Review: Donner MOD Square II for keyboards

I’m crafting a small pedal “board” to augment keyboard voices. Primarily, I want to enhance the sounds from a 1010Music Tangerine — a spiffy sampler that is rather light on internal effects (just delay and reverb). Discrete effect pedals appeal more than an all-in-one multi-effect which requires menu-diving. I want knobs and switches for interactivity.

Donner make a wide-range of inexpensive, mini pedals. We all like cheap, but how do they sound? How big are they, really, and how much do they weigh? I want my pedal board to be as small and light as possible — something that I can rest on top of a keyboard or controller.

Donner Mod Square II

I bought a Donner Mod Square II pedal in order to get a handle on these issues. For $40-$50 USD, you get a truly tiny pedal: 3.7″L x 1.7″W x 2″H. Even though it weighs only 8.8 ounces (250g), its small size makes it feel as dense as a neutron star. This little guy has heft!

Donner Mod Square II size comparison

The Mod Square II implements several modulation effects: chorus, tremolo, phaser, flanger, wah. If one’s need for chorus is merely occasional, the Mod Square II would do nicely. Given the effects on the menu, the Mod Square II is a good way to sample a wide range of Donner’s goods.

Donner Mod Square II inside

Build quality is good. The knobs have a nice amount of resistance. The foot switch is rugged. The jacks are tight and secured with a nut and washer.

The big knob turns an endless encoder and selects the effect type. It’s rugged enough although tromping on the switch might put too much force on the knob. Not a problem for me because I intend to work the pedal switches by hand. My main beef is the size of the small legends on the front panel; they are hard to read, especially in shadows. I’m not sure what Donner could do differently because this pedal is so darned small!

The sound

There are tons of on-line video reviews — for guitar. Here is my opinion about Mod Square II for electric piano, organ and clav.

As to electric piano, Mod Square II covers the basic food groups with TREM II, Chorus II, Flanger I and Phaser II being my favorites. Mod Square II offers at least two variations per major effect type: light and deep. The deep variations are too much for me. Dunno how a guitarist might feel, but I have heard some swimmy ambient music for which they might be appropriate.

As to organ, I’m quite disappointed in the Rotary effect. Not really surprised. Maybe Rotary is a Univibe simulation? It has an impossible to control throb and doesn’t sound remotely like a Leslie. For better or worse, the Rotary effect sucks down the high end and not in a displeasing way.

For organ, I’ll choose Chorus II, the deep chorus variation. Again, one cannot raise the DEPTH or RATE controls too high or you get an unappealing throb. Forget a fast rotary sound even with Chorus II.

As to clav, T Wah gets it right for funk. Auto Wah is a nice variation and sounds a little thinner/brighter than T Wah.

The other effect types like Lo-Fi, DLY+TREM and Flanger III, get into special effects territory. Lo-Fi does some serious crunch and destruction…

Verdict

I like the Donner Mod Square II. For 40 to 50 bucks, it sounds great and has several usable effect types/settings. The thing is so tiny that you could easily throw it into your gig bag (along with yet another wall wart) if you want to add some sonic sugar to your keyboard sound.

The plan

I plan to move ahead with Donner pedals for my mini-board project. My thought is to make an effects chain similar to the Yamaha CK series. The small size, quality and inexpensive price of these Donner pedals are irresistable.

The Yamaha CK effects flow looks something like:

                                                 --> DEL -->
                                                |           |
Voice --> VIB/CHO --> DRIVE --> MFX1 --> MFX2 --+-----------+--> EQ
                                                |           |
                                                 --> REV -->

Each of the CK’s parts has VIB/CHO, DRIVE, MFX1 and MFX2 stages. The delay (DEL), reverb (REV) and EQ stages are common to all parts (so-called “system effects”).

The MFX1 and MFX2 multi-effect blocks support several effect types: chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo/rotor, distortion, compression/EQ, wah, delay, and reverb. Since there are two independent MFX blocks, the player can chain any two of these effect types. That’s pretty cool. I would be happy with only one MFX block. That’s where the Donner Mod Square II would fit.

Next up, I intend to buy and test an overdrive, delay and reverb pedal. That would be the Donner Blues Drive, Yellow Fall and Verb Square, respectively. An EQ stage could be handy, but we’ll see!

For more about my plans, see the Behringer UV300 pedal teardown.

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Behringer UV300 pedal teardown

You’ve probably been wondering where I’ve been. Or, not.

My latest gedanken experiment is a small, lightweight effect chain to add chorus and reverb after the 1010Music Tangerine. Tangerine is a great little sampler, but its effects processing is very basic. An external effects chain would make up for its shortcomings.

I’m a fan of Yamaha’s approach to the stage/combo keyboards. The Stage CP, Stage YC and CK have control-studded front panels. The effect chain is laid out in plain sight and knobs/switches control the most essential parameters. Internally, a host processor reads out the knobs/switches and pokes the tone generator hardwaare pipeline.

I’d like to have a similar interface using discrete effects (AKA “guitar pedals”) instead. Guitar pedals are built to a rugged standard adding size and weight, however. Most guitar multi-FX require a lot of menu-diving and I’d like to avoid that and discrete effect units put knobs/switches on top.

I looked into modular effects first. Unfortunately, the form factor (Eurorack) isn’t what I had in mind. Plus, modular requires a +12V/-12V power supply; good old +9V center negative (“pedal standard”) is cheap and readily available.

Instead of making a floor-standing pedal board, I want a box that resides comfortably on top of a controller keyboard. Rugged build is not required and therein lies an opportunity to reduce weight.

There are so many guitar pedals on the market that it doesn’t make sense to design and build the electronics from scratch. So, why not buy a few pedals and tear them down?

Now, nobody in their right mind will buy a bunch of expensive $400 pedals for scientific experiment. I did a quick survey of the bottom-feeder pedals — Mooer, Donner and Behringer. I put a Donner mini MOD pedal on order. Meanwhile, I got the itch to tear something apart.

Behringer tear down

The one thing I will say for Behringer, you can’t beat the price! They offer a wide range of discrete effect pedals for $25-$40 USD retail. Three or four pedals will run about $100 and that ain’t bad.

While waiting for the Donner to come in, I tore down a Behringer UV300 Ultra Vibrato. I used this pedal in a different project and it was time that it gave its life for science.

Behringer UV300 bottom (PCB) and top

The UV300 comes apart without too much difficulty. If you have a Behringer pedal, you already know that the 9V battery compartment is hidden under the foot treadle. You’ve probably sworn a blue streak while trying to get the treadle back on after replacing the battery. 🙂 The 9V battery clip passes up through a hole in the main chassis top-plate. When you go to remove the plastic top, don’t forget to remove the knobs; the knobs press onto flatted potentiometer shafts.

Behringer UV300 metal bottom plate and foot treadle

Behringer pedals have some heft when you pick one up. Kind of surprising, because the chassis (case) is molded plastic. A heavy bottom-plate provides the heft. Once the metal bottom-plate is removed, the rest of the pedal assembly nearly floats away! Four screws attached the metal bottom-plate to the plastic chassis bottom-plate. The plastic bottom plate holds the printed circuit board (PCB) in place.

The foot treadle has a protruding stem on its bottom side. The stem pokes through a hole in the case top-plate and pokes a tactile switch on the PCB. Thus, Behringer gets away without a mechanical panel switch.

There you are. One could reduce a Behringer pedal of this type to its PCB and plastic bottom-plate without much difficulty thereby shedding a lot of weight. Not as compact as a custom PCB, but a few such assemblies could be housed in a small project box and are easily daisy-chained into a multi-effect with independent stages and controls.

Plus, it’s only $25 a stage!

BTW, IC1 is a CD3207GP (1024 stage BBD) and IC2 is a Coolaudio V3102D (Two-phase CMOS BBD clock generator).

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

October 8th — How’d that turn out?

Ableton Move

Ableton Move is a new portable, stand-alone “music creation” surface. Move has four tracks (drum, sampler, or synth) and a step sequencer. Move has audio input and output (3.5mm), built-in WiFi, 64GByte internal storage, built-in speaker and microphone, and an OLED screen (128×64 pixels). Control gizmos include 32 pads with polyphonic aftertouch, 9 touch-sensitive endless encoders and 16 multi-function buttons.

