Category Archives: MOX

MOX performance to PSR style (part 2)

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In part one, I described how to capture Yamaha MOX arpeggios (musical phrases) in a standard MIDI file (SMF). In this part, I discuss the translation of the SMF to a Yamaha PSR/Tyros style file. This process should work for any SMF, not just an SMF from the MOX workstation.

The SMF produced by the MOX contains the notes for one or more instrument channels where each channel corresponds to a MOX performance part. If you followed the directions in part one, the phrases are arranged in an order starting with the main sections, followed by the fill sections, and finally, the break section. The SMF is raw (“stripped”) and does not contain bank select, program change, volume or pan messages. This is to our advantage since we are free to assign PSR/Tyros voices and tweak the overall mix. If you apply this process to an arbitrary SMF such as a file from the Internet, you will need to change or remove voice assignments, levels, etc. to make the MIDI data compatible with the PSR/Tyros.

The translation procedure needs four tools:

  1. A software DAW or sequencing program to massage the MIDI data.
  2. Style Fixer to insert an initial CASM section into the style.
  3. OTS Editor to add One Touch Settings to the style.
  4. CASM Editor to modify note transposition information.

Style Fixer, OTS Editor and CASM Editor are part of the excellent suite of tools written and maintained by Jørgen Sørensen. I also recommend Michael Bedesem’s MixMaster program which supports a very wide range of tweaks and tweezes. Right now, my DAW is Cakewalk SONAR LE — a little bit out of date, but it does the job. The directions below refer to SONAR although any well-featured DAW should do such as Cubase AI. You may also edit the style on the PSR/Tyros keyboard itself using its Style Creator. This is good in the latter stages of development when you need to make one or two final tweaks.

You can find links to these and other PSR/Tyros tools through the PSR Tutorial utilities page.

One major warning: A style file contains MIDI data and much more. A DAW removes the extra data (e.g., CASM and OTS) from a style file. Thus, a DAW is best during the early stages of style development. Michael’s program and Jørgen’s tools preserve the extra stuff.

Without further ado, here is the basic procedure for conversion. Be sure to save your work as you go along. Summer’s here and the time is right for brown outs.

  1. Copy the SMF from the USB jump drive to a working directory. Make a back-up just in case.
  2. Read the SMF into SONAR (or your pefered DAW). Save the work in progress as a normal SONAR project.
  3. If the MOX generated a separate track for the CMaj7 chord, delete the track. You don’t need it.
  4. Create an empty measure at the beginning of the time line. In SONAR, you accomplish this by sliding the clips back one measure in the arrangement window.
  5. Assign each track to a MIDI channel according to the Yamaha style conventions. (See table below.)
  6. Assign a PSR/Tyros voice to each track.
  7. Set the volume, pan, chorus and reverb levels for each track.
  8. Put the MIDI text marker “SFF1” at the beginning of measure one. The text for this and all MIDI text markers is case sensitive and must be spelled corrected.
  9. Put a second MIDI text marker “SInt” at the beginning of measure one.
  10. Put a MIDI text marker at the beginning of each style section. You must use names according to the Yamaha convention. You are allowed up to four main sections, up to four fill sections, and one break section.
    • Put a marker such as “Main AA” at the beginning of each main section.
    • Put a marker like “Fill In AA” at the beginning of each fill section.
    • Put the marker “Fill In BA” at the beginning of the break section.
  11. Trim and discard any extra notes at the end. You probably didn’t hit STOP fast enough when recording.
  12. Save your project for goodness sake!
  13. Write a new SMF. It must be MIDI SMF Type 0.
  14. Rename the new SMF and give it the “.STY” extension instead of “.MID”.
  15. Launch Style Fixer. Open the new file with the “.STY” extension.
  16. Click the GO button. Style Fixer rewrites the style file and inserts a default CASM section into the file.

Congratulations! At this point, you have a minimal style file. Copy this file to the USB jump drive. The PSR/Tyros should load this style file without complaint. You can read this style file into the OTS editor, the CASM editor or Mix Master, too.

Part MIDI channel
Rhythm 1 9
Rhythm 2 10
Bass 11
Chord 1 12
Chord 2 13
Pad 14
Phrase 1 15
Phrase 2 16
Table: MIDI channel layout for a style
Text marker Meaning
SFF1 Style format 1
SInt Start initialization measure
Main A, Main B, … Start MAIN style section
Fill In AA, Fill In BB, … Start FILL IN style section
Fill In BA Start BREAK style section
Intro A, Intro B, … Start INTRO style section
Ending A, Ending B, … Start ENDING style section
Table: MIDI text markers for style sections

Once you have a minimal style file, I strongly suggest a quick test on the PSR/Tyros. At this stage of development, you can easily make changes to the SONAR project and regenerate a new minimal style without losing much time or work. I try to get a good mix on the keyboard and then adjust the mix parameters (i.e., levels, pan, etc.) in the SONAR project to match. The MOX produces at most four tracks and “back porting”
the mix into the SONAR project is not much of a burden.

When the mix is satisfactory, launch OTS Editor and open the new style file. Here you can import existing OTS configurations into the new style file or add a new OTS configuration from scratch.

The so-called “CASM” section of a style file specifies how MIDI notes are transposed. Recall that we played a CMaj7 chord on the MOX and that the arpeggiator generated notes using CMaj7 as the root chord. The CASM section tells the PSR/Tyros how to change those notes in response to chords played in the left hand part of the keyboard. The default CASM inserted by Style Fixer is usually good enough; the bass channel uses the bass rules, the drum channels bypass transposition, and so forth. Mega Voices or MOX voices that are similar to Mega Voices, however, cause additional complications. A Mega Voice track consists of regular notes and special effect notes. The regular notes should be transposed and the special effect notes should bypass transposition. Yikes! I will discuss Mega Voice handling in part three. In the meantime, you may hear some odd plucks and wheezes when you play back a minimal style with Mega Voice data.

Here’s a little bit of background information to help you understand some of the steps in the conversion procedure.

A style file begins with an initialization measure. The “SInt” marker indicates the start of the initialization measure. You may put any MIDI initialization messages into this measure, usually at beat one. You should not put any notes in the initialization measure. Controller messages and SysEx messages are OK.

The MIDI text markers indicate the start of the style sections. Be sure to spell the markers correctly. The keyboard automatically determines the section length. If a section appears to be missing or is too long when the style is loaded into the keyboard, then you might have misspelled a section name. Remember, the text markers are case sensitive.

The PSR/Tyros only recognizes up to four main sections, four fill sections, one break section, four introductions and four endings. If a section type is not present in the style file, the keyboard doesn’t turn on the LED in the button corresponding to the missing section. Given that a MOX performance may not have four main sections, for example, the PSR/Tyros style may not have four main sections and some of the LEDs will not be lit when the style is loaded. You can always create new sections if you wish. MOX performances do not have introductions and endings, so you may want to add a simple count-in introduction or tag ending. I have a style file with simple introductions and endings. I use copy and paste to insert them into a new style file.

Main, introduction and ending sections may be 1 to 255 measures in length. Fill and break sections are always one measure long.

Jørgen’s website has a wealth of information about styles including a PDF on style writing. Yamaha styles can be quite complicated. Don’t get discouraged and keep plugging away!

Check out part three of this series.

MOX performance to PSR style (part 1)

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After my initial success with the SmoothItOver style, I decided to convert several more Yamaha MOX workstation performances to PSR-S950 styles. I will post the new styles real soon now.

I changed tactics. Some of the Yamaha MOX performances are based on phrases from older model, non-arranger keyboards. For example, I suspect that the “Club Jazz” phrases are taken from the Yamaha S-80 synthesizer. Yamaha is good at mining old keyboards for MIDI phrase data; Roland and Korg do the same. As far as I can tell, Yamaha “Club Jazz” has not ever been an arranger style and it surely is not implemented on the PSR-S950 or current Tyros models. Several of the funkier performances that I wanted to port use “Club Jazz” phrases. Thus, I needed to develop a method of my own to mine MOX performances directly from the MOX.

In order to make a PSR/Tyros style, we first need to get the MIDI phrase data for a performance into a standard MIDI format (SMF) file. That is the subject of this post (part one). Then, we need to translate the SMF file into a style. That will be the subject of part two — a future post.

A MOX performance consists of one to four parts where each part has its own distinct voice and set of arpeggios (phrases). When you jam with a performance, you trigger the arpeggios using the left part of the MOX keyboard by playing a note or a chord. The arpeggiator follows the root note or chord that you play and modifies the phrase data (e.g., transposes it) on the fly. The modified MIDI phrase data is sent to the appropriate tone generator. (This is the typical use case. The internal engine is far more flexible than this scenario!) You change arpeggios by pressing one of the special function buttons (SF1-SF6). Each of the four parts goes to the corresponding arpeggio, that is, pressing SF3 for ARP3 changes each part to its own ARP3. Thus, each performance part plays its own pre-programmed phrase.

We are going to capture the arpeggio MIDI data using performance record mode. Performance record mode is your friend! (Please see my page on getting started with the MOX.) This mode records MIDI data as you play chords and switch through arpeggios. We are going to play a special kind of song that captures the MIDI data for all of the arpeggios.

First, we need to determine the song structure. Some of the arpeggios play MAIN sections, some play FILL sections and some play BREAK sections. MAIN sections are usually four bars long and FILL/BREAK sections are one bar long. Select ARP1 and play a CMaj7 chord. Listen to ARP1. Is it a MAIN section (four bars long)? Is it a FILL/BREAK section (one bar long)? Do this listening exercise for each ARP. Then jot down a song structure such as:

    ARP#     Section    Starting measure
    ----     -------    ----------------
    ARP1     MAIN A     1
    ARP2     MAIN B     5
    ARP3     MAIN C     9
    ARP4     FILL A     13
    ARP5     FILL B     15
    ARP6     BREAK      17

The starting measure is when the section should start in the song. It tells us when to switch to the next arpeggio when we play the song in performance record mode. Please note that we intend to play each of the fills twice in order to capture enough data for four fills in the final PSR/Tyros style. Yamaha’s performance sometimes have more mains or fills, so you need to be flexible and ready for anything downstream in part two.

Hit the record button to go into performance record mode. Choose “SONG” and the song number. The MIDI data will be written into this song. Set KeyOnStart to ON. This arms the left side of the keyboard. Turn off the metronome click; you won’t really need it. (Page 34 of the MOX Owner’s Manual describes performance record mode in case you are confused at this point.) You’re now ready to play the special song.

Select ARP1 by pressing SF1. Hit a CMaj7 chord on the lower end of the keyboard to start playing (and recording) the song. During measure 4, hit SF2 to queue up ARP2. ARP2 begins to play in measure 5. Hit SF3 during measure 8 to queue up ARP3. ARP3 begins to play in measure 9. And so forth. Hit STOP after measure 17 to stop recording. The MOX then finishes recording and switches to SONG mode. At this point, you can save the MIDI data in the SONG by hitting STORE or you can go back to performance mode and try again. Since the song is short, it isn’t a big deal to play it again if you make a mistake.

When you have the song, the final step is to write the song as an SMF file on a USB drive. Hit the FILE button and follow the procedure for saving a song as an SMF file. (Hit SAVE, set the name, set the save type to SMF, etc.) In part two, we will translate the SMF to a PSR/Tyros style using PC-based software tools.

Why play a CMaj7 chord? The phrases in a PSR/Tyros style must have a known chord root and chord type. CMaj7 is the conventional chord root and type for styles. The CMaj7 chord forces the arpeggiator to voice phrases for a CMaj7 chord thereby making the final MIDI data style-ready.

Before leaving the MOX behind, you should jot down a few performance notes that will help during the latter stages of the porting process. Jot down the MOX voice for each part. This will help you to select style voices for the PSR/Tyros. Pay careful attention to the guitar and bass voices. Are they Mega Voice voices? Do the voices incorporate FX like slides, scrapes, etc.? You may need to dig into the voice programming to find out if a bass voice uses bass FX. Guitar and bass effect notes are usually mapped to C6 or higher. You will need to give FX notes special treatment during part two.

One or more performance parts may be designated for live soloing or comping. The arpeggios for such parts are turned OFF. Usually, Yamaha provides a right hand part for soloing. They may also provide a pad in the left hand, that is, a pad plays if the left hand chord is held. In rare cases, the right hand may even trigger its own arpeggio! Make note of any special performance behavior that you want to emulate on the PSR/Tyros.

That’s it! At this point, you have an SMF file to be translated to a style. Check out part two and part three of this series.