Category Archives: Music

Modding the PSS series

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I promised a few thoughts about modding the new Yamaha PSS series keyboards. Here goes…

As shown in my PSS-E30 Remie tear-down, a PSS family keyboard consists of four major parts:

  • Mini keybed
  • Digital logic board (DM)
  • Front panel board
  • Plastic skin and parts

For comparison, I recommend this excellent PSS-A50 demo and tear-down on YouTube.

Product personality is determined by the plastic skin/parts, software in the embedded serial ROM, and the addition/absence of the USB interface integrated circuit (IC). There may be a few other minor differences, but it would be difficult to pin them down without the service manuals. Speaking of which, if you start a mod project, I strongly recommend reading the PSR-F50 Service Manual because the F50’s guts are very similar to the PSS series.

Unless you really want the F50 or E30 voices and functionality, the A50 is the best choice for a mod. The A50 has the USB interface IC and the necessary firmware supporting MIDI over USB. The A50 has a higher street price than the other models, but USB MIDI is worth it.

At the 100,000 foot level, there is plenty of empty space inside for a small microcontroller (e.g., Arduino) or sound mangling analog electronics. You could choose to either keep the speaker if you want portable sound or ditch the speaker and go solely with the headphone output to external amplification.

If keep the speaker, you could easily add some sound mangling circuits like a filter or effects. The littelBits filter might be a good start and is certainly small enough to fit in the empty space. Should be easy to tap into battery power as the battery leads are exposed.

If you ditch the speaker, you have a lot more space to work with. I’d be tempted to add the Korg NTS-1 once it’s available. The NTS-1 can process external audio and has digital effects. Previews have given the digital effects high marks. Unfortunately, the NTS-1 is spec’ed 12.9cm by 7.8cm by 3.9cm, which won’t fit directly into a PSS case. A lot depends upon the size of the NTS-1 electronics board. Even if we can’t fit the NTS-1 into a PSS case, the NTS-1 would be a nice complement to the A50.

Without the speaker, one could use the front panel real estate for additional controls. With all of the arpeggios and such, manual control over filtering and effects would be welcome (in addition to the A50’s fixed motion effects).

At the 50,000 foot level, any one of the PSS models could be stripped down for parts. The case and front panel may or may not float your boat, but you could use the shell and front panel for a keyboard project of your own. It would be easy to apply new graphics to the front panel. The front panel buttons are a switch matrix which can be easily mapped out and then scanned by your code. The front panel has a three digit 7 segment display that needs to be multiplexed and driven.

The keybed is quite useful. The keys are affixed to the bottom of the case, so unless you’re reusing the case, too, you probably will need to cut the keybed out of the case, leaving everything as a unit. The keys sit above a printed circuit board (PCB) with the rubberized switch contacts.

Reface YC switch matrix

I’ll make a leap of faith here and assume that it’s the same keybed as Reface. The schematic above is taken from the Reface YC Service Manual. The key matrix has seven select lines (BK0 to BK6) and twelve sense lines (MK10 to MK21). Your software needs to drive one of the select lines and immediately read the sense lines. There are two sense lines per switch for the “lower” and “higher” key contacts. Software can determine key velocity by measuring the time between contact closures for an individual key.

The most tasty enchilada is the digital logic (DM) board. The A50 board, in particular, could form the basis of a USB MIDI tone module. One could add 5-pn MIDI by bridging a 5-pin DIN and the USB micro-B port. The DM board is quite small: 13.5cm by 4.5cm. And clearly, the DM board can be battery powered. Even if you re-housed the DM board and front panel board, you still would get a very compact module.

Modding at the 10,000 foot level gets difficult. There are the usual difficulties tracing signals and soldering surface mount (SMT) devices and signal paths. Even if you strip out the SWLL (YMW-830) integrated circuit, I’m not sure what you would do with it!

Nor am I confident that the firmware can be easily by re-engineered. Yamaha have never documented wave chip internals, so you don’t have much guidance. There isn’t much code — firmware and waveforms reside together in the 2MByte serial ROM. I would guess that the firmware is SH architecture. Even so, reverse engineering would be a difficult task. I have my doubts about repurposing the code. At best, one might be able to add or change the waveforms?

Personally, I’m inclined to go the sound mangling route.

A few more thoughts before closing.

The A50 is not a General MIDI module. If you want a (mostly) GM/XG compatible Yamaha tone module, I suggest the Pocket Miku NSX-39. Also, while stumbling around the web, you might want to check out the Yamaha YMF-825. It’s a 4-op FM chip which Yamaha released for makers.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski
Except service manual excerpts which are copyright Yamaha.

SHS-500 Sonogenic voices

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With Yamaha PSS-E30 Remie at hand, I’m still comparison shopping the PSS series against the Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic. The Sonogenic has better build quality, has 5-pin MIDI as well as MIDI over USB/Bluetooth, and integrates with Chord Tracker.

Then there is the issue of sound quality. Remie and the rest of the PSS series (PSS-F30 and PSS-A50) have only one main DSP effect: reverb. With the exception of the A50’s motion effects, there aren’t the means to tweak sounds.