Ableton Move

Like its competition (Yamaha SEQTRAK), Move is loaded with 1,500+ preset instruments, samples and drum hits. Three instruments are preloaded: Drift, Wavetable and Drum Sampler (plus Melodic Sampler).

Each track has up to two (insert) effects with two more for the Main Track. Effects include everb, Delay, Saturator, Chorus-Ensemble, Phaser-Flanger, Redux, Channel EQ and Dynamics.

Interesting — to me and other nerds — is the 1.5GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 within. Wisely, Ableton included a USB-A port which means you can hook up your class-compliant controllers to Move. I wish this kind of “HOST” capability was standard everywhere on planet Earth.

Ableton Move is 313.5mm wide, 146.3mm deep, 34mm high. That’s 12.4 inches by 5.8″ for you English types.

Of course, Ableton Live Intro is bundled and Move knows about Ableton Live (and vice versa). With portability and integrated sound-making, I could see the Ableton Move becoming the prefered low-end Ableton Live controller. I have a boatload of mini controllers. At $449 USD, I could see Ableton Move replacing them all, even if I never do the on-the-go beat-making thing.

ROLI Airwave

If you ever wanted a Theremin, maybe a ROLI Airwave?

ROLI Airwave

The ROLI Airwave lets you wave your hands about like The Amazing Kreskin, the mentalist. It connects to ROLI Piano M (formerly known as “Lumi Keys”) or ROLI Seaboard. Airwave supports gestures:

  • Air Raise: Raise your hand up or down.
  • Air Tilt: Turn your hand (rotate your wrist).
  • Air Glide: Move your hand left/right over the keys.
  • Air Slide: Move hands front to back over the keys.
  • Air Flex: Change the angle of your wrist.

Put your hands in the air like you just… Oh, never mind.

The gestural thing is kind of neat. It would be cool to conduct a virtual orchestra, not just play keys. The tech is called “ROLI Vision”: “Airwave uses infrared cameras and ROLI Vision technology to reliably track all 27 joints in each of your hands at 90 frames per second. The data is converted into MIDI in real time, giving you incredibly precise control of your musical expression.”

ROLI Airwave is $299 USD and pre-order is available. And there are bundles.

Connectivity specs:

  • 3.5mm TRS Headphone Output
  • 3.5mm TRS Pedal input
  • Two USB-C ports (data and power) plus a magnetic USB port for ROLI hardware
  • Class compliant MIDI over USB and class compliant audio interface

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Floobydust: September 2024

Floobydust from the the music tech world…

Arturia AstroLab update

Arturia Astrolab got a major update to version 1.3. The update adds several engines: Avid V (Roland TB-303 emulation), MiniFreak V, Augmented Brass and Augmented Woodwinds. The Mini V (Moog Minimoog emulation) and Wurli V have remodeled engines, consistent with V Collection X. There are 200 presets for the new engines with 90 new “tribute” presets thrown in for good measure. Of course, there are bug fixes and such.

Analog Lab integration got a boost. Astrolab owners now get a permanent upgrade offer to V Collection and Pigments. You need Analog Lab for detailed editing and the new upgrade offer takes the sting out of purchasing V Collection.

Personally, I’m glad to see Augmented Brass and Augmented Woodwinds. I took the plunge for Arturia’s Augmented Collection and still haven’t plumbed its depths.

Arturia AstroLab Update 1.3 playthrough video

Roli October 8

Roli have been announcing and teasing. They have rolled (pun intended) LUMI into the ROLI brand. Probably should have been that way from the start…

LUMI Keys is now called “ROLI Piano M”. As usual, one can expect to see a single unified website for all Roli products.

Roli are teasing a major announcement for October 8. All the usual hype about “there’s music in everyone,” “free the music”, “game changing” and a bunch of Gen [whatever} types reacting to a demo. The words “sleek design” and “talk to it” stand out from the videos. Who knows?

“We changed the piano. What’s next changes everything.
Join the list to be the first to know about the next wave of musical innovation for creators and learners, coming October 2024.” [Roli]

Two screen grabs above caught my attention.

ROLI, what is this?

I don’t know of any existing Roli product that looks like it. Maybe a stand or frame for snapping and holding your Roli modules together/ An integrated synth and speaker? I could really use one of them because I can’t take my Lumi Keys and Lightpad M out of the studio. Magnets alone aren’t good enough for gigging.

I’m happy to see Roli innovating, again, and not just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

Ableton October 8

Well, well, October 8th will be a busy day. Ableton are teasing “Move” for October 8. Ableton’s European trademark (application number 018907095) will be used in the following businesses:

  • Musical instruments, in particular electronic musical instruments; Sound effect devices as musical instruments
  • Computer hardware for music and sound production
  • Digital controllers for musical instruments in the form of audio interfaces
  • Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) controllers
  • Equipment for creating and editing music and sound, namely music sequencers
  • Music and sound samplers; bags for computers

The USPTO approved wordmark “Ableton Move” for publication on September 28, 2024 (serial number 98104829). The U.S. trademark is coming kind of late thanks to the USPTO diddling with the description of businesses. I kid you not — lawyers get paid to play with this nonsense. 🙂 [The new descriptions are mere swizzles.]

Yamaha Synth 50th Anniversary

Yamaha USA have published a special content site Yamaha Synth 50th Anniversary. You’ll find chronologies and Yamaha synth history.

It’s worth reading through the history sections as you’ll learn new interesting tidbits about synth — and stage piano — development. There are eight chapters although chapter 7 is labeled “Coming soon.” I noticed that the chapter about recent history mentions the stage CP pianos, but not the stage YC organs. No mention of Montage M, AN-X or Virtual Circuit Modeling (VCM), either. Hmmm?

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha stage keyboards: What’s next?

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the future of the Yamaha Stage keyboard line: the YC organ and CP digital piano. Both keyboard lines are mature; the CPs were released in January 2019 and the YCs were launched a year later in January 2020. Both models have received updates (including new voices). The latest updates, however, feel like “life extension” updates while new models are in the latter stages of development.

Does it make sense to merge the two product lines and reduce the number of SKUs? That would be a bit of challenge for Yamaha as organ-focus and piano-focus are defining features for the YC and CP, repsectively. In terms of sound, the updates have brought both lines closer together even though the front panels and user interface remain distinct. The YC got a lot of additional AP and EP voices bringing it into CP territory.

Then there is the “CK effect.” The CK is an all-rounder with drawbars, CP-like front panel controls and a set of secondary sounds which, frankly, leave both YC and CP wanting. So, given CK, it should be possible to merge the two stage keyboard product lines. Right?

These thoughts prompted me to take a look under the hood of both YC and CP. Gigantic, purpose-built front panels aside, YC and CP are brother and sister as far as digital electronics are concerned. There are a few differences on the analog side such as CP’s balanced XLR outputs. Of course, the keybeds are different, too, in keeping with organ-, EP- and AP-focus.

Yamaha Stage CP block diagram (click to enlarge)

Let’s tour stage CP first. The primary digital components are:

  • Yamaha SWX09 CPU and DSP (248MHz internal clock)
  • Yamaha SWP70 tone generator (191.9232MHz internal clock)

The SWX09 integrates an ARM Cortex host processor, an unspecified DSP core, and a raft of external interfaces. SWX09 also contains an AWM2-compatible tone generator and effects/mixing section. In stage CP, the wave ROM, wave RAM and DSP RAM interfaces are unused. Board real estate is wired for DSP SDRAM; the board position is unpopulated.

Without SWX DSP RAM, the CP models cannot implement Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM).

The SWX09 is a mainstay in the Yamaha CLP digital piano line. The SWX09 is the primary workhorse component in the CLP-685 and P-515 digital pianos, for example. The P-515 and CLP-685 each have 256MBytes of wave ROM which should give us a rough idea of the size of the CFX and Bösendorfer waveforms (samples). [The CLP and P-515 EPs are relatively old and probably aren’t very big in comparison.]

We see the SWP70 tone generator throughout Yamaha’s many product lines, so it’s not surprising to see it in the stage CP, too. The CP has 2GBytes of NAND flash waveform memory. Its SWP70 has DSP RAM and wave RAM. DSP RAM supports effect processing and Wave RAM caches in-flight (most recently used) waveform samples. The SWP70 has its own unpopulated DSP RAM position, labelled “For future model”.

Yamaha Stage YC block diagram (click to enlarge)

Not to leave anyone in suspense, the future model is YC. The YC SWX09 gets DSP SDRAM and the SWP70 gets its second DSP RAM channel filled. The CP is mainly a sample-playback engine while YC implements a Virtual Circuit Modeling organ engine in addition to sample-playback. I’m guessing that the SWX09 DSP hosts the all-important rotary speaker effect.

The YC’s waveform memory is the same capacity as CP: 2GBytes total waveform NAND flash. 2GBytes may seem gargantuan versus P-515’s 256MBytes. Pianos are memory hogs and with all of the updates, those 2GByte waveform memories may be full up (or close to capacity).

It will be interesting to see where Yamaha takes the Mark II stage keyboards. Here’s a few thoughts.

The CK61/CK88 gave Yamaha valuable experience with integration of organ, piano and other sampled voices. They have a lot of available content (voices, waveforms) and software IP (organ and rotary speaker simulation, AWM2, FM, VRM). If they combine their experience with existing technology, they could issue three models:

  • 61 Semi-weighted waterfall keys (organ focus)
  • 73 BHS weighted keys (EP focus)
  • 88 GEX piano-action keys (AP focus)

Unifying the YC and CP designs into one reduces the number of separate SKUs from five to three and increases economy through scale.

There’s a lot of competitive pressure to produce an all-in-one stage keyboard. Nord (Clavia) have not been sitting on their hands and the Nord Stage (4) marches on! Yamaha’s own Montage M series shows the way, packing all-rounder functionality into a single keyboard.

As to new technology, announcements for the CLP-800 series Clavinova pianos are touting “a new tone generator chip with increased computational power” and imply that the new TG chip enables enhanced Virtual Resonance Modeling. An SWX10, perhaps? I’d like to see both VRM and VCM organ technology in the same package.

      
                 Physical
    Keyboard   Waveform Mem  Expansion mem
    ---------  ------------  -------------
    CLP-685      256 MBytes
    P-515        256 MBytes
    PSR-SX900      2 GBytes     1 GByte
    PSR-SX700      1 GByte    400 MBytes
    DGX-670      512 MBytes
    CSP-170        1 GByte

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha PSR-SX920 new voices

Yamaha arranger folks would like to know about the new(er) voices added to the PSR-SX920. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, the PSR-SX920 Data List is not yet available.

However! Yamaha did make available a new version of its MIDI Song to Style application, including voice list files for the SX920 and SX720. Here are some of the additions which I spotted.

  • CFX piano and its many variations
  • C7 studio grand and its variations
  • Suitcase EP is upgraded to S.Art, now called “70sSuitcase”
  • 70sVintage (Wurli) EP now S.Art
  • Kino Strings
  • New brass including 80s synth brass and bass trombone
  • New sax sections
  • D-model folk guitar
  • Mandolin and uklele
  • Active bass (finger, pick, etc.)
  • Mini Moog lead
  • Drum kits: Vintage Muted Kit, Vintage Open Kit, Jazz Stick Kit, Jazz Brush Expanded, Brazilian Kit, Pop Latin Kit 2 Comp

And, of course, everyone wants to know about the new S.Art2 voices added to the SX920. This is the first time a mid-range PSR has gotten S.Art2.

  • S.Art2 JazzViolin
  • S.Art2 CelticViolin
  • S.Art2 SoftTrumpet
  • S.Art2 ClassicTrumpt
  • S.Art2 BalladSopranoSax
  • S.Art2 PopSopranoSax
  • S.Art2 TenorSax
  • S.Art2 FunkTenorSax
  • S.Art2 PopTenorSax
  • S.Art2 Clarinet
  • S.Art2 BalladClarinet
  • S.Art2 RomanceClarinet

MegaVoices got a big boost. Here are the new-to-SX920 MegaVoices:

  • Kino strings (4 small ensembles, 5 large ensembles)
  • Martin D folk guitar (5 variations)
  • Steel acoustic finger and thumb picking variations
  • Uklele
  • Mandolin
  • 60s vintage guitar (regular Strat and slap)
  • Active bass (Stingray)

Don’t forget, the MegaVoices are the sonic base for S.Art instrument voices. Look for a bunch of new electric guitar voices based on the 60s Strat, for exaample.

I can’t and won’t guarantee that these lists are complete. They will have to do until the Data List PDFs roll out and we can pore over them in detail.

