I have a friend with an S950. He is particularly intrigued by my G70's SMF 'Mark/Jump' feature.

There is something in the S950 about fast forwarding and rewinding by bars, but also by 'Phrase Marks'. But the manual is pretty vague about these, how you put them in and how you use it.

Does anyone use this feature, and can it be used to jump from one section to another? How do you add these 'Phrase Marks' to an SMF?

I need this information too. In Tyros3 and PA3X, this procedure is very easy.

Phrase Markers are XF Meta events placed in the header file of a MIDI song and are generally put in the song by commercial song distributors such as Yamaha. You can put them in a song, but not using the keyboard - they must be entered using a DAW that allows inserting Meta events - many do.

The code for phrase Marks are found on nearly the last page of the Data List for Yamaha PSR type keyboards.

When a song contains Phrase Markers you get a different bar display when select the song bar advance button and you select Phrase Mark instead of Bar from the Bar popup.

For the marker to repeat at Phrase Markers, you also need to turn on the Phrase repeat feature by going to [Function] -> Song Setting and setting button "I" to ON. This button will be greyed out if there are no markers in the song.

Hope this is helpful.

Bill G

Seems that Yamaha could make this feature a bit easier to use, but it's good that it's there.

Presumable, the fast forward works on the 'one'? or does it jump instantly, needing you to be precise when calling it up?

How well does it handle jumping more than one Phrase Mark. Say you want to go back a couple of Marks, you hit the rewind button twice?

Has anyone actually used this feature as a way to restructure a MIDI file?

BTW, anyone know which computer sequencers insert the correct Meta Events in SMF's? From experience in the past, I know that several different sequencers use different codes to achieve the same thing. Cubase used to be different from Sonor, for instance.

Could anyone post a link to a Yamaha PSR site's info about the feature?

Diki,

The best program for entering the Phrase Marks is XG Works, but that program has been dropped by Yamaha for over 10 years now. It is available on a Yahoo XG Works club.

I can also enter it by way of Cubase.

I have entered Phrase Marks in a MIDI to try it out, but did not play with it much, just know it works.

Bill G

Thanks, Bill.

BTW, any of you S950 owners... contact Yamaha, ask for the ability to drop in the Mark met-events with the arranger's sequencer. Unless you have used this feature before, you have no idea how freeing it is to be able to use a MIDI file but choose on the fly how YOU want it structured that night!

Skip sections when the crowd isn't into it, extend sections if they get up to dance towards the end of the file, repeat solos if you are on fire or someone sits in...

It blurs the line between SMF's and arranger play, allowing flexibility that used to be the sole province of arrangers, while keeping the better voice leading and accurate basslines of SMF's.