As to preset voices, I would love to play Remie and Sonogenic side by side. However, in this day and age when brick and mortar stores do not stock inventory or demo units, that’s impossible. Gosh, I ordered Remie from the UK — I live in the big Seattle USA metro area — with the intention of gifting it to our grandson. (A good excuse. 🙂 ) The PSS series keyboards are so inexpensive that even an impulsive purchase is justifiable. I still haven’t seen a Sonogenic alive in the wild and don’t have hand-on experience with it (yet).

First some tech-head stuff. Remie has 32 voice polyphony and my teardown shows that it is based on the tiny Yamaha SWLL (YMW-830) system-on-a-chip (SOC). It stores its program and waveforms on a 2MByte ROM. Right away, I expect Remie’s sound quality to be compromised with respect to the current PSR E-series.

The current PSR E-series is based on the proprietary Yamaha SWX03 processor. The SWX03 is a much larger SOC with external RAM, ROM, digital to analog conversion (DAC), analog to digital conversion (ADC), and LCD display interface. The program/wave memory is 32MBytes (Spansion S29GL256) much larger than Remie. The SWX03 supports 48 voice polyphony and 10 DSP effects in addition to the usual PSR E-series reverb and chorus. Thus, I expect better sound quality from the E-series.

The SHS-500 also has 48 voice polyphony and 10 DSP effects. These characteristics alone make a strong case for the SWX03 as the main engine within the Sonogenic.

Hearing is believing, however. Without access to Sonogenic in the stores, I’m forced to compare Remie and PSR against YouTube videos. One of the best Sonogenic voice demonstrations is in Japanese by a laid-back jazzer. I also recommend this Sonogenic demonstration in Russian.

The Japanese demo gets rolling roughly 3:30 in. Our jazzer compatriot plays through the presets without a backing track or lots of effects. This is as close to factory stock as one can get. Thank you! Here are direct links to some of the Sonogenic instruments in the video:

These sound pretty good and much better than Remie. The electric piano can bark! The jazz guitar is decent. Many of the brass and woodwind instruments have vibrato sampled in.

The Sonogenic program change table gives us a major clue about the origin of the Sonogenic voices. Most of the Sonogenic voices match up with the PSR series:

 SHS-500            Bank  Bank
 Sonogenic           MSB   LSB  PC#  PSR/Genos voice 
 -----------------  ----  ----  ---  -----------------------
 Saw Lead 1          104    20   91  Gemini
 Saw Lead 2            0   104   82  RS Saw Lead1
 Quack Lead            0   112   85  Portatone
 Bright Decay        104    21   85
 Square Lead           0   112   81  Square Lead
 Under Heim          104    51   88  Under Heim
 Analogon            104    52   82  Analogon
 Synth Brass           0   113   64  Ober Brass
 Electric Piano      104    28    5 
 DX Electric Piano     0   112    6  DX Modern
 Electric Guitar     104     3   31
 Jazz Guitar         104     0   27  Cool! Slide Jazz Guitar
 Acoustic Guitar       0   117   26  Steel Guitar
 Electric Bass       104     6   34
 Slap Bass             0   112   37  Slap Bass
 Synth Bass            0   112   39  Resonance Bass
 DX Bass               0   118   40  DX100 Bass
 Piano                 0   112    2  Bright Piano
 Piano & Strings     104    39    1
 Piano & Pad         104    40    1
 Air Choir             0   112   55  Air Choir
 Strings               0   116   49  Bow Strings
 Brass                 0   117   63  Pop Brass
 Trumpet               0   115   57  Sweet! Trumpet
 Flute                 0   115   74  Sweet! Classical Flute
 Alto Sax            104     2   66
 Tenor Sax           104     3   67
 Harmonica             0   112   23  Sweet! Harmonica

I verified the matches by comparing the YouTube video against the same voices on Genos. (Removing the Genos effects, of course.) The blank spots in the table are voices which Yamaha re-sampled from PSR or elsewhere. That’s why the electric piano is so darned good. The piano layer voices have a warmer, mellower timbre than the Bright Piano (which really lives up to its name).

So, there you have it. On the basis of sound quality, the Sonogenic SHS-500 wins over the PSS family. Yes, the Sonogenic is more expensive, but you do indeed get more for the money. If Sonogenic had even a single organ voice, it would be a no-brainer and I would have bought one by now. Oh, Yamaha, why do you leave these things out?

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Just like starting over

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I’m playing with a new group of liturgical musicians and am having great fun.

The two biggest challenges when playing with a new group are 1. listening and 2. picking up new music. Both challenges are opportunities for growth.

Listening is always key. As a synth player, I’m a bit of a frustrated orchestrator. Instruments like the Yamaha MODX and Genos offer a wide palette of acoustic and electronic sounds. The challenge is to listen carefully and find the right sound and part in the musical context. The context, of course, is the song and the other players — what the song needs, the instrumentation, what instrumentalists are playing, what singers are singing, dynamics and so forth. My goal is to select an instrument and improvise a part to complement the other instrumentalists while making the song stronger.

My last group was small: piano, acoustic guitar, sometimes drum, and me. That left a lot of musical space including exposed solos, fills, left-hand bass (as long as it didn’t interfere with the pianist) and foundation (e.g., pads, B-3 organ, etc.)

The new group is much larger: piano, guitar, drums, two flutes, viola, trumpet and trombone. There’s a lot going on! I’ve played with woodwinds and strings before; full-on brass is a new situation for me. There is still space, but careful listening is needed in order to find it. Obvious ideas include double reeds (oboe), French horn, woodwind ensemble, ensemble strings, cello, contrabass, pipe organ and B-3 organ (when the music calls for it).

With all of that going on already, it’s important to be part of the blend and to not overemphasize existing parts. Nor do I want to step on anyone’s part! For example, the flutists and viola contribute introductions and musical interludes such as an instrumental verse of a hymn. It’s going to take listening, time and experience to find the find complementary part(s). Conventional wisdom in scoring claims that acoustic instruments make it easier to fool the ear with electronic emulations. Thus, it makes sense to keep the real-deal acoustic instruments front and center.

Last Sunday, we did a rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In” in remembrance of All Souls Day. Playing with the brass was a genuine kick. Challenge #2 — new music — I’ve never played New Orleans-style traditional jazz before. Although there are a lot of blue notes, the phrasing is unlike the gospel or Chicago-style blues that I’m used to playing.

So, hey, what to play? Clarinet and euphonium. New Orleans jazz is “lead and fill” or “call and response.” I downloaded a MIDI file to study and cop a few clarinet licks. I wrote out a simple clarinet part with a few fills and lines to harmonize what I thought the brass would play, assuming that the trumpet would take the lead. Euphonium-wise, an oom-pah alternating root (1 and 3) and fifth (2 and 3) was good enough to get started.

Try as I might, I just couldn’t get the two parts and hands going at the same time and settled for the clarinet line alone at the gig. Maybe next time… I think I may ditch the harmonization idea and play (around) the melody, too.

Patch-wise, you can’t always get what you want. I practiced the clarinet part on Genos using its Super Articulation 2 (SA2) clarinet which is darned sweet. I programmed a clarinet/eupohonium split on Yamaha MODX, but the MODX clarinet is not in the same league as the SA2. Compared to Genos, it sounds cheap. MODX (Montage) does have a decent euphonium, however, and maybe it’s better to go low than go high next time!

Yamaha, how ’bout a euphonium on Genos and SA2 on MODX?

That won’t stand in the way of the fun. In the meantime, there’s more than enough to keep me busy.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Another tiny toy from Yamaha: SHS-300

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Yamaha keeps cranking out mini-keyboards!

The SHS-300 Sonogenic is squarely in the musical toy category. The SHS-500 keytar is a solid, well-built instrument with 28 melodic instruments, 2 drum kits (House and Power), and DSP effects. The SHS-300, on the other hand, is a plastic, reduced rendition.

Both keyboards interface with Yamaha’s ChordTracker app and implement Jam mode. Jam mode lets an untrained user flail at the keyboard while the software maps the played notes to the musical scale determined by ChordTracker.

The SHS-300 has just 12 instruments organized into four categories:

  • Synth: Saw Lead, Square Lead, Synth Brass
  • Piano: Piano, Electric Piano, Organ
  • Guitar: Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Bass
  • Other: Strings, Synth Bass, Dance Kit

The Dance Kit is the sole drum kit. The sounds are definitely entry-level PSR quality with no real effects. The nice solid controls of the SHS-500 are replaced by plastic buttons. Buttons control vibrato and sustain; Pitch bend is the sole wheel.

Street prices should be quite low as Yamaha are aiming for a super-casual, impulse-buy customer base.

Of course, the SHS-300 does not provide 5-pin MIDI out, an alphanumeric display or other niceties. I think I would stick with the bigger sibling SHS-500.

Boston Music Expo 2018

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After having so much fun last year, I couldn’t pass up the 2018 Boston Music Expo (Saturday, June 9). Music Expo brings people together — artists, producers, engineers, composers, tech companies — the whole panoply of folks at the intersection of musical art and technology.

Sound On Sound Magazine is the chief sponsor. This year’s gold sponsors are Yamaha and Steinberg. Of course, both Steinberg and Yamaha were showing their wares along with many other companies big and small.

Loïc Maestracci — the founder of Music Expo — was at the door with the chance for a quick “Hello!” Let’s get started and go in.

Boston Music Expo 2018 was hosted by The Record Co., located in Boston’s South Bay. The Record Co. has the ambitious mission “to build a sustainable, equitable music scene in Boston.” Although Boston already has a busy scene, it isn’t easy for all artists to grow, collaborate and record. The Record Co. provides subsidized studio space, gear and production resources, thereby lowering the financial barrier for artists looking to record.

The Record Co. has two studios, both kitted out with top-notch gear. Rates are very reasonable. The Studio A live room is quite large and was the venue for one of the two parallel seminar tracks running at Music Expo. Studio A held 40 to 50 seats with space to spare. Studio B is smaller and more intimate.

The thing that I like best about Music Expo is the surprises. While getting my bearings, I was blown away to find people soldering! I had stumbled into the Audio Builders Workshop sponsored by the Boston Chapter of the Audio Engineering Society (AES).

