Using an arranger with a sound module

is anyone using an arranger keyboard synced to a sound module or synth?

i am looking at buying a PSR S900 and syncing it to my motif XS for the sound output.

just wanted to get some ideas from some people who have experienced this?

thanks
Nick

Interesting. I don't have an answer and I'm about to hook up a JV 10101 (module) to the PA800 (controller) to use as a sound source for my AX-1.

Never an end to the new many things that can be accomplished musically - fun!!!!

I've done it using a Motif ES and both the Tyros 2 and One Man Band as the style hosts.
It works but it isn't plug and play, meaning that you'll have to some tweaking to get the sound module to sound right. A lot of times you have to manually setup the drum patches, because the ES doesn't "read" the drum bank patch data as sent from the Tyros 2.

Also, you need to know that the megavoices aren't always set up the same from board to board, meaning that all you're going to get on some of the megavoice driven styles are very high pitched sounds, or in other cases you will hear megavoice effects, only the wrong effects, when you use what appears to be the corresponding megavoice on the Motif. At least it's that way with the Tyros and ES. There is an app from Michael P Bedesem that "fixes" megavoice styles so that the mega data is eliminated. When I use T2 styles with the ES I use the modified ones, where the megavoice data has been removed.

It isn't the ideal situation if you plan on using the XS and S900 in a live setup, but it can work in a studio.

I actually find it better going from One Man Band into the Tyros 2. A real easy shortcut exists for taking converted styles and getting them to sound pretty good without a lot of effort. I load them up in One Man Band while I set the T2 up so that it does not accept Patch and Bank data changes. Then I pick a similar style on the T2, and call it up on the board. The OMB style will now send the style data, while the T2 is set up with the right instruments and corresponding effects. It isn't always perfect, because for instance, channel 12 of a PA80's rock style might call for a piano, while the corresponding style on the T2 uses a guitar, but somehow it usually comes out sounding ok anyway, and sometimes makes for more interesting variations. All I can tell you is that it works aand almost always sounds much better than trying to load the same untweaked style directly in to the T2, where the T2 will try to pick the right instrument ( usually a default XG patch ).

If the XS has the scene store function like the ES, you could pretty much do the same thing. I used it when I used OMB and the ES together,. The caveat of course is that you have to manually select the best sounds yourself and then store the scene. I have several stored up.

Hope all of this helps a little.


Regards,

AJ




[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-03-2008).]

I use a Roland VK8m module, in combination with my Tyros 2.

Impuls

I feel anything that is hooked up to a kb is a pain in the butt.....more wires....more carrying, more hooking up, & of course more tweaking & more problems...especially in live play......as you can see I am not a fan of extra paraphernalia, less is more

The main problem is the 'dumbing down' of MIDI capabilities in the 21st century arrangers, IMO.

I have seen a definite trend towards much less comprehensive external MIDI control over the last ten years or so. When MIDI was around in the first place, it was kind of EXPECTED that you would be hooking up different things to your arranger, and the ability to route individual Parts to either internal or external gear was more common. But as arrangers have gotten better, fewer and fewer players actually need to do it as much, so, as in all things, it's 'use it or lose it'.

If I remember rightly, I was informed that sending external Parts from an S900 was an 'all or nothing' affair, at least as far as the Style Parts go. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't send, for instance, the drum part in a style to a much better module without sending ALL the style parts to it. I am not sure about the Keyboard parts, but from what I remember, it's not exactly a walk in the park, either.

Especially if you want some registrations using the external gear, and some to NOT use it.

Roland are one of the better arrangers to allow Parts from the Song and Style section to address external gear on a registration (UPG) by registration basis, but even they forgot completely about the Keyboard Parts, which CAN address external gear on a UPG by UPG basis, but can't (without a convoluted workaround involving the sequencer) select ANY CC0/32/PC#, and can only send the codes that address it's own internal voices. So, if you need to send something that doesn't already exist, you are out of luck.

It's stuff like this that really gets up my nose...

If I were you, I'd download the manual for the S900, and take a look for yourself. But don't expect much flexibility, especially from such a mid-line arranger...

I use a PSR900 and a Motif Rack ES. It seems to work fine. Some sounds are better than others but that is to be expected. I also connect my Fantom X8 and it also works fine. With all of that I use different speakers for each board. I use a Traynor K4 and Yamaha MS50 and sub for the Fantom. then the sound module is thru Roland Cube 30 monitors and Samson Resolv 65a with a sub. The PSR900 is thru onboard speakers and the Cube 30's..... I also have expansion cards in both the Fantom and the Rack ES. Overall it sounds really good... Hope this helps.... Good Luck

I,regularly, use my G70 and Nord Electro, and it works very well for my purposes, which is to assign a keyboard part to trigger a program in the Electro. This is rather straight forward, and even so, I have to trigger the program change from an existing program in the G70. If I was trying for ultimate control, like Diki says, I would encounter many obstacles.

Actually MIDI capabilites have increasd beyond measure. Not just GM2 either.

Which makes these sorts of combinations even more possible today.

And if you get your head around sysex you can do anything on the modern synth.

Although Yamaha do tend to use a lot of CC data instead, which does make it easier to program.

As you would already know Nick, you can still do pretty much anything as they have developed their own CC commands for the many unused CC slots.

Nick, I reckon the PA2 and the Motif ES make a great combo.. The Motif XS and the S900 would be AWESOME!!! Go for it.

I use the PA2xpro with a Motif ES Rack. You can specify any or all of the arranger parts to be transmitted. It is the same on the Tyros, so I imagine it would be the same on the S900.

Dennis

Anyone want to confirm or deny this? I was informed that it was either all or nothing on the S900 (and it's unsurprising that a $1600 arranger have less capability than a $3500 one).

I'm with Donny on this, for the reasons I stated above. It can work great when there is no pressure, if you want to compose or play, but I wouldn't bother in a live setting.

I speak from the experience of having played live with an arranger controlling both a hardware module ( Motif ES ) as well as several different softsynth / module combinations. I've also used One Man Band with the Motif ES as a controller, and actually that was about the best to use, because I can assign the ES knobs to control typical arranger functions. The catch... in that configuration, the best and most reliable sound module was not the internal voices of the ES. Instead it was the freeware soundfont SGM-180.

The reason is that it's GM sounds are far better than the ones on the ES, and while I realize sound is very subjective, I can't in any way imagine the comparison between them being debatable.... ( perhaps the XS has improved GM over the ES ? ). Basically if you don't have the time to setup your module between each style change, your XS is going to default to the GM sounds unless you spend a lot of time pre making scenes that you can readily apply. Or you can modify your styles so that they send out the proper patch and bank data .. but.... that is a ton of work ( I've actually modified a few to correspond to the ES patches )

No fussing around with SGM180 when I assign OMB to send GM sounds, and it includes built in reverb and chorus effects, and in the end, without major tweaking, it plays and sounds better than my soft stuff except for the largest libraries, and I have a LOT of soft synths and modules ... The caveat to using large libraries is that the load up time is not practical to use in a live setup. OMB and the ES is about the best I can do, and I have used it as a my main setup when playing live with good results. Still not as convenient as plugging in the T2 and playing, but easy and reliable enough to be a suitable backup rig.

I'm not sure about the S900 Diki, but I've had several Yamaha arrangers in the past, ( all mid level before the T2 ) and all of them had enough midi capability to pull it off. All that is needed is the ability to turn on and off the midi output of each individual channel coming from the arranger.... however, if you don't have controls / buttons that can turn on / off each arranger part from the main arranger menu ( the T2 does ), then even if you can disable the midi out from the midi menu, it will not be at all practical to do in real time ( too many submenus )

I'm not sure what the ultimate goal in doing this configuration ( S900 and Motif ) would be.. I can only apply it to my way of playing and my workflow, and in the end, it doesn't work out for me. Too complicated for live play, and I don't use style data to compose except sometimes as a scratch pad for the beginning of an idea.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-03-2008).]

this is what i want to do for example:

PSR S900 - select the drum tracks in a style to route to channels 1 and 2 for midi.

channels 1 and 2 on the Motif i have set to (Trance Kit).

I go to the PSR - press play for the style and it just plays normally but the drum sound i hear is the trance kit comming from the Motif.

is this how it works or is it alot more detailed? obviosuly im sure at first there is some intitial setting up to tell the PSR that its using an external module.. but is there more?

Nick, you would have to set up a multi, assigning what kits you wanted, what other instrument sounds you wanted, and then turn off program change RX on the XS. Then save it.

You could set up user patches on the s900 with the CC0 and CC32 set to correctly transmit the patch changes to the XS, and then save these into a style, but I reckon it is much easier to set up multis on the XS.

Just my view.

It is a bit fiddly at the start, but once the multis are there you are right to go.

You could sort of set up your own band combo on the XS, just assign the channels according to the style output channels on the S900.. BUT with Program RX set to off.

I have about 12 different multis (for different genres) setup for when I want to use the pattern generation of the PA but use the great basses, guitars and drums of the MoES.

Dennis

Hi Nick,
Yes, that's possible. You must write a special Midi program for that. It's easy to do. But finding out the correct instrument note number may be difficult.

@Diki
The differences between Yamaha's and Korg's Midi-implementation is: Yamaha neither transmits nor receives Style- and/or Performance(Registration)- Memory numbers. Other than Korg (or Roland).

Greetings
Peter

Don Mason tells me about the great possibilities of using ther SD-5 with a Midjay.

Intend to try it this week!


Russ

Still confused...

So you CAN, per registration, chose which Style Parts get sent out to an external module, and which Parts get played by the Internal Tones on an S900?

Or is it a case of setting up the receiving module to ignore the majority of the messages that the arranger is sending, and muting the internal Tone of the arranger, but NOT muting the MIDI output? My head hurts

From what I'm reading, it seems that those of you that do this have to mess with the module itself as well as the arranger, unless you use one basic setup for everything. Which, kind of defeats the purpose of using a module, IMO, which are supposed to be just racked up and controlled remotely (at least, this is how WS's do it). I would prefer to have the arranger as the sole master, and the module out of reach. There's enough to do between songs already!

Anyone doing this successfully?

I guess the holy grail for all of us is to have a rack module (or another keyboard) MIDI'd to our arrangers, and, on a registration by registration basis, be able to chose which parts, keyboard AND style/smf go to the internal sounds, and which ones go to the module, and have the correct codes for sounds (BTW, for this to be effective, this HAS to address more than just GM sounds - in fact, any sound in the module whatsoever ), levels and effects be transmitted... Correct?

So, with our 21st century arrangers and modules, who is able to pull this off flawlessly?

Easier to make this a point by point reply...

Q
So you CAN, per registration, chose which Style Parts get sent out to an external module, and which Parts get played by the Internal Tones on an S900?
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A
Yes, its the same on the Korg, you just simply turn off RX for whichever part you don't want sounding locally, and have TX on for the same channel. All the arrangers have the channels for the arranger parts permanently set.
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Q
Or is it a case of setting up the receiving module to ignore the majority of the messages that the arranger is sending, and muting the internal Tone of the arranger, but NOT muting the MIDI output? My head hurts.
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A
If you are not using GM, then yes, there is some setup required on the module. All that needs to be turned off on the module, well in my experience with the MoEs, is patch change and the RX for the parts I am using the PA for, or in this case the S900.

I still want all the other stuff, volume pan efx etc to be transmitted, unless I have a particular efx setup I want to use on the MO, in the case of some o'd and dist guitars for example.
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Q
From what I'm reading, it seems that those of you that do this have to mess with the module itself as well as the arranger, unless you use one basic setup for everything.
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A
On the Yamaha Motif line they have something called a Multi, which is a multi-part (16) setup especially for MIDI operations. All the setups on this multi can be saved, much like a registration. And they can be recalled via midi as well. So once setup they are there forever. I have several setups, several for a guitar based rock band, another for a jazzband yet another for hip-hop dance sort of stuff. And then all I feed these from the PA is the style data generated from a style on the PA.
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Q
Which, kind of defeats the purpose of using a module, IMO, which are supposed to be just racked up and controlled remotely (at least, this is how WS's do it). I would prefer to have the arranger as the sole master, and the module out of reach. There's enough to do between songs already!
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A
Yeah! You got that right but it does work after some initial setup. I have a couple of PC programs that make setting up the MoEs Rack and absolute doddle.
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Q
Anyone doing this successfully?
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A
Yes I use it all the time when I do Pub gigs, not so much for the quieter ones where the PA is more than sufficient.
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Q
I guess the holy grail for all of us is to have a rack module (or another keyboard) MIDI'd to our arrangers, and, on a registration by registration basis, be able to chose which parts, keyboard AND style/smf go to the internal sounds, and which ones go to the module, and have the correct codes for sounds (BTW, for this to be effective, this HAS to address more than just GM sounds - in fact, any sound in the module whatsoever ), levels and effects be transmitted... Correct?
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A
Yes that would be ideal, and to a certain extent it can be done by creating user sounds with the correct address(midi) saved with the sound. Now I am not sure on the Tyros/PSR line as I never got that far in, but on the PA it can transmit a patch externally so I could, if I really wanted to, set up banks of user sounds with the correct motif patching data to send to the MoEs Rack, but with the multi system it is never necessary as with the sending of one CC message, I can get a complete set of 16 sounds including drum kit, instantly, and I can have 128 of these...
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Q
So, with our 21st century arrangers and modules, who is able to pull this off flawlessly.
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A
Well I have got to admit it's not flawless but it does work pretty well. Some of the styles on the PA that sound, well a bit Ho-Hum really come to life when used with the sounds of the Motif.
Plus you can create your own unique styles on the PA ONLY for use with the Motif and that perfectly suit the Motif sound palette.

Hope that helps Diki, and was not too long an answer

Dennis

Hi Diki
my PSR1500 couldn't do it.
I had the option of it either sending all the "style" tracks out via midi or none. I couldn't pick or choose.
Also the PSR bank & Program changes ( via OTS) didn't suit my module, so I was stuck with just the GM bank for melody voices.
Admittedly I was trying to use it with an SD2 module ( no buttons, no screen) so I couldn't pick my sounds etc manually.
Sys ex messages etc , too confusing for me, I tried it years ago, and that was while my brain was still functioning..

Also I would have had to edit the majority of internal styles,(mainly drum tracks) if I wanted the sd2 to play the style parts . THE "PSR" drum mapping doesn't suit any of the keyboards or modules I've got .

Fortunately my PA800 is a better controller than my psr..

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Diki:
[B]Still confused...

So you CAN, per registration, chose which Style Parts get sent out to an external module, and which Parts get played by the Internal Tones on an S900?

It is not possible. On the Korg you can choose program numbers to send to the Motif XS, on the Yamaha (even on the T2) you cannot.

If some people about say they got it to work, they are either using multis - which means that you are triggering notes of the XS but you cannot use the T2 to select patches, or they are just using the XS GM and XG kits, in which case there's no reason to use it at all...

[This message has been edited by chony (edited 08-04-2008).]

I have the T2 and the PA2XPRO... it's hands down a lot better to hook up the external sound modules to the PA2XPRO.
The biggest thing is you can set the Bank/program change data in user voices. That way when you call up a registration or song book entry or style etc... the sound module gets setup instantly to the right sounds.

This capability is not implememnted on the Yamaha. You can certainly use the program change data comming out of the T2 to select sounds.. you just can not program the MIDI out bank/program change the way you need to.

Lee

Lets hope Tyros 3 addresses all this?

if the Tyros 3 does not have the Motif sound engine (AWM2) then the answer to this one is No Donny... unfortunately...

Hi Nick,
I sent you an email with a couple of queries on the XS, using the email addy listed here. Just wondered if you got it?
Thanks
dennis

Dennis - i got your email and have just sent my reply.

Nick

Cheers m8, thanks.

D