Category Archives: Montage

Floobydust: September 2024

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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?

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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

SampleRobot, again

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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

MODX EP umph!

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This short post is for MODX/Montage people looking for a little more electric piano (EP) “umph”.

I haven’t been all that happy with the factory stock suitcase and “Rd” patches. They seem to be lacking guts. So, I turned to the Genos 70s Suitcase Ballad voice for inspiration. Here are the EQ and effect settings:

Genos voice: 70sSuitcaseBallad

    EQ Low    -4/64  = -0.75dB @ 200Hz
    EQ High   +16/64 = +3.00dB @ 2.0kHz

Reverb: Real Medium Hall +  (MODX/Montage: HD HALL)

    1 Reverb Time          1.7s
    3 Initial Delay Time   22.1ms
    4 High Damp Frequency  8.0kHz
    6 High Ratio           0.8
    13 EQ Low Frequency    800Hz
    14 EQ Low Gain         +6dB
    15 EQ High Frequency   1.0kHz
    16 EQ High Gain        +4dB
       Return Level        64

Insert: Chorus 2  (MODX/Montage: SPX CHORUS)

    1 LFO Frequency        0.34Hz
    2 LFO Depth            29
    3 Feedback Level       0
    4 Delay Offset         0.0ms
    6 EQ Low Frequency     500Hz
    7 EQ Low Gain          0.0dB
    8 EQ High Frequency    7.0kHz
    9 EQ High Gain         +2dB
    10 Dry/Wet             D63>W
    11 EQ Mid Frequency    2.0kHz
    12 EQ Mid Gain         +4dB
    13 EQ Mid Width        1.0
    15 Input Mode          Stereo

The 70s Suitcase Ballad voice has the guts and warmth that I’m looking for. Always steal from the best! I plugged these effect and EQ values into the stock Case 73 Soft Performance.

Yamaha’s signal flow introduces equalization at multiple levels. This makes it difficult to suss or judge the overall EQ curve. However, these settings appear to add a significant bump in the 800Hz to 2.0kHz range. The reverb stage, in particular, has an major effect.

The chorus effect gives a nice shimmer after tweaking. It replaces auto-pan in the original factory patch. I adjusted the chorus dry/wet mix to D16>W in order to get a deeper/richer chorus.

Have fun!

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

A smorgasbord of electric pianos

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I’m well into the process of sampling Genos/CSP electric pianos using 1010Music tangerine. I’ll have more to say about the process of sampling the EPs in a later post. Today’s blog is laden with enough detail about EP velocity levels to make your eyes roll. Suffice to say, one needs to know where the levels are in the source material before choosing exact velocities for sampling.

There are so many Genos EP voices that I produced a short list of my favorites:

  Genos/PSR/CSP electric pianos

  Voice            MSB/LSB/PC1 Velocity ranges
  ---------------- ----------- --------------------------------------
  Magnetics          104/0/5   1-75  76-104  105-115 116-127
  Electric Piano 1   0/119/5   1-75  76-106  106-127
  Electric Piano 2   0/122/5   1-60  61- 81   82-112 113-127
  SmoothTine         0/119/6   1-70  71-100  101-127
  SuitcaseSoft       104/7/5   1-46  47- 75   76- 99 100-118  119-127
  SuitcaseWarmth     104/14/5  1-46  47- 75   76- 99 100-118  119-127

I like the warm bell-like character of Magnetics. This voice have been around for ages — Tyros 4! Still, oldies can be goodies. Electric Piano 2 is unique to the CSP/CLP instruments and has a nice, unaggressive character.

I decided to sample: Magnetics, Electric Piano 2, and SuitcaseSoft. Those three voices give me a big enough spectrum of tone colors. I determined source voice velocity ranges by sending fixed velocity values to Genos/CSP and listening for velocity steps. I verified the velocity ranges against UVF meta-data when possible.