The Audio Builders Workshop offers seminars and group builds to encourage and inspire people to make their own audio electronics. I had a great chat with Brewster LaMacchia (Clockworks Signal Processing) who was leading the group build. The workshop participants were building a small metronome kit ($10 donation). The kit consists of a circuit board, 555 timer, speaker, battery connector, and a handful of discrete components. It’s all through-hole construction and looks like a great way to get started with soldering. If you’re in the Boston area and have an interest in audio electronics, then I definitely recommend getting in touch with this organization.

I bought one of the kits and will eventually build and review it. Sometimes I just like to soldering something up on a rainy day.

Another organization at Music Expo that deserves recognition and support is Beats By Girlz. BBG is a “music technology curriculum, collective, and community template designed to empower females to engage with music technology.” BBG sponsors workshops and other events (hardware and software provided!) to get women and girls into music production, composition and engineering.

That last “E” for “engineering” gets me fired up! Music technology, for me, is the gateway drug to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and careers. Women are so woefully underrepresented in STEM that I wholeheartedly support groups like Beats By Girlz. In addition to Boston, BBG has chapters in Minnesota, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. I recommend Women In Music, too, BTW.

I arrived at Music Expo a little later than expected due to a traffic tie-up on the expressway. (Saturday morning? Really?) However, I did manage to catch the two sessions in which I was most interested.

Since it was first announced, I wanted to see and hear Audionamix Xtrax STEMS in action. I’ve tried to spice up my backing tracks with vocal snippets and found center extract (and center cancel) techniques lacking. My first “must-hear” session at Music Expo was an Xtrax STEMS plus Ableton Live presentation by Venomisto. Venomisto used Xtrac STEMS to pull a vocal stem from an existing song and then inserted the vocals into his own remix. Xtrax STEMS is not perfect, but it’s darned good for the money ($99 USD).

I really dug Venomisto’s latin remix, Havana. Toe tappin’, head noddin’. I love this stuff on a Saturday in the city! [I’m listening to it right now and can’t get back to work.] Cruise over to his site and you’ll hear Xtrax STEMS in action, too.

My second “don’t miss” session was “From Score To Stage” by Paul Lipscomb joined by Pieter Schlosser via Skype. Paul ran through the process of sketching and delivering the “Destiny 2” game soundtrack (Bungie Software). Wow, this session could have been a full day.

Although Paul wanted to show people that there are many ways to work and create as an artist, we’re talking “Production” here with a capital “P”. The Destiny 2 soundtrack is a AAA (big) budget production with multiple composers, orchestrators and an orchestra. All I can say, if you want to do this kind of work, be good at the hang and collaboration. Be prepared to work in a geographically dispersed team: client (Bellevue/Seattle), co-writers (Los Angeles, Seattle), orchestrator (The Berkshires in Massachusetts).

Paul classifies music (and the process of getting there) as either linear or interactive. Music for film or video is linear, having a start point, several intermediate points one after another and an end. Game music is interactive and must adapt and re-structure itself to fit the actions of the player.

He demonstrated how one can start with a simple motif (or two) and build your way to a 250 track behemoth. Thanks to the wonderful orchestral libraries available today, composers can put together a rather complete mock-up to present to a client for approval. Even on a big budget job, some of the parts in the mock-up may make it to the final mix simply because there isn’t enough money available to fund everything live (e.g., you can have the orchestra, but not the choir).

Paul uses Steinberg Nuendo and swears by it. Pieter uses Cubase. Nuendo is the bigger brother to Cubase and is geared for post-production and scoring. Paul exports MIDI tracks and provides them to the orchestrator for notation. Yep, good old MIDI.

Paul and Pieter’s presentation was thought provoking, especially about the current state/direction of orchestral music for film, video and games. A discussion about clients and aesthetics would be more appropriate for the “Notes From The Deadline” column in Sound On Sound. [My favorite SOS column, BTW.] However, I’m pondering the age-old question of how to raise our clients to a higher level of musicality. Like Paul, many of us listen to a wide range of music including traditional and modern classical music. (Paul’s advice: “Listen to everything!”) How can we move our clients beyond the limited scope of their own musical experience?

Well, shucks, that’s just two of the fifteen Boston Music Expo sessions on offer. Several sessions dealt with the business side — promotion, social media and collaboration — in addition to the artistic side.

I spent time cruising the exhibitor booths. Here’s a few short-takes and shout-outs:

  • Scott Esterson at Audionamix demonstrated Instant Dialog Cleaner (IDC) as well as XTrax STEMS. He humored a lot of my crazy questions and comments. Thanks.
  • The Yamaha folks had Montage6, MX88, MOXF8 and a clutch of Reface keyboards available for trial. Friendly as ever, it was good to touch base. I had an extended conversation with Nithin Cherian (Product Marketing Manager, Steinberg) and I quite appreciate the time that he spent talking with me.
  • The IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitors are excellent for the price. Not quite up to the Genelec studio monitors on show in the room next door, but much more affordable. A definite covet.
  • Speaking of IK, the iRig Keys I/O have a decent, solid feel and touch. The 25 key model is seriously small and still has full size keys. Suggestion to IK Multimedia: Please bring out a 5-pin MIDI dongle for us dinosaurs with old keyboards. I’d love to hook up an iRig Keys I/O 49 to Yamaha Reface YC.

A special shout-out to Derrick Floyd at the IK Multimedia booth. He epitomizes “good at the hang.”

I said it last year and I’ll say it again, Music Expo bridges the widening gap between customers and technically advanced products. On-line ads and videos just aren’t the same as playing with a product and experiencing it for one’s self. Brick and mortar stores cannot devote much space, inventory or expertise to the broad range of fun tools and toys that are up for sale. With on-line sales as perhaps the dominant sales channel, whoof, tactile customer experience is utterly lost. Music Expo closes the gap.

If Music Expo is coming to your corner of timespace, please don’t hesitate to attend and participate. I’m sure that you will enjoy the experience and will make valuable connections.

Copyright © 2018 Paul J. Drongowski

Audio Style file format

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Yamaha introduced audio styles in the PSR-S950 arranger workstation. Audio styles are both loved and hated. Loved when they sound good, but hated when people try to change or repurpose them in new styles.

The term “audio style” is a bit of an overstatement. Only the percussion track is audio. At least, that’s how audio styles have been developed and used to this day. Yamaha just released the Audio Phraser application for creating and editing the basic skeleton of an audio style, so this situation may change now that people can more freely create, edit and share their own audio styles.

Audio style file internal format

Ever since Yamaha distributed the audio styles for Genos, I’ve been meaning to take a look inside of an audio style file. Here’s a little preliminary information.

An audio style file is an IFF-like container just like a Standard MIDI File (SMF). In fact, an audio style file has the same internal organization as a regular style file which we know to be a Type 0 SMF with extra chunks.

An audio style file has the following chunks (in order):

    Type    Purpose
    ----    ------------------------------------
    MThd    SMF header chunk
    MTrk    SMF track chunk
    CASM    Yamaha CASM chunk
    AASM    Audio assembly (descriptor) chunk
    AFil    Audio file (waveform) chunk
    OTSc    Yamaha OTS chunk

The AASM and AFil chunks are new, additional chunks beyond the known MIDI, CASM and OTS chunks. All chunks have a four byte chunk identifier and a four byte chunk size. The chunk size does not include the identifier or chunk size bytes, as usual.

The AASM chunk is relatively small, about 2,500 bytes. It consists of 15 variable length ASEG subchunks. The ASEG subchunk has a four byte subchunk size. Each ASEG corresponds to a style section; that’s why there are fifteen of them.

An ASEG subchunk has three parts:

    Type    Purpose
    ----    ------------------------------------
    Adec    Identifies the style section
    Atab    Identifies the audio file; other functions unknown
    AMix    Function unknown

The Adec part is variable length, having an explicit four byte size. The Atab and AMix parts appears to be fixed length (101 and 28 bytes, respectively) and do not have an explicit size field.

The Adec part is ASCII text and is a style section name like “Main A” or “Fill In DD”. That is the only information in Adec.

I don’t know exactly what the Atab does. The Atab part contains an ASCII string which identifies the audio file associated with the style section. This string is clearly visible in a dump. (Example below.) All of the Atab and AMix parts in the test audio file have the same values except for the audio file names.

File Offset:       36965
Subchunk type:     'ASEG'
Subchunk size:     151
Section name:      Main D
Atab type:         'Atab'
   0    0    0   97    0   32   32   32 | 00 00 00 61 00 20 20 20 | ...a.
  32   32   32   32   32   41   56   48 | 20 20 20 20 20 29 38 30 |      )80
 115   67   97  110   97  100  105   97 | 73 43 61 6E 61 64 69 61 | sCanadia
 110   82  111   99  107   95   77   97 | 6E 52 6F 63 6B 5F 4D 61 | nRock_Ma
 105  110   32   68    0    0    0    0 | 69 6E 20 44 00 00 00 00 | in D....
   0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ........
   0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ........
   0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ........
   1   15   -1    7   -1   -1   -1   -1 | 01 0F FF 07 FF FF FF FF | ........
   0    0    0  127    0    0    0    0 | 00 00 00 7F 00 00 00 00 | ........
 127    0    0    0    0    0  127    0 | 7F 00 00 00 00 00 7F 00 | ........
   0    0    0    0  127    0    0    0 | 00 00 00 00 7F 00 00 00 | ........
   0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ........
AMix type:         'AMix'
   0    0    0   24    7 -128    0   -1 | 00 00 00 18 07 80 00 FF | ........
  88    4    4    2   24    8    0  -80 | 58 04 04 02 18 08 00 B0 | X.......
   7   71    0   10   64    0   91    0 | 07 47 00 0A 40 00 5B 00 | .G..@.[.
   0   -1   47    0    0    0    0    0 | 00 FF 2F 00 00 00 00 00 | ../.....

Etienne from the PSR Tutorial Forum points out that the AMix subchunk contains MIDI event codes:

AMix : header
00 00 00 18 : length of data
07 80 : 0780 hex = 1920 decimal (PPQN ?)
00 : delta time
FF 58 04 04 02 18 08 : meta event Time signature 4/4
00 : delta time
0B 07 70 : controller volume
00 : delta time
0A 40 : controller Panpot
00 : delta time
5B 00 : Controller Reverb send level
00 : delta time
FF 2F 00 : end of MTrk trunk

Nice catch, Etienne! The AMix content makes sense because something needs to set up the channel volume, pan and reverb level for the audio phrase. Yamaha love to use MIDI events for other purposes (like voice files, OTS, etc.) Why not?

The AFil chunk has substructure, too. The AFil chunk consists of ADSg chunks. As you might guess, the AFil chunk is pretty big because it contains waveform data.

The following table shows the offset and length information for the first ADSg in the example’s AFil:

    AFil     37287  15261858
    ADSg     37295   1219275      Container for an audio file
    ANdc     37303        50      File name
    AWav     37361   1219209      Container for audio waveform
    WAVE     37369       n/a      Marker (no subchunk size)
    Afmt     37373        16      Audio format information
    Sfmt     37397       217      Container for section information
    Sdec     37608         6      Section name, e.g., Main A
    Adat     37622   1218300      Waveform data
    AInf   1255930       640      Container for audio information
    BPnt   1255938       136
    OPnt   1256082       240
    APnt   1256330       232
    ATmp   1256570         0      Empty, subchunk size is 0
    ADSg   1256578                Container for the next audio file
    ....

The container relationships are important because the containers and subchunks are nested:

    AFil contains ADSg
    ADSg contains ANdc, AWav
    AWav contains WAVE, Afmt, Sfmt, Sdec, Adat, AInf
    AInf contains BPnt, OPnt, APnt, ATmp

The nesting is a bit of a pain in the patootie when writing code to parse a style file.

ADSg is the container chunk holding audio waveform (meta-)information. Like ASEG, there are fifteen ADSg chunks — one for each audio file. The ANdc subchunk inside contains the audio file name which matches up with the name in the ASEG. AWav is the container holding the audio waveform data itself.

The audio “file” format is WAV-like, but it is not exactly WAV (Microsoft RIFF). I was able to playback the audio by importing the audio style file as a raw (untyped) audio file. The audio format seems to be 44,100Hz, 16-bit stereo, big endian. No compression or encryption. It isn’t be too hard to dump the audio.

Yamaha Audio Phraser

Now that you know a little bit about what’s inside of an audio style file, here is brief overview of what the Audio Phraser program generates.

Audio Phraser generates an MThd MIDI file header chunk, a single MTrk chunk (Type 0), an ASEG chunk for each audio waveform, an AFil chunk (containing an ADSg subchunk for each audio file) and a CASM chunk.

The MIDI tempo and time signature are the same as the tempo set in Audio Phraser. The MIDI song title is set to “Audio Phraser”.

The MIDI track contains the usual markers at the beginning: SFF2 and SInt. A single SysEx message is generated after SInt: General MIDI System ON (F0 7E 7F 09 01 F7). The key signature is set to C/Am, followed by:

  • SMPTE Offset
  • Sequencer specific metadata: ff 7f 04 43 00 01 00 00

Oddly, MIDI channel 4 has four, whack-looking MIDI OFF events:

    NOTE OFF G#9
    NOTE OFF G5
    NOTE OFF C0
    NOTE OFF C0

A bug? The remaining markers indicate the start of the style sections. The section length corresponds to the length of the audio waveform for the section. Thus, if the audio waveform for “Main A” is 2 bars, then the MIDI section for “Main A” is 2 bars long.

The CASM chunk is minimal and sets NTR/NTT for MIDI channel 9 (Subrhythm). NTR is “Root Fixed” and NTT is “Bypass/Bass Off”. No NTR/NTT is given for channel 10 (rhythm/drums).

Audio Phraser does not generate an OTSc (One Touch Settings) chunk.

Audio Phraser creates an AWI file for each waveform that it imports into an audio style file. The AWI file most likely holds the results of Audio Phraser’s analysis (i.e., beat detection and so forth). It would be interesting and informative to compare the contents of an AWI file against the ASEG and AInf chunks in the resulting audio style file. I’m guessing that the AWI file is the “prototype” for the ASEG and AInf chunks.

Java source code

If you would like to explore audio style files, then download the source code for a simple audio style dump program. The code is relatively brittle and expects to encounter chunks in a certain order and/or quantity. Thus, be prepared to modify the code. This is an experimenter’s kit, after all. 😉

Copyright © 2018 Paul J. Drongowski

Genos master compressor

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There is an on-going discussion at the PSR Tuturial Forum about the Yamaha Genos™ master compressor.

I did a little “effect sleuthing” and determined that the Genos master compressor is the same algorithm as the Yamaha Montage parallel compressor, PARALLEL COMP. This effect is part of the Montage v1.5 update. The same update added the universal compressor down (UNI COMP DOWN) and universal compressor up (UNI COMP UP) algorithms. All three algorithms can be used as a Montage master effect. On Genos, the parallel compressor is a master effect; the universal compressors can be used only as insertion or variation effects.

How did I run this down? I compared the parameter definitions for the Montage PARALLEL COMP effect algorithm against the parameters of the Genos master compressor. They match exactly. Yamaha often share effect algorithms across their top-of-the-line equipment.The Montage parameters are:

  • Type: Natural, Rich, Punchy, Electronic, Loud
  • Compression: 0 to 100
  • Texture: 0 to 100
  • Output level: -18dB to +18dB (0 to 120)
  • Input level: -18dB to +18dB (0 to 120)

The parameters for the universal compressor algorithms match up, too. However, the Genos user interface (UI) does not allow access to the 17th parameter, Side Chain Input Level. Yamaha need to remove the 16 effect parameter restriction imposed by Genos. (This restriction prevents access to the rotor ramp parameters in the new rotary speaker algorithm, too.)

If you’re a Montage person, you’re probably wondering, “What are ‘Natural,’ ‘Rich,’ etc.?” I’ll quote the Yamaha Genos Reference Manual here:

  • Natural: Natural Compressor settings in which the effect is moderately pronounced.
  • Rich: Rich Compressor settings in which the instrument’s characteristics are optimally brought out. This is good for enhancing acoustic instruments, jazz music, etc.
  • Punchy: Highly exaggerated Compressor settings. This is good for enhancing rock music.
  • Electronic: Compressor settings in which the electronic dance music’s characteristics are optimally brought out.
  • Loud: Powerful Compressor settings. This is good for enhancing energetic music such as rock or gospel music.

Frankly, I don’t know as much about audio compression as I should. Fortunately, Sound On Sound Magazine has an excellent article about parallel compression. The article has terrific background information about all forms of compression including DOWN and UP compression. DOWN compression is the conventional form that we are most familiar with.

Parallel compression puts a very high ratio (limiting) DOWN compression block in parallel with the original audio signal, i.e., it mixes the original signal and the compressed signal.

                ----------------------
               |                      |
     Input ----|                      + ----> Output
               |                      |
                ----> Compressor ---->

Massive gain reduction is applied to the loudest passages. According to SOS, “This means that at those points, its involvement in the mixed output signal is virtually insignificant; the output signal is completely dominated by the original input signal coming via the direct path. As a result, those loud but delicate transients are left completely intact and unchanged — which is the primary aim of this technique.”

No gain reduction is applied to quiet signals below the threshold. Thus, the parallel paths, direct and compressor, pass the same signal. When the two signals are summed (mixed), the quiet passage is +6dB louder. Again, quoting SOS, “this simple form of parallel compression leaves the loud bits unaffected and raises the quiet bits by 6dB, the total reduction in dynamic range is only 6dB.”

I hope this information helps. I recommend reading the SOS article; it has several graphs and goes deeper into this studio technique.

Copyright © 2018 Paul J. Drongowski

Suggestions and questions to Yamaha

The Genos manual should at least mention that the Genos master compressor performs parallel compression. A short explanation would help people apply and tweak the master compressor.

The Genos universal compressor algorithms support side-chain. How can we use side-chaining? How do we get a signal into the side-chain input?

Yamaha engineers are building effect algorithms with more than 16 effect parameters. The Genos user interface needs to provide access to more than 16 effect parameters and to store them.

Right on the heels of Genos

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Yamaha are announcing two new models in the arranger workstation line: The PSR-S975 and the PSR-S775

The PSR-S975 is an update to the current PSR-S970. New features include:

  • Half bar fill-in
  • Mono legato operation
  • Store and recall of Live Control settings in registration memory
  • More preset styles (523, up from 450)
  • More Super Articulation voices (140, up from 131)
  • More Live voices (99, up from 89)
  • Larger expansion memory (768MB, up from 512MB)
  • Expansion audio styles (128MB maximum)

Expansion packs like Euro Dance and Salsa are pre-installed. [Click image below to enlarge.]

Quoting the Yamaha Web site:

  • 1625 Voices, including Super Articulation Voices, Organ Flutes! Voices. 55 Drum/SFX kits, and 480 XG voices
  • 523 Styles, including 40 Audio Styles, 34 Session Styles, 15 DJ Styles and 3 Free Play
  • Half bar fill-in and Mono legato function
  • 768 MB on-board memory for expansion data
  • Mic/Guitar input for use when singing or collaborating with other performers
  • Vocal Harmony 2 and Synth Vocoder functions
  • Real Distortion and Real Reverb, with an intuitive effects interface
  • USB audio playback with time stretch, pitch shift, vocal cancel and MP3 lyrics display functions
  • External display capability

The PSR-S775 also received a modest refresh versus the PSR-S770.

Observations

I honestly didn’t expect to see a mid-range refresh this January (2018). Genos™ is barely launched in North America with Winter NAMM 2018 just two weeks away. Yamaha normally announces new arranger workstation products in the Fall. From the marketing point of view, it would have been shear madness to refresh the mid-range while launching Genos during Fall 2017.

I suspect that the refresh is in response to the new Korg Pa700 and Pa1000 mid-range arranger keyboards. Korg and Yamaha are really duking it out in these lucrative segments. The S975 and Pa1000 attract “pro-sumer” musicians and the very affordable S775 and Pa700 are near the magic $1000 USD sweet spot.

Fans expecting a “mini-Genos” will just have to wait. Genos is way too hot to spoil by releasing a mid-range model with Genos-like features. Having played and experienced Genos for nearly one month, the enormous difference in street price between S975 and Genos is (and must be!) justified by a wide gap in functionality and sound quality. Value proposition, folks, value proposition.

One must wonder if a similar product strategy will play out in Yamaha’s synthesizer product line. The MOXF is due for at least a refresh. Does Yamaha have a compelling reason to issue a “Half Monty” two years after the Montage launch? A MOXF refresh might be enough to keep customers interested and sales up given the workstation features (sequencing, sampling, …) left out of the Montage. Some change is due simply because Yamaha’s inventory of the old tone generator IC (SWP51L) must be getting low.

The S975 is probably a simple re-spin of the S970 hardware. Yamaha can ride the ONFI NAND flash memory curve for years to come without breaking a sweat. The switch to ONFI compatible memory makes it easy to drop a larger capacity device into the existing printed circuit board footprint.

I’m still trying to discern where Yamaha are going with audio styles. They do have their patent portfolio covering full audio styles. The S975 allocates 128MBytes for Audio Style Expansion. (The S775 does not.) The Genos has a comparable Audio Style Expansion capability which draws from its Internal Memory. My intuition says that something is afoot, but it’s easy to extend one’s expectations beyond the current hardware/software platform.

There are rumors of another Genos update in the works. As with all things Yamaha, we must wait and see. Fortunately, we have excellent instruments to keep us busy and entertained!

Copyright © 2018 Paul J. Drongowski

NAMM 2018: Half Monty, Full Monty

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Winter NAMM 2018 is January 25 to 28 in Anaheim, California. Get your ear protectors ready!

Even though I’ve been concentrating on the Yamaha Genos™, two Yamaha promotions have not escaped my attention.

Back in October, Yamaha began offering a MOXF promotion: Buy a MOXF and get an FL512M flash memory expansion board and the MOXF Premium Content Pack. Not bad. The MOX6 is my gig workhorse and I still enjoy playing it even though I have often pined for flash expansion memory. If you like the Motif XF sound or miss built-in sequencing, then now is a good time to find a good deal on the MOXF and buy one.

This is one of those rare times when a promotion is a harbinger of a future product release. The MOXF uses the previous generation AWM2 tone generation chip, SWP51L. The SWP51L has been superceded by the SWP70 family now deployed in the Montage, PSR-S770/S970 and Genos. The MOXF is the only current product in the synth and arranger product lines based on the SWP51L. Once Yamaha uses up its internal supply of SWP51Ls, that’s it.

So, the MOXF is due to be refreshed (like the MX line) or updated. If you’re OK with the MOXF as it is — and it is a fine machine — then make your move now or wait a little longer for close-out.

Be sure to take advantage of the free flash offer or get you dealer to kick in an expansion board. Yamaha have moved to built-in flash expansion memory and this is definitely the end of the line for the Yamaha flash expansion boards. The boards do not “speak” with the new tone generator and you won’t need them for future Yamaha products.

What would the MOXF replacement look and sound like? Would the MOXF be a “half-Monty?” Tough question.

I’ve spent a lot of time researching both the Montage and Genos as my next instrument for the long-term. Due to the widespread availability of Montage, I’ve had more seat time with Montage (several hours over several days) than the Genos (a two hour go at Audioworks CT). I play an MOX6 and/or PSR-S950 on a daily basis.

Given this experience, Yamaha’s top-of-the-line (TOTL) instruments are more than an incremental cut above middle-of-the-line instruments. In terms of control (knobs, sliders and such) and sound, the TOTL is way above the mid-range.

Hope springs eternal. People are hoping that the next mid-range arranger workstation will be a “mini-Genos.” Similarly, synth people may be hoping for a “half-Monty.”

I think these people will be disappointed. Montage and Genos command a premium price and they both need the feature set and sound to justify the TOTL value proposition. I think the big gap between TOTL and mid-range will persist. In the case of the MOXF replacement, Yamaha aren’t under much pressure to make and sell a half-Monty (e.g., a synth with the Montage’s AWM2 sound set, no FM). The recently refreshed MX, at the low end, has the Motif XS sound set, now ten years old. The MOXF has the very respectable seven year old Motif XF sound set and the sequencing capability that so many people miss in Montage. Thus, Yamaha could give the MOXF a minor spiff and still have a very marketable product in the mid-range.

The same reasoning applies to the next mid-range arranger workstations.

Hey, so I mentioned two promotions. The second promotion is “Buy a Montage and get a pair of HS5 studio monitors for free.” Until the Yamaha promotion came along, Sweetwater was giving away a free Yamaha Reface CS with the purchase of a Montage. The Montage (AKA “the full Monty”) is just turning two years old. I’m a little surprised that the Montage needs a promotion at this point to spur sales.

Might we expect a Montage 2.0 at NAMM? Yamaha have issued a series of successful, substantive updates for the Montage and a major software update might give the full Monty a bit of a shove and a boost.

Copyright © 2017 Paul J. Drongowski