Monthly Archives: April 2019

Genos sound alike voices on MODX

Posted on by

I love kicking back in the afternoon and playing some old classic tunes from the 60s and beyond. The Yamaha Genos™ is a great machine for producing backing tracks and for jamming against them.

I spent a fair amount of time selecting the appropriate instrument for each cover tune. Now, I’d like to play the MODX over the same backing tracks and perhaps keep the same voices.

Time to play “What’s that voice?”

The Yamaha arranger keyboards and synthesizers share a lot of the same sonic DNA. This is a theme that I’ve written about in earlier blog posts. Sometimes the arranger voice and the MODX Performance share the same name. Sometimes you need to find a sound-alike. And, as I’ve learned, sometimes I need to do some MODX programming to get what I want.

The table below is a quick, rough correspondence between my favorite Genos voices and a MODX Performance (or two, or three). In the case of multiple mappings, the preferred Performance is marked with a star (“*”).

    MODX Performance         Genos Voice
    -----------------------  -----------------------
    TC Clean Pick            SingleCoilClean
    Clean Ballad Pick        SingleCoilClean
    TC Clean Pick            VintageAmp (BRITISH LEGEND CLEAN)
    Dual Coil Slap Vel       Slapback (ROCKABILLY))
    Clean Fingers            50sVintagePure (MULTI FX OLDIES DELAY)
    Melodic Jazz             JazzGuitarClean
    Fat Oil Jazz AF1&2       JazzArtistGuitar
    Jazz Blues               JazzGuitarAmp (MULTI FX OLDIES DELAY)
    Jazz Guitar              JazzGuitarClean (JAZZ COMBO)
    Crunchy Guitar           MetalMaster
    Hard Drive               MetalMaster
    Hard Ramp                MetalMaster

    Tenox Max                Rock Sax
    SoftTenorSaxLegato       SmoothTenorSax
    Sweet Flute AF1          JazzFlute
    Concert Flute            OrchestralFlute
    Latin Flutist*           OrchestralFlute
    Oboe1 AF1                OrchestralOboe
    Oboe2*                   OrchestralOboe
    Clarinet 1 AF1           OrchestralClarinet
    OrchClarinet             BalladClarinet
    Flute & Clari            Clarinet&Flutes
    Bluz Distort             BluesHarp
    FM Accordion 1           JazzAccordian

    Dynamic Brass            DynamicBrass
    Mixed Sax Section        SaxSection
    FM JP Brass              80sSynthBrass
    Simple Saw Brass         80sSynthBrass
    Flugelhorn               Flugelhorn

    Soft Case                70sSuitcaseTrem (E-PIANO TREMOLO)
    Rd Old                   70sSuitcaseClean
    Contempo*                SuitcaseEP
    Hard Vintage             SuitcaseEP
    Wr Rock                  70sVintageEP

    Vibraphone               Vibraphone
    Vibes                    JazzVibes

    Soft RnB                 SoftR&B
    Singleline 1             WireLead
    SingleLine 2*            WireLead
    WindSynth                WireLead
    VeloMaster               VelocityMaster
    Bleep Lead AF2           BleepLead
    Detuned Vintage          DetunedVintage
    FM Syn Lead 2*           FusionLead
    Straight RB              FusionLead
    Saw Lead                 FusionLead
    Dynamic Mini             BrightMini
    Whistle                  Whistle
    Early Lead               Oxygen
    Saw Lead                 Oxygen

    Big Strings              ButterStrings
    Analog                   AnalogPad
    Dark Light               DarkFatSaw
    VP Soft                  VPSoft
    Feeling                  LightPad
    Dark Atmo Pad            NewAtmosphere
    Angel Eyes               DarkAngelPad
    NighttrainToMunich       NightMotion
    Gospel Hmm               Mmh, GospelVoices
    Boy Choir MW Xfade       GothicVox

    All Out None             AllBarsOutFast
    Fully                    AllBarsOutFast
    Bowed Bars CV            CurvedBars, UpsideDownSmile
    Draw Organ               BalladOrgan
    Whiter Bars              WhiterBars
    Jazz 2nd Perc + C3       RotarySwitch
    Vx Full Bars*            60sOrgan, Italian60sOrgan
    Clean                    60sOrgan
    1967 Keys                60sOrgan

Even when the name matches (e.g., Bleep Lead), you’ll find slight differences in programming. The basic sound is there, but maybe one implementation will open up the filter dynamically, or maybe it will have a longer portamento time. These differences are easy to iron out, if they’re important at all.

Occasionally, a Performance and its corresponding Genos voice responds differently due to Expanded Articulation vs. Super Articulation programming. Such differences are fundamental to the arranger or synthesizer design. I’ll just need to keep mental notes about what to do where when playing, that is, push an assignable function button or some other gesture. If a Super Articulation voice is based on a Mega Voice, then chances are good that one can find a way to get a similar result on MODX using Expanded Articulation (XA).

Of course, the Super Articulation 2 (Articulated Element Modeling) technology does not carry over to MODX (Montage). Super Articulation 2 (SArt2) stitches successive notes together, blending tone heads, tails and bodies in real time depending upon the playing gesture. SArt2 requires additional samples and computation which are not implemented in MODX (Montage).

Not so easy are a few of the electric guitar voices. Electric guitar tone depends heavily upon the DSP effect chain. The Genos VintageAmp voice is a good example. It’s a single coil guitar driving the British Legend Clean effect. I couldn’t find a MODX preset to match. However, I quickly cooked up a Performance starting with the TC Clean Pick Performance (a single coil Telecaster). It was a piece of cake to put the British Legend clean effect into the signal chain. Voila — a new sound-alike Performance!

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Genos/PSR organ registrations

Posted on by

I’m deep in another one of those “cross-platform” projects in which I share voice programming between Yamaha Genos™ and Yamaha MODX. In this case, I’m recreating some of the PSR/Genos “organ flutes” registrations on MODX.

“Organ flutes” is Yamaha-speak for drawbar organ emulation. Genos and S-series PSR arranger workstations implement two kinds of drawbar (Hammond B3) organ voices: normal sample playback voices and organ flutes voices. The organ flutes have their own drawbar user interface where the user can move virtual footage drawbars, including percussion. Organ flutes voices make use of a rotary speaker DSP effect while sample playback organ voices may have the rotary effect sampled-in instead of using a DSP effect. The chief disadvantage of sampled-in is the inability to smoothly change rotary speaker speeds (i.e., ramp up or ramp down between speeds). The abrupt speed change is very unrealistic. Of course, you can’t change the drawbar setting of a sampled-in voice either.

Everyone loves new organ registrations, so here is my go-to table of Yamaha presets. Vibrato is OFF in all cases.

Preset         Drawbars     VOL  RESP  4' 2 2/3'  2' LENG  Rotary effect
-------------- -----------  ---  ---- --- ------ --- ----  -------------
OrganFlutes    78 6600 000   8     0   8     0    0    6   DUAL ROT BRT
USDSmile       87 4323 468   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
ReggaeBars     70 0000 008   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
WarmTheatre    80 0605 000   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT WRM
OrganPops      70 8000 000   8     0   8     0    0    8   DUAL ROT BRT
RockOrgan      65 5444 644   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
SoulPercussion 70 0000 530   8     0   0     7    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
GospelTruth    87 6000 568   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
PadOrgan       00 8520 000   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT WRM
FullOrgan      88 7677 788   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT

StringBars     48 0787 532   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
LatinSpin      70 0003 443   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
ShadyBars      68 8600 000   8     0   0     0    0    7   DUAL ROT BRT
FunkOrgan      83 5035 788   8     0   0     0    0    7   DUAL ROT BRT
BalladOrgan    86 7300 000   8     0   0     0    0    7   DUAL ROT WRM
RichBars       63 8457 530   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
TrumpetBars    06 0786 540   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
SoulBars       80 0050 578   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
ClariBars      08 0080 760   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT
JazzSquabble   80 0008 888   8     0   0     0    0    0   DUAL ROT BRT

These are the registrations for Yamaha’s preset organ flutes voices.

The RESP, 4′, 2 2/3′, 2′ and LENG columns control envelope and percussion. The manual describes these parameters in the following way:

  • Response (RESP): Affects both the attack and release portion of the sound, increasing or decreasing the response time of the initial swell and release, based on the Footage controls. The higher the value, the slower the swell and release.
  • 4′, 2 2/3′, 2′: 4′ is second harmonic percussion level and 2 2/3′ is third harmonic percussion level.
  • Length (LENG): Controls the length of the percussion sound.

There is also an Attack switch to apply percussion to the first note or each note. For realism, I apply first note. Always.

The registrations above use the older rotary speaker effect algorithm which had two PSR/Genos presets: DUAL ROTARY BRIGHT and DUAL ROTARY WARM. I recommend trying the “new” rotary speaker algorithm if you got it (Montage, MODX, Genos).

Here are a few bonus registrations, just for grins:

Preset      Drawbars     VOL  RESP   4'  2 2/3'   2'  LENG  Rotary effect
----------- -----------  ---  ----  ---  ------  ---  ----  -------------
SmithPlus   88 8800 000   8     3    0      4     0     0   DUAL ROT WRM
Simmerin    83 0000 378   8     0    0      0     0     0   DUAL ROT WRM
MellowDee   80 4600 000   8     4    0      0     0     0   DUAL ROT BRT
Shoutin     66 8848 588   8     4    0      0     0     0   DUAL ROT WRM
WhistleStop 88 8000 008   8     3    0      0     0     0   DUAL ROT WRM
WhiterShade 68 8600 000   8     0    4      0     0     8   DUAL ROT WRM

If you want to ditch the sampled-in voices and use organ flutes instead, many of the Yamaha organ flutes presets are equivalent to a sampled-in voice. You just need to decode the names: WhiterBars → ShadyBars, Curved Bars → USDSmile, GospelOrgan (Legacy) → GospelTruth, etc. Save the registrations as Genos or PSR USER voices and use them in place of the sampled-in voices. Then, enjoy the rotary speaker ramp up and down!

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha MODX gospel organ

Posted on by

I’ve been woodshedding an up-beat gospel tune, “Stop By, Lord” by Doris Wesley Bettis. It needs a brighter B3 registration than my typical church registrations. So, I turned to Genos™ for inspiration.

Two Genos voices stood out: GospelOrgan and UpsideDownSmile. They are similar and the drawbar settings form an arching curve (i.e., the upside down smile). Here are the registrations:

Genos GospelOrgan

     16   5 1/3  8    4   2 2/3   2   1 3/5  1 1/3   1   Perc
    ----  ----- ---  ---  -----  ---  -----  -----  ---  ----
      8     7    6    0     0     0     3      4     5    No

Genos UpsideDownSmile

     16   5 1/3  8    4   2 2/3   2   1 3/5  1 1/3   1   Perc
    ----  ----- ---  ---  -----  ---  -----  -----  ---  ----
      8     7    4    3     2     3     4      6     7    No

The UpsideDownSmile voice is at essence a brighter version of the GospelOrgan voice.

We need to translate the drawbar registrations (range [0:8]) into MODX Element levels (range [0:127]). The MODX factory patches use a range from 0 to 104. My own patches are using the range 0 to 127. Below is a table mapping each drawbar setting to the equivalent MODX Element level:

    1 * 13 =  13   1 * 16 =  16
    2 * 13 =  26   2 * 16 =  32
    3 * 13 =  39   3 * 16 =  48
    4 * 13 =  52   4 * 16 =  64
    5 * 13 =  65   5 * 16 =  80
    6 * 13 =  78   6 * 16 =  96
    7 * 13 =  91   7 * 16 = 112
    8 * 13 = 104   8 * 16 = 128

Take your pick: soft or hot.

I decided to implement each voice in its own MODX Part. Thus, we need to drop one of the drawbar harmonics in order to shoe horn the registration into eight Elements, the maximum number of individual elemental tones per Part. (Each Element is a drawbar footage.) A quick experiment on Genos found that I could drop the 2 2/3′ bar from the registrations without much sonic effect. It was pretty much buried in the harmonic mix.

The next table shows the Element levels for each MODX Performance.

Genos GospelOrgan

     16   5 1/3  8    4   2 2/3   2   1 3/5  1 1/3   1 
    ----  ----- ---  ---  -----  ---  -----  -----  ---
    104     91   78    0     0     0    39     52    65
    127    112   96    0     0     0    48     64    80

Genos UpsideDownSmile

     16   5 1/3  8    4   2 2/3   2   1 3/5  1 1/3   1 
    ----  ----- ---  ---  -----  ---  -----  -----  ---
    104     91   52   39    26    39    52     78    91
    127    112   64   48    32    48    64     96   112

The upper row in each case contains the Element levels over the range [0:104]. The lower row shows the Element levels over the range [0:127].

Starting with one of my church Performances, I created a three Part MODX Performance. There is one Part for the GospelOrgan setting and one Part for the UpsideDownSmile setting. The third part handles rotor noise, etc. I programmed two Scenes, one for each registration setting. Scene 1 mutes the UpsideDownSmile Part and Scene 2 mutes the GospelOrgan Part. Thus, I can switch between registrations by switching between Scenes. [In my next experiment, I’m going to try the SuperKnob to morph between registrations.]

Next up is the rotary speaker effect. Genos applies the REAL ROTARY effect:

                            USD Smile   Gospel
                            ---------   ------
    Drive                   2.5         4.0
    Tone                    8.5         10.0
    Low/High Balance        L<H1        L<H9
    Output Level            100         100
    Mic L-R Angle           180deg      120deg
    Input Level             +6dB        +6dB
    Modulation Intensity    63          63
    Slow-Fast Time of Horn  1.13        1.13
    Fast-Slow Time of Horn  0.97        0.97
    Woofer Speed Slow       43.5 RPM    43.5 RPM
    Horn Speed Slow         47.3 RPM    47.3 RPM
    Woofer Speed Fast       403.7 RPM   403.7 RPM
    Horn Speed Fast         464.3 RPM   464.3 RPM

REAL ROTARY is the “new” rotary speaker effect added in Montage. On MODX, this effect is called “Rotary Speaker 2”. The Tone parameter seems to function like a high-cut filter, BTW.

I prefer to slow the horn and rotor (woofer) down. Here is my LeslieChurch USER EFFECT preset on Genos:

    Woofer Speed Slow         40.2 RPM   0.67Hz
    Horn Speed Slow           48.0 RPM   0.80Hz
    Woofer Speed Fast         343.2 RPM  5.72Hz
    Horn Speed Fast           403.8 RPM  6.73Hz
    Slow-Fast Time of Woofer  47
    Slow-Fast Time of Horn    20
    Drive Low                 17
    Drive High                42
    Low/High Balance          L=H
    EQ Low Frequency          100Hz
    EQ Low Gain               -2dB
    EQ High Frequency         14kHz
    EQ High Gain              -12dB
    Mic L-R Angle             162deg

When moving between MODX and Genos, be prepared to convert RPM to Hertz and vice versa! Divide RPMs by 60 to get Hertz.

To complete the picture, let’s take a look at the MODX Rotary Speaker 2 presets. The MODX (Montage) has five presets:

  • Clean and Wide
  • Vintage Mono
  • Slow and Dirty
  • Full Drive
  • Broken Motors

The following table shows the parameter values for each preset.

                       Clean     Vint Mono  Slow Dirt  Full Dr  Broken
                       --------  ---------  ---------  -------  ------
Drive                  0.0       1.9        4.6        10.0     1.9
Tone                   6.0       4.4        5.4        8.0      7.5
Low/High Balance       R=H       R=H        R7>H       R=H      R<H11
Output Level           111       111        111        111      111
Mic L-R Angle          180deg    0deg       90deg      120deg   180deg
Input Level            +1.5dB    +1.5dB     +1.5dB     +1.5dB   +1.5dB
Modulation Intensity   63        20         25         19       63
Slow-Fast Time Horn    0.95      0.78       0.98       0.98     0.95
Fast-Slow Time Horn    0.92      0.78       0.92       0.92     0.92
Horn Speed Slow        42.3rpm   40.4       33.4       42.3     59.9
Horn Speed Fast        398.7rpm  403.7      398.7      398.7    270.0
Slow-Fast Time Woofer  1.22      1.43       1.38       1.21     1.33
Fast-Slow Time Woofer  1.86      1.78       1.87       1.87     2.00
Woofer Speed Slow      40.1rpm   39.4       30.6       40.1     22.7
Woofer Speed Fast      323.0rpm  338.1      323.0      323.0    254.9

If you have a Genos, you might want to give these a spin. As of Genos update v1.3, it isn’t possible to set the Slow-Fast and Fast-Slow times for the woofer. I hope that Yamaha fix this oversight.

With respect to the gospel organ Performance, I started with the “Clean and Wide” preset values, then dialed in a few tweaks.

Changing the effect algorithm affected the rotary speaker speed control routing. I needed to drop into the Part Common Mod/Control parameters to select the Mod Wheel source and to set its destination to “InsA SpdCtrl”. (Insert A is the rotary speaker effect algorithm.)

If you’re looking for a gospel organ sound on MODX (Montage), I hope this information will help you out.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

“Joy, beauty, confidence, and discovery”

Posted on by

I’ve been reading Yamaha’s 2018 Annual Report to investors and would like to pass along these observations.

Yamaha, the business, is in transition. It reorganized its by-product line structure into a function-specific structure: production, sales, marketing, R&D, design. These functions have centralized management and are not distributed into product line units. Hopefully, this change and Yamaha’s Innovation Center will break down stove-pipes between arrangers and synths, for example.

Worldwide, Yamaha has many factories: Japan (3 factories), Indonesia (5), China (4), and Malaysia (1). Yamaha will be adding two new factories in 2019: Chennai India (January) and Jakarta Indonesia (July). The Chennai factory will produce products for the local Indian market. The new Jakarta factory will produce digital musical instruments (DMI) as well as pianos.

Yamaha have been actively revising selling prices. This explains why we have seen price fluctuations in certain regional markets. One important goal of note to customers, Yamaha are working to establish appropriate pricing at time of product launch. Personally, I throw out Reface as an example, where everyone said “Are they nuts?” after seeing the initial high street price.

Yamaha list their primary competitors:

  • Pianos: Steinway & Sons (Germany and the U.S.); Guangzhou Pearl River Piano Group Co., Ltd. (China); Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Japan)
  • Digital music instruments: Casio Computer Co., Ltd., Roland Corporation, and Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing (Japan)
  • Wind instruments: Conn-Selmer, Inc (the U.S.); Buffet Crampon (France); Jupiter Band Instruments, Inc. (Taiwan)
  • String and percussion instruments: Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Gibson Brands, Inc., C.F. Martin & Co., and Taylor Guitars (the U.S.

Gearheads will be surprised to see who’s missing. Korg? Nord?

In terms of R&D, Yamaha have a central Technology Unit responsible for advanced technology research and intellectual property (IP) management. The Technology Unit spins results into the technology development departments of each business field such as musical instruments, audio products, etc.

Every Yamaha annual report highlights a few technological stars. This year, it’s the Venova wind instrument (which uses branched pipe theory first seen in the VL1 virtual acoustic sound source), the Rivage PM10 digital mixing system and the SST-102 desktop ultrasound scanner.

The Yamaha Innovation Center was completed in June 2018. This new building centralizes the R&D staff, who were scattered over multiple locations. Surely, Yamaha is looking for new synergies. The Innovation Center also brings together specialized laboratories (e.g., anechoic chamber), recording studios and reverberation chamber. I’d love to visit!

Periodically, I browse recent patents filed by Yamaha and other technology leaders. Yamaha group has about 4,00 patents in Japan and roughly 4,000 patents in the United States, Europe and China. Patents, trademarks and copyright are important tools in defending its intellectual property. Increasingly, Yamaha have been filing design patents in the USA to cover industrial product design, too.

Speaking of industrial design, the annual report spotlights the NS-5000 bookshelf speaker, Venova, the SX series of grand pianos and Genos™.

I’m a little too fried to dive into the P&L right now. However, I hope these observations are enlightening.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Pacific Northwest Vintage Computer Festival

Posted on by

I apologize for the pause in blog posts. Between travel and prep’ing the house for sale, the last few weeks have been insane. The painters are wrapping up their work today, leaving a little bit of time for writing.

Our trip took us to the Seattle area for a visit with family. Fortunately, our trip coincided with the 2019 Pacific Northwest Vintage Computer Festival. The festival was held at Living Computers Museum + Labs.

The weather was gloriously spring-like (for a New Englander), making the walk from the Link light rail to the museum a pleasure. The festival took over most of the first floor of Living Computers, including the lab space. If you get the opportunity to attend, I recommend it. There are vintage personal computers, workstations, calculators — all sorts of gear, most of it up and running.

A few highlights…

I had a pleasant chat with Josh Dersch who restored and maintains a Three Rivers Perq workstation. The Perq is one of the first “3 M” machines (1 MIP, 1 MByte, 1 mega-pixel). The Perq originated from the electronics lab associated with the Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department during the mid-70s. I worked at the CS department as a computer operator while grinding my way through C-MU as an undergrad. The electronics lab was a source of many innovative systems: one of the first Xerographic printers (the XGP), a vector display replete with C-MU’s own space war game, and the Perq prototype. The principal players took the Perq commercial in 1974 (just as I was graduating, BTW).

The initial prototype was wire-wrapped. The computer machine room had large glass windows into the electronics lab and I remember watching Brian Rosen as he wrapped and debugged massive prototyping boards stuffed with parts. Josh has one of the original prototype boards. The wire density is staggering. At that scale, one really needed to get things wired right the first time because debugging that rat’s nest of wiring was no fun. (Today’s engineers are spoiled with simulators!)

One of the sweetest systems to combine the new and old is the PiDP-11/70. The PiDP-11/70 combines a Raspberry Pi running simh with a beauty, small-scale PDP-11/70 front panel with all the blinken lights and switches. If the 11/70 is too modern for you, try the PiDP-8/I, which is just as spiffy.

Finally, I quite liked the Gigatron TTL Microcomputer by Marcel van Kervinck and Walter Belgers. I acquired a pile of 7400 series logic components in 1976 with the intention of building my own 16-bit processor with an instruction set architecture (ISA) of my own design. It’s still a pile of parts. Marcel and Walter made this dream into a reality. I spoke with Marcel for several minutes and enjoyed hearing about his approach and design choices.

The Vintage Computer Federation organizes and sponsors Vintage Computer Festivals throughout the United States. Check the schedule and visit one!

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski