A) Yamaha Chord Events. These are Yamaha specific midi events that are imbedded in a midi and which update the score and chord display or trigger Vocal Harmony.

Yamaha Chord Events are created in several ways:

1. By quick recording a midi that includes accompaniment on the instrument. Whenever a chord is keyed, the PSR records an event.

2. By step recording. In the Song Creator function, select the location (measure, beat and clock) and then enter the chord on the keyboard. Then use the Expand function to convert the single step chords to midi notes and chord events.

3. Use PSRUTI. see www.heikoplate.de/hpmusic.htm

4. Yamaha's XGWorks (may no longer be available) ($99) allows entering chord events.

B) Loaded midi song. If you load any midi (including a PSR midi), go to Vocal Harmony/ Mic Settings and select Mode=Chord and then a chord source. For PSR midis channel 13, Chord 1, is usually good. For other midis, look at the voice assignments in Mixing Console and pick either a piano or guitar or vocal assignment. Note that there is a separate channel setting for the source of Vocal Harmony. Mark S reports that you must use the start button, not the sync start button.

C) Midi Note Events. The later PSRs can use midi data entering via the midi data input to determine what chord is played by the accompaniment section. To set this up, go to Function/Utility/Midi and the Root and Chord tabs and select the midi channel that will have the note data to be analyzed for triggering chords. With Accompaniment On, start the midi and then hit style Start.

You can use this feature in conjunction with Band In A Box. This program has been designed expressly for entering/editing chords in measures and there are literally thousands of BIAB songs available. Also see A.5.

To control the PSR from BIAB, first set up your root and chord recognition channels on the PSR. In my test, I chose 16 for both. So that the BIAB style does not play along with the PSR style, depress the Balance button and set the Song volume to zero. Engage both the sync Start and Sync Stop button (to make the PC control the play).

Then in BIAB, Go to Options/Preferences/OutCh, check Output Chords, and make sure that the channel is the same as selected on the PSR. All other boxes on this page should also be check marked. Click Update and Exit the window.

Load a BIAB song and press play.

D) The program Producer allows you to enter chords and the stylename in a spread sheet. When you Play the file on a PSR/Tyros connected via midi, the entered information will generate the accompaniment. See: http://psrtutorial.com/MB/bedesem.html

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A. 3. The difference between Chords, Chord Events and Single Step Chords

The PSRs/Tyros allows the user to record Chord Events using Quick Record where chords are played. These are midi meta events that are ignored by other than PSR instruments. When a PSR sees one, it reports the chord in the score and chord displays on the screen. It also triggers the PSR Vocal Harmony with the specified chord. Other midi devices do not respond. A midi that has been recorded in real time using Quick Record has both the Chord Events and the midi note events.

You can also enter chords via the Single Step function on the CHD page of the Song Creator. These “Single Step Chords” are entirely different from the Chord Events. If you view a Step Edit file that contains single step chord events in StyleDump or MidiPlayer, you will not see anything! That is because the Step Editor places the Single Step Chords at the end of file after the last valid midi event. While the actual structure of this part of the file is unknown, it appears as if the Single Step Chords are simply notations that are recognized only by the Song Creator.

Yamaha provides a function that converts the Single Step Chords to a series of midi notes. It is called Expand and it is on the CHD page of the Song Creator. It will create the chords with the individual midi notes on the channels controlled by the accompaniment. These notes appear on the Channel pages. The notes are regenerated each time you depress Expand. If you edit the Single Step Chords, or want to change the style that is used, you must Expand to create a new accompaniment.

If you play the midi in Sound Creator, what you hear depends upon what page you are on. If you are on the CHD page, the Single Step Chords will play; on the Channel page, the midi notes will play. If you play the midi without being in Sound Creator, the midi notes are played.

The Expand process also creates Meta Chord Events that correspond to the Single Step Chords. Thus, a midi made by Expanding Single Step Chords will have all the same characteristics of a midi recorded in real time plus the ability to edit and recreate the accompaniment.

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A. 4. Why do I see chords such as B#m instead of Cm on my Tyros?

The key of your loaded midi was B. When changed to C, all displayed correctly.

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A. 5. How to play an accompaniment derived from a midi file?

1) Load the midi, select a style that you want to use, turn Acmp On

In Mic Settings, identify a channel and other settings. If its a midi recorded with a style on the PSR use channel 13 as the chord source--- i.e. from left to right the settings are : Play, Off, Lower, L=H, Chord =13, Norm, 100. These settings look at the notes on ch 13 as if they were being played live by the left hand, and thus it triggers the style that you have selected.

Exit from Mic Setting (Important!), hit Play midi and then depress Acmp Start.

2) Alternatively, use the program PSRUTI to analyze the midi and insert XF Chords.

Then load midi and in Mic Settings, select XF as the chord source instead of 13 in list above. Sometimes I have problems getting it to respond to the XF chords, but 1) always works.

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A.6. What is the meaning of Chord as used in the PSRs?

There are many uses of the word Chord:

1) This can be some notes that are in a midi that form a chord (e.g. C-E-G)

2) It can refer to a Yamaha Chord Event. These are placed in a midi, in addition to the notes themselves, when you do a Quick Record. You can also add these events using PSRUTI and XGWorks. These events, which only Yamaha instruments understand, can be used to control vocal harmony, trigger the accompaniment, etc.

3) It is the word used to name two of the channels in a style: i.e. Chord 1[ch 12] and Chord 2[ch 13]). At some point the instruments began to refer to data on midi channel 12 as the style part Chord 1. In fact, you could put anything on channel 12 but no one usually does because a bass line etc would just confuse the matter even more. Chord 1 & 2 have nothing to do with chords that you record, or Chord Events. They are simply the names Yamaha gives to midi channels used for styles.

4) Song Creator allows the user to enter chords in two ways: as midi notes (i.e. 1 above) or in Step mode as text identifiers (e.g.”Cm7”). These are placed in a hidden part of the midi. When you depress the Expand button in SongCreator, it translates these text chords into actual notes.

If you have created a midi in Quick Record Mode, then the midi has Yamaha Chord Events and chord notes. If you used a style, then it likely has note data on channels 12 &13 too. The only way to change the chord at a particular measure is to change all the note data on every channel and the Yamaha Chord Events to match. Since the midi was not made in Step mode (and not expanded) there are no Chords to edit in Song Creator.

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A.7. How can I see what chords are being played by a midi on the PC?

The Tyros can analyze chords for midi data received. On Function/Midi go to the Chord page and identify the midi channel to look on. For PSR midis, ch 12 or 13 are usually good choices. The result of the analysis will display as the midi is played.

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A.8. How to see what chords are used by a commercial midi on the PSR/TYROS.

For chords to display, they must be included as XF chord events. These are automatically generated when you make a Quick Record file, when you use a XF midi made by Yamaha, or a file made in my program Producer (a chord editor).

If you load a midi that does not have XF Chords, you can add them by:

Run the program PSRUTI and load your midi.

Click the Compute Chords button, place a check mark before a chord based instrument (e.g. piano or guitar) track and depress OK, and then Save.

If you encounter a midi where a single track does not play throughout the entire song, select more than one track. Note: you can display the chords in PSRUTI by depressing the Play button.

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STYLES

B. 1. Why parts of a homemade style might play in the wrong octave

The octave range is controlled by the style’s CASM. Chords with roots higher than HiKey will be shifted down an octave, unless limited by LoLimit. For example, if a style, with LoLimit C0, and HiKey is D#, is programmed to play a chord in the second octave, then chords C, C#, D, D# will play in the second octave and chords E and higher in the first octave. If LoLimit is set to something in the second octave (Yamaha uses HiKey D# and LoLimit E2 for bass), then all notes will be forced to be higher than LoLimit even when HiKey would specify that they be lower.

Examine the style in CasmEditor, CasmEdit or StyleDump to see what settings the style has. You can edit the CASM directly in CasmEdit. Raising LoLimit to the minimum octave or perhaps changing HiKey will likely fix the problem.

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B. 2. How do you make styles that change accompaniment with various chord types?

Such styles have several midi channels that are assigned in the CASM to one PSR Part (say Chord1). Also assigned in the CASM for each midi channel is the Chord Enable/Mute, a list of chords that are allowed to trigger that channel.

In a simple case, both Channel 1 & 2 may be assigned to Channel 12 (Chord1). Channel 1’s Chord Enable settings allow only major chords and Channel 2's allows only minor chords. When you specify a major chord in the left hand, Channel 1's midi sequence will play and when you specify a minor, channel 2's midi sequence will play.

If you want to examine this for yourself, look at the CASM of any modern style in CasmEditor, CASM Edit, StyleDump or View/Casm in MidiPlayerII. You will see that several source channels are directed to a single destination channel, and that the Chord Enable /mute settings do not overlap.

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B. 3. How can I view/edit a style in Cakewalk?

You can load the style files into Cakewalk simply by renaming the file with the extension .mid. To do this, in Explorer, right click on the style and then on Rename. Replace the last three characters.

This will allow a style to load into Cakewalk, but in the process, part of the style, called the Casm, is eliminated. If you modify the style, then save and reload it to the PSR, it generally will not work properly.

To edit a style in Cakewalk without losing the Casm, use the program StyleMaker available at http://psrtutorial.com/MB/bedesem.html or StyleSplit&Splice at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/ .

To edit a style without using Cakewalk, use the program CasmEdit available at http://osenenko.chat.ru/Main_eng.htm .

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B. 4. I have a style that is too large for my PSR. How can I make it smaller?

The easiest way is to eliminate one or more of the bigger sections, usually Intro C and/or Ending C. You can use the programs Visual Styler, StyleRemixer, or StyleMaker at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/ .

To eliminate Intro C using StyleMaker

· Load the style

· Click ToSequencer

· Cut out the measures between the Marker Intro C and the following marker. You can remove the Intro C marker, but do not delete the next one. In Cakewalk, highlight the measures at the top of the track view and then select all tracks using the leftmost box (unlabeled) above the track numbers. Then click Cut, check the boxes to remove all events and the hole, and click OK.

· If the measures do not disappear, it means that some note(s) continue into the deleted section. Use the piano roll in Cakewalk to adjust these note durations.

Save and exit. This puts you back in StyleMaker. Click "Use Styles Casm" and then click SaveStyle.

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B. 5. What programs are available for making styles from midis?

There are five programs available for doing this job. Links to them all are available at: http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/ .

Midi2Style is free and easy to use. It makes most of the decisions for you.

StyleMaker is free and operates in conjunction with a sequencer program such as Cakewalk or XGWorks (may no longer be available). It also takes care of many details, but you can cut, paste, and do all the things you would expect in a sequencer.

CasmEdit is free, and operates like a spreadsheet. It requires more knowledge on how to make styles, but you can do anything.

StyleWorks is not free (>$200), but does a lot of the work for you.

One Man Band is a PSR style based real-time arranger and style editor that also makes styles from midi files. It is shareware ($30) and has received some excellent reviews from users.

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B. 6. What sections must be included in a style?

All styles should have a Main A. Some PSRs will not load them otherwise.

Generally a style should include at least Main A, Intro A, Ending A and Fill AA. The instrument will operate with less, but other users will miss these basic sections.

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B. 7. How can I make new styles by editing existing styles?

For one line midi changes, the program CasmEdit is very good.

For cutting and pasting midi clips, try StyleMaker in conjunction with a sequencer.

For general CASM editing use CasmEdit or Jorgens CasmEditor

To copy sections (Intros) from one style to another, try Visual Styler at http://www.crestonhall.com/music/home.htm

To copy paste style parts (Bass, chord 1, etc) between styles (including a new style), use the Assembly function in StyleCreator.

