Hello
Well, after all my synths collecting dust I decided to reinvigorate my passion for digital music with the purchase of the Yamaha Genos. What a keyboard!
Anyway, trying to get it setup with my iPad to record the music, I found the journey far more complicated than I expected.
Considering I read so many helpful tips on this forum - I thought I would return the favour by posting my experience to help any other newbie non-pro keyboard owners like me.
A few things that took some trial and error to get right.
The Genos has 4 MIDI ports, MIDI A I/O and MIDI B I/O
The Genos sends MIDI out (if you're playing a style - ie drums, chords..etc) of MIDI A however, its default configuration for receiving this is via MIDI B.
However, if you are using MIDI wirelessly, you can not address MIDI B (more on this later).
You could reconfigure all the MIDI routing settings but I prefer keeping things relatively close to out-of-the-box (to minimise those *** moments when using the keyboard)
Wireless MIDI (RTP MIDI)
This is a great feature however you can only address MIDI A via Wireless LAN.
I wanted to get this working via my iPad. However, it requires a few simple steps to get working.
1. Setup Genos on your WiFi network. I joined my existing network as opposed to a new one. Disappointingly the Genos does not support 5Ghz WiFi (in case you have a router that only supports this)
2. Install NetMIDI (App Store) on your iPad/iPhone. It doesn't have any settings but should show you the Genos in the list. Simply select the Genos and a tick appears. This routes data between the Genos and your "Network Session" which is available within whatever DAW you use (I use Cubasis 2).
But, remember that Wireless MIDI does not address MIDI port B. This means that you can record your playing (when playing styles) but when you play it back you will hear a piano for all parts.
So your options are to reconfigure the MIDI routing on the Genos.
I opted to buying the Yamaha Bluetooth MIDI Adapter (MD-BT01)
Bluetooth MIDI
Setting up the Yamaha Bluetooth MIDI Adapter is relatively simple. Plug it in (looking at the arrows) and ensure the red light appears. It gets power from the Genos MIDI port.
However, I did find that if you used a few apps it would stop working and took a few attempts to get it working. The instructions that accompany it are quite specific about the order to get it working well.
The advantage of the Bluetooth MIDI adapter is you can patch this into MIDI port B enabling MIDI recordings to play back sounding identical to playing.
To streamline the recording/play back workflow I setup Wireless MIDI as the input (Genos MIDI A), then Bluetooth MIDI (Genos MIDI B) as the output. This meant I could play, record, then play back and it would sound the same.
Audio Interface
The next issue I uncovered was the lack of an audio interface. This is basically where the keyboard can stream all the different audio track as data (over a USB cable) in such a way they neatly appear as different tracks within your DAW - wouldn't that have been nice!
Anyway, Genos doesn't do it.
However, it does have 4 addressable stereo outputs (and the main output is paired with a digital S/PIDIF output too). It also has an auxiliary in.
This does mean you are going digital > analogue > digital.
If you really want no conversion of your song to analogue you would need to only use the Genos digital port and if you want to treat parts differently in your DAW you would need to record them separately and sync up on your DAW.
But assuming you don't mind. If you assume a "typical" tune may have rhythm track, bass track, main tune..etc. It is possible to split some of these for recording.
After some research I bought a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 audio interface (around £250). The main reasons where:-
- Digital in (to connect to the digital out of the Genos)
- Super-low latency
- Sample rate 192khz/24 bit (although I've not found if its possible to change Genos sample rate)
- 2 x audio line ins (to connect to 2 of the line-outs on the Genos)
- MIDI I/O (this means my MIDI data and audio remain in sync and can be delivered to the iPad all via the USB port)
- 1 x line out (used to connect to the auxiliary in on the Genos so I can hear the Genos line-outs out of the Genos speakers.
- It also has some Mic/line-level equipment preamps
- It's small.
I did eye-up the UltraLite-mk4 18x22 because it had a lot more inputs however, at twice the cost of the Focusrite. If I had more equipment playing with the Genos I may have opted for more inputs (although you would also need to consider integrating the MIDI data ie MIDI Controller box).
Then, depending on what you want to do, connect MIDI A OUT to the IN on the Focusrite, and MIDI B IN to the OUT on the Focusrite. This way you can play, record and playback anything you are playing.
I am somewhat confused why the default MIDI mapping is this way - I guess it is to enable easy playback of MIDI music files. If you do indeed want to playback MIDI files you can simply change the Genos MIDI cable from MIDI B IN to MIDI A IN. (If someone knows an easy way to reconfigure Genos MIDI routing such that I can quickly jump to different configuration please let me know).
To get the audio interface working on an iPad you need to buy the Apple USB3 Camera Adapter (This provides the iPad with a USB port into which you can attach the USB audio interface via a USB cable).
Using the DAW (ie Cubasis)
I'm still familiarising myself with this. But I created 16 MIDI tracks and mapped each input and output to a different MIDI channel (1-16). You can do this with any DAW.
I would suggest getting it working with a free/trial version.
Now this means if I play a style it all gets recorded and plays back.
Then, if you need to record this as an audio file, simply add an audio track and ensure it gets its input from the audio interface (with the Focusrite the digital input is 9/10). Then you can play it back and it should come out of the Genos speakers.
Anyway, good luck, and happy playing.