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

New PSR-SX720 and PSR-SX920 models

I just found this information about the new Yamaha PSR-SX720 and PSR-SX920. It is now appearing on multiple on-line retailer sites. 🙂 I will have further in-depth comments after I get my hands on the manuals.

Yamaha PSR-SX720 Arranger Workstation

  • FSB keyboard, with 61 touch-sensitive keys
  • 1,377 Voices + 56 Drum/SFX Kits + 480 XG Voices including 9 S.Articulation+ and 252 S.Articulation Voices
  • 128 notes of polyphony
  • 450 Styles including 3 Free Play Styles
  • Dynamic Style Control
  • Expansion Memory 1 GB
  • Assignable: Joystick, 2 controllers, 8 buttons (AF, 1-2)
  • Improved User Interface
  • Buttons with greater visibility
  • Chord Looper Function
  • Bluetooth Audio NOT AVAILABLE
  • Speakers: 13 cm x 2 + 5 cm x 2
  • Speaker power: 2 x 15W
  • Dimensions: 1174mm x 511mm x 246 mm
  • Weight: 12.9kg
  • 1,573 Euro VAT included (Spain), $1,599.99 USD MAP

Yamaha PSR-SX920 Arranger Workstation

  • FSB keyboard, with 61 touch-sensitive keys
  • 1,587 Voices + 63 Drum/SFX Kits + 480 XG Voices including 12 S.Articulation2, 15 S.Articulation+ and 340 S.Articulation Voices
  • 128 notes of polyphony
  • 575 Styles including 6 Free Play Styles
  • Dynamic Style Control
  • Expansion Memory 2 GB
  • Assignable: Joystick, 2 controllers, 8 buttons (AF, 1-2)
  • Improved User Interface
  • Buttons with greater visibility
  • Chord Looper Function
  • Bluetooth Audio
  • Speakers: 13 cm x 2 + 2.5 cm (dome) x 2
  • Speaker power: 2 x (15W + 10W)
  • Dimensions: 1174mm x 511mm x 246 mm
  • Weight: 12.9kg
  • 2,662 Euro VAT included (Spain), $2,299.99 USD MAP

The PSR-SX920 will be the first mid-range PSR to have a few S.Art2 voices. Previously, S.Art2 voices appeared only on the top of the line arranger (such as Tyros 5 and Genos). The two models also introduce Super Articulation+ (S.Art+) which responds to articulation buttons on the front panel. There is a new “128-note” drum kit. [Who knows what that marketing-speak means.]

Both models have doubled the number of DSP effects assigned to Style parts. Both models have Dynamic Style Control adjusting the energy and dynamics of a Style with a single knob.

Yamaha is also introducing Portamento Crossfade to the mid-range (first appeared in G2 and A5000 [Mark]).

“Flexible time signatures” are supported. “Style Section Reset ensures your virtual drummer stays on the down beat with a single button press, especially useful for songs with random 3/4 or 6/4 bars.” A lot of Beatles fans will be happy because they notoriously mixed time signatures. 🙂

Several on-line retailers in the USA have the new models in stock!

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Roasted and toasted

If you’re missing the old PSR Tutorial Forum, C’mon over to Yamaha Musicians Forum. You’ll recognize many of the familiar faces. 🙂 Saul’s site has the same colleagiality as the old forum and chances are good you’ll get answers to your questions.

I’ll continue to post my long opinion pieces here. Sorry if there hasn’t been much lately. I took time away from the PNW and visited with family in Arizona. Hot with afternoon thunderstorms. Cue “No Rain” by Blind Melon. “Oh, good is raining, again.”

New stuff

Now that Labor Day (USA) is past, it’s the Fall launch season — back-to-school and pre-holiday in full swing.

Not too many kids will tote these to school, but Korg have announced the FISA SUPREMA “Aero Digital Instrument”. Hey, it’s a full-sized digital accordion! Forty-one keys with velocity sensitivity and aftertouch, and 120 velocity sensitive bass buttons. [Gives the phrase “Free Bass” a new meaning.] 320 voices including tonewheel organ. 100 drum instruments. Man, that’s one heck of an all-rounder. Weighs in at 23.3 pounds (10.6kg).

Fais pas ca! At $8000 USD, I don’t know if I’ll be getting on my Buckwheat. (The occasional accordion tune does come up at church.) Korg also offer a button model at $8,300.

New MIDI controllers have been sprouting like August weeds. Arturia sprung the KeyLab Mk3 Universal MIDI controller. It has the usual French Arturia styling with a semi-weighted keyboard and aftertouch. Yes, real wood paneling. $499 USD for the 49 key model and the 61 key is $599. The Mk3 comes with the usual Arturia bundle of sounds and effects. The 49 is 17.4 pounds (6.1kg) which sounds a tad heavy for me.

Novation have launched (pun intended) the Mk4 Launchkey range, five models going from mini to full-size 49- and 61-key models. Pricing remains modest: $250 USD for the 49 and $300 for the 61. The Mk4 models have a small OLED display, rotary encoders and semi-weighted piano-shape keys. Only the pads have aftertouch, but at these prices, we beggars cannot be choosers. The new Mk4 Launchkeys do two zones (split and layer). Faders are on the left where they belong. The pads have an innovative “Chord Map” mode giving you a 5 by 8 matrix (Adventure x Explore parameters) of built-in chord sets to wander around in.

Weight (9 pounds / 4.08kg) and price put the 49-key model on my radar. Ableton Live provides cheap late afternoon entertainment (better than Candy Crush), so Live integration is attractive. Plus, our son copped my Launchpad and I could use a replacement. 🙂 My biggest knocks on the mk4? It doesn’t do expression pedals and it cannot send a full MIDI Bank Select plus Program Change message sequence. I hope to try one out.

Here’s a shout out to a local company — Mackie (Bothell, WA). Mackie announced two additions to its Thump line of powered PA speakers: Thump210 and Thump210XT. Both models have a 10 inch woofer and 1″ compression driver driven by 1400W Class D amplification. The input section has a two channel mixer and app integration for remote mixing. The XT model adds Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming and speaker linking. Prices are reasonable: $349 USD and $399 (XT). The new Thumps weigh about 25.4 pounds (11.5kg).

Not a new product per se, but the Yamaha YC stage organ got a new update (OS v.14). Jazzing YC owners will appreciate the new VCM organ type, H4. Quoting Yamaha, the “H4 has more mids and lows with a darker, wider percussion that’s great for playing left-hand bass.” The update adds new Live Sets (e.g., Soft Jazzy, Loudest, Ballad Organ, Gospel Layer, WR+Organ) and the ability to store Master EQ settings in a Live Set.

New stuff not here yet

PSR folks are eagerly awaiting the Yamaha PSR-SX720 and PSR-SX920. Information trickles out, but nothing official. One on-line retailer may have jumped the starter’s gun putting both models up for pre-order. (No apparent price increase.) The retailer claims a September 9 launch date. Another on-line retailer believes the old models are discontinued. Something is definitely afoot.

I cannot verify the authenticity of this picture

[Update] If the Yamaha trickle-down theory holds, the SX720 should be a lot like the now deprecated SX900 minus vocal harmony and the usual 900-level stuff. The retailer leak mentions a new SX920 sound system called “”Expansive Soundfield Speakers (ESS)”. If the picture above is genuine, there will be cosmetic changes (e.g., a few grey buttons in place of black, more attractive speaker covering), and the PSR-SX720 will get Chord Looper (controlled by the new buttons next to the Live Control knobs a la the SX900).

See, all reasons to come over to Yamaha Musicians Forum. Let’s talk. 🙂

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Whither PSR Tutorial Forum?

Thank goodness the Olympics are not held every year — I wouldn’t get anything done. This year’s competition was outstanding. On to NFL football!

If you’re a Genos, Tyros or PSR person, you’ve certainly heard about the demise of the PSR Tutorial Forum by now. If it wasn’t for the Olympics, I would have been wandering around aimlessly without the company of the Forum community.

Unfortunately, the PSR Tutorial Forum was struck by the server upgrade of doom. I fear such upgrades to a limited extent myself as PHP/hosting upgrades nudge WordPress which nudges me. Running a forum, however, is a much larger headache and the underlying server upgrade forced the site’s founders and administrators to reconsider the future of the Forum. There are discussions going on in the background, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, we have the terrific Yamaha Musicians Forum run by Saul. Yamaha Musicians Forum has a broader scope than Yamaha arrangers alone. Thanks to the broader scope, I feel more comfortable making comparisons against Yamaha synths as well as arrangers. My first Yamaha keyboard was a 2-op FM CE-20 (1983). It’s in the garage and I should treat it better. 🙂 Still got the TG-500, too.