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B. 8. How can I make copies of preset styles?

In the PSRs (Tyros is similar):

· Depress the Style Button then style group you wish to copy (e.g. Pop & Rock)

· Select Copy, Depress All, then OK

· Depress Next until you get to Floppy or your media, then Paste

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B. 9. What are the differences between the older and newer styles?

· Two variations versus four variations plus Intro/Ending C.

· XG or GM voices versus using the higher quality panel voices that include effects.

· No OTS or database settings.

· Lower time resolution (from 240 to 1920). Higher resolution can make styles seems more realistic.

· Smaller size (15k vs. 50k+).

· File extensions other than .sty (pcs=piano combo, sst=session, pst=pianist, prs=pro, bcs=basic, fps=free play style)

· Differences in the CASM.

There is no identification in the file to show it’s vintage. While you can just change the extension so that older PSRs will acknowledge the style’s existence, some of the other characteristics may prevent the style from loading. Open and then save styles with the program MidiPlayer to resolve most of these problems.

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B. 10. How can I upgrade old styles to new styles?

There is no single program that you can run that will magically "upgrade" the styles.

MidiPlayer does the following:

· Adds bank events, if missing, so that the GM voices can be upgraded to XG or panel voices.

· Allows you to tailor a style to the voices that exist on your specific instrument, upgrade to panel, Live!, Sweet! or even Megavoices and SA voices. Alternatively, it will downsize voices too...just what the non-Tyros owners need to uses these styles in their machines. You choose what kind of voices you want for your instrument, sound card or softsynth.

· It adds OTS settings (if they are missing) if you have a Tyros/3000/2000/1000, or removes them (if they are there) if you have other instruments.

· It warns you if the style size is possibly too large for your instrument (not a problem for Tyros or 9000 owners).

If a style is too big, the best way to make it smaller is to eliminate Intro C and /or Ending C.

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B. 11. How do I create meaningful names for “Numbered Styles”?

Styles saved by older instruments may have names such as S_00101.sty. You can use the program StyleFix (contact mpb@sover.net) to convert the names back to text.

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B. 12. Why can’t some style parts be edited in the instrument?

Yamaha has turned editing off for these parts.

A style is made up of source tracks that are redirected in the instrument to destination tracks that correspond to the accompaniment parts. For instance, if a style's CASM shows that track 12 has a destination of 11 and track 11 has a destination of 11, then these two midi data streams will be combined in the PSR to play on channel 11 or bass part. In the PSR-2000, if a destination channel has only one source channel, you can edit the data if the editable flag is "yes". However, if more than one channel is involved, then the instrument does not allow editing.

The only possible workaround to allow editing in the PSR might be to change the destination channel numbers in the style so the part you are interested in only has one source channel, edit the style in the PSR and then change the numbers back.

Less messy would be to edit the style on the PC using StyleMaker. When used with style files, it removes and saves the original CASM before opening the style in the sequencer, and puts it back again when you save the file. Using the sequencer has the advantage that you can see what is happening with both channels simultaneously.

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B. 13. How can I Solo a Style Part?

To hear just one part (e.g. the bass), depress On/Off and then depress and hold the button below the screen that corresponds to the part that you are interested in.

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B. 14. How do I convert a midi or style to use MegaVoices?

Use the program MegaEnhancer for midis and see H.5. How to make MegaEnhancer work with styles.

You can also use the program MidiPlayer (but it does not add effects such as fret noise. If you turn the MegaVoice option "On" (under the Options menu item), the program MidiPlayer will automatically replace standard voices with the MegaVoice version. You can also manually edit the assigned voice to select any MegaVoice that you want.

MidiPlayer does more than just change the voice selection. It also rescales the velocity values, shifts the octave where necessary, and adds OTS.

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B. 15. How can I determine which instrument & style was used for a song?

From 740 onwards (9000/2000/CVP/Tyros), there is a sysex command inside a midi made using a PSR’s quick record. Both Midi Database and MidiPlayer have facilities for translating this command to the instrument and stylename.

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B. 16. What do the style extensions stand for?

Here are the Yamaha definitions:

sty= normal style

pst= pianist (solo piano)

pcs= piano combo

sst=session

prs=pro

bcs=basic

fps=free play

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B. 17. How can I extract a style from a PSR that does not have a floppy?

One way to do this is to record, on the PSR, a known number of measures of each section (Main A, Fill In AA, etc) while playing the chord CMaj7.

Then open this midi file in StyleMaker and use the measure locations you employed for each section to set the >Marker or < Marker. You can also use the program Midi2Style, it might even be easier.

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B. 18. How to make style on a keyboard

Awhile back (pre Tyros), Simon posted a message with his activities while making a style. Here it is:

“Here are a few tips on recording your own styles ON the keyboard; these instructions are generally applicable to any PSR.

Assuming you are creating a style from scratch, first delete all the tracks from each part of the style. Now let's choose main A for example.....

Turn on the metronome; else you will get totally lost when it comes to keeping within each bar and getting your patterns to play in time!

Choose one of the rhythm tracks and select a suitable drum kit. Note that if you change the voice usually the reverb will be set back to zero, so you will get a very dry sound. You may like to call up the reverb setting and set it to about 30, or to save time store the drum kit voice in one of the registrations with this setting.

Start recording of the style and listen to the metronome for a few bars to get a feel for the tempo, also note the bar (measure) number as it records and when the "loop" begins again. Now try putting down a simple closed hihat sound (usually f# in the 2nd or 3rd octave assuming you haven’t transposed) on each beat - Make sure you stop playing as soon as you reach the end of the loop... the pattern will continue playing in a loop.

Now you can overdub a kick drum say on each 1/2 a bar, again be sure to begin playing at the beginning of the loop and stop playing the keys once it hits the end of the loop (else you will end up with "double" notes)

You can then add a snare if you like on every other note against the kick, now you have a simple 8 beat.

Next move to say CHORD 1 track....

I then usually think about the main chord voice, say for example a piano... You need to think of the rhythm of the piano as it will play in the style and then once the loop begins record a CM7 chord in that rhythm... again stop at the end of the "loop". If you make a mistake, you need to stop the style record and delete the track, and then repeat... it often takes a few goes to get it right.

Bass line next, choose a nice bass voice (I like the dark fingered bass in the XG section) and again on the start of the loop play a SIMPLE bassline, in C though.

You can then continue adding pads, perhaps some twiddly phrases and so on. This is just the main section A, then there's sections B, C and D, oh and then the intros, endings and fills. Some tips for the other bits....

Intros - Generally you can improvise around on these quite a bit, though keep to the Key of C... Any notes can be used, in fact the intros and endings can incorporate short melodies like mini songs, but should always finish in a way that they naturally progress into a C chord...

Endings - again lots of scope for improvisation and ad-libs but remember that the last notes in the ending are just that, so wind things down!

Fills - very difficult to do, only 1 bar to play with and should ideally form a bridge between each section of the style. Again must be CM7.

Some "techniques" useful for style recording....

Since you have to record your pads and chords in CM7 for most parts in the style, try some "open" chords i.e. miss out the middle notes or simplify the chords using just 2 notes...

For a nice Celtic pad sound, try playing an open chord of E and G - missing out the root

Quantizing the drum sounds and percussion can help to tighten the style as it loops, but avoid quantizing other instruments too much as the style will sound machine like.

XG voices are always best to use for compatibility but may require transposing down 1 octave to match the range of the panel sounds, especially for the bass voices.

On the 740 and other keyboards that allow access to the registrations during style record (sadly not the 9000!), keep your voices and settings in the registration memories for each track of the style - it makes recording each part much easier than having to set up voice, level, effects each time.

Avoid adding intricate or strong melodies in the style, such as the phrases... they will dictate the use of the style too much in playback.

Since the style is a "backing" to your performance, use the mixer and effects settings to keep the rhythm instruments "back" in the mix, unless you deliberately want particular voices in the style to stand out strong.”

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B. 19. What is a Casm?

The CASM is a part of a style file that tells the PSR how to process the file. It provides information on what track(s) should be played as specific parts (e.g. Bass), the key, and a number of settings that can alter the sound during playback. You can see what the CASM looks like with the program StyleDump available at http://psrtutorial.com/MB/bedesem.html .

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B. 20. How can I create a PSR style from a Band in the Box style?

StyleMaker (http://psrtutorial.com/MB/bedesem.html ) can create PSR styles from Band in the Box (BB) styles. To do this you must have the BB program and follow this sequence of operations: (developed with BB Version 11).

A) Start BB and load one of the special BB songs provided in StyleMaker’s directory by clicking on the Open button. Note: the two bar lead in must be enabled in BB. If in doubt, restore the factory settings with Opt/Return to Factory Settings.

The BB songs generally have the form Type of Intro_Variations_Muted Instrument. For instance, Pop_ABab_(-g).SG3 creates a midi with a Pop Intro and uses BB’s “A” variation in Main A, “B” Variation in Main B, a version of “A” with the guitar part muted in Main C, and a muted version of “B” in Main D. This variation scheme used by this song is best for creating styles for two variation PSRs.

Likewise, Pop_aAbB_(-g).SG3 creates a style with the reduced instrument versions immediately preceding the full variations.

Pop_AABB.SG3 has Variation A for Main A&B, Variation B for Main C&D. To provide variety between the Main sections, it is recommended that one or more part voices be varied.

The PopAABB_Solo.SG3 includes a solo track. The solo used can be selected in BB.

Jazz songs are similar and have Jazz Intros. All songs create four variation PSR styles with four breaks plus three intros and three endings.

Note: BB defaults to recording midi with part volumes set to “90”. This will result in a style that is louder than normal. You can lower BB’s default volume in Opt./Midi Channels, Options and then clicking Save. Alternatively, you can adjust the individual volumes later in your sequencer.

B) Select a BB style with the STY style picker button, note the suggested tempo, and click OK to load the style. Say “No” if requested to change durations. When the style has loaded, change the tempo to the value that was suggested by the style picker display.

If desired, click Intro then Regenerate to change the intro chords. To change the reduced instrument assignments ( e.g. if a style does not have a part that is being muted, the a and A variations will sound the same), right click on the Rest designations to specify the parts you want to hear or load a song with the desired part muted. To add or change a Solo, click on the Soloist button.

C) Save the song as a midi by clicking on the .MID button, selecting Midi type 0, and providing a unique filename. (Note: BB earlier than Version 11 only made Midi Type 1 files; these must be converted to Type 0 before loading into StyleMaker).

D) Start StyleMaker and click on the StyleFromBB. This creates the PSR style, generating the part assignments for the CASM using the instruments detected in the midi. If any channel does not have PSR part assigned, that means StyleMaker could not recognize the voice or was not sure which part (Bass, Phrase 1, etc) it should be assigned to. In these cases, you will have to make the assignment manually (by clicking in the Part column and making a selection). Typical assignments would be channel 2=Bass, Channel 3(usually keyboard) =Chord 1, Channel 6 (usually guitar) =Chord 2, Channel 7= Pad if strings or sustained instrument, Phrase 1 otherwise. When all channels have a part assigned, the style can be saved using the SaveStyle button.

BB midis use General Midi instrument voices. StyleMaker changes these to PSR Bank 112 panel voices. To specify General Midi (LSB=0) voices, uncheck “Specify Panel Voices” in the Options menu item before opening a midi. Selecting panel voices usually results in a similar voice that includes DSP effects and it is the recommended option. However, there are cases where the Bank 112 voice is not the ideal choice (sweet voices being one example; bell pad translating to Area 51 is another), and it is worthwhile to check the voice assignments if you want the optimum style.

All changing of voice assignments must be done in the sequencer. To do so, click on To Sequencer. Note: Yamaha PSRs only respond to a Bank Select Method = Normal. In Cakewalk, if you are unsure what method you have selected, double click the bank entry.

If desired, edit the individual volumes (typically 60 works well) and panning (e.g. if more than one part is playing the same instrument, try setting one track at pan=88 and one at pan=64). To ensure that your settings are recorded at the beginning of the midi, open the Console View, click Rewind, and then Snapshot.

When finished in the sequencer, Click Save, then Close (or Exit) to return to StyleMaker. To save the midi as a style, click the SaveStyle button.

StyleMaker defaults to making four measure sequences for Main A-D. To make eight measure sequences (perhaps with some extra fills or flourishes), click the Options menu item and click the “Use 8 Measures”. Changing either the panel voice or measure settings in the Options menu are remembered by the program until you change them.

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B. 21. Sometimes I have trouble changing voices in Cakewalk. What am I doing wrong?

Cakewalk displays voice changes in measure 1 in the Track View boxes and voice changes in any other measure after measure 1 in the List View. You need to look in both places.

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B. 22. Can I add a break to styles that does not have one?

The program StyleFix(contact mpb@sover.net) will add a break to one or a group of files by clicking the break function. StyleReMixer (http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/) will also work.

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B. 23. Where should voice changes be located in a style file?

Voice changes that occur in the first measure will apply to all style sections where no other voice changes are specified. Voice changes within a style section (i.e. after its Marker event) will only apply to that section.

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B. 24. What is a Break and how is it different from a Fill In?

A Break is identified in a style file as the marker "Fill In BA". It otherwise is the same as other fill in sections. However, the PSR may treat it differently when it plays it back.

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B. 25. The playback of styles seems to ‘jump’ when I change OTS within a song.

Check the setting of Function/ Style Setting/ OTS Timing.

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B. 26. Wouldn’t it be useful to have a library of style parts?

Note that the task is daunting. Styles have 15 sections (4 mains, 4 fills, 3 endings, 3 intro and a break), each of which has 8 parts(2 rhythm, 1 bass, 2 chord, 1 pad , 2 phrase) and, in modern styles there is often two tracks for each part (triggered typically by keying major or minor chords). That is 15X8X2= 240 pattern segments per style to audition, catalog and save. For the 300 styles in Tyros, that is a cool 72,000.

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B. 27. Why do styles sound funny when played on my PC?

1. Styles often have two or more tracks that are intended to play separately when different chord types (e.g. major vs. minor) are keyed. When you just play the style, all tracks sound at the same time.

2. Styles often use different keys for the different tracks. When played directly, several keys may be playing at once.

3. The drum track on channel 9 will reproduce on the PC using the piano voice.

To audition styles from a PC, use the programs MidiPlayer or StylePlayer. They correct these problems.

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B. 28. How to change the voices in a style in the PSR/Tyros

1) Depress Mixing Console, Next to style page, select part (e.g. Bass) and then the screen button for the instrument icon. Select a new instrument. Do for all parts that you want.

2) Depress Digital Recording/ StyleCreator/ Next Assembly Tab and Save.

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B. 29. How to change the voices in a style on the PC

There are a number of programs available including MidiPlayer, StyleRevoice, MidiRevoice, and PSRUTI. See See: http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software.htm

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B. 30. How Do I disable chord following for a style track?

A style track will bypass the chords only if NTT is set to "bypass" and NTR is set to "Fixed". Use CasmEdit or CasmEditor. See: http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software.htm

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B. 31. How to mute an instrument part using a registration or a custom style

To use a registration to mute a part:

1) Load the style

2) Depress On-Off until the tab at the top of the screen says Style

3) Depress the button at the bottom of screen to turn off a part

4) Depress Memory and Registration button

Using Mixing Console to edit a style to mute a part:

1) Load the style

2) Depress Mixing Console until it displays the style page

3) Depress J (on Tyros) and the button below the screen to turn volume of the part to 0

4) Depress Digital/Recording/ Style Creator then Next and Save

Using Song Creator:

To mute a style part using Song Creator, the only way is to hold down DELETE button whilst pressing that style part, which then deletes that part. You can now save the style into USER without that style part being active. (Graham)

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B. 32. What controller events may be in the setup and pattern sections of a style?

Setup= 1st measure; source pattern =Main A etc

Event Initial Setup Source Pattern

Note Off	—	OK
Note On	—	OK
Program Change	OK	OK
Pitch Bend	OK	OK
Control#0 (Bank Select MSB)	OK	OK
Control#1 (Modulation)	OK	OK
Control#6 (Data Entry MSB)	OK	—
Control#7 (Master Volume)	OK	OK
Control#10 (Panpot)	OK	OK
Control#11 (Expression)	OK	OK
Control#32 (Bank Select LSB)	OK	OK
Control#38 (Data Entry LSB)	OK	—
Control#71 (Harmonic Content)	OK	OK
Control#72 (Release Time)	OK	—
Control#73 (Attack Time)	OK	—
Control#74 (Brightness)	OK	OK
Control#84 (Portamento Control)	—	OK
Control#91 (Reverb Send Level)	OK	OK
Control#93 (Chorus Send Level)	OK	OK
Control#94 (Variation Send Level)	OK	OK
Control#98 (NRPN LSB)	OK	—
Control#99 (NRPN MSB)	OK	—
Control#100 (RPN LSB)	OK	—
Control#101 (RPN MSB)	OK	—

B. 33. Left voice does not play even when it is enabled.

Sometimes you can get the PSR into a state where, when using a factory style with ACMP and OTS on, nothing plays from left hand section except the ACMP.

It sometimes is the split point settings: if the style split point is lower than the left split point. Try F#2 F#2 G2.

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B. 34. How does a style respond differently to the chord played?

A style is just a set of midi patterns with each section (Main A, etc) delineated by midi markers events (like a mini song that is triggered when you push the button on the keyboard).

Within each section, you can have up to 16 midi tracks, one each per the available midi channels.

The Casm section determines which tracks in a section are triggered by various types of chords. You can set it up so that the Intro section has separate patterns for major, minor, aug, diminished, etc.

Within each section there are 8 possible targets (Sub Rhythm, Rhythm, Bass, Chord 1, Chord 2, Pad, Phrase 1 &2). That implies that you could have two per, but they seldom do, since Rhythm etc do not seem to require it. I do not think there is any limitation, and a section (e.g. Intro) with only one part (e.g. Chord 1) could have 16 tracks that play as triggered by chords or even the scale notes played.

Most modern factory styles use separate tracks for major and minor chords, at least for the Main sections. To see what is there, just open a style in MidiPlayerII/View/Casm, StyleDump, CasmEdit, or CasmEditor and you can see the settings (the last two allow you to change them as well).

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B. 35. Why do the accompaniment chords play when no style is running?

The instrument has a feature known as Stop Accompaniment (Function/Style Setting). When Syncro Start is off and Stop Acmp is on Fixed, you hear the same Finger Bass for all the styles. When it is on Style, then the bass is the bass of the style you're playing and you can change it via Mixing Console. When it's on OFF you hear no bass and no chord. You can also use this to change the chord played by a Multipad or use it to trigger harmony for the right hand voices.

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B. 36. How to Mute a Part in StyleCreator?

To mute a style part hold down DELETE button while pressing the style part. The buttons on the bottom of the screen can be used to mute the part while working on it, but this will not be saved. (From Graham)

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B. 37. How to permanently change a style’s tempo.

Load the style, and then depress Digital Recording/ StyleCreator.

Tab to Basic Page, Select Tempo with the buttons on the left and then adjust the tempo with the button on the bottom of the screen. Depress Save on right.

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B. 38. What are the settings for the NTR and NTT in the Casm?

NTR (Note Transposition Rule)

Two settings are available:

• Root Trans: When the root note is transposed, the pitch relationship between notes is maintained. For example, the notes C3, E3, and G3 in the key of C will become F3, A3, and C4 when transposed to F. Use this setting for parts that contain melodic lines.

• Root Fixed: The note is kept as close as possible to the previous note range. For example, the notes C3, E3, and G3 in the key of C will become C3, F3, and A3 when transposed to F. Use this setting for chordal parts.

NTT(Note Transposition Table)

This sets the note transposition table to be used for source pattern transposition. Table types are:

• Bypass: No transposition.

• Melody: Suitable for melody line transposition. Use for melody parts such as Phrase 1 and Phrase 2.

• Chord: Suitable for chord transposition. Use for the Chord 1 and Chord 2 parts when they contain piano or guitar-like chordal parts.

• Bass: Suitable for bass line transposition. This table is basically similar to the Melody table, but recognizes “on-bass” chords allowed in the Fingered 2 fingering mode. Use primarily for bass lines.

• Melodic Minor: This table lowers the third scale degree by a semitone when changing from a major to a minor chord, or raises the minor third scale degree a semitone when changing from a minor to a major chord. Other notes are not changed.

• Melodic Minor, 5^th Variation: In addition to the table above, augmented and diminished chords affects the 5th note of the pattern.

• Harmonic Minor: This table lowers the third and sixth scale degrees by a semitone when changing from a major to a minor chord, or raises the minor third and flatted sixth scale degrees a semitone when changing from a minor to a major chord. Other notes are not changed.

• Harmonic Minor, 5^th Variation: In addition to the table above, augmented and diminished chords affects the 5th note of the pattern.

• Natural Minor: This table lowers the third, sixth and seventh intervals in the scale by a semitone when changing from a major to a minor chord; or raises the minor third, flatted sixth and flattened seventh intervals by a semitone when changing from a minor to a major chord. Other notes are not changed. Use for parts which respond to major/minor chords, e.g. Intros and Endings.

• Natural Minor, 5^th Variation: In addition to the table above, augmented and diminished chords affects the 5th note of the pattern.

• Dorian: This table lowers the third and seventh intervals in the scale by a semitone when changing from a major to a minor chord; or raises the minor third and flattened seventh intervals by a semitone when changing from a minor to a major chord. Other notes are not changed. Use for parts which respond to major/minor chords, e.g. Intros and Endings.

• Dorian, 5^th Variation: In addition to the table above, augmented and diminished chords.

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B. 39. How to maintain Channel On-Off settings when a style is changed?

Go to Function/ Style Setting/ Part On-Off and select Hold.

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B. 40. How to change a style’s beat

To change from 4/4 to 6/8, the settings in Digital Recording/StyleCreator/ Groove should be: Original Beat:16 Beat converter:12

(from Ian MacNeil)

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B. 41. How to copy all four OTS from one style to another

You can transfer 4 OTS by saving each in a registration and then in Function/Freeze, check all but the Voice box. Load your style, depress the keyboard Freeze button, and then Reg1, Mem +OTS!, Reg 2, Mem + OTS 2...; Save after the forth OTS.

You can also use the program OTS Editor http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/otseditor/index.htm .

Alternatively, in MidiPlayer Preference/Options set the default OTS Folder to the location (e.g a floppy, USB, HD folder) of the style whose OTS you wish to copy. Then Add the style you want to change to the PlayList, click OTS/Select and double click the style you want to copy. This will do all 4 OTS at once.

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B. 42. How do I play just the bass line from a style?

1) Load the style

2) Push On/Off until the style parts show across the bottom of the display.

3) Press and HOLD the Bass button below until it says Solo.

Now only this part will play.

To save a version of a style with just the Bass part, start Mixing Console and depress the button until the style page appears. Turn the volume down for all but the bass. Digital Recording/StyleCreator/ assembly tab and depress Save.

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B. 43. How do I convert new styles to work in older instruments?

Try the programs: Style Old Format Converter at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/sofc/index.htm or Style Remixer at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/sremix/index.htm

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B. 44. What programs eliminate MegaVoices from styles or midis?

Styles and Midis: MidiPlayer II

MIDI files: MIDI Mega Voice Cleaner http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/nomegainmidi/index.htm

Style Files: Style Old Format Converter at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/sremix/index.htm

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B. 45. What are the best ways to identify duplicate styles?

Try the programs Style Database http://www.wierzba.homepage.t-online.de/ or Style Duplicates Manager http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/sdm/index.htm

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B. 46. How can I make a style with several time signatures?

Use Style Tempo Editor available at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/stytempo/index.htm

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B. 47. How to transpose a style or a multipad.

In MidiPlayer, use the Octave control in the Voice Edit box, not the Transpose control in the Transpose midi Box.

The correct procedure to change something in the Voice Edit Box: select the line in the Program Change box, make both your voice and octave selection and then depress either Set Single (changes just that channel) or Set Global (sets all occurrences of that voice).

For a pad, you must save and reload the file if you want to hear the changes.

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B. 48. How to alter the sound of drum notes in a style.

The sound of drum notes can be altered by sysex in CasmEdit or a sequencer. Some possibilities include:

Sysex Command 43 10 4C 08 08 07 03 F7 XG MultiPart Part # = 8 , Part Mode = Drums

Sysex Command 43 10 4C 08 09 07 02 F7 XG MultiPart Part # = 9 , Part Mode = Drums

Sysex Command 43 10 4C 30 21 00 42 F7 XG Drum Setup, SetUp # = 0 Note # = 33 Pitch Coarse = 66

Sysex Command 43 10 4C 30 21 02 70 F7 XG Drum Setup, SetUp # = 0 Note # = 33 Level = 112

Sysex Command 43 10 4C 30 21 05 15 F7 XG Drum Setup, SetUp # = 0 Note # = 33 Reverb Send Level = 21

Sysex Command 43 10 4C 30 26 05 64 F7 XG Drum Setup, SetUp # = 0 Note # = 38 Reverb Send Level = 100

Sysex Command 43 10 4C 30 2C 02 5B F7 XG Drum Setup, SetUp # = 0 Note # = 44 Level = 91

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B. 49. Why a style sometime sounds terrible when some chords are keyed.

There are two common problems that cause styles to play funny:

1) The Casm has been removed, usually by editing the file in a sequencer. This causes tracks to play out of key and several tracks, designed to play in response to specific chord types, e.g. major, minor, aug, play at the same time

2) The style was created disregarding the scale and tone rules. Chord and pad parts only allow C E G B while Bass and Phrase can have C D E G A B. In my experience, many problem styles often include F. When played, there are unexpected results.

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B. 50. How to play other bass notes using a style.

To walk the base, select AI fingering.

Then play a chord in any inversion. This will play the bass as per the style.

To change the bass note to your choice, play the root on the top and the bass note on the bottom.

You can continue the "two finger" bass change until the basic chord is altered.

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B. 51. How to add a fill to the end of a variation pattern.

You can use StyleMaker and Cakewalk to add a fill to the end of a multi measure variation (e.g. usually the 4^th or 8^th measure).

For a “mini fill”, open the style in StyleMaker and click on GoSequencer. Click on Piano Roll View and add a hihat in the middle of the third beat of the last measure and a crash at the end of the forth beat of the variation (e.g. Main A). Repeat for the other variations. Click the Save button in Cakewalk, and then exit. In StyleMaker, check the "Use Styles Casm" and then Save Style to a new stylename.

Alternatively, you could also copy one of the one measure fills (e.g. Fill In AA) and paste it to replace (overwrite existing data) in the last measure of variation.

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B. 52. How to convert modern styles/midis for use with earlier instruments.

The later instruments have 4 variations, use megavoices and SA voices in the OTS, extra sections and file extensions that older instruments do not accept.

There a number of programs that will prepare styles and adjust midis. See Style Old Format Converter, Style Remixer, MidiPlayer, Midi Mega Voice Cleaner, etc at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software.htm

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B. 53. How to save an OTS voice.

If the voice is one of those created by selecting an OTS, then

For the Tyros 2, select the OTS, depress voice select (the button you press to change say R1), depress Voice Set, then Save, select the destination and then Save.

Otherwise, store it in a registration.

For the PSR-2000, depress the OTS to change the voices then the F, G , H screen button to highlight the voice that you want to save, and then SoundCreator and Save.

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B. 54. Where to find detailed information on PSR style and midi files.

Peter Wierzba and I have written a 45+ page document containing all the information that we and several other programmers are aware of.

See: http://www.wierzba.homepage.t-online.de/

Additional contributions would be very welcome.

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B. 55. Using styles for solos and variety.

If you want to give a boost to a style it's not always necessary to resort to pads, and not possible if you really need on/off control via a registration.

Use the style instead! The subtleties of the individual riffs on the Tyros styles are often lost in the general background and their potential for acting as in situ "boosters"(like pads) is not usually realized.

In principle, play the style you'd like to use (trying variations CD and possibly B) and turn up the volume on parts which may be of interest, one at a time until you hear a riff and a level you can use. Then save that modified style to a reg. button (along with any melody voice or other changes you want to apply). Repeat with other riffs to other buttons.
Now, whenever a boost or mood change is needed press one of those buttons.

Here are some ideas:

Hoedown Style:

           Set phr2 vol. up to 127 - now you get to hear the banjo

           Set phr1 to 115 - hear the fiddle

           Set chd2 to 110 - bring up the strumming guitar

By going through the reg buttons in turn you can "feature" the different instruments giving a lot more variation to your songs than just using the straight style.

In addition as you make chord changes you can now hear them being reflected strongly by those voices (banjo, fiddle) in the style- an extra dimension you may not get with the default settings.

For quick access to the Style Volume screen press Direct Access followed by one of the style intro buttons.

(John on YamahaPKOwner Forum)

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B. 56. When I change styles while playing the tempo changes.

There is a setting in Function/Style Setting that allows the tempo to be held or reset with a change of styles.

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B. 57. Improving drums in Tyros 3 styles.

Go into the Mixer and just bring up the harmonic content level of Rhythm 1 and 2.

Also try panning Rhythm 1 to the full left and Rhythm 2 slightly to the right. You can also adjust the EQ if you need a brighter sound. You can also apply

a little delay on Rhythm 1 on some styles.

(from Phil on the net)

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B. 58. Eliminating the “scratch” sound in a style.

Method 1

Push Direct Access followed by any Intro button and you get to the Mixing Console page for styles. The scratchy sound is on the Rhythm 1 track which can be turned off if you wish. Then save in a registration or as a user style (To do the latter would need you to do the save within Style Creator even though you don't have to do the edit in there).

John (on YamahaPKOwner)

Method 2

Change drum kit to Studio Kit. Then just save as a user style.

(Eileen on YamahaPKOwner Forum)

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B. 59. How to change voices when a style variation is changed .

You can use either a registration or a user style.

The differences:

A registration is a snapshot of the instrument settings that are in effect when you depress the Memory + a Reg button. Each Reg bank is saved as a file and has room for 8 separate registration 'snapshots'.

A registration can load styles and these can be either Preset or User styles (including those made by changing an OTS). What a registration saves is determined by checking the boxes that display by depressing the Memory button by itself.

A registration takes about 10% of the storage space of a style and loads/changes faster.

OTS is similar to a registration in so far as the right /Left voices (that is, it does not save any changes in the style voices, which can be done via a separate procedure). To save an OTS, depress the Memory button and while holding one of the OTS buttons. This modifies the currently loaded style, and changing an OTS will respond by asking you if you want to save the style. If you want, you can change all four OTS and then save the style.

An OTS can be selected manually, or by changing the variation with the OTS Link button =On. Variation Main A will select OTS 1, variation Main B selects OTS 2, etc

The two methods of selecting a new variation with some of the voice settings changed:

1) Load a style, change the voices as you want them and save the OTS that corresponds to the variation that you want to use them with. Then with the OTS Link =On, just change the variation and the correct set of voices will be active. Be sure to save the Style.

2) Load a style, select a variation and change the voices. Depress Memory and a registration button. Select another variation, change the voices as you want them and depress Memory and a different registration button. Now to do what you want, you just depress the corresponding registration button. Note that you can give a description to each registration button so you will know what it does, e.g. Main A/ Organ, Main B/ Guitar, etc. Remember to save the registration.

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B. 60. How to organize a large collection of styles .

With Peter Wierzba’s PSR Style & Midi Database programs you can:

Catalog style and midi files.

Search for certain files according various criteria.

Quickly process with 50000 or more files.

Have fully automatic database handling.

Store user defined data.

Allow manual cataloguing of the files.

Files can be copied, moved, renamed.

Data lists can be printed and exported.

Display and filter duplicate files.

Use an external player and editor programs for playing/manipulating the files.

See: http://www.wierzba.homepage.t-online.de/psd/psdmain.htm

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B. 61. How to convert Tyros 3 styles for use in earlier instruments .

Use Jorgen’s Style Format 2 Converter available at: http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/

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B. 62. How to get more punch out of styles in the Tyros 3 .

How about checking the two DSP's that are for styles only.

There are three new reverb's for drums and you can EQ and compress the drums with DSP's.

Try this:
1. Load the style you want to adjust.
2. Start just the rhythm playing and go to Mixing Console and Tab to Effect Page Press button (F) Type.
3. Button (1) down to DSP 8.
4. Button (2) to RHY1 or 2 depending on drum you want to change.
5. Button (5) down to EQ/ENHANCER.
6. Button (7) and try all of these for the one you like best.
7. Press button (F) Parameter and play with the parameters a bit for the sound you want.

You might even try the WAH categories as the sound is surprising.
You can switch back and forth between RHY1 and RHY2 to see which one is most affected.
And, you can assign DSP9 to the other Rhythm part.

…. Also, don't forget this, the main system Chorus now has nearly all the effects available in addition to chorus.

(from Bill G on PSRTutorial)

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B. 63. How to set different volumes for instrument and drum parts.

If you load a style into the PC Program MidiPlayer and go to Volume View, then on the right side of the page you will see the settings used for the Auto Set functions.

If you want the Style Instrument/Rhythm ratio to be 1 to .66 then try setting the Style Average Volume = 60 (this value normalizes to most factory styles) and the Style Rhythm to 60 X .66 = 40. These settings will work in both manual and batch mode. Be sure to change them back when you are done!

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B. 64. How to determine the length of style parts.

To determine the Intro length: Play the song or open the style in MidiPlayer/MarkerView and note the number of measures between the beginning of the Intro and the following marker. Or, in Song Creator/Chd tab, select a style (line #1, depress Data Entry), then select the section item (line #2), depress the desired Intro Button and note the number following the description on the screen.

Another way to find the number of bars in each part of a style is to load the style and then go to Style Creator.
On the Basic page Line 1 you will see each part and the length in bars as you press the style button, such as
Intro III, Var C, etc., you will see in the lower right corner of the display a pop-up showing the button you just pressed.
If you click on the "OK" button 8 upper, line one will change to show the part you selected. (On Ty3 I had to go to line 2 and back to line 1 for the correct display to appear)

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B. 65. How to create 7/8 and other time signatures.

The PC Program StyleMaker is able to make other time signatures using template styles.

See: http://psrtutorial.com/MB/bedesem.html

After installing the Full Package and the Update, start the program, select Open and go to the C:\Program Files\StyleMaker folder. There are a number of midi and style templates there.

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B. 66. How to play only rhythm using a style.

If you are playing chords with your left hand and have a style playing, then if you press any 3 notes a semitone apart on the left hand side, the accompaniment will stop except for the drums.

Alternatively, use the ACMP button at far left. Turn it off and you will hear rhythm only.

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B. 67. How to lower the pitch of style parts.

You can do it in StyleMaker plus Sonar. Style Split & Splice should also work.

In Sonar (or your sequencer) be sure not to lower:

1) The drum tracks.

2) Mega voices as this will change the effects and introduce strange sounds. If you want to lower megavoice parts, first convert the style to use standard voices (select the PSR-20000 in MidiPlayer and save).

Check the Note Low Limit / Note High Limit in the CASM sections to make sure that your new pitch range is allowed.

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B. 68. How to increase the volume of a Break or Fill section of a style.

The break is one of the sections of a style (its formal name is Fill In BA). It can have midi notes on up to 8 tracks. To increase the volume for the break, after the Fill In BA marker, add a midi volume event to each of the midi that has note events. You will also need to add a midi volume event for each channel that was changed to each of the other sections (4 Mains, 3 Intros, 3 Endings, 4 fills) so that when the break is done and the next pattern starts, the volumes are lowered again.

Volume events are added on the Edit page. You may need to depress Filter and then All on for them to appear. Volume is a Controller event (CTRL) 7.

Alternatively, you might try increasing the velocity using the Channel tab for all parts in the Break section. It is much less editing.

Elieen suggested: In Style Creator if you select the fill and then the mixing console, only that part will be affected by the change of volume. Once saved if you then play the style you will see that when you hit the drum fill the volumes will rise and then fall back again to the normal parts.

You can select the Fill from the Assembly page (the only place at first glance) but you get unreliable results- the Rhythm volume is affected as well as the Fill. What does work is to use the Basic Tab of Style Creator and then press Exit which brings up an otherwise hidden Selection box - and choose the appropriate Fill in A or B etc from there.

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B. 69. How to mix time signatures in a style.

StyleTimeEditor is made to do this. See http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/stytime/index.htm

You can also use StyleMaker with a sequencer like Sonar to cut and paste sections of the 3/4 style into a 4/4 style.

Another method is to use VisualStyler (http://www.crestonhall.com/music/home.htm ) replace sections of a style with those of another style.

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B. 70. How to see what an OTS does and use the settings elsewhere.

All the Preset voices in the PSR Tyros are basic samples plus DSP, EQ, filtering etc. To see the settings, select the OTS and then depress MixingConsole/Panel and tab through the settings and note the values.

To save the OTS as a user voice file, you can depress Voice Set (you can also see the settings here).

To substitute a Preset Sample (e.g Concert Grand) while keeping the DSP etc the same as the OTS voice, load the voice set file into MidiPlayer and depress Voice View and select a new voice then save all.

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B. 71. How cancel the automatic tempo adjustments when changing styles.

In Function/StyleSetting/StyleChangeBehavior, set the value to “Hold”.

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B. 72. How to use the Style Assembly function in Style Creator.

I have been asked how this is done a few times and thought you may like to try it out as a means of giving you new styles

This is a really easy thing to do, but as with everything, you need to get used to doing it a few times.

Firstly, select the two styles you are going to work on. I always find it best to save both to the user section which I call my work bench.

Load the style you want to alter and press Digital Recording and then style. Press Exit once to give you the view of the parts. Select the part you want to alter. If it is Intro three then select it.

Now tab to Assembly page. You will see that the Channel Box does not alter when you select Rhythm one or two. This is because you can’t put a drum track on any other part. You will see that when you select Instrument parts that these can be moved to other sections i.e. chord, phase, pad parts. If you wanted to take a Piano part from Chord one on one style and put it on Pad on another style this is where you do it in this section.

If you just want to do a straight copy from one part to another, then select the part from the style, shall we say Intro two. Now, in the section box, select the part you want to copy from. If it is Ending two, then select it. Take a note of the number of bars. If you are going to copy a four bar pattern into a Two bar one you will need to set the right amount first. Do this on the basic page.

Now Press Rhythm two again and it will go to the user section. Press the style you are copying from. Then Press Exit to bring you back to the assembly page. That is your first track copied.

Continue in this way until you have done all the parts.

Now you can listen to it. If you want to make any changes to volume or panning, etc., press mixing console and adjust as you listen. When you are happy with it then save it.

From Eileen on PsrTutorial

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B. 73. NEW! How to use the Groove function to create a swing version of a waltz style.

For example, any regular waltz, e.g. the English Waltz, can be "Grooved" to yield a pretty good swing waltz by the following:

Select the style and depress Digital Recording/StyleCreator and Tab to Groove.
Press any Style Variation button in the Instrument Style Control Section, then in the opening SECTION screen on the lower right, highlight ALL and press OK.
Move the Highlight under SWING to "C".
Press Execute, the Save.

To alter a swing or jazz waltz (e.g. CountryWatlz) repeat the above, starting with selecting CountryWaltz, and choose 12 Beat in the Original Beat, and "8" in the Beat Converter.

(From Ian on Milesmusic)

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B. 74. NEW! How to play styles with a no or a short intro.

Any style variation starts with a fill in if "Auto Fill In" is enabled and you select one of the style variations. That is true even before you start playing. If you want to start the style with no intro and no fill in, disable "Auto Fill In", or depress the button for the selected variation once again.

(From Kurt on PSRTutorial)

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B. 75. NEW! How to change an icon on a user made style.

Tab to the media location and select the style. Then depress Name, OK and depress the Icon button.

(From Eileen on PKOwners)

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B. 76. NEW! How to change the octave of the OTS selected voices.

Depress Mixing Console/Panel Page/Tune tab and change the octave settings, then hold down the Memory button while depressing the OTS button you which to change.

Save the file as prompted.

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B. 77. NEW! How to edit drum fills.

1. Select the style you wish to modify.
2. Select the style's variation or function you wish to modify, intro, variation, fill, break or ending. You can only modify one of these at a time on the keyboard.
3. After selecting, press Function, Digital Recording, Style Creator, then tab to Channel.
4. Using the #1 & #2 button at the bottom of the screen, select the style component you wish to work with, Rhythm1, Rhythm2, etc...
5. Press REC CH.
6. Tab to Edit.
7. Using the "B" button, scroll down to the part where you wish to change the volume. You will hear each part as you highlight the appropriate instrument, bass drum, etc...
8. Use the "D" or "E" buttons to select and highlight the volume line, which is the 4th number from the left side of the display.
9. Use the #4 button to increase or decrease this value by 10, or the #5 button to increase or decrease the value by 1.
10. Be sure to make the changes in every measure of the style.
11. After making the changes, tab back to the channel screen and press EXECUTE.
12. Press the save button, tab to where you wish to save the modified style file, then name the file and press OK.

This procedure is for a single variation, and if you wish to change all variations, the procedure must be repeated in each.

(From Gary on PSRTutorial Forum)

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B. 78. NEW! How to increase Break volume.

If you follow this procedure: select the Break in Style Creator, (you may have to press Exit first to get access to the Selection screen) then go to the Style parts in mixing console and raise the Rhythm levels any changes you make will affect the Break part only. The true Rhythm section remains unaffected and you could even reduce those levels if it helps provide a bigger differential for the Break.

Having raised Break levels as above you could go further- still with Break selected in Style Creator:

1) Select the Mixing Console Filter tab raise Harmonic content to maximum.

2) Go to EQ tab and raise High and low EQ.

I suggest you set the above parameters while the style is off, then audition the style by pushing the Start button. If you set parameters while the style is playing the settings continuously cycle zero to maximum, which can be annoying and not straightforward to correct.

Another idea: go to Voice, try different drum kits and choose a more "strident" one if preferred.

To go even further, select an effect for DSP1 ...

(From John, source unknown)

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B. 79. NEW! How to make a long fill in.

By definition the length of Fill In parts must be 1 measure long. To create a Fill In (Break) of any length we can use one of the Intro parts (which can be any length) instead.
When playing we have to think ahead, as an Intro part will start AFTER the current measure, while a normal Fill part will be run IMMEDIATELY when the Fill button is pressed. After the intro the keyboard will resume playing the same Main part as were used when the Intro was called.

(From Jorgen on PSRTutorial)

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B. 80. NEW! How to convert all sections using Groove.

When you go into the groove section press variation A, select ALL, and press OK. Now all the buttons in that section will be orange. When you choose your groove it will include all sections of the style and not just one.

(From Eileen on PSRTutorial)

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B. 81. NEW! Why does changing a style result in the same tempo?

You are selecting the style when another style is running, or Function/StyleSetting has Tempo set to Hold.

(From Al on PKOwners Forum)

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MIDIS & SONGS

C.1. Why do midis made on a PSR sound terrible when played on a PC?

Most often, the problem is due to Yamaha's use of Channel 9 for the sub rhythm. On non-XG sound cards, this channel plays as a piano. A busy drum track is reproduced as banging sounds. To eliminate it you can play/save the file through the program MidiPlayer with Soundcard as the selected instrument. A processing option in MidiFix will also fix the file.

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C.2. Why do PSR/Tyros songs sound better on the PSR than when played on the PC?

If you play a midi in the PSR, the PSR itself generates the sounds. However, when you play a midi on a PC using a PC program, the sounds are generated by the default midi device selected in the Start/Control Panel/Sounds Audio Devices/ Audio Tab.

Most PCs have the default midi device set to the PC's sound card. Unfortunately, the only sounds these cards make are the "General Midi" set, and not the more extensive "XG set" or the PSR Panel Voices (better XG voices with effects built in). When you want the best sound from any midi, and in particular, a midi made on a PSR, you should to use XG or Panel voices.

To play a PSR song on your PSR, you can transfer the midi to floppy and load it into the instrument, or you can connect the PSR via a midi cable and, using the Control Panel as indicated above, select the midi driver as your midi output device.

If the midi was made on a PSR/Tyros that has different voices than your instrument, any missing voices may default to GM voices (or with Tyros megavoices, not sound at all). Use the program MidiPlayer to optimize the voice selection for your instrument.

Alternatively, you can use one of Yamaha’s softsynth programs on the PC to provide access to XG voices. This is better than just using a sound card, but since it does not have panel voices, it may not be as good as using a PSR.

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C.3. How to Quick Record a song on PSRs/Tyros

1) In the Song section (top left), depress Top and Rec at the same time.

2) Depress Rec and Extra Tracks and Track 1 at the same time. This will allow you to record the accompaniment and the right hand part. With Tyros, just depress Rec.

3) Start playing.

4) Depress Rec when finished

5) Depress Top to rewind and Play to hear your recording

6) To save, Depress Rec and Top again. The PSR will ask you if you want to save the file.

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C.4. How to fix a midi, made on the PSR-2000, that plays off key after being edited in Cakewalk

Midis, recorded on a PSR-2000 where a voice was changed by using a registration, sound off key after being edited in Cakewalk.

The cause is an RPN pitch event that is only partially recorded by the PSR and then “fixed” by Cakewalk. There are several possible solutions:

1) Use the program MidiPlayer to play the midi, or use it to disable the offending command (open the midi and then save it using a different filename).

2) Use the program Chord Assistant to pass the file to Cakewalk.

3) Use the transpose fix available with the program MidiFix.

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C.5. How can I convert a Midi Type 1 file into Midi Type 0?

You can convert files with

· Your PSR (load and save to a new name)

· With MidiPlayerII (load and save, or use Batch for multiple files at once)

· A PC sequencer (select type 0 midi file as output), or with a program such as MidiType available at: http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/progs/software.htm

· The program MidiFormatter

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C.6. How can I play a group of midi song on PSR-2000/Tyros?

Depress Function/Song/Chain (2K) or Repeat (Tyros)

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C.7. How can I prevent the accompaniment from starting when I play a midi song?

Use the program MidiPlayer to play the song, or load then save it. Use Batch mode for multiple files. The accompaniment start sysex (F0 43 60 7A F7) will be disabled.

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C.8. Tyros sometimes sounds strange when playing PSR-9000 Midi Files. What is wrong?

There are problems with Tyros playing midis made on the PSR-9000 that contain aftertouch events. The PSR-2000 and the PSR-740 seem to play these midi files without any problem.

I do not know the true cause, but the problems seem to disappear if channel aftertouch amplitude sysex events are disabled/removed, or all aftertouch midi events are removed.

An option in MidiPlayer can be selected to remove these events from a midi file.

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C.9. How to change voices, volumes, etc in a recorded midi

The following is true for Midi Type 0 songs only. Midi Type 1 files (commercial files are often of this type) will load and play, but cannot be edited. You must convert the midi to type 0 first. One easy way of doing this is to load the midi and then, in Song Creator, save it to a new file name.

The Mixing Console can be used to change voices, effects etc of a midi file that is loaded (via depressing the Song button and then selecting a song) for playback, but it does not store any of these changes in the song itself.

To do that, you have to open the song in Song Creator (load for playback then Digital Recording/Song Creator), depress Next to the Channel Tab, and button B to the fifth item, Setup. There you will see a list of items that can be recorded to the song any time that you depress the Execute button that is shown on the screen.

First, make sure that Voices, effects, etc are all checked, and then, while still in Song Creator, depress the Mixing Console button and make your changes. Depress TOP in the Song control area to ensure that the midi is at the beginning. Then use the Exit button to ‘back out’ of Mixing Console and return to Song Creator. Now depress the Execute button, and it should tell you that it is recording your changes.

Depress Save to save the edited song.

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C.10. How to make a song remember right hand voices

Some users would like to play along with a midi and use voices determined in advance. The easiest way to do this is have the midi song recall all the right hand settings when the midi is loaded.

This is how to save the right hand settings with the 2000:

1) Use Button A to load the midi

2) Set up the voices for the right hand as you want them

3) Depress Digital Recording then Button A to start Song Creator

4) Depress Next once to go to the Channel Tab

5) Press Button B 4 times to the setup item

6) Depress Button 1 8 times to get to the Keyboard Voice Store option. If Unchecked, depress button 8 one time.

7) Depress Button D, marked Execute, to include the current setup including the keyboard voices, in the midi

8) Depress Button I to Save the midi. Follow this by depressing bottom of Button 6 (also marked Save) and then the top of Button 8 to OK the displayed name of the file.

The saved midi should now include the keyboard voice settings and when you recall the song (via Chain or one at a time), the keyboard should be set up for you.

Steps 5 and 6 need only be done once. Thereafter, you can go to step 7 directly after step 4.

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C.11. How can I transpose the key while I am recording a midi?

If you want to transpose the key while recording a song, change the Transpose Assign setting to Keyboard in Function/Controller/Keyboard/Panel Tab. It is the forth item in the list.

While playing you can then shift the key by tapping the Transpose button or selecting transpose values with registrations.

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C.12. Tips for making pitch bends

(i) Always set pitch bend range to 2 semitones

(ii) Good expressive effect for sax and brass voices is to "bend up" to the attack of a note. This is done by pulling back the pitch bend wheel just before the end of a bar and then simultaneously hitting the next note and releasing the pitch bend wheel. With practice, you can vary the speed of releasing the wheel and the exact position of when you hit the note.

(iii) I always tend to "bend up" to notes, as you know where you are going to end up! For example in a guitar solo I emphasize the first note in a bar by hitting it early (in the previous bar but with the pitch bend wheel pulled back and then bend up to the point in time where the note should begin... make sense? Sometimes I will bend up or in country sounds; I apply a very light touch on the bend wheel to guitar sounds to chorus them.

From Simon Williams

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C.13. Is there a "rallentando" feature in the PSRs/Tyros?

Yamaha for some reason call this feature ritartando, though it is basically the same thing as rallentando, a "slowing down" of the style as it ends. To achieve this effect, simply press the ending button twice in succession when you want the song to end. This will slow the style down and any other tracks playing along with it. From Simon Williams

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C.14. How to make a registration on a PSR-2000/2100 remember Intros and Endings.

The ‘secret’: last action you must perform before saving to registration buttons 1 – 8 is to press either the intro or ending buttons. For example:

1) Pick a style.
2) From main screen press [e] then [d] to choose Intro or [e] then [e] to choose Ending.
3) Press an Intro or Ending button in accompaniment section
4) Hold down memory button and press memory bank 1 - 8.
5) This should save your intro or ending in that bank.
6) Save to a reg file.
(Tim Lawrence)

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C.15. How well will midi files play on the PSR/Tyros?

How well a midi plays depends on which sound device they were made on or for.

1) "General Midi" midi files will play, but they will not use the better XG or "panel" voices.

2) Midis developed for sound cards such as Sound Blaster and other sound cards with special voice banks will not play properly. The midi Bank Select Events often specify voices which to not exist on the PSRs and which are not translated when the midi is loaded.

3) Midis made for XG sound sources will play properly

4) Midis made on some Yamaha synths (e.g. Tyros) will not play properly since the voices used may not exist on you instrument.

The program MidiPlayer will process almost all midis and convert them for use with your choice of panel or XG voices.

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C.16. Can I use channel 10 for non-rhythm voices?

It is illegal to put anything else on channel 10 but percussion. Sound sources just ignore other voice specifications since sometimes the early midis did not specify a voice for channel 10. Channel 9 can be redefined in the PSR, but not channel 10.

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C.17. Can I use a midi file to setup keyboard voices for recording?

The loaded midi is separate from the midi recording function and you will have problems assuming the settings displayed in the Mixing Console.

The best technique is to view the midi in the Mixing Console (song 1-8, 9-16) and copy down the voice, effect and EQ setting. Then use these in the Mixing Console during Quick or MultiRecord to set up your right and left hand parts.

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C.18. How can I transpose a midi file to go along with sheet music?

You can determine what the front panel Transpose button changes: Song, Keyboard (R1-3, L), or both. Go to Function/Controller/ Keyboard/ scroll to Transpose and set it to Song to transpose the midi to the key of the sheet music.

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C.19. What are the differences between Midi Type 0-1-2 files?

"Format 0 MIDI files consist of a header-chunk and a single track-chunk. The single track chunk will contain all the note and tempo information.

Format 1 MIDI files consist of a header-chunk and one or more track-chunks, with all tracks being played simultaneously. The first track of a Format 1 file is special, and is also known as the 'Tempo Map'. It should contain all meta-events of the types Time Signature, and Set Tempo. The meta-events Sequence/Track Name, Sequence Number, Marker, and SMPTE Offset should also be on the first track of a Format 1 file.

Format 2 MIDI files consist of a header-chunk and one or more track-chunks, where each track represents an independent sequence." Notice that Midi specification don't associate midi track with midi channel.

(From the midi specifications courtesy of Mike Baranow)

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C.20. How do I set the Song Position Points?

You can make four of these directly on the Tyros by using the SP1, SP2, SP3, and SP4 buttons. Just start the file playing, then press the button twice quickly where you want to place the marker. A dialog window will appear confirming the marker has been set. To go back to that measure, just press the button once. If you re-save the file, the markers will be saved with the file. (Craig)

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C.21. How to place Variation Changes in a pre recorded midi

· Find a track the midi is not using

· Pres REC button and then the number of the unused track

· Choose Midi in the menu on screen

· Start recording

· Follow the song and press Main variation A,B,C or D as you needed

· When you are finished, press Digital Recording/Song Creator and Save the file

· Now you have a song that is changing the main variation bye itself.

(Morten Ihler Madsen)

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C.22. How to edit Song Position Events.

The sysex page of the Song Creator allows you to delete, cut, copy and paste song position events (at least it does in T2, so it is likely in T1/3000).

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C.23. How to edit a quick recorded midi for chord errors.

When you record 'live' with accompaniment styles, the only way to edit chord mistakes is to record over the file or edit each note in a sequencer (or Song Creator, 1-16 page). Editing tracks (made so easily with a style in live recording ) is time consuming since so many tracks are involved.

Step Recording does allow you the change the chords later, but it is a lot more effort to create initially.

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C.24. How to transpose individual channels of a midi in the PSR?

Load the midi, go to Song Creator/Channel page/ Channel Transpose.

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C.25. How to save the transpose setting in a Quick Record midi?

Set Function/Controller/Keyboard /Transpose = keyboard.

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C.26. How to use an external device to play along with a PSR.

To output midi data for use with an external tone generator without also reproducing it on the PSR, fool the PSR by setting the MSB bank select to some illegal value. That is, something other than: 0 (preset, XG and GM), 8 (megavoices), 64 (sound effects), 120 (drum kit of GM2), 121 (GM2), 126 (SFX kit), or 127 (drum kit). The PSR will ignore the track. It translates bank specifications ONLY when a valid MSB is used. If the MSB does not exist, it ignores the voice.

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C.27. How to record a medley of songs.

Record the first song. At the end of the song press the record button again to stop the recording. DO NOT press the 'TOP' button or 'NEW SONG' combination.

Now, set up the keyboard for the next song (style, voices, tempo, etc.), then press the REC button and tracks as you would for any recording. Start playing song number 2. It will add it right onto the end of the first recording. The only 'space' recorded will be from the time you stopped playing the first song until you pressed the REC button to stop that recording. (There is a place on the screen where you can actually watch the bar and beat counting up while the recording is still taking place. You will notice that it stops when you press REC to stop the recording, but it does not go back to 1 - 1. The next song will start at whatever the screen says - such as bar 72, beat 1 if the count is being shown as 72 - 1.)

You can keep adding more songs the same way for as long as it has memory enough to hold them. How many minutes will depend on how complex the style is and whether you have harmony/echo on, etc., because the midi file being created has to have codes for every note/drum beat being turned on and off and how loud they are. (from Phil Hall)

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C.28. How to play a medley of songs.

Yes, if you have a foot pedal you can program each registration bank to respond to it and in any order. And when you get to the end of that registration bank, you can have it automatically load the next registration bank and select the first setting from that bank.

To program the registration banks to respond to the foot switch:

1. Load the first registration file ('J' then A, B or C, etc.) and Exit back to the Main Menu.

2. Press 'Function'

3. Press 'E' (Registration Sequence/Freeze/Voice Set)

4. Tab to Registration Sequence with 'Back' or 'Next' if required.

5. To have the pedal sequence left to right, Press 'C' enough times to select where you have the pedal plugged in (socket 1 or 2),

5a. To sequence right to left, Press 'D' to select the correct pedal socket.

6. Press 'E' to tell it what to do after it gets done with that sequence of registrations. (Stop = do nothing, Top starts the sequence over, Next Bank loads the next registration file from your floppy or User drive (whichever the you loaded the first file from).

7. Press 'F' to enable the use of the pedal to sequence through this registration bank.

8. Set up the order in which you want the pedal to select registrations within this registration bank (registration file). To do this:

a. Press the first registration button (song you want to play) (button 1 through 8 - the regular registration buttons).

b. Press the bottom of button '6' under the screen where it says 'Insert'.

c. Press the next Registration button to tell it which song to set up for next.

d. Press the bottom of button '6' again to insert that into your sequence as shown on the screen just below the 'E' line.

e. Repeat c and d until you have set the sequence for how you want this bank to go. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INSERT ALL EIGHT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.

9. Press 'Exit' twice to get back to the Main Screen.

10. Press 'J' (Registration Bank)

11. Save the changes you just made to that Registration Bank.

12. Select the next Registration bank,

13. Press Exit to get back to the Main Screen

14. Go back to step 2.

(from Phil Hall)

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C.29. How to change volume events in the Song Creator.

In SongCreator/1-16 tab, select your channel, Filter=All On, insert an event where you want the volume change, then edit it to be Ctrl 7, followed by the volume, 0-127.

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C.30. What does the setting XG on or GM on control?

The PSRs can operate in two voice modes: XG and GM. Gm emulates a player that does not have any XG voices and DSP effects.

When you select GM On, you are turning XG =Off. The MSB and LSB Bank Select Messages for Channel 10 and NRPN messages (Vibrato, EQ and Drum effect messages) are ignored. All XG DSP settings are set to the 'null state' so the instrument acts as if no DSP is available.

Turning XG on enables the DSP, EQ and Drum settings and sets up default multipart values.

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C.31. How to edit song pointers on the computer.

Use the program CasmEdit (free at http://www.mnppsaturn.ru/osenenko/Main_eng.htm ).

To Edit:

Go to the location in time and look for the Marker (midi command FF 06 06 SPJ-0x where x is the pointer number).

1. To move in time, click the MBT column.

2. To change pointers, click the data column.

To add a pointer:

Click the position where you want an event and then Insert, select Text type=Marker and set the Text= SPJ-0x where x is the pointer number.

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C.32. How to turn Vocal Harmony On-Off in a midi.

Use the program CasmEdit (free at http://www.mnppsaturn.ru/osenenko/Main_eng.htm ).

To have VH, the XG System must be On. The sysex for this is F0 43 10 4C 00 00 7E 00 F7 and it can appear anywhere before the VH command. No channel is required. As this command takes some time to execute in some PSRs, it is best if it is placed in the beginning of the midi. If the midi was made on the PSR, the command is probably already there.

Then use the sysex F0 43 10 4C 04 00 0C 40 F7 to turn the VH on or F0 43 10 4C 04 00 0C 7F F7 to turn it off. No channel is needed.

To add a sysex using Casm Edit:

Open the midi and click a line near where you want the sysex.

Click Insert and select Event Type F0 System Exclusive Event. Place the sysex command after the F0 (e.g. 43 10 4C 04 00 0C 40 F7 ) in Hex Data then click OK.

You can adjust the position in time by double clicking the MBT setting of the line and changing the time in ticks.

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C.33. How to Tempos in recorded PSR midi.

There are only few midi files which use the Sysex Event "Master Volume" to adjust the overall volume. If this event does not exist, we have the same master volume as if the Sysex exists with value 127.

Generally midi files use Controller 7 (Main Volume) to settle the volume, but this must be done for each channel individually. Volume is also influenced by the velocity and Controller 11 (Expression). But attention: Velocity also affects character of the sound.
(Heiko on PsrTutorial)

There are programs which alter midi volumes. PSRUTI provides adjustment of the Master Volume event or allows volumes to be adjusted by expression. MidiPlayer will automatically scale all channel volumes to arrive at a typical average volume (similar to what Master Volume would do), in addition to allowing individual volume adjustments.

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C.34. How to adjust the tempo of a midi.

Method 1

1. Load the song ready to play in the keyboard.
2. open Song Creator.
3. Tab to SYS/EX. page.
4. Now you can press first button (C) or Button (A) to scroll to the top of the file.
5. Now you want to use button (B) to scroll down one line at a time looking for the
word TEMPO and just to the right of the word is tempo at that point in the song.
6. Using Button (E) you move the highlight to the number and use the Data Entry Wheel to dial in the desired tempo.
7. Continue using Button (B) down through the song until all the Tempo entries have been displayed and altered to suit.
8. Now use must SAVE the song to incorporate these changes.

Method 2

1. Load the song.
2. Go to Song Creator.
3. Tab to SYS/EX. page.
4. Press Button (H) Filter.
5. Press Button (H) All ON
6. Press Button (J) Invert.
7. Using Numbered buttons 2 or 3 and 4 or 5 Move the highlite to Tempo and use Button 6 or 7 to put a check mark in the Tempo box.
8. Press Exit once and now only the Tempo entries are shown.
9. Make the changes you want.
10. SAVE the song.

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C.35. How to delete bars in a recorded midi.

1) Load the song and play a little of it to be sure it is the one you want to modify.
2) Press the "Digital Recording" button and then "Song Creator" button [A]
3) Under the "rec mode" tab, you will see "rec start". Set this to "Punch in at......". Set "rec end" to "replace all"
4) Press the "fast forward >>" button until you get to the bar where you want the song to finish
5) Press "REC" only and all 16 channels should already be set to REC - If not set to REC by holding the REC button and set each channel to REC.
6) Press "Play" and then "Stop" IMMEDIATELY afterwards.
7) Save the song to make the changes permanent.

This way you never have to leave the Song Creator window until you are finished with the changes.
(from Bill G on PSRTutorial)
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C.36. How to delete fade out in a recorded midi.

The fade out is produced by midi volume events that specify lower and lower volumes.

I do not know of any program that will eliminated these.

The easiest way to eliminate the fade effect is to simply delete all the volume events during the interval concerned.

In Cakewalk, select List View, select Controller Only events is the Event Manager. At the end of the midi you will see the volume events, unfortunately scattered among other controller events. You can be selective, or just try deleting all.

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C.37. How to edit voices and chords in some Yamaha midi files.

Yamaha sets voices in some of the midis they sell by using sysex and not program change events, and using an alternate XF format for chord events. Most midi editors do not see these events.

To convert the voicing events, Load the file into the PC program PSRUTI (http://www.heikoplate.de/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=67&Itemid=44 ) and Optimize XG, then Save.

To convert chord events, load the midi into the PSR and then open Song Creator and Save the midi to a new name. That will convert any chord events sysex XF format.

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C.38. How to play songs off a web page using MidiPlayer.

Most of the browsers make this pretty difficult.

The one I know that works is Foxfire. After opening it, select tools/Options/Applications and then scroll to the midi items and using the right hand pane, select MidiPlayer from Other.

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C.39. How to eliminate the delayed start on a retake of a Quick Record.

When you're recording a song/midi using a style And...you make a boo-boo… you restart, right? But the style doesn't start until about a second later...

The workaround is to depress the REC and the Stop button together.

From Michael Shaw on the PSR Styles group

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C.40. How to convert commercial midis for the PSR-S900.

Here is a fairly simple process to convert Net midis to more optimum sound on the PSR-S900.

You can convert the midis to use XG sounds, drums etc by processing them in the program MidiPlayer. (see: http://psrtutorial.com/MB/bedesem.html)

Start the program, select Instrument = PSR900 and Voice = XG & Panel. Under Preferences, make sure AutoMixSet is checked. You only have to do these set-up things once.

Then add some midis to the PlayList (Click the Add button) then select a file and SaveAs.

To process the files automatically, instead of SaveAs, click Batch, select a folder and Process Save.

MidiPlayer changes the voices but not the effects. To use the effects associated with the preset voices, use the program PSRUTI. (see: http://www.heikoplate.de/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=67&Itemid=44 ).

In the PSRUTI manual see the sections: Load and Save Midifiles (pg4), Optimizing and converting to the Yamaha format XG (pg 5) and VoiceFile Revoicing (pg 10) I suggest processing a couple of MidiPlayer converted files individually and comparing them with the MidiPlayer only versions on the PSR-S900 before doing all the files.

Note that Yamaha sells their own midis, many of which are quite good and have tweaks that you will not find in concerted midi files. (see: http://www.yamahamusicsoft.com/en/instrument/Keyboard/PSR-S900/category/MIDI+Files/catalog?sort=popular ). Unfortunately, the files are not cheap, but they are worth serious consideration.

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C.41. How to add or edit song position pointers.

The song position pointers are just Marker Events that use the text SPJ-01, SPJ-02, etc.

These may be entered in any midi editor or sequencer. In Sonar, use the marker view.

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C.42. NEW! How to try out different styles with a Quick Recorded.

Load the song - then using the channel On/OFF buttons, turn off channel 9 through 16.

Now load the style you want to hear play with the song and start the song playing and start the style playing with any variation. You do not need to turn on the ACMP button.

While the song is playing, you can select any style you want and it will play with the song using the recorded chords of the song.
You can even turn off channels 1 through 8 and hear just the style parts; this allows making adjustment to the style voices and volumes.

(From Mark I on PK Owners)

Select an appropriate style (same time signature - 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 etc.), select the midi song, and press the start and play/pause buttons at the same time.

Then in the style section, press the SYNC start button. This seems to sync both the midi file song and your chosen style rhythm and both follow the tempo from the song file. Pressing any key on the keyboard triggers play with both the song and style in sync.
(From Bill G)

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C.43. NEW! How to remove keyboard settings stored by Song Creator’s Execute command.

If you depress the Execute button while in SongCreator with Keyboard Voices checked on the Setup screen and the midi is not fully rewound, the instrument will save the current keyboard setup. This may not be a problem unless you decide to changes voices at the beginning of the midi, in which case your settings will be overwritten when you come to that location in the song.

To remove the commands, with the song loaded, go to Song Creator/Sysex tab, and look in the measure where you placed the Keyboard Voices Execute event for a Meta event starting with FF 7F 73 OD. It should be the only one around with a ~ as the last displayed character. Select this event and depress Delete. Now you can add a new one in its place.

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C.44. NEW! How to use a user voice in a pre-recorded song.

Only the Record function (along with Right -Left voices) on the instrument uses the true user voice file.

To work around this, set up a MultiRecord on a spare channel with your User Voice and record one note.

Then copy the note events after measure 1 from the pre-recorded channel to the multi-recorded channel and delete the one note you made in the recording.

(From Michael Bedesem and Mike Head on PKOwners forum)

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C.45. NEW! What is the maximum number of characters allowed in a midi song name?

Anything over 42 will not show the display.

(From Al on PKOwners forum)

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C.46. NEW! How to avoid timing problems when multi track recording on a Tyros.

Set the Function/Utility/HD sleep time to Never.

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C.47. NEW! How to make the Vocal Harmonizer work with a pre recorded midi.

The PSR/Tyros T2 will respond to live chords, XF chords recorded in the midi, or chords detected in a midi being input from another device.

You want the second option: chords recorded in the midi. Chord events are only recorded when the midi is made using Quick Record, but not in Multi Record. Except for some midis (XF) purchased from Yamaha, few commercial songs include chords. And, even if they are in the original file, editing in most midi sequencers will remove them.

The solution for a song without chords is to add them using PSRUTI ( http://www.heikoplate.de/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=67&Itemid=44 ). It is easy. Start the program, load your midi, click Compute Chords, check a track that you feel reflects the chords (or select ALL) and click Ok and Save.

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C.48. NEW! How to make the Vocal Harmonizer work with a pre recorded midi.

Your transpose setting is either Master or Song. For recording purposes, you need it set to Keyboard.

Press Direct Access and then one of the transpose buttons. Set Transpose to Keyboard.

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C.49. NEW! How to record a medley on your keyboard.

After you have finished and saved the first song of the medley, using the FF button move the song to the end of the song.

Now load the style for the next song and set it up ready to play, tempo, right hand voices, etc.

Set the style Sync/Start blinking and press the REC and Play buttons to get the record blinking.

As soon as you start to play the new song will be added to the first.

Now after you finish the second song, go to Song Creator and SAVE the song.

Then add the next song.

There is a limit on how many songs you can add to your medley and that is due to the memory size of your keyboard.

(From Bill G on PSRTutorial Forum)

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MULTIPADS

D.1. Which multipad files work on which instruments?

Files from instruments up through the Tyros 1 or made using the PadMaker program will work on all instruments. Pads from the Tyros 2 and Tyros 3/4 will not work on earlier instruments.

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D.2. Recipe for making a Multipad in Cakewalk

Start Cakewalk and File/Open PadTemplate.mid (available from http://psrtutorial.com/MB/zips/PadTemplate.zip).

File/Open the midi file you want to use for pad 1. This will create a second window with the midi in it. Click the track number to select it. Drag the mouse along the measure bars to select the measures. Depress the Copy button (5th from left in the toolbar). Click OK to Events in tracks query. Click the Window menu item and then the PadTemplate.mid that is listed. Click the number 1 on far left of screen. This should select channel 1. Click Paste (6th from left in toolbar) and then Ok. Repeat for Midi2, Midi3, Midi4, placing them in channels 2, 3, 4, respectively.

If you intend on having the pad repeat, choose a segment to cut/paste that fits between measure boundaries. Pads repeat at the end of a measure, not at the end of the note events. Having only a few notes in the beginning of the last measure will trigger the measure to play and cause a soundless gap in the pad. Open the track in Piano Roll and trim any final notes as necessary.

If you intend upon having the pad follow chord changes, you are limited to the notes: C, D, E, G, A, B. Open the track in Event View to change the notes. It might be easier to transpose the style. If you know how many semitones it is to be shifted (e.g. key of D is -2), then select the track data, click Edit/Transpose, and enter the number. Getting the data to be in the right key and with the allowed notes is probably the biggest headache in making multipads. Starting with midi data in the key of C simplifies things.

Open the Info page (File/Info) and change the flags that set the chord follow and repeat settings. “0” means off and “1” means on. The default for both Chord Follow and Repeat is on.

Save the PadTemplate.mid to a new file name so as not to overwrite the template.

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D.3. Can Multipads use more than one instrument?

Since the multipads are Type 1 midis, they only have one track (one voice at a time), but there is no limit on changing the instrument with program change commands. You can start off with one voice and change it to another at any time.

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D.4. How do you make the Multipad change with the style?

The OTS Link button in the accompaniment section must be On for the multi pad to change with Preset styles.

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D.5. Can effects be recorded with multipads

1) If the multipad is recorded with R1 that has a DSP (e.g. Wah or a reverb effect other than the system reverb), the effect will not be recorded.

2) If the multipad is recorded with R1 System Reverb=0 then no reverb will be recorded and the Multipad Reverb control in the Mixing Console will be inactive.

3) If the multipad is recorded with R1 System Reverb > 0 then the effect is recorded and reverb can be adjusted later in the Mixing Console.

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D.6. Why a Multipad sometimes does not play a styles tempo

Actually it works perfectly when you start the multipad after have defined the tempo. It does not work, however, if you start the multi pad with a tempo, then you start the style with another tempo. In this case, the multipad keeps the original tempo and the style has another one. (Renato)

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D.7. What determines whether the Multipad changes when a style is selected?

The multipad setting for a style is built into the OTS. The OTS Link must be on for it to change with the style.

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D.8. How to create a pad that plays in just Bb?

Open the pad in Cakewalk by right dragging the pad file to the Cakewalk desktop icon.

Select all notes (box above the track number) and then Edit/Transpose 2 semitoines. In File/Info, change the CM1111 to CM0000 to turn off the chord follow ability.

Save the file with a new name and in Explorer, delete the trailing .mid extension.

You might find that a version that one octave higher (Edit/Transpose +12) is closer to the original but now in Bb.

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D.9. How to make a pad from other pads in the PSR.

Depress the screen Pad button and select the Pad that you want to copy a pad from.

Depress the Edit button at the bottom of the screen and select 1-4 and then Copy. Depress Exit.

Select the Pad you want to paste into, depress Edit, select the target pad (1-4) and depress Paste at the bottom of the screen.

Depress Exit and then Yes to Save the pad.

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D.10. How to make a pad from one or more styles, pads or midis.

PadMaker is a PC program that provides tools for selecting style parts, copying them to a new multipad, and editing the voice and other characteristics. See: http://psrtutorial.com/MB/bedesem.html

With it you can:

♦ Create a pad just by selecting style parts with the mouse. Only valid style parts are displayed. No typing is required.

♦ Audition the patterns on the PC or PSR.

♦ Use parts from different styles.

♦ Edit the Voice, Volume, Pan, Reverb, Chorus, Tempo, Brightness, Transpose, Chord Follow and Repeat parameters for each pad.

♦ Select instrument voices for PSR 450, 550, 740, 1000, 1100, 1500, 2000, 2100, 3000, 9000, S900, Tyros 1 and Tyros 2.

♦ Include your own text messages into the pad’s copyright field for acknowledging authorship, providing web links, etc.

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D.11. What is Multi Pad Synchro Start Function?

In the T3, if you hold down the Select button while pushing the pad you want to play, the pad light will blink, and when you start the style, the pad will start with the accompaniment.

Otherwise, depressing the pad button will start the pad immediately.

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D.12. How to stop one pad when more than one are playing.

Hold down the Stop button then depress the pad you want to terminate. Only that pad pattern will stop.

Depressing the Stop button by itself will halt all pads.

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D.13. How to convert pads to use Megavoices.

If you change the extension of a pad to .mid, MegaEnhancer will process it. After saving, it will be in midi type 1 format with a .mid extension; to function in a PSR, a pad must be midi type 1 and have a .pad extension.

To correct these problems, change the extension back to .pad, load it into MidiPlayer and save it.

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D.14. How to change the time signature while step editing multipads.

You do this with the value of the notes you use at the bottom of the page.

From Eileen on Yamaha PKOwners forum

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D.15. How to change the volume of a recorded multipad.

You need to go to Multi Pad Creator, select Edit and raise the volume there, and then resave. (From Eileen on Yamaha PKOwners forum)

Alternatively you can use the program MidiPlayer. Load the pad, the click the Volume button and move the sliders, depress set and save the file.

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D.16. NEW! What is the text data in multipads?

Factory pads have text events such as I1T068, I2T068, I3T068, I4T068 that hold information about the image attached to the MultiPad.
E.g. "IyS375": "I" indicates image; "y" is the MultiPad number; and "S375" is a reference to the image.

(From Jorgen)

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D.17. NEW! Changing the multipad loaded by a style.

The multipad is store with the OTS. To change load the style then:

Depress OTS 1, load the new multipad, hold Memory and Depress OTS 1,

Depress OTS 2, load the new multipad, hold Memory and Depress OTS 2 ,

etc,

etc.

Save your style.

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VOICES

E.1. What voices should be used for styles and midis distributed to other users?

For distribution of midis to non PSR users, use GM voices.

For PSR users, while XG voices guarantee the widest compatibility, panel voices have the advantage of built in effects and a generally higher quality.

The panel voice assignments of the PSR are very similar and often identical. If you use the common panel bank (LSB =112), any reasonably modern PSR should not have a problem. When an instrument encounters it doe not have (sweet voices are a good example), most PSRs will substitute something very similar, at worst a XG voice. Generally it is preferable to use Panel voices wherever they sound the best.

The program MidiPlayer allows the voices used in any midi or style to be tailored to the PSR/Tyros, sound card or softsynth.

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E.2. How Do I Select XG and Panel Voices in Cakewalk?

First, obtain the Cakewalk Instrument Definition file for your instrument( See H.3):

To install an ins file:

Open Cakewalk.
Click Tools/Instruments (Options/Instruments in Sonar 3), then depress the Define button.
Click the Import button, then go to the folder where the ins file is stored, and select it. Click Open
In the "Pick One or more Instrument.." screen, click the ins file (select it). Click OK ( This is where most people go wrong)
Click Close and Close again to get back to track view.

With instrument definitions installed, click on Tools/Instruments, select all channels in the left hand box and then click the name of your instrument in the right box, and then OK.

Back in track view, double click the bank box for the track that you wish to modify. Make sure that the bank select method is Normal. The instruments are organized into banks. Panel voices often are in Bank 112. Midi voices are Bank 0, special effects are in Bank 16128, and drums are in Bank 16256, the last one in the list. Individual instruments are selected in the patch box.

To change the bank without instrument definitions, in the Track View, double click on the bank box. Then enter the bank number determined by the formula 128* MSB + LSB. Place the program number in the patch box.

Important note: When Panel voices are selected in the instrument, they automatically set up DSP effects. This is NOT true when Panel voices are selected in a sequencer of PC program such as MidiPlayer. For many Panel voices, the difference might not be material, but beware. Voices such a WahGuitar will not sound correctly!

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E.3. Where are the XG Voices in PSRs/Tyros?

Depress the Up button at the bottom of the screen until you are at the highest level and then go to the last page. XG voices are accessible via a button on the right of the screen.

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E.4. What is the difference between the voice types?

In a midi or style, a program change number without any prior Bank Select events, defines GM voices. These are the most general voices, and will be recognized by all sound cards and midi players.

When Yamaha wanted more voices than GM, they created then by preceding a program change number event by two additional commands: MSB Bank Select and LSB Bank Select. These bank select events can be anywhere in the midi as long as they occur before the program change event. Yamaha defined MSB =0 and LSB=0 as their GM voices.

You will encounter the LSB, MSB and program change numbers in the manual’s Voice List or in a sequencer program. To see them in the PSR/Tyros voice display box, set Display Voice Numbers to On in Function/Utility/Config2.

Voice Type	MSB/LSB Range	Comments
GM	None	Cannot be changed to XG unless Bank Select events are added to midi/style (use MidiPlayer)
XG
GM subset	MSB=0, LSB=0
Drums	MSB=127, LSB=0	In Tyros, there are some drum kits with MSB=126
Non Drums	MSB=0, LSB <102
Sound Effects	MSB=64,126, LSB=0
Preset (Panel)	MSB=0, LSB>101
Megavoices	MSB=8, LSB=0,1

Voices with the same LSB setting are said to belong to the same voice Bank and often share specific characteristics. Bank 112 is the most general Preset/Panel voice bank and generally includes one voice for each of the program change numbers. This means that the easiest way to change GM/XG voices to panel voices (i.e. without looking up voice numbers in the manual) is to change the MSB to 112.

Unlike XG (and the imbedded GM) voices, Panel /Preset voices also set up effects, but only when specified via front panel operations on the instrument! Panel voices selected by a sequencer or other PC program will select the voice but not the associate DSP effects. The difference can be material.

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E.5. I seem to have lost my touch sensitivity, what could be wrong?

Under Function/Controller/ Keyboard is a slider for Touch Off Level. Set it to about 95.

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E.6. How to use Harmony without playing style accompaniment?

If you turn on the Left hand voice and play chords, harmony will work with Accompaniment off.

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E.7. What are the difference between the later voice types?

"Sweet!" voices accurately emulate the natural tone and vibrato of acoustic instruments such as brass and woodwinds. "Cool!" voices realistically reproduce the dynamic textures and subtle nuances of electric instruments. "Live!" voices are stereo sampled with natural room ambience to ensure maximum realism. (From Yamaha contributed by TheWolf)

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E.8. Can voice changes be made within the body of a midi?

Voices, unlike all other changes, can be made in the Mixing Console anywhere in the song and without pressing 'Execute' on the Channel Page in Song Creator. All other changes must be at the 'top' of the song and require 'executing' the change. (The Keyboard Voice setting in Song Creator/Channel/Setup may have to