Enjoy

Bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIPQY3guRUI

Tnx for post the link Bill. 👍🌞

Maybe I'll "steal" it and post over at Yamahamusicians.


Here is the intro and part 2:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDASLkOkHbA


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KYgnTJMN2I

That was an excellent interview with Martin Harris, General Manager of Yamaha Digital Musical Instruments. Martin is the father of the PSR/Tyros/Genos line of arrangers. He was responsible for the voicing that put Yamaha arrangers ahead of the curve.

Martin won the Yamaha Electone Competition in 1985, exactly 40 years ago. He is a gifted musician. I watched him perform live at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, California during the launch of the Yamaha Tyros2. Back then Martin has a head full of hair. He wowed the audience with a Celtic song playing the Irish Flute.

Keith Jarrett, the iconic Jazz pianist was in the audience. He was impressed with Martin’s demo. Much to our surprise and delight, Keith sat in front of the brand new Tyros2 and began jamming away.

We were treated to an impromptu mini concert!

I decided to get a Tyros2. That was my first Yamaha Arranger. Martin hinted that a successor to the Genos2 is in development.

I would be anxiously waiting to see Part-2 of this interview on November 20th.

Martin Harris went into a lot of technical details in Part-2 of this series.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KYgnTJMN2I


He talked about the intricacies behind the sampling of every acoustic instrument. The Yamaha CFX Acoustic Grand was sampled for 7 velocity levels across each of the 88 keys.

Martin and his team travelled all across the world to find the right musician and the right studio to faithfully capture each instrument.

The Kino Strings were sampled from the Astonia Symphony Orchestra. They are perfect for movie scores.

The Orchestral Brass sounds were sampled from the Bulgaria Symphony Orchestra.

He used 4 microphones to record each Drum Set, 2 up close to record the dry stereo sound and 2 in the back of the room to capture the stereo room ambience. The ambience control allows you to blend between the wet and dry mix.

Martin talked about the REVelation Reverb. The Reverb properties are set by the Style you select.

David asked him to play some of his favorite Styles and Voices.

Martin demoed the Super Articulation feature using the Alto Sax and Clarinet. He showed how the Genos 2 recreates a realistic orchestral sound by bringing in 4 instruments using the Ensemble Feature.

Part-3 of this series is coming soon.

Nobody does a technical demo better than Martin Harris. It is always fascinating to watch his mastery over his creation.

Curiously, Martin was not wearing his wedding ring today.

I have also been following this on youtube. In general it is good to see all the continuous innovation and development coming from Yamaha for these products.

I think a cool feature would be to include an "information" button or option, somewhere in the keyboard itself that you can view about a sound to see a brief background story of where the sound was sampled from etc.

I'd like to see Korg's '2 styles at a time' adopted by ALL arrangers! Plus Roland's 'Pianist 2' chord recognition (3 notes pedal up, 5 notes pedal down) which revolutionizes chord recognition when you play pianistically.

Both utter game changers...

Beyond that, be nice to have '1/2 time, double-time options' for a lot of styles. And more recognition of YOUR playing intensity to control the style parts. Play harder, style gets more complex, etc...

With AI coming along, be nice to have an arranger that would listen to you play a couple of bars (or 4!) and suggest styles that might compliment the groove...

We seeing a trend? Today's technology needs to be set to listen to US, and assist us achieve OUR vision. Too often the arranger tells us what to do! Time the shoe was on the other foot... 🎹😎🤩