This is part 4 of a series of articles about DSP effects for electric pianos and other electrified instruments like guitar. The first three articles are:

• PSR effects for electric piano (Part 1)
• Editing and saving PSR effects (Part 2)
• Multi-effects for electric piano (Part 3)

This article covers two more techniques that should help you create and apply DSP effects to PSR/Tyros voices.

Beg, borrow and steal

As Picasso once said, “When there’s anything to steal, I steal.” I’m not encouraging larcency or piracy, but when there’s a good effect in an OTS or voice, copy and paste is the way to go.

I like writing these blog posts because they encourage me to learn more about PSR/Tyros features that I might have ignored or overlooked. Such is the case with the section titled “Disabling Automatic Selection of Voice Sets” in the Reference Manual. This features gives us a way to selectively copy certain aspects of a voice to another (new) voice.

This feature is like a “mini-freeze” that applies solely to VOICE SET, not entire registrations. Navigate to:

    FUNCTION > [E] REGIST SEQUENCE/FREEZE/VOICE SET

then TAB over to the VOICE SET page. There are four buttons at the bottom of the page controlling, respectively, four aspects of voice loading when a voice is selected:

    VOICE
    EFFECT
    EQ
    HARMONY/ECHO

When a button is ON, the corresponding voice parameter settings are loaded automatically from the selected voice. When a button is OFF, the corresponding voice parameters settings are not loaded.

So, if we set the button for EFFECT to OFF, we essentially “freeze” the current effect settings. When we load a new voice, the effects remain the same. This gives us a poor man’s copy and paste between voices.

Let’s say that we like the distortion effect on the “Clavi” voice and want to apply it to “VintageEP”. First, I load the Clavi voice to call up the DSP effect. Then, I navigate to the VOICE SET page (as described above) and turn the EFFECT button OFF. This freezes the effect part of the voice programming. Then, I select the VintageEP voice. Voila, the VintageEP voice plays using the distortion effect that was frozen.

Once you save the VintageEP voice to the USB drive or an OTS button, be sure to unfreeze the EFFECT aspect of voice loading. If you don’t do this, you will surely wonder why all of the voices you load are distorted!

Hey, where’s the loot?

The built-in voices are the most obvious source of inspiration for new basic voice plus effect combinations. Yamaha need to maintain backward compatible voices, however, and the older voices such as the electric pianos may not use the latest and greatest effects (e.g., REAL DISTORTION). The guitar voices tend to turn over more quickly and adopt the latest effects.

Backward compatibility is less of an issue for the OTS voices within styles. You are more likely to find new and interesting effects under the OTS buttons. Take the built-in “WahClavi” voice, for example. The built-in voice uses the old CLAVI TC.WAH effect. The “WahClavi” voice in the JazzFunk style, on the other hand, uses the new REAL DISTORTION multi-effect MLT CR WAH (Multi FX Crunch Wah).

The following table is a list of OTS voices showing the parent style and DSP effect. Follow this map to find buried treasure!

Voice            Style          S950 effect   Tyros 5 effect
---------------  -------------  ------------  -------------------------------
GrungeGuitar     JazzFunk       AMP1 HEAVY    British Combo Heavy
OverdriveWah     JazzFunk       MLT CR WAH    Multi FX Crunch Wah
VintageAmp       Soul           V_DIST SOLID  V_Dist Solid
Slapback         MotorCity      V_DIST ROCA   V_Dist Roca
SingleCoilClean  Live8Beat      CMP+OD+TDLY4  Compressor+Overdrive+TempoDelay4
JazzClean        KoolShuffle    V_DST JZ CLN  V_DistJz Cln
StageLead        HardRock       MLT DS SOLO   Multi FX Distortion Solo
EarlyLead        FunkPopRock    TEMPO AT.WAH  Tempo At.Wah+
MetalMaster      ContempRock    ST AMP DS     Small Stereo Distortion
ElectroAcoustic  AcousticRock   AMP1 CLASSIC  British Combo Classic
BluesyNight      70sGlamPiano   ST AMP VT     Small Stereo Vintage Amp
PureVintage      60sRock&Roll   MLT OLD DLY   Multi FX Oldies Delay

VintageEP        SoulBrothers   AMP1 CLASSIC  British Combo Classic
WahClavi         JazzFunk       MLT CR WAH    Multi FX Crunch Wah
SuitcaseEP       Live8Beat      CELESTE2      Celeste 2
ElectricPiano    FunkyGospel    EP AUTOPAN    EP Autopan
CP80             FunkPopRock    T_PHASER1     T Phaser 1
JazzVibes        DetroitPop2    VIBE VIBRATE  Vibe Vibrato
VintageEP        60sPopRock     EP TREMOLO    EP Tremolo

HoldItFast       LiveSoulBand   DIST SOFT2    Distortion Soft 2
WhiterBars       Soul           V_DIST CLS S  V_Dist Cls S
WhiterBarsFast   GospelSwing    ST AMP CLEAN  St Amp Clean
CurvedBars       MotorCity      ST 3BAND EQ   St 3Band EQ
EvenBars         FunkyGospel    ST 3BAND EQ   St 3Band EQ
AllBarsPhase     FunkPopRock    PHASER2       Phaser 2
ClassicBars      BluesRock      ST AMP CLEAN  St Amp Clean
Organ-a-Gogo     70sDisco2      V_DIST TWIN   V_Dist Twin
R&B Tremolo      60sVintageRock DIST HARD2    Distortion Hard 2
OrganFlutes      60sPopRock     AMP2 CLEAN    British Legend Clean
OrganFlutes      6-8SlowRock    ROTARY SP1    Dual Rot BRT

GrowlSax         SoulBrothers   V_DST S+DLY   V Distortion Soft + Delay
GrowlSax         MotorCity      V_DST H+DLY   V Distortion Hard + Delay
RockSax          LiveSoulBand   DST+DELAY1    Distortion + Delay 1
RockSax          HardRock       ST AMP CLEAN  St Amp Clean
Harmonica        6-8Soul        TEMPO AT.WAH  Tempo At.Wah+

Use the poor man’s copy and paste method to mix and match a basic voice sound with a DSP effect. The treasure map demonstrates how the Yamaha style programmers make use of the workstation’s sonic resources. There’s a lot to learn here!

Dry/Wet mix

I like to change voices by hitting the OTS buttons while jamming along with a tune. I have created more than 50 styles with customized OTS buttons to cover my current repetoire. The OTS buttons select the voice and effect combinations that are the most approprtiate for specific tunes (appropriate to my ears anyway).

Unfortunately, the kind of OTS voice and effect informaton that can be stored is limited by the S950’s operating system. (See the Voice Effect, Voice Set, and Mixing Console sections of the Parameter Chart in the Data List manual for the exact details.) An OTS button remembers:

• DSP effect type (insertion type)
• DSP ON/OFF
• DSP variation ON/OFF
• DSP variation value
• DSP depth

for the RIGHT1, RIGHT2 and LEFT parts.

If you cast your mind back to Part 1, you know that there are a lot of parameters behind each effect. These parameters cannot be directly captured in an OTS button, which is why they must be stored in a USER EFFECT memory location as described in Part 2. You do get a fly-speck of tweakability by modifying the DSP variation value. Unfortunately, the parameter type is fixed.

The OTS restrictions are relieved or eliminated in the PSR-S970. Again, please see the Parameter Chart in the Data List manual.

Fortunately, OTS remembers DSP depth. The DSP depth controls the “dry/wet” mix, that is, the amount of uneffected (dry) and effected (wet) signal that is mixed together and sent further along (usually to the system-level chorus and/or reverb blocks).

Let’s say that you added a heavy distortion sound to the “SuitcaseEP” voice and you want to reduce the amount of distortion without changing the tone. (Guitar distortion is often waaaay too much for electric piano.) Simply dial down the DSP depth. This increases the amount of dry (clean) electric piano sound and decreases the amount of wet (distorted) electric piano sound. Voila, an electric piano with a bit of grit, not a fuzzed out shredder’s delight.

Here are the parameters for the DISTORTION presets DIST SOFT1 and DIST SOFT2.

                       DIST SOFT1  DIST SOFT2
                       ----------  ----------
    Drive                 16           7
    Amp Type             Tube        Combo
    LPF Cutoff          4.5 KHz     3.6 KHz
    Output Level          64          82
    Dry/Wet              D44>W      D<W63
    Edge (Clip Curve)     49          40

The built-in preset “Clavi” voice uses DIST SOFT1 to get its biting tone. Note that the DIST SOFT1 dry/wet mix has more dry signal than wet and that the DIST SOFT2 dry/wet mix has more wet signal than dry.

Here’s where things are cool, confusing, or both. The S950 seems to know when a DSP effect has a predefined dry/wet mix parameter. The parameter value tracks the DSP depth knob in the Mixing Console. Cool. The DSP depth knob is calibrated from 0 to 127 while the dry/wet parameter is calibrated from full dry (D63>W) to full wet (D<W63). Confusing. Internally, a 50-50 dry/wet mix (D=W) is represented by the value 64. The dry/wet mix is 50-50 (D=W) when the mixing console DSP depth knob is set to 64; the knob determines the internal value. (Pan gets munged in a similar way.)

As an exercise, I suggest applying the distortion effect in the built-in “Clavi” voice to “SuitcaseEP.” Then, use the DSP depth (dry/wet mix) to dial back (or dial up!) the distortion to taste.

A loose end

Some of you probably noticed that I didn’t say much about the “Wah Pedal” parameter belonging to the REAL DISTORTION multi-effect algorithm. This parameter can be swept by an XG “assignable controller.”

I didn’t say much about the “Wah Pedal” parameter because I was hoping to find a way to control this parameter from either the expression pedal input or an external MIDI controller. It may be possible to set up external control if a controller can utter the right SysEx mumbo-jumbo to set up an XG assignable controller. The process looks beastly and not very practical.

However, the S970 and Tyros 5 are capable of sweeping the wah pedal parameter. Please see the reference manual concerning “Footswitch / Foot Controller Settings”.