Many of the denizens of the PSR Tutorial Forum have registered at Yamaha Musicians Forum and discussions are already under way. If you haven’t made the move, c’mon over. 🙂

You might ask why I’ve never enabled comments on SandSoftwareSound.net. Fact is, moderating comments is a pain in the neck. That’s why I’m grateful to people who host, administer and moderate forums like PSR Tutorial and Yamaha Musicians. There is a lot of crazy on the Interwebs (both technical and mental) and they work through it.

It’s important to note that our current loss in PSR-land is limited to the PSR Tutorial Forum. The main PSR Tutorial site is still up and running. Feel free to dip into its many lessons, styles and other resources.

Before closing, I’d like to mention a small tidbit. About two months ago, I noted the first signs of new mid-range Yamaha arrangers (PSR-SX720 and PSR-SX920). Searching reveals a few early prototypes circulating in the far east. I saw similar indicators before SEQTRAK was publicly introduced. Stay tuned, indeed!

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

SampleRobot, again

Sampling pipe organ with 1010Music’s tangerine renewed my interest in SampleRobot. I figured, what the heck, lets use SampleRobot to capture Yamaha CSP-170 pipe organ voices.

Cabling

The CSP-170 digital piano is located downstairs from my studio. I don’t have a laptop at hand, so, I had to string long MIDI and audio cables between the CSP-170 and the Yamaha AG06 connected to my personal computer (Windows 10). I put a small Rolls mini-mixer in the middle of the audio cables in order to prevent signal loss. Similarly, I put a trusty old MX MIDI Patchbay in the MIDI path, again to prevent signal loss.

SampleRobot’s set-up wizard really streamlines the configuration process. Choose the sample rate (44.1kHz, 16-bit), key interval (every third note), MIDI channel and a few other things. After a few minor glitches, I could see signal in SampleRobot’s peak meter. All seemed operational. Hit record.

Mistake number one — I should have monitored and checked the sound across the full range of keys.

Uh-oh

Well, I couldn’t leave cables strung through the house without causing major grief for my spouse.

Mistake number two — I tore down the cabling before reviewing the samples.

I exported MODX Performances (in Montage library format X7L) and loaded them into the MODX6. That’s when I noticed a buzziness, especially in the lower octaves. Totally unacceptable.

The buzz is not electrical noise, but probably due to the Rolls mini-mixer being slightly overdriven. That’s my guess, anyway. I didn’t feel like stringing cable again, so…

Tangerine to the rescue

Toss the samples captured with SampleRobot. Copy and rename the tangerine sample files (to reflect the key names) and import the tangerine samples into SampleRobot. Export new MODX libraries and test.

Everything sounded good except that I noticed one sample file much shorter than the others. Whoops! Looks like tangerine had failed to collect and write a full eight seconds for one of the lower notes (D#1). Instead of re-sampling the note, I substituted a similar sample from one of the Genos pipe organs. Amazingly, I couldn’t hear a difference playing across the notes! That’s a lucky win in my book.

Although Montage/MODX can probably handle 48kHz samples — I wish Yamaha was specific about this in their documentation — I decided to down-sample to 44.1kHz, 16-bit. SampleRobot handled down-sampling with aplomb.

Gotta mention a couple of fails. I tried auto-looping the tangerine samples with SampleRobot and got too many short and/or lumpy loops. Cross-fade looping was not helping, either. I chose to go ahead without loops as an eight second sampling time is enough for most musical situations (e.g., a note held for two measures at 60BPM, worst case).

Better or just different?

The tangerine samples and Performances sound pretty good on MODX. A/B’ed against my existing pipe organ voices, however, the new pipe organ voices are just OK. There isn’t a “Wow, that is sooooooo much better” sound.

I’m going to leave the samples unlooped rather than invest more time with little return. If I had my socks knocked off, I would feel differently. Those Genos pipe organs are pretty darned good and I’m going to stick with what I’ve got.

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski