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... 🎹😎🤩

Here is Part 3


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnaXJk9V8Rg


Martin Harris explained how the sliders can be used to control the volumes of the 8 parts in a Style to come up with interesting variations.

He showed how one can force the bass line to follow the passing chords with Chord tracking set to AI Mode.

Here is Part-4 of the Martin Harris interview.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1uyU14fJ8w


Martin started playing tunes on his keyboard at age 3, before he could walk.

He fell in love with the organ and keyboard world as a child. His mission is to push the technology forward. During his past 30 years in keyboard development he has vastly improved the sound quality and playability of Yamaha Digital Musical Instruments.

Martin mentioned how the Piano voice has been improved over 30 years from single layers over a few notes to 7 layers sampled on every key.

For Martin this is a dream job. He will continue to improve the sound quality with better effects, better DSP and larger memory with each new generation.

Martin works with musicians and sound engineers all over the world from Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, India and China. He traveled to Spain to sample the Flamenco Guitar.

He traveled to Germany to sample the Theater Organ sounds. He sampled the Wurlitzer in the UK.

Development is always an evolving process. Martin and his team of 30 developers in the UK have been responsible for all the Yamaha Arrangers from the E-Series to the SX-Series to the flagship Genos2 as well as all the Synth products like the Montage and MODX and Stage products like the CP and YC series.

I remember when a usable acoustic piano fit 128KB (yes, that's kilobytes, not megabytes or gigabytes!) on my old Ensoniq Mirage's 😱😎🎹

Sure, nothing by today's standards (check out Pianoteq 9 or Steinberg's Etude!) but revolutionary for the time 🎹❤️😎

Hi Diki,

Yes, indeed it is fascinating to see how much sample technology has progressed over the past 30 years.

The Korg M1 synthesizer released in 1988 set a trailblazer with just 4 megabytes of PCM sample data. It sold over 250,000 units worldwide. No other model from Korg has been able to eclipse this record.

It is jaw dropping when you compare the M1 voices with the Kronos3. The Italian Grand Piano Sample alone is over 7GB. There is zero wait time to load because it is streamed directly from the SSD. The M1 Piano sounds a like a cheap toy in comparison.

When I bought the Korg M1, O1/WFD and Wavestation EX I thought that is all the sonic power I would ever need. How times have changed!

The CFX Grand Piano Sample on the Yamaha CVP-909, CP-88 and Montage M8x is exquisite.

Yamaha will always be indebted to Martin Harris. He is the person who added all the acoustic instruments with articulation in the Yamaha Digital Musical instruments.