Hey guys:
By now I've played a few gigs with my new PSR9K and love it to death. However, I've been experiencing quite a few "drop outs" with it, very embarrasing! is there a cure for this anomaly? This 126 note polyphony is very questionable at best on this KB. Never had this problem with the 2K. what gives?
Has anyone experienced this? anything that can be done about it?
'preciate some comments.
Mario

HI: Mario
There are some expansion boards available that increase
the polyphony, but I don't know the model number of the
boards.
I'm sure some one here can answer that one.

Which voices are you using when you have the dropouts ?

Piano with full sustain takes up allot of polyphony.
Organ does to.

I have had it happen a few times but not very often, but
your probably a better player than I am.

Denny

"I have had it happen a few times but not very often, but your probably a better player than I am."

Terry:

I've only been playing KBs for 3 years(been a guitar player for 35) so I doubt that.
The drop outs happen mostly when playing the Big Bands Styles, which have OTSs that have more than one lead sounds. But what intrigues me is that the PSR2k doesn't drop out playing the same styles and OTS and that kb is only 64 polyphony. Weird!
Mario

Hi Mario.

Try do keep the poliphony counter "on" and then play the song that had problems.
Then , try to play each voice(R1,2 and 3) as single voice while monitoring the poliphony.
I think that the problem may be an great amount of effects that can duplicate or triplicate the poliphony.
You must to try effects in ACC. parts.
I tryed some simulations with big bands and 3 (R1,2,3) voices and the poliphony was 100/118
Regards
Chico.

First off all - mario has a PSR model, and NOT the pro. It's not expandable.
Secondly - I have always notices a terriblr handling of the polyphony issue on that kb as well. There are simply too many layered voices going on at one to handle it well. That was the major downfall for me. i lay on the sustain pedal and like to layer piano & strings alot .... it's just too much to ask of the engine. The max notes are eaten up way too fast and there is no way around it, unless you "thin out" the arrangements and use smaller sounds ...... but then it sounds whimpy. They actually improved the note allocation on the 2000 ...... it works much better in this regard.
The only thing you can do is rewrite some of the heavy, layered sounds or replace them with smaller, single voice tones (maybe XG voices are smaller).

the cvp209 is supposed to have 256 polyphony and that drops out when pedaling too.

Good lord!, dropping notes with 256 poly????? I think that's Yamahas biggest problem.. Granted they have some really nice sounding voices, but those voices are made up of way too many elements and that will eat the poly right up.. Don't some of the voices on the PSR-9000 have more than 4 elements in a voice? If Yamaha is going to make these huge voices they should really increase the poly.. Look at that GEM digital.. Doesn't that thing have over 300 poly?

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 10-14-2002).]

i agree with WATCHING the sustain pedal! Every second you hold it down ... it's doubling everything! I too am a paino player ... but you don't need to use the sustain pedal that much for most things...

For Some stuff ...yes... it's right on ... but does the Orchestra or Big Band Sounds need Sustain pedal too ...

I also had years of ORGAN playing ...so ... holding down notes is ingrained in my style for some things.

But the sustain pedal can become a habit ... so ... it's easy to say "don't step on it" ... but ... hard to always remember.

p.s. I guess if the instrument is really Intellegent ...it would use the sustain pedal just for piano sound ... right?
Do any of these istruments do that? I don't know?

Thanks guys, with all this important information you've all given me, I will use it and try to analyze what is it I got to restrain myself of doing. UD is probably right referring to the amount of layered voices, which I tend to use a lot (eg. the G. Shearing Piano with vibes and jazz guitar) you can actually sense the "struggle within" by a "temporary delay" on the tempo.
Oh well! let see how aggravating this problem will become for me, maybe I'll learn to live with it, maybe not. So far the good points of this KB outweigh the bad ones.
Remember? Not such a thing as a “perfect KB”
Thanks again guys,
Mario

It was one of the reasons I went for a Roland Piano instead of a Yamaha and Technics. I play Piano an awful lot, and certainly don't want to compromise in this area. True 128 note Polyphony on my piano is superb when I get to track 12 (say) on the sequencer, and the only limits seem to be my imagination

When I had the Yamaha Pro, I didn't get note drop-out during normal use, it was only when I used the "pads" ...along with the Rhythm, and extensive layering (along with left hand too) You have to understand that 126 notes is 126 notes, and with up to 8 elements per patch. In extreme cases, you could be reduced to a 30 notes left in a four note chord on the right hand using 3 patches with all elements involved. There would be hardley any space for Rhythm/chords at all here if you started using the damper pedal as well!

This is taking it to extremes it has to be said, as most BIG patches on a Yamaha 9000/Pro use 3-4 elements. However, with the Rhythm/Auto-Acc/pads going on at the same time even "low" element patches could cause problems. There has to be a "trade-off" somewhere here. You’ve GOT to compromise on the right hand, or vice versa. If you see, and KNOW its limitations, then working within them is better than trying to go against. Great music can be made with the Yamaha 9000; you just have to be sensible with your layering. Try compromising were compromising is required.

Tony




[This message has been edited by Jupitar5 (edited 10-14-2002).]

I must admit that I got this alot when i had the PSR8000, but have never experienced it with my Korg, GEM or Solton kbs....

There are several reasons why the PSR-9000 and 9000 Pro's polyphony can at times be problematic:

1. Many of the sounds on the 9K and 9K Pro are stacked with up to 4 layers. Dependent upon how many sounds are layered your polyphony could be cut by as much as four times. A four layer sound would give you around 32 notes of polyphony.

2. Some of the sounds on the 9000 and 9000 Pro are in fact not "true stereo" but mono sounds stacked then panned hard left and right to mimic stereo. This effectively reduces your polyphony in half. Use several of these "stereo" sounds in a song and chances are you will run out of polyphony very quickly.

3. Earlier versions of the 9K and 9K Pro had software bugs that caused unnatural sounding drop outs when excessive polyphony was used. Thankfully Version 2.0 and version 3.0 fixed most of these problems.

4. The 9K and 9K Pro had bugs in earlier software that also caused drop outs if an excessive number of sounds were used (even if the maximum polyphony wasn't exceeded). I'm not sure if the newest software Rev fixed these problems or not.

Yamaha, not unlike most manufacturers, hypes the number of voices and amount of polyphony as a selling feature but deliberately fails to mention the fact that their instruments can't truly produce 126 or 128 voices at once. Oh sure you could probably get close if you didn't stack the sounds but then the keyboard would sound like crap.

One case in point would be the Yamaha CVP-209. The CVP-209 is touted as having 256 notes of polyphony which is somewhat true. The CVP actually uses two sound engines, one for the piano and "Natural" sounds and one for all other sounds (Cool, Live, Sweet, etc.). Each processor has 128 notes of polyphony but that polyphony can't be shared amongst one another. If they could be shared it would be very difficult to run out of polyphony but anyone who's played a CVP-209 and held the sustain pedal down just to see what happens, will quickly realize the CVP can and will rob notes. The only way around this would be to design a newer, faster processor that could handle all 256 notes of DATA. This no doubt would raise the price of the already heavily inflated CVP series likely pricing it out of production.

When buying any synthesizer, keyboard, or arranger, buy it for what it will do at that time, not what it is supposed to do in a future software upgrade. Also, be certain that the unit can in fact do every function the manufacturer states because chances are it can't. Its called creative marketing and manufacturers know just how to word an ad so you want their new products.

very true, ensnare

The more I analyze the discussion on this thread, the more I realize what I am doing to contribute to the problem.
First, I am using layers with at least 50% of my leads.
Second, I am playing 4 note chords at least 75% of the time.
Thirdly, I am using Chordal Harmony at least 40% of the time.
I think, and this is just speculation on my part, the reason this problem exists in the PSR9K and not on the PSR2k is because the chip on the 2k may be faster. Maybe the PSR9000 is too slow to handle this many demands at once.
By the way the X1 occasionally "dropped out" under my style of playing, perhaps this contributes to the chordal harmony "bug" that only me seem to have experienced on this machine. Who knows?
Thanks guys for your contributions to this problem, which does not seem to have a solution at this time.
Mario

ps. Can't wait to try the Tyros under similar conditions.

Mario!
I'm joking of course ... but just like some are in denial about Overeatting ... some are in denial about the "sustain pedal" ...

Unplug it ... and try it again ... or state " I don't use the sustain pedal" ... because I don't get hardly any dropped notes ... I would say none... but that wouldn't sound right ... none that I can remember ...

Now ..as I said before ...if I use the sustain pedal ...yes ... but that makes
sense to me ... right?

Now i would use the sustain pedal if I was switching to paino, drums and bass mode ... but NOT for FULL orchestra, or Band Mode ... because I realize that's eatting up poly super fast!
p.s. if the sustain pedal is disconnected ...and you still have cut offs ...I guess our style of playng are different!

p.s.s. is their settings in the prs9000 that allows you to say what you want to cut out first ? I forget?



[This message has been edited by rgtaa (edited 10-16-2002).]