For comparison’s sake, I took a brief look at a few MODX voices to identify the waveforms in use (and typical velocity ranges). Here’s a mini-dump:

    MODX/Motif electric pianos

    Performance      Wave
    ---------------- ----
    Vintage 74        EP1  3 levels: Soft, Med, Hard
    R&B Soft          EP3  4 levels: Soft1, Soft2, Hard1, Hard2
    Early 70s         EP1  
    Soft Case         EP3  
    Crunchy Comp      EP3
    Vintage Case      EP3
    Hard Vintage      EP1
    Sweetness         EP1
    Case 75 Amp       EP4  5 levels: p, mp, mf, f, ff
    Dyno Chorus Rd    EP2  4 levels: Soft1, Soft2, Hard1, Hard2
    Dyno Straight MW  EP2
    E.Piano 1         EP3

After A/B testing, MODX EP4 is the same multi-sample as the Genos Suitcase, that is, comparing “Case 75 Amp” versus “SuitcaseSoft” with all effects and EQ turned off. Yamaha added the EP4 waveforms with Montage along with the new, detailed “Rd” and “Wr” multi-samples. Yamaha probably captured EP4 during the long gap between Motif XF and Montage, then tossed it into Montage along with the other new electric piano waveforms.

I also like the MODX Performance “Case 73 Soft”. It uses the newer Rhodes 73 waveforms:

    Part 1                  Part 2
    ----------------------  -------------------------
    Rd73 p         1 -  49  Rd KeyNoise p     1 -  84
    Rd73 mp       50 -  85  Rd KeyNoise mf   85 - 116
    Rd73 mf       86 - 108  Rd KeyNoise f   117 - 127
    Rd73 f       109 - 119  Rd KeyOff mf    Keyoff
    Rd73 ff      120 - 127  Rd KeyOff f     Keyoff
    Rd73 KeyOff  Keyoff     EP2 Soft1+      Keyoff
    Rd73 KeyOff  Keyoff     EP2 Hard1+      Keyoff
    EP2 Hard1+   Keyoff     Rd Soft Keyoff  Keyoff

Yamaha paid far more attention to mechanical noises in Montage/MODX. I’m in the process of punching up this Performance. [Yet another small distractions er, project.]

After a number of “lessons learned”, sampling EPs has progressed well. More to come about the actual process later.

For more about 1010Music tangerine, please see:

Check out my article about Yamaha piano voice programming.

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha Montage M internals: First look

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Thanks to Dmitry Ko on the Keyboard Corner forum, we have the first solid information about Montage M7 internals! Congratulations, Dmitry!

We owe Dmitry a round of applause and gratitude for providing the first — and extensive — information about Montage M internals. He had to take extra steps to find and identify some components (more than I would have been willing to do with a brand new board, that’s for sure).

Dmitry was kind enough to give me a preview and his analysis is spot on.

Here are my own notes:

IC601 SWP70 #1 (Upper left DM PCB)     YMW832-C    FM-X?

  IC602 Winbond W9812G6KH-5  SDRAM 128 Mbit Parallel 200MHz (8M x 16)

IC401 SWP70 #2 (Middle)                YMW832-C

  IC501 Winbond W9812G6KH-5 SDRAM 128 Mbit Parallel 200MHz (8M x 16)
  IC402 Winbond W9825G6KH-6 SDRAM 256 Mbit Parallel 166MHz (16M x 16)
  IC403 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)
  IC404 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)
  IC405 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)  DM PCB rear
  IC406 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)  DM PCB rear

IC201 SWP70 #3 (Right)                 YMW832-C

  IC301 Winbond W9812G6KH-5 SDRAM 128 Mbit Parallel 200MHz (8M x 16)
  IC202 Winbond W9825G6KH-6 SDRAM 256 Mbit Parallel 166MHz (16M x 16)
 *IC205 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)
 *IC206 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)
 *IC207 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)  DM PCB rear
 *IC208 Winbond W29N08GVSIAA NAND flash 8 Gbit (1G x 8)  DM PCB rear
  XL201 02238 SWP70 clock

IC701 SSP3                       YJ496A0

  XL701  SSP3 clock
  IC706  TI LV08A 2BK ATPZ
  XL801  SSP3 clock

  XLB02 USB hub clock
  ICB04 GL852G  Genesys Logic 4-port hub USB 2.0 (SSP3 hub)
  Q1102 TPC812S ??? USB2_VBUS

  IC702 SDRAM    No mount?

ICA01 Texas Instruments Sitara AM5728BABCXA

  IC001 NANYA 2245 NT5CC128M16JR-EK DDR3 256MByte
  IC002 NANYA 2245 NT5CC128M16JR-EK DDR3 256MByte
  XLE01 CPU clock

ICB03 GL852G USB 2.0 hub controller (DM PCB rear, CPU hub)

  XLB01 USB hub clock

ICC02 eMMC (Yamaha YN240B0)

ICC01 Fast Ethernet PHY

ICA03 THine THC63LVD1O3D LCD controller (LVDS)

IC904 Texas Instruments TPS659037 Power controller

IC101 Texas Instruments PCM1795 32-bit stereo DAC   DM PCB rear
IC111 Texas Instruments PCM1795 32-bit stereo DAC   DM PCB rear

IC121 Texas Instruments PCM1804 24-bit stereo ADC   DM PCB rear

In a few cases (marked with “*”), copyright labels obscure the chip ID information on the IC package.

Here are a few additional observations.

Yamaha gave the Montage M a major league host CPU: Texas Instruments Sitara AM5728BABCXA. The Sitara is multi-core:

  • Dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 MPU (1.5 GHz)
  • Dual TMS320C66x floating-point VLIW DSP (750 MHz)
  • 2 x dual-core ARM Cortex-M4 co-processors (213 MHz)
  • Dual-core PowerVR SGX544 GPU (532 MHz)

This is a major step up from the single core 800MHz ARM in the original Montage. The Sitara is given twice as much primary memory than the original: 512MBytes of DDR3 RAM.

Thus, folks, you’re going to need a fan. Montage M’s digital logic board (DM) has a substantial metal cover, probably to control RFI. The Sitara has a vanilla heat sink. An opening in the metal cover lets heat escape from the heat sink. The fan draws air from beneath the metal cover/heat sink. This design is different than what I expected, i.e., a very small heat sink plus mini-fan cooler a la Raspberry Pi. This Sitara ain’t no RPi!

The two integrated TMS320C66X DSP cores likely synthesize AN-X. 16 voice AN-X polyphony feels just about right for two TMS320 cores. (Reface CS employs an SSP2 DSP and has 8 voice polyphony.) With compute-intensive AN-X going on, you’re gonna need a fan. I don’t buy the cooling pipe solutions proposed by some and it would be very difficult to position the Sitara in contact with the metal chassis. End of story.

The factory waveform NAND flash is Winbond W29N08GVSIAA. That is the highest capacity ONFI compatible NAND flash made by Winbond. The factory waveforms are compressed (10GB when converted to 16-bit linear format) and reside in 4GBytes of physical NAND flash. User waveforms are uncompressed (3.7GB available capacity) and reside in 4GBytes of (separate) physical NAND flash.

In the original Montage, factory and user waveforms are co-resident in 4GBytes of waveform NAND flash. Yamaha added a third SWP70 tone generator/effects IC and, as we know, dedicated one SWP70 to factory waveforms and another SWP70 to user waveforms. The third SWP70 doesn’t have waveform memory and synthesizes FM-X.

A label covers the top of the eMMC device which provides bulk storage (OS, software, presets, etc.) for the Montage M. The original Montage has a 4GByte eMMC device.

As expected, the SSP2 is out of production and is replaced by SSP3. The SSP3 inherits the digital audio routing and rate conversion chores performed by the original’s SSP2. The SSP3 has its own integrated USB interface and associated USB2.0 4-port hub. All are co-located with the external USB connector.

The THine LVDS handles LCD display duties. The Sitara has serious graphics chops with its dual PowerVR SGX544 GPUs. I haven’t worked out the interface to Montage M’s OLED subdisplay as yet. Genos1 communicates with its subdisplay via SPI.

Thanks, again, Dmitry! This more than enough for the next round of Internet speculations. 🙂

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

NAMM 2024: Briefs

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Just “Meh”

So far, I’m feeling just “Meh” about NAMM 2024. Last year’s NAMM opened the floodgates of new, post-pandemic product. Among the daikaiju (大怪獣), KORG dominates with the most new releases.

We shouldn’t forget these new toys:

Both Nord and Casio are collaborating with partners to up the action game — Nord with KAWAI and Casio with C. Bechstein (video).

Studiologic have revamped the Numa Compact product line (new acoustic pianos, tonewheel modeled engine, new rotary effect, chorus and vibrato, new “virtual oscillators” synth engine). These all-rounders look to play against the Yamaha CK series stage instruments. Looks for incentive, clear-out pricing on the older Numa Compact 2 series instruments.

If you’ve been waiting for a new beginner’s keyboard, Yamaha have announced the PSR-E283. Will this appear on the Yamaha NAMM 2024 page later today? 410 instrument voices, 150 auto-accompaniment styles, duo mode for duets and the usual built-in speakers. Yamaha PSR-E283 video tutorial

Akai MPC Key 37?

The day is still young.

Yamaha Montage E.S.P.

I expected to see the Yamaha Montage M Expanded Softsynth Plugin (E.S.P.) today and wasn’t disappointed. There is a new Blake’s take about E.S.P. on the YamahaSynth.com site. Lots of screengrabs.

As this point, E.S.P. is for Montage M owners. You’ll need your coupon code and the Steinberg Download Assistant. E.S.P. requires 10GBytes of free space. Yikes, but it probably needs room for all of the waveforms.

We should start getting field reports about real-world polyphony and so forth. No information on pricing for non-Montage M customers. Here’s the E.S.P. Manual on the Yamaha USA site.

NAMM 2024 Montage M E.S.P. demo video (Blake Angelos) by Sonicstate. E.S.P. is only available to Montage M hardware owners — no software-only retail version. Sorry if you expected a full Montage M on the cheap.

Little things

Although pitched at drummers and percussionists, the No Better Option (NBO) Oneboard provides a way to stash your phone, mini-mixer, tablet and other gizmos while performing. NBO is a boutique vendor who have sold out their original round of Onboards. Register for the next round of pre-orders.

You’ve probably never heard of ROBKOO. They are a Shanghai-based company specializing in electronic wind instruments: the R1 Synthesizer and the Clarii mini digital wind instrument and controller.

The Clarii mini (#300/$400 USD) is about the same size as a clarinet. It fingers like a sax, but fingering can be customized. Synthesis is built-in along with a speaker, screen and Bluetooth MIDI. The Clarii mini has an accelerometer, too, so you can shake it.

The ROBKOO R1 synthesizer is sleeker and has similar specs. The R1 adds RGB lights for pizzazz. Instead of an accelerometer, R1 has an XYZ gyroscope to control expression. The R1 connects with the JamKoo performance app which gives access to internal functions. The R1 is $600 USD — not an impulse purchase, that’s for sure.

Stylophone are going upscale with the CPM DS-2 analog drone synthesizer ($260 USD). The CPM DS-2 will have 2 3340 oscillators, 2 3320 filters, 2 sub-oscillators, 2 LFOs, vintage delay and reverb, and 12 modular patch points. It will be Eurorack compatible. Pre-order at Stylophone.com.

If you ever wanted to strut your stuff like David Bourne and company, check out Walkabout Carriers. “Battery powered, wireless carriers for electronic musical instruments.” Their Web site is under construction, but check back…

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

NAMM 2024: In sight

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It’s that time of year again! NAMM 2024 starts January 25th.

Unlike 2023, the run-up to NAMM 2024 is much shorter. Fewer manufacturers have pre-announced new products.

The daikaiju (Yamaha, Korg, Roland) rolled out a number of major products during the pre-holiday period:

And that’s just a partial list! It’s like the post-pandemic floodgates opened.

Given the out-pouring of goodies over the last year, I don’t expect NAMM 2024 to be super exciting as far as keyboard announcements are concerned.

Yamaha — in particular — has upgraded nearly every major product line. It will be a year, two or three before we see follow-on products to the new flagships. However, I think Yamaha will have a few major announcements at NAMM 2024. Given Yamaha’s secrecy, I’m guessing. [All pundits should be so honest. 🙂 ]

Last year was Clavinova’s 40th anniversary and Yamaha rolled out the CSP 200 series and the CVP 900 series. The CVP 900s are an incremental spiff of the CVP 800 series. The CVP spiff reminds me of Yamaha’s final kiss to the PSR-S series when Yamaha said “good-bye” with the PSR-S975 spiff (“the ultimate S-series arranger”). Having hands-on experience with the CSP Smart Piano line, I’m going to make a bold prediction — CVP is end-of-life. Too expensive and too ugly for a living room. I see Yamaha expanding the P-S500 touch panel concept into a very clean and elegant parlor room auto-accompaniment instrument.

With CSP and CVP accounted for, whither CLP? NAMM 2024. I’d like to see CLP 800 series add the pianos included in Montage M and Genos2: cinematic piano, character piano, felt piano, U3 upright and so on. The upper end 700s have period piano instruments; it’s time to get modern. Will we see Yamaha’s new magnetic induction contactless sensing? It’s time for that tech to trickle down from the AvantGrands.

Moving on from keys, I expect to see the Yamaha SEQTRAK™ groove box or “Music Production Studio” — finally. “SEQTRAK” is the only remaining product name from last Fall’s accidental spill. No doubt, Yamaha have watched others cash-in on the beat production craze, notably Teenage Engineering printing money with the wide-margin OP-1.

The SEQTRAK is about the size of a QWERTY keyboard and cops some teenage attitude in form and color. I expect an on-board sequencer, two synth channels, a sampler, Cubase integration, and a ton of content. Yamaha have been working on this product for quite some time and it needs to begin earning back its development money.

KORG and Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi Foundation have included KORG synthesizers in its collection of Raspberry Pi success stories.

KORG is a company that consistently punches above its weight in sales and size. They achieve this efficiency by exploiting off-the-shelf technology like the Raspberry Pi Compute Module. Raspberry Pi is committed to the kind of long-term roadmap that gives potential adopters confidence and stability.

The customer case study (PDF) focuses on KORG’s adoption and use of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3. Enjoy the read!

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski

Genos2: ¿Si o No?

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A bit tardy with my first take on Genos2. I’ve spent waaay too much time on forums and need to get back to work. 🙂

Genos2 information and videos abound on the Web, so I’ll be skipping a lot of details here. I recommend getting your information from reputable sources, not the self-appointed experts on Internet forums. Given the misinformation that I’ve seen, I don’t think some of these people have ever touched an arranger keyboard, let alone Genos1 or Genos2.

It will be some time until I can actually get hands-on with Genos2. That’s a disadvantage of living in North America where guitar is king. When I do play Genos2, I will post comments. So, please take my initial opinions with a grain of salt.

Genos2 leaves me feeling a bit like Dr. Jekyll and a little bit Mr. Hyde, depending upon Genos2 being your first top-of-the-line (TOTL) arranger or an upgrade from Genos1.

Let’s hear from the kindly doctor first.

Your first TOTL

If Genos2 is your first TOTL arranger, you’re on good ground. Genos2 builds on the solid Genos1 foundation. Genos1 has been a reliable, great sounding instrument and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed in G2.

Genos2 adds many new voices and styles to Genos1. (Some of the Genos1 voices and styles are available with the Genos2 Complete Pack, free after registration.) I made a list of the new Genos2 voices.

Genos2 significantly improves on the G1 CFX piano. It has more strike (velocity) levels, now 7 levels up from 5. The sustain is longer (doubled). Check out this video which focuses on Genos2 pianos. The G2 piano sounds are lovely.

Like the Montage upgrade, G2 received “character pianos“:

  • Character piano: A rough and wooly sound (think “ragtime”)
  • Cinematic piano: An air of mystery about it (think “Halloween”)
  • Felt piano: A sound softened by felt woven in the strings (think “Titanic”)

Unlike Montage M, all of these pianos are enriched by the stunning, new REVelation reverb from Steinberg. Genos2 also adds a new multi-band compressor.

Genos2 adds Ambient Drums to the original Genos1 Revo drums. (Ignore the Internet misinformation about Revo being dropped.) Ambient Drums mix close-mic’ed samples with room ambience samples consistent with sampling techniques employed in modern percussion VST libraries. You (or the style) dial in the amount of ambience, thereby adjusting the sense of space in the sound.

One shouldn’t forget the new true FM voices. Yamaha enabled the FM-X hardware in the Genos2 tone generators. [BTW, the FM hardware is locked away in Genos1.] Now you get real dynamic FM sound. Genos2 does not support FM voice editing, but, really, how people are going to create FM voices from scratch? Not to mention how notoriously hard it is to get one’s mind around FM programming. A free DX7 expansion pack awaits those who register. With a little deep diving, I can safely say there is real FM-X in there.

No doubt, Yamaha have produced new styles and revamped old styles to use the new effects and voices. There are now 800 styles, which in itself, is a staggering big MIDI phrase library.

Ambient Drums illustrate the Genos ethos — producing a refined, “like the recording” sound. I’m sure this gives hobby players a lot of pride and pleasure. I like it because I can produce great sounding demos without a lot of effort!

Genos2 includes other enhancements worth mentioning. The style Dynamics Control improves on G1 dynamic control. The new Dynamics Control provides knob control over the volume and velocity of style parts, letting the backing band more realistically sit out or dig in. The front panel adds two more assignable buttons (3 total above the articulation buttons) and two buttons to control the ever-useful Chord Looper.

If you don’t own a Genos and want one, buy it. Given Yamaha’s long development cycles, it may be five or six years before the next major Genos release.

Upgrade to Genos2?

The decision to upgrade from the previous model is always a difficult one, whether its Montage M, MODX+, Genos2, Korg, Roland, whatever. There might be a few of us who are made of money, but most of us punters need to lay off old gear in order to afford the new. If it’s a trade-in or a re-sell, we’re going to lose value and we’re going to pony up cash for the shiny new object. In the case of a premium product like Genos2 or Montage M, the delta might be $1,800 or more. And then there’s the hassle of dealing with the villains on Craigslist or Ray’s Music Exchange.

This is when and where Mr. Hyde makes an entrance.

The decision to upgrade is a personal decision and choice. Objectively, does the delta enable us to meet our personal musical goals, that is, fulfill a genuine need? Otherwise, I cannot objectively account for enthusiasm, fan-dom, FOMO, or just plain desire (G.A.S.).

Which leads me to…

Generation skipping

When it comes to electronics, I’m a “generation skipper.” I rarely buy the next generation of anything. I don’t find the value proposition — increased utility per upgrade dollars — to be enough to justify a purchase.

So it is with Genos2. My Genos1 is still a rockin’ keyboard. It isn’t used up in the economic sense.

By the way, now is a terrific time to buy a new old stock (NOS) or re-sale Genos1. North American retailers have not sold through and are selling NOS Genos1 at a reduced price. [I took my own advice and have made a deal for an NOS Clavinova CSP-170.] European customers are switching to Genos2 in droves and they need to unload their Genos1 keyboards in order to fund a new G2. Buy a reduced price Genos1 now and upgrade to a Genos3 later. Many different ways to make a play.

Need over want

What would it have taken to make me decide otherwise and buy Genos2? Or, letting Mr. Hyde loose, what is Genos2 missing?

Right now, my most pressing need is an 88-key piano action keyboard for practice. I need to raise my piano skills and I need to transition to an acoustic grand when necessary. The FSX action is not up to snuff — I’ve tried with Genos1.

