Monthly Archives: December 2023

Genos2: Behind the scenes video

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Yamaha’s Genos2 Story – Behind the scene video is now available on Youtube.

As you might expect, it’s a combination of useful, factual information and sales puffery. So, here is my summary of the actual informational content minus marketing B.S. 🙂

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:04 Martin Harris, R&D Center London
00:03:41 Junichiro Murata, DMI Strategy Planning Group
00:05:25 Stefano Ivan Scarascia, Design Laboratory
00:06:20 Yoshiyuki Hirai, Mechanical Design Group
00:07:53 Ryuichi Izumi, Mechanical Design Group
00:08:29 Tomoya Michiba, Hardware Design Group
00:10:00 Martin Harris, R&D Center London
00:12:45 Kyoko Ohno, Sound Design Group
00:16:08 Taichi Hiyama, Sound Design Group
00:19:19 Ending

R&D Center London is an extension of the Sound Design Group in Japan.

The sound development process is roughly:

  • Planning which instruments and their playing techniques to develop
  • Sampling using different microphones and articulations
  • Mix-down from the different microphones
  • Denoise the samples
  • Loop the samples
  • Map the samples to the keyboard
  • Sound design (tweak voice parameters, add DSP effects, etc.)

New samples in Genos2: pianos, electric pianos, brass, tuned percussion, orchestral percussion and more. More layers, longer time before a loop.

Genos2 adds Style Dynamic Control: Full energy control over auto-accompaniment. Dynamically adjusts both velocity and volume.

Tilted the main screen to improve visibility by the user. Mitigate sun glare using anti-reflective film. Added LED lights to see the slider position on a dark stage. 360-degree rotating knobs use the set values as the starting point for control. Slider catch function to prevent jumps in value.

Industrial design: Try to adhere to the graceful lines of the original design. Increase visibility of the main screen and subdisplay.

Different shapes and coatings. Increase quality. The biggest problem in mechanical design is to accommodate the protrusions on the upper case (necessitated by the tilted displays). The case is created using two large molds. The top and bottom must be carefully aligned.

The LED lenses are designed to minimize light loss. The lens shape is optimized on the order of 0.1mm and allows light to disperse efficiently.

Electronic design of the audio output required a lot of experimentation. They tried so many different components, they wore out (broke) the PCB! The goal is to present the internal waveforms faithfully without distortion (good trackability). Designs are evaluated by listening and electrical analysis. Listening was performed in venues of different sized. Genos2 includes an USB audio interface.

FM synthesis adds dynamic capabilities. FM has seemless dynamic curve.

When the Yamaha LSI (SWP70) was designed, they wanted multi-timbral tone generation using both AWM and FM voices together to generate sounds.

Super Articulation and Super Articulation 2. SA2 voices use Articulation Element Modeling (AEM) tone generation. [SA2 demonstration] The SA2 voices were almost all recorded in Japan. To honor Japan, the team added Shakuhachi. The acoustic instrument tone seems to be constantly in motion, posing a challenge for sound design. You need to leave the original instruments flavor in the voice without making it intrusive.

Every waveform is evaluated for quality (technical check): presence of noise in the waveform or deficiencies in timbre, style, or voice parameters. Then, the waveform is evaluated musically, i.e., is the processed waveform musically natural? The behavior of an instrument must be realistically reproduced. Finally, there is a consistency check: Do the timbre and style data work together consistently.

Sound designers consider the musical genres to be played. A voice must perform musically whether its played by a musician or an auto-accompaniment style — even when the musician uses the voice in an unexpected way. Playing techniques are taken into consideration to determine the articulates to be sampled.

Genos2 waveform memory is big. It allows all 88 piano notes to be sampled. A little bit of noise in each note adds realism.

The new Genos2 drum samples leave more atmospheric components (a kind of noise) in the sound. A key decision is how much “noise” to leave in.

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski

Genos2 R&B styles converted for Genos1

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Styles got a major update in Yamaha Genos2. The original Yamaha Genos (generation 1) had 550 styles when it was released. Genos2 grows that number to 800 preset styles. Although many people use styles for cover songs, the 800 styles comprise an amazing library of musical phrases and ideas for songwriting.

If you live in North America, it may be a while before you have a chance to test drive a Genos2 in person. That’s my situation even though I don’t live in a “backwater” community! Yamaha is pressing sales in Europe where the arranger market is broader and hotter.

What to do? Convert some Genos2 styles to Genos1 and check them out!

With 250 new-to-G2 styles to choose from, I concentrated on the genres of most interest to me: R&B, Soul, Jazz and a little Dance. Some of the styles are brand new; some were taken from other Yamaha keyboards (PSR-SX900, CVP-909 and even CSP-170). All of the styles got a make over using new voices, new DSP effects and new drum kits.

If you would like to try these converted styles, download the ZIP file:

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/G2_RnB_styles_G1.zip

Please remember, you’re still not getting the REVelation reverb and Ambient drum kit goodness. If you want to play, you gotta pay. 🙂

My conversion notes (TXT file) detail the Genos 2 voices and effects that were used in the style parts and OTS. Substitutions are suggested. There is a huge amount of low-level detail which illustrates the level of effort required by Yamaha to update styles.

A few general considerations are worth mentioning.

  • Several styles use the new Genos2 FM voices. I did my best to substitute G1 voices, but, hey, voice names like “SynthLead4” don’t offer much clue as to how the original FM voice sounds.
  • Yamaha preset styles use “Style Voices” which are ordinarily hidden in a separate “StyleVoices” directory. These Style Voices substitute for SArt2 voices.
  • REVelation reverb is used almost everywhere. Comparable Real Reverb presets are substituted.
  • Many styles use the new multi-band compressor effect. Uni Comp compressor presets are substituted. Genos1 expanded the use of per-part compression and G2 follows suit.
  • Several Ambient (Ambi) drum kits are based on Revo kits. The equivalent Revo kit is substituted.
  • Two Ambi kits (Production kit and Dirty kit) assign kick drum sounds to the lowest MIDI note numbers. The MIDI notes are transposed to a Revo kick drum.
  • Genos2 has new Mega Voices: acoustic bass, electric bass and nylon guitar, among others. Mega Voices with the most similar velocity maps are substituted. The maps do not always align, but I left the original MIDI note data unmodified.

I hope my notes and observations help other adventurous souls with their own style conversion projects.

Before closing, I’d like to suggest an experiment for some lucky Genos2 player. I would love to hear an A/B comparison of one of these converted styles against the full-phat Genos2 version. Any takers?

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha CSP-170 in the house!

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At long last, my Yamaha CSP-170 Smart Piano arrived!

Classic Pianos Bellevue

Before saying anything else, I want to give a shout-out to Classic Pianos in Bellevue, Washington. I got a friendly and welcoming reception when I visited their showroom in August during my piano quest. I like to support local dealers when possible and Classic Pianos left me with a very positive first impression. [They had to endure my banging around, too.]

Yamaha CSP-170 Smart Piano (matte black)

So, when I heard about close-out pricing on CSP-100 series pianos, I gave them a call. They checked out the situation with Yamaha and offered the reduced price on the Yamaha CSP-170B (matte black) model. The only catch was availability because they needed to place an order with Yamaha. Classic Pianos staff were helpful and courteous during the wait — even checking on the status of their order with Yamaha.

Classic Piano rolled in “white glove” delivery which I did not expect at the close-out price. CSP pianos are quite heavy and assembly would have been a real chunk for two 70 year-olds. Thus, I’m really grateful for the extra service. Martinson Piano Moving handled delivery and in-home set-up.

At this point, all is well. Thank you, Classic Pianos (Bellevue).

Why CSP-170?

Yeah, why? The CSP-170 is the “old” CSP-100 series, right?

If you read my reviews of the Yamaha P-515 and CLP-785, you’ll know that I like the NWX keyboard action and the CFX/Bösendorfer piano sounds. I would have loved to buy the CLP-785, but its price is above my target budget.

My biggest beef with the P-515 (and the CLP series, for that matter) is the relative paucity of secondary sounds. Once you’ve tasted Yamaha MODX or Genos, you know what Yamaha is capable of. The P-515 XG sounds are sufficient for playing back XG MIDI files, but the voices aren’t up to the same quality level as mid- to upper-range Yamaha arranger keyboards or synths.

When the CSP-100 series was first announced, they struck me as innovative, but price-y. The CSP-170 (and 150) secondary sounds are roughly the same as the PSR-SX700 arranger. The extra sounds pushed the initial CSP-170 price ($5,400 USD) above the somewhat comparable CLP-745 (as far as base piano and sound system are concerned.)

Yamaha announced and began shipping the CSP-200 series last Summer. The second generation CSPs have a larger secondary sound set and GrandTouch keyboards. Pricing with respect to CLP remains high due to the CSP’s extra features.

For whatever reason, CSP-100 series were (are?) overstocked. [You can still find close-out CSP-150 and CSP-170 pianos today.] Yamaha reduced the price of the CSP-170B (matte black) model to $3,600 USD. A P-515 package for home costs about $2,000. So, the $1,600 delta above the P-515 buys a very nice cabinet, a superior amplification system, auto-accompaniment, learning features (stream lights) and a wealth of high-quality secondary sounds. Buying a CSP-170 for $3,600 is a bit of a “no brainer”, if you don’t want or need quasi-portability.

As I mentioned, the only catch is availability and waiting time. In a recent earnings call with financial analysts, Yamaha admitted that they have inventory issues and are over-stocked in certain specific product categories (e.g., entry-level digital pianos). Some of the glut is pandemic-related; some excess inventory is due to a slowed Chinese economy. Yamaha may be shifting stock from far away, for all we know. My CSP-170 was manufactured (Indonesia) in November 2022. I’d love to know its history!

Here I am today, a happy camper. I’ll be posting my initial impressions as a new owner/player and will have more to say about the Yamaha Smart Pianist app. Please, stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski