Tag Archives: Yamaha SHS-500

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

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.

Yamaha SHS-500 follow-up

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The Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic keytar won a Winter NAMM 2019 Best In Show “Gotta Stock It” award. Congrats!

The for-real (PDF) Yamaha SHS-500 Owner’s Manual and Reference Manual are available on Yamaha’s Web site. Yamaha just published text manuals at launch. Now that I can see pictures (!), there’s a few things worth mentioning.

The SHS-500 does not have a 5-pin DIN MIDI connector. It has a multi-pin MIDI terminal to which you connect a MIDI breakout cable — just like Reface. So, the SHS-500 supports both 5-pin MIDI IN and MIDI OUT.

Side comment: I hope the MIDI manufacturers do not butcher MIDI 2.0 with ridiculous complexity. I like 5-pin MIDI because of its simplicity, both messages and electrical signaling. MIDI over USB, to me as a hardware/software developer, is a nightmare.

The SHS-500 has both headphone out and LINE out. The LINE out is 1/4″ mono. Plugging into the LINE out does not silence the internal speaker. The volume knob does not change the LINE out level.

In the nerd humor department. The Reference Manual recommends “Use audio cables and adapter plugs having no (zero) resistance.” Get out your superconductors.

The display format is clear and simple once you see an explanation of the icons (shown below). [Click images to enlarge.]

The keytar neck puts numerous controls under the hand:

  • OCTAVE buttons INC and DEC
  • TRANSPOSE buttons INC and DEC
  • SONG CONTROL: Fast reverse, Play/pause, Fast forward
  • JAM button (enables JAM function)
  • SUSTAIN button
  • PITCH BEND wheel
  • MODULATION wheel
  • FUNCTION button

I don’t see any lefties playing the SHS-500 like Hendrix, i.e., left-handed and upside-down. If you’re a Yamaha PSR person, you know that the FUNCTION button is your gateway to MIDI settings, etc. Some of the other things you can change are the tuning, EQ type, pitch bend range, portamento (ON/OFF and time), DSP type, MIDI port (Bluetooth, USB, wired), MIDI channel, local control ON/FF, audio loop back, battery type and auto OFF.

Although there is an EFFECT CONTROL knob for adjusting the currently selected DSP effect, effect control can be assigned to the MODULATION wheel. Just one of those things that you can change using the FUNCTION button. EFFECT CONTROL aside, the MODULATION wheel is assigned to Vibrato Depth. No other options.

The MIDI connection diagram shows that Yamaha is thinking ahead to Android support.

The specifications describe the keyboard as “37 HQ (High Quality) Mini Keys.” They must be using the Reface key bed.

The SHS-500 can send audio over USB to a receiving computer/device. Funny, the $5,000+ Genos still cannot do this.

There is no voice editing per se other than effect control. You can control the filter (cutoff and resonance) and keyboard dynamics (touch sensitivity). The SHS-500 appears to have a three stage effects chain: Reverb, chorus and DSP. You can control only the reverb and chorus depth, not type.

There are nine DSP effect types: Distortion 1, Distortion 2, DSP chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, Rotary speaker, Low pass filter and high pass filter. Each effect type has one type-specific parameter under user control.

I can make a practical case of the Sonogenic even if I never prance and jeté with it. The SHS-500 is like a polyphonic, sample-playback Reface. I play a Yamaha Reface YC at rehearsals and often wish for other voices like flute or strings. The Sonogenic would be excellent as a very light-weight rehearsal instrument — something that’s easy to throw into the car.

Interested? Then check out these postsl about the Sonogenic:

The Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic is based on the Yamaha VKB-100 Vocaloid™ keyboard:

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski

Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic (pre-review)

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[I had a chance to think about yesterday’s SHS-500 Sonogenic announcement. Please think of this blog post as a pre-review.]

The Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic is a fun instrument for people without musical training. It could very well be fun for musical amateurs and pros, too!

The SHS-500 is an interesting alternative to arranger keyboards. With an arranger keyboard, one typically uses the left hand to play chords which drive auto accompaniment. The right hand carries the melody or some kind of sweetener. Even though some pros like to denigrate arranger keyboards, truly entertaining and creative use of an arranger keyboard takes serious skill as well as knowledge of chords and harmony. [Click images to enlarge.]

Let’s face it — most ordinary folks just want to play along with popular hits. [A “popular hit” depends upon your musical era!] With auto accompaniment, you need to play the harmony either by ear or following a lead sheet. Sure, you can also play along with an MP3 or WAV file, but neither the MP3 or WAV file is analyzed for chords, nor are derived chords displayed such that you can follow along as you play.

The SHS-500 has a different approach. [I’m going to refer to it as “SHS” for brevity and easy of typing.] The SHS communicates with Yamaha’s Chord Tracker app. Chord Tracker not only plays digital audio files, Chord Tracker analyzes the song within and displays its chords. With an SHS attached to your smart device, Chord Tracker sends the chord information to the SHS where it is displayed. Even cooler, the chord information determines the (musically allowable) scale tones to be generated by the SHS.

Bottom line: An untrained user can plays along with their favorite hit. They can flog away at the keyboard and the SHS figures out the correct notes to “play” given the current chord in the song. Cool! You can also record audio data to Chord Tracker.

This is the SHS “Jam mode.” There are five jam modes: 1 Finger, Melody A, Melody B, Melody C, Backing.

Three buttons on the neck control song playback in the app: [Fast Reverse], [Play/pause] and [Fast Forward]. Pitch bend and modulation wheels are also on the neck.

One can connect the SHS to Chord Tracker through USB or wireless Bluetooth. I suspect that Bluetooth will be the dominant option as who wants to dance and play while tangled up in a cable? Same for battery power over AC adapter.

Yamaha priced this product right. Although the MSRP is $499, the street price will be $300 USD. Yamaha initially priced the Reface series models too high and eventually the price was lowered depending upon depend for specific models. (You can tell which models move well and which don’t.) Reface pricing settled around $300. The SHS is targeted for the youth market and a high price would be a turn-off or out of the financial reach of most teens.

Yamaha can sell at a lower cost because they repurposed hardware from the VKB-100 Vocaloid keytar. The VKB-100 is sold mainly to the Japanese market since the player “sings” in Japanese. Yamaha made a smart decision here by repurposing the VKB-100 for the world-wide youth market. Essentially, it’s the SHS’s software which is brand new.

I’m sure there will be people who scoff at the SHS-500. I, for one, love any product or instrument that encourages the love of music. Music education in the USA has taken a big hit due to testing mania and back-to-basics. I’d really like to see more young people take up musical instruments and the SHS-500 Sonogenic might be the ticket. [Plus, I’d really like to have one. :-)]

SHS-500 effect types

    Dist.1     Distortion
    Dist.2     Distortion
    DSP Chrs   Chorus
    Flanger    Flanger
    Phaser     Phaser
    Tremolo    Tremolo
    RotarySp   Rotary Speaker
    LPF        Low Pass Filter (cutoff adjustable)
    HPF        High Pass Filter (cutoff adjustable)

There is also a filter function with adjustable cutoff frequency and resonance.

SHS-500 voice list

The Yamaha SHS-500 has thirty voices. Here is a table from the reference manual.

    No.  Voice              Display   MSB  LSB  PC1  
    ---  -----------------  --------  ---  ---  ---
    001  Saw Lead 1         SawLead1  104   20   91  [Gemini]
    002  Saw Lead 2         SawLead2    0  104   82  [RS SawLead1]
    003  Quack Lead         QuackLd     0  112   85  [Portatone]
    004  Bright Decay       BriteDcy  104   21   85  
    005  Square Lead        SquareLd    0  112   81  [Square Lead]
    006  Under Heim         UndrHeim  104   51   88  
    007  Analogon           Analogon  104   52   82  
    008  Synth Brass        SynBrass    0  113   64  [Ober Brass]
    009  Electric Piano     E.Piano   104   28    5  
    010  DX Electric Piano  DXPiano     0  112    6  [DX Modern]
    011  Electric Guitar    E.Guitar  104    3   31  
    012  Jazz Guitar        J.Guitar  104    0   27  
    013  Acoustic Guitar    A.Guitar    0  117   26  [Steel Guitar]
    014  Electric Bass      E.Bass    104    6   34  
    015  Slap Bass          SlapBass    0  112   37  [Slap Bass]
    016  Synth Bass         SynBass     0  112   39  [Resonance Bass]
    017  DX Bass            DXBass      0  118   40  [DX100 Bass]
    018  Piano              Piano       0  112    2  [Bright Piano] 
    019  Piano & Strings    Pno&Strs  104   39    1  
    020  Piano & Pad        Pno&Pad   104   40    1  
    021  Air Choir          AirChoir    0  112   55  [Air Choir]
    022  Strings            Strings     0  116   49  [Bow Strings]
    023  Brass              Brass       0  117   63  [Pop Brass]
    024  Trumpet            Trumpet     0  115   57  [Trumpet Sweet!]
    025  Flute              Flute       0  115   74  [Flute Sweet!]
    026  Alto Sax           AltoSax   104    2   66  
    027  Tenor Sax          TenorSax  104    3   67  
    028  Harmonica          Harmnica    0  112   23  [Harmonica Sweet!]
    029  House Kit          HouseKit  127    0   65  
    030  Power Kit          PowerKit  127    0   88  [Power Kit 1]

Voices number 029 and 030 are drum kits. Bank select and program change values which match PSR (Tyros, Genos) are noted.

Copyright © 2019 Paul J. Drongowski