Compared to Clavinova (for example), Genos2 is missing:

Even Montage M8X left me up short.

What really disappointed me is the other biggee — no Virtual Circuit Modeling (VCM) rotary organ simulator. This is a big omission as far as upgrade is concerned. With two really fine synth-action instruments (Genos1 and MODX) in hand, I just can’t justify an upgrade to G2 based on what G2 is and isn’t today.

Yamaha product silos

Looking at Montage M and Genos2, Yamaha’s product silos get in the way of making all-rounder keyboards. Yamaha product groups protect their turf and abhor cannibalized sales. This attitude and market strategy drives a lot of customers crazy, including me.

Reading the forums, there is demand for an 88-key Genos. The P-S500 is not enough to scratch the arranger itch, DGX-670 is feature-light and CVP prices are way out of sight.

Yamaha need to pick up the pace and roll out new features faster. Will Genos2 people need to wait five years to get the VCM rotary sim, Bösendorfer piano, or VRM? At age 72, I’ve got about 11 years left (male, life expectancy, U.S.A.) Let’s get going, Yamaha! 🙂 My time is running out…

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha Genos2: New voices

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So, what are they? I did a quick scan through the Genos1 and Genos2 Data List files and compared. Because this is a manual scan, I don’t guarantee completeness. [Too lazy to write a script…] I ignore certain voice categories like synth pads and leads. When a new synth voice is named “Blippity Bloop”, what does that mean without auditioning the voice itself?

I’m also passing on the new FM voices in Yamaha Genos2. You can easily identify the new FM voices in the Data List and you don’t really need me to do that. Check. I will say, almost every voice category has FM voices.

New Genos2 MegaVoices

MegaVoices are a good place to begin analysis. In addition to being the sonic stuff in Styles, MegaVoice waveforms are also the building blocks in Super Articulation (SArt) and Super Articulation 2 (SArt2) voices.

On your own, take a look at the MegaVoice maps in the Data List. The maps give a good idea of the low-level waveforms behind the voices. Yamaha give MegaVoice, SArt and SArt2 voices a lot of love and attention. The new MegaVoices show me where Yamaha have gone to great lengths to sample new instruments and to design new patches from those samples.

Here are the new Genos2 MegaVoices:

    Basis                   Variants           Category
    ----------------------  -----------------  ----------
    SectionHorns            1, 2, Live, Dyn    Brass
    PopHorns                1, 2
    OberkrainerTrompete
    OberkrainerBaritonHorn
    OberkrainerKontraTuba
    OberkrainerBassTuba
    Whistle                                    Woodwind
    OberkrainerKlarinette
    ClassicNylon            Open, Neck         Guitar
    ClNylonTirando
    OberkrainerGuitar
    ElJazzFinger            OpenHmr, ...       Bass
    ElJazzPick              Open, ...
    VlBassPick              OpenHmr, ...
    AcJazzOpen              Extended1, ...
    RBillyBass              FingerOpen, ...
    MonoUprightBass

In order to keep the list short, I abstracted away variants like “1”, “2”, etc.

Bass instruments got a BIG lift. Decoding the names, Genos2 gets Electric Jazz bass, Violin bass, Acoustic Jazz, Rockabilly and Mono Upright. It’s all about the bass, baby. By “Jazz Bass,” I assume they really mean “Fender Jazz Bass.” By “Violin Bass,” I think they mean “Höfner Violin Bass.” Is that where Paul’s bass went?

“Oberkrainer” is another, possibly unfamiliar, term. Oberkrainer music started out with the Avsenik Ensemble lead by Slavko Avsenik. It is a form of popular music in Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, northern Italy and Benelux. Pretty much Alpine music. Let’s see Diddy swing that. 🙂

When you see a whole group of MegaVoices and styles devoted to Oberkrainer, you know where Yamaha sell a lot of arranger keyboards.

New Genos voices of the playable kind

With that background in mind, let’s look at a summary of the playable voices (as opposed to style-oriented MegaVoices). Again, I have abstracted away variants in order to be concise.

    Basic voice          Category
    -------------------  ----------
    CFX                  Piano
    CharacterGrand
    RockGrand
    CinemaGrand
    FeltPiano
    U1 (upright)
    U3 (upright)
    Filmharmonic         Strings
    Cinematic
    SectionHorns         Brass
    ConcertTutti
    ConcertTrumpets
    ConcertTrombones
    ConcertFrenchHorns
    PopsConcertSection
    CrescendoHorns
    DynamicTrumpets
    LeadTrumpets
    ConcertMutes
    TrumpetTutti
    CrescendoTpts
    SoftHorns&Bones
    PopsConcertPad
    Piccolo            Woodwind
    PopPiccolo
    CelticFlute
    Whistle
    Shakuhachi
    Dudak
    ClassicalNylon     Guitar
    E.Bass             Bass
    ElecJazzFinger
    ElecJazzPick
    ViolinBass
    AcousticJazz
    Rockabilly
    Vibes              Percussion
    OrchTimpani
    TubularBells
    Handbells (FM)
    HolidayBells (FM)
    SoftBells (FM)
    etc.

Genos2 got a significant upgrade in the piano department. Martin Harris (Yamaha) mentioned that the Genos2 CFX has more velocity levels than Genos1. Unfortunately, the pianos are still rooted in the XG synthesis and effects architecture — no Grand Expression, no Virtual Resonance Modeling, no half-pedaling. Yamaha product silos reign supreme. Again.

Sampled electric pianos (EP) pretty much stayed the same. Genos2 got real FM EPs, of course. There are also a few new combi voices like “FeltRoads.” I use the Montage/MODX character pianos and dig them.

Sadly, the Genos2 organ category remains the same. Genos2 did not get the Stage YC rotary speaker sim. This omission would kill my desire to upgrade. [Dumb move, Yamaha.] Out of step with the Oberkrainer additions, no new accordions. Nothing new in the choir, either.

String-wise, Genos2 gets new “film” (cinematic) strings. The Kino strings had a lot of character and the new cinematic strings offer a different color with which to paint.

Jerry Bruckheimer would like the Genos2 — more brass, pop and orchestral. Genos2 is fat with brass.

Woodwinds got a few upgrades. Piccolo is finally promoted to SArt2. Pipes are the big news: Celtic flute, whistle, shakuhachi and dudak. Sadly, no SArt2 bagpipes. [It’s a long way to the top.]

I already mentioned the new nylon guitar and basses in the MegaVoice section above. You got the picture. Club punters will find new EDM basses galore.

I don’t usually spend too much time on percussion, leaving that for chimpanzees and bongos. However, there a few upgrades worth noting: vibes, timpani, tubular bells, handbells. There are so many bells, they ring louder than my tinitus. 🙂 Seriously, this stuff can be used in liturgical music without shame.

Pads are pads. Synths are synths.

Drum kits

Yamaha are featuring the Genos2 Ambient Drums and have the kits to prove it:

    RockKit               DirtyKit
    PopKit                IndustrialKit
    VintageOpenKit        TrapKit
    VintageMuteKit        ClubKit
    JazzStickKit          ChillKit
    JazzBrushExtended     PunchyEDMKit
    CinematicPercussion   TightEDMKit
    ProductionKit
    JazzBrushKit
    SymphonicPercussion

The ambient drums borrow mic’ing technique from sample library provides using two or more microphones to capture room ambience. The Genos2 user (or more likely, the style) decides the dry/ambient mix.

Summary

That’s my quick — possibly incomplete — comparison. I hope my analysis will help you with your decision to upgrade or buy. Genos2 builds on a very strong Genos1 foundation. New buyers should take the plunge if they have the dosh.

The new Montage M got the pianos, Kino strings and a few other new waveforms and voices. Genos2, however, got a lot of stuff that Montage didn’t get. Will Yamaha provide those waveforms and patches in a Montage M update? Who the heck knows. Always buy on the basis of what you see and get TODAY. Never bet on updates.

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski