Sonogenic

Winter NAMM 2019: Random Youtube videos

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I’m going to post a random selection of Youtube videos here as I stumble into them.

First up are a couple of Yamaha Sonogenic SHS-500. The first video featuring Gabriel Aldort from Yamaha is funny, but shows the essence of the Sonogenic — a fun instrument to play along with tunes. One tidbit — Android support is coming down the line. Does this mean a version of Chord Tracker for Android? Chord Tracker is an important ecosystem cornerstone for several Yamaha digital instruments.

The second Sonogenic video is in Polish. The demonstrator is clearly having fun and there are a few snippets of the instrument sounds. Gratefully, they ducked the vocal and ambient noise during the snippets so you can hear how the SHS-500 really sounds. The drums and eleectric piano aren’t bad.

Everybody’s main man Katsunori UJIIE gives us the run down on the Yamaha MODX synthesizer. Also, check out this blast from the past: UJIIE’s Reface CP demo. Man, that guy is creative! Can’t wait for his demo of the new Yamaha CP73/CP88 digital pianos. It’s no wonder that the street price on the CP and YC have remained firm while the DX and CS are heavily discounted from their initial price. The Reface CP is still a quick and cheap way to get SCM electric pianos (Spectral Component Modeling).

BTW, UJIIE has really mastered those Reface mini keys. I still use the Reface YC at rehearsals. So easy to schlep! I can set up and be ready to go in 60 seconds. Just give me a music stand with the Reface YC across my lap.

On February 12, Frank Ventresca at AudioworksCT hosted a Yamaha Genos™ demonstration and workshop featuring Yamaha Product Specialist Heratch Touresian. (Heratch was assisted by Maio Obregón, Yamaha District Manager.) Frank has posted the video on Youtube. It’s almost three hours long! Thank you Heratch and Frank.

Full disclosure: I purchased an PSR-S950 and Genos from Frank. A great experience both times.

Overall, you get a terrific overview of Genos and current owners will learn new tricks. The last half-hour or so shows off Genos as a songwriting tool. Today’s arrangers — especially Genos — are not your grandfather’s boom-chukka.

If you’re new to Genos, check out my Genos quick start. Also, click on the Genos tag to find all the other Genos-related content on my site.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic (pre-review)

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[I had a chance to think about yesterday’s SHS-500 Sonogenic announcement. Please think of this blog post as a pre-review.]

The Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic is a fun instrument for people without musical training. It could very well be fun for musical amateurs and pros, too!

The SHS-500 is an interesting alternative to arranger keyboards. With an arranger keyboard, one typically uses the left hand to play chords which drive auto accompaniment. The right hand carries the melody or some kind of sweetener. Even though some pros like to denigrate arranger keyboards, truly entertaining and creative use of an arranger keyboard takes serious skill as well as knowledge of chords and harmony. [Click images to enlarge.]

Let’s face it — most ordinary folks just want to play along with popular hits. [A “popular hit” depends upon your musical era!] With auto accompaniment, you need to play the harmony either by ear or following a lead sheet. Sure, you can also play along with an MP3 or WAV file, but neither the MP3 or WAV file is analyzed for chords, nor are derived chords displayed such that you can follow along as you play.

The SHS-500 has a different approach. [I’m going to refer to it as “SHS” for brevity and easy of typing.] The SHS communicates with Yamaha’s Chord Tracker app. Chord Tracker not only plays digital audio files, Chord Tracker analyzes the song within and displays its chords. With an SHS attached to your smart device, Chord Tracker sends the chord information to the SHS where it is displayed. Even cooler, the chord information determines the (musically allowable) scale tones to be generated by the SHS.

Bottom line: An untrained user can plays along with their favorite hit. They can flog away at the keyboard and the SHS figures out the correct notes to “play” given the current chord in the song. Cool! You can also record audio data to Chord Tracker.

This is the SHS “Jam mode.” There are five jam modes: 1 Finger, Melody A, Melody B, Melody C, Backing.

Three buttons on the neck control song playback in the app: [Fast Reverse], [Play/pause] and [Fast Forward]. Pitch bend and modulation wheels are also on the neck.

One can connect the SHS to Chord Tracker through USB or wireless Bluetooth. I suspect that Bluetooth will be the dominant option as who wants to dance and play while tangled up in a cable? Same for battery power over AC adapter.

Yamaha priced this product right. Although the MSRP is $499, the street price will be $300 USD. Yamaha initially priced the Reface series models too high and eventually the price was lowered depending upon depend for specific models. (You can tell which models move well and which don’t.) Reface pricing settled around $300. The SHS is targeted for the youth market and a high price would be a turn-off or out of the financial reach of most teens.

Yamaha can sell at a lower cost because they repurposed hardware from the VKB-100 Vocaloid keytar. The VKB-100 is sold mainly to the Japanese market since the player “sings” in Japanese. Yamaha made a smart decision here by repurposing the VKB-100 for the world-wide youth market. Essentially, it’s the SHS’s software which is brand new.

I’m sure there will be people who scoff at the SHS-500. I, for one, love any product or instrument that encourages the love of music. Music education in the USA has taken a big hit due to testing mania and back-to-basics. I’d really like to see more young people take up musical instruments and the SHS-500 Sonogenic might be the ticket. [Plus, I’d really like to have one. :-)]

SHS-500 effect types

    Dist.1     Distortion
    Dist.2     Distortion
    DSP Chrs   Chorus
    Flanger    Flanger
    Phaser     Phaser
    Tremolo    Tremolo
    RotarySp   Rotary Speaker
    LPF        Low Pass Filter (cutoff adjustable)
    HPF        High Pass Filter (cutoff adjustable)

There is also a filter function with adjustable cutoff frequency and resonance.

SHS-500 voice list

The Yamaha SHS-500 has thirty voices. Here is a table from the reference manual.

    No.  Voice              Display   MSB  LSB  PC1  
    ---  -----------------  --------  ---  ---  ---
    001  Saw Lead 1         SawLead1  104   20   91  [Gemini]
    002  Saw Lead 2         SawLead2    0  104   82  [RS SawLead1]
    003  Quack Lead         QuackLd     0  112   85  [Portatone]
    004  Bright Decay       BriteDcy  104   21   85  
    005  Square Lead        SquareLd    0  112   81  [Square Lead]
    006  Under Heim         UndrHeim  104   51   88  
    007  Analogon           Analogon  104   52   82  
    008  Synth Brass        SynBrass    0  113   64  [Ober Brass]
    009  Electric Piano     E.Piano   104   28    5  
    010  DX Electric Piano  DXPiano     0  112    6  [DX Modern]
    011  Electric Guitar    E.Guitar  104    3   31  
    012  Jazz Guitar        J.Guitar  104    0   27  
    013  Acoustic Guitar    A.Guitar    0  117   26  [Steel Guitar]
    014  Electric Bass      E.Bass    104    6   34  
    015  Slap Bass          SlapBass    0  112   37  [Slap Bass]
    016  Synth Bass         SynBass     0  112   39  [Resonance Bass]
    017  DX Bass            DXBass      0  118   40  [DX100 Bass]
    018  Piano              Piano       0  112    2  [Bright Piano] 
    019  Piano & Strings    Pno&Strs  104   39    1  
    020  Piano & Pad        Pno&Pad   104   40    1  
    021  Air Choir          AirChoir    0  112   55  [Air Choir]
    022  Strings            Strings     0  116   49  [Bow Strings]
    023  Brass              Brass       0  117   63  [Pop Brass]
    024  Trumpet            Trumpet     0  115   57  [Trumpet Sweet!]
    025  Flute              Flute       0  115   74  [Flute Sweet!]
    026  Alto Sax           AltoSax   104    2   66  
    027  Tenor Sax          TenorSax  104    3   67  
    028  Harmonica          Harmnica    0  112   23  [Harmonica Sweet!]
    029  House Kit          HouseKit  127    0   65  
    030  Power Kit          PowerKit  127    0   88  [Power Kit 1]

Voices number 029 and 030 are drum kits. Bank select and program change values which match PSR (Tyros, Genos) are noted.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Winter NAMM 2019: Yamaha Sonogenic

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Drop what you’re doing right now and take a look at the Yamaha Sonogenic SHS-500.

[Update: Yamaha SHS-500 Pre-review]

“Sonogenic SHS-500 is a new type of instrument from Yamaha that is perfect for music lovers who want to participate in making music, but maybe haven’t learned how. This Keytar (“Key”board + Gui”tar”) gives you the freedom to dance, jump and move around while you play!” [Click images to enlarge.]

“Jam Mode – Play with your favorite music on the spot. Thanks to Jam Mode you can instantly enjoy playing along with your favorite songs. Simply connect the instrument with the free app Chord Tracker, and play along with songs stored on your smart device. No matter which keys you press, the notes automatically match the song, so you don’t have to worry about hitting the wrong notes, fingering technique or even knowing the proper scales and chords.”

The tutorial video is interesting because it implies (shows?) Chord Tracker sending scale information back to SHS-500 as the happy teen whacks away at the keyboard as if it’s a Guitar Hero controller. At least the player is human and not the dog in the overview video! Poor Yamaha is going to take a thwacking for that video…

Here are some brief specifications including USA pricing:

  • 37 keys
  • Pitch bend, modulation, control knobs
  • USB audio interface: 44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo
  • AWM2 tone generation, 48 note polyphony
  • 30 voices
  • 9 DSP effects plus 4 Master EQ presets
  • 5-pin MIDI OUT in addition to USB-B
  • Wireless Bluetooth (including MIDI)
  • Battery power (six AA cells) or adpater (PA-130)
  • 3.3 pounds (1.5kg)
  • MSRP: $499, Street: $299.99

Oh, yes, it bears repeating: 5-pin DIN MIDI OUT.

If you lusted for the Vocaloid VKB-100 keytar simply because, the Sonogenic SHS-500 is (maybe) your axe. Yamaha alluded to an electronic instrument in a new category. This is it.

The VKB-100 included 13 non-vocal instrument sounds as I describe in my overview article on the VKB-100. Sound quality is like an entry-level Yamaha PSR arranger. In fact, I’m sure that a few of the voices (if not all) were taken from the PSR-E4xx series. The SHS-500 is like the VKB-100, except Yamaha threw away Vocaloid and added more musical instruments. I guess Yamaha have given up on selling non-Japanese Vocaloid products.

Yamaha basically creating a fun keytar for the non-Japanese speaking world. For that, they are smart cookies!

In case you aren’t fast enough to read the video frames as they flash by, here are the SHS-500 voices and drum kits:

    001 SawLead1    011 E.Guitar    021 AirChoir
    002 SawLead2    012 J.Guitar    022 Strings
    003 QuackLd     013 A.Guitar    023 Brass
    004 BriteDcy    014 E.Bass      024 Trumpet
    005 SquareLd    015 SlapBass    025 Flute
    006 UnderHeim   016 SynBass     026 AltoSax
    007 Analogon    017 DXBass      027 TenorSax
    008 SynBrass    018 Piano       028 Harmnica
    009 E. Piano    019 Pno&Strs    029 HouseKit
    010 DX Piano    020 Pno&Pad     030 PowerKit

So far, this is very similar to the non-vocal instruments in the VKB-100.

Other announcements

Elsewhere in Yamaha key-related news, Yamaha announced the Pianica, PSR-E360, a slew of YDP digital pianos for the home, and the N1X AvantGrand for mucho dollaro (MSRP: $10,999). The Pianica is a breath-blown reed instrument so you can get your Jon Batiste on. The PSR-E360 is an entry-level arranger keyboard with faux wood grain. And naturally, the previously announced Yamaha CP73/CP88 stage pianos are featured at NAMM.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski (except quoted excerpts).