I am looking for a sound module from Yamaha that has a sounds comparable to higher end PSR's or DGX. I know Yamaha makes sound module some of them are big. I prefer a half-rack unit or maybe single space rack mounted one. The motiff rack is good although it's 1-unit rack mount but it's still big and wide. How about the MU series? Are they good?

I was just about to suggest the MU series, and then I saw you mentioned it at the end.. Take a look at the MU's... They're pretty decent sound modules.. Although you already mentioned one unit that I personally feel is great and that's the Motif Rack. It really isn't quite so big.. Granted it fits in a rack width wise, but the height is good. Could easy fit ontop of something..

Squeak

Forgot to add this.. Check out this link.. Just scroll down the page and you'll see all the MU's listed there with numerous reviews on the models..
http://www.harmony-central.com/Synth/Data/Yamaha/

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 04-08-2003).]

DanB -

I used to own a Yamaha MU90. I bought it used from SamAsh for $150 a couple of years ago. I midi'd it up to my Technics digital piano and honestly was never very pleased with it. The sounds all reminded me of my old DX7; nothing seemed particularly authentic. It ended up sitting on my Technics untouched for probably a year before I traded it for a Line6 Guitar POD.

It was very compact, 1U high and a 1/2 rack module, but I never fell in love with it and couldn't recommend it.

The motif rack is the flagship module from Yamaha at the moment.

All the MU series have been discontinued for some time now. You can get the QY100 which is about the size of a VHS tape. There is an XG voice module with sound editing, a 16 track sequencer, smart media storage, mic and guitar input with effects and the sounds of the MU50.
George kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Goerge is right.. The MU's have been discontinued.. Also he makes a good point with the QY.. That thing can be used as a sound module, but you get several other valuable options like a 16 track sequencer and 8 track pattern sequencer, a crap load of drum kits, guitar and mic effects, smart media storage and more.. It's well worth the $499 price tag.. Plus you can even hook up a keyboard to it via the midi jack.. It's really simple..

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 04-08-2003).]

The MU models tended to be "XG and extras" and did not contain direct equivalents to the stronger voices found in the PSRs. If you are looking for lead type voices then a synth rack like the Motif would be a better bet. I know nothing about the current situation on these items so I'll shut up now!

I sell the Motif Rack and the QY100 (before this the MU models) and I can say that the Motif Rack is hands down the best sounding module Yamaha has ever made. 128 note polyphony, multiple outputs (6), USB, and only 1 rack space. For just under $1000.00 this is a great addition to any rig. If my memory serves me correctly, when you used the MU series as a tone module for individual sounds you could use user made sounds besides the XG sounds, but when in Multi Mode, you were forced to use XG sounds only and if you wanted to edit a sound in the Multi Mode, you were editing any sound you used in this part so if you made the trumpet have a brighter cutoff frequency, any other sound you might use in this part would have the same cutoff frequency. I didn't like this with the MU50 and MU100. Motif works like most pro modules allowing you to use any sound you've created or preset in a multi set up.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George Kaye is right.. The Motif Rack is the best one here.... The sounds on that thing are really good. It's well worth the money.

Squeak

The big question, George, would be Motif rack of Triton rack? I know there are many differences (Samplers, arpeggiators, etc.) but you are one of the few people that get to listen extensively to them back-to-back.

Who has the better overall sounds?

I've played with the Triton Rack before and as far as acoustic and good synth sounds go I think the Motif Rack is better than the Tritons (as far as sound quality is concerned).... I think the Tritons have taken a step backward with their acoustic sounds and are really aiming more to the dance, techno, hip hop group.. The acoustic sounds aren't bad, but I think Yamaha has the edge.

Squeak

Forgot to add.. I've have also had the chance to spend some time using the Motif 6 as well, and I honestly think just that keyboard alone sounds better than any Triton model.. I'm not saying the Tritons are bad because they're not, but again it seems everytime they take a few steps fowards with new technology, they take a step backwards and compromise some things, and I think they have been doing this with their acoustic sounds over the past few years..

Squeak

This brings up an interesting question: Can you take a rack sound module such as the Motif Rack, midi it into your arranger, and use the rack's sounds to power the arranger's arrangements? In this manner you could pick the very best drums, strings, sax's, etc. for each part and have one brilliant sounding arrangement.

Now the question, is it hard to do and do any of you do it?

In a way I guess you could do this.. This would probably have some limitation though.. Here's a good example.. This actually would work great with the PSR's because they have the feature where you can turn voiceR123 ect off and on.. Since you're just going to midi the keyboard to the rack unit, all you'd have to do is record your backing arrangments the way you like on the keyboard (of course using the keyboards internal voices) Then all you'd have to do is either turn the volume all the way down or even turn of R1 on your keyboard because you'll be using the keyboard to control the Rack.. I think the keyboard will still send the midi messages out even if your turn off R1.. Plus if you didn't want to do that just turn down the volume to R1 all the way and you should be able to use the motif voices with the mix.. I remember when I hooked up my PSR-550 via midi to use the keyboards keys to control the sounds on my drum machine. I think I ended up having to either turn R1 off or turn the volume all the way down.

Squeak

We might be able to go a step further with this if AJ (Bluezplayer) would give us a hand... AJ has a Yamaha Motif-6, and I think a Korg PA-80.. I'm pretty sure you can midi the PA-80 to the Motif and use the Korg to play the Motifs voices.. He could then try to use the Motifs solo voices with the auto accomp of his PA-80.. Care to give us a hand on this one AJ..?

Squeak

Thank you guys for your responses. I am convinved that Motiff rack has a superb sound as compared to the older Yamaha modules. But still in the almost $1000 range. Its too expensive for my need. I only need the awesome sounds of that cheappy plastic toylike PSR. I already have a PSR-GX76 which is better sounding than the QY's and MU's. I just don't want to bring or set up another keyboard on the stage.

Have guys seen the Diskclavier GranTouch piano? It has a separate module on its side under. That thing sounds really amazing. Is Yamaha selling those module separately? or will it work if we connect it to a synth controller?

Dan

I do it all the time ( use the PA80 and it's styles to control and playback on the Motif ). In principle it's no different than using One man band or Jammer pro as my styule interface / controller and using the Motif as my module.

There are some tricks though. First and foremost, the PA80 uses patches 0-127 in all of it's banks, and every instrument corresponds to the GM standard. In other words a distorted guitar and anything related to it will always be patch # 30 on the PA80. The Motif doesn;t work that way. A distorted guitar on the Motif can be patch number 100, or 102 in a non GM bank. Even the "standard" GM patches are different. The PA80 and all of my software modules use patch #s 0-127. The Motif uses 1-128 for it's "GM", so that distortion guitar is patch #31 on the Motif.

I can go directly from the PA80 to the Motif via midi. What I need to do though is either setup the Motif so that it does not recognize any incoming bank / patch data, or set up the PA80 so that it does not send any bank / patch data. Then I have to manually enter the correct bank / patch numbers in the Motif's mixer so that the styles will play properly. IE.. Channel 10 for drums, ch 9 for bass, ch 11 for percussion, 12-16 for accomp voices . ( Note : when using a Yamaha arranger and it's styles as a controller, percussion is on ch 9 and bass is on ch 11. This is also important to remember should you ever consider converting Korg styles to Yamaha format or vice versa. ). Oh, and no need to turn the sound down on the PA80. I simply turn local control to "off". In this mode, all midi data is still sent ( except for the midi data that I choose to filter ..such as bank and patch data ). None of the data is sent to the PA80's internal sound source though, so the board remains silent. Most of modern midi kb's have this function, except for maybe the very low end ones.

This is not very convenient for live work, but it's fine for recording / composing or jamming with the styles. Usually I don't go directly from the PA80 to the Motif. I almost always use Sonar or Jammer Pro as a middleman. In this method I set the PA80 up so that it cannot send patch and bank data, set the Motif up so that it can receive it, and use the software as the go between. Advantage ? I can use the Sonar ins definiton file or jammer dev file to control the patch / bank data for each channel, which is much easier and faster than doing it in the Motif's internal mixer. Again, not good for live work though. Another thing to remember is that the effects data doesn't always translate well from one module to the next. Even when you have the right patches, sometimes a PA80 style doesn't sound as good played back on a Yamaha module. The advantage of using Sonar is that I have a studioware panel for the Motif which allow me to control effects and other criticAL parameters on the fly.

I recently discussed the issue of using Yamaha styles with OMB and the patch and bank implications on another thread. My best workaround at this point is to convert my existing styles using Style Updater so that the bank and patch data coreresponds to the Motif patches. In essence I edit a yamah style, change each accomp instrument so that it plays well on the Motif, and then save the style in a different folder that contains only styles etup for use with te Motif as a module. It's a good bit of work, but there is an added benefit. Once I get the PSR2000 again, I will be able to load up these styles into it, and then use the PSR2k and it's auto accomp to control the Motif in real time, and the patches will all be correct without me having to do any additional work. Then I can effectively use the Motif as my module even in a live setup if I choose to.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 04-09-2003).]

It doesn't sound like the original poster wants to budget for the motif.

More reasonably priced units which are still state of the art and may be more in line with his individual needs are:

Edirol SD-20 Studio Canvas MIDI Sound Module
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=...l/base_id/87119


E-MU's Proteus 1000 30th Anniversary Sound Module
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=...l/base_id/59703


Kurzweil ME-1 Micro Ensemble Synth Module
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=...l/base_id/73082

Thanks for your suggestions Blink_ers, but I do have a lot of sound modules from Roland, Korg and some other older stuff like JD990. I have JV1010, X5DR. What I need is from Yamaha.

As Squeak suggested, you won't go far wrong with an MU series synth. My 740 has approximately the same synth as an MU100 except for 16 parts instead of 32 and some different non-XG instruments. I rarely use the panel voices on the 740 as the organs have fixed velocity so it's XG all the way. What I do is to use XGworks because I've modified it for the 740, but any XG editor will do for the MU series - XGEdit, XGPad etc., and use my laptop like an MU panel. I just layer two or three organ sounds, add a touch of vibrato and tremolo and I have a pretty good Hammond sound. I can layer up to nine sounds or 17 if I don't use the rhythm section on the 740. I save all my setups as .syx files and with XGworks they load almost instantaneously (a lot faster than Midiox!). And of course I can save thousands of setups which I can't do with the registration memories on the 740. I can still use the rhythm section by turning off midi transmit from the keyboard for the rhythm channels. I need to do this to avoid echo from midi thru which I need for the keyboard channel.

Bryan

There's probably noone that cares about this except me, but I though I'd mentioned it... I use the Yamaha S-YXG50 softsynth on a laptop computer whenever I have to play an acoustic piano gig. I just hook up my laptop to a powered speaker and go to work. Since I'm not actually editing on the laptop and just using it as a sequence playback device, latency isn't a concern. The program costs about $50 and it sounds very good.

Good idea Pro. SY-XG100 here. Can be had for about 80 dollars and includes a software version of the VL150 acoustic modeling board. With ASIO drivers, virtually no latency noticable at it's fastest response setting. Never gets choppy like the VSC stuff does when you try to shorten the response time.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 04-10-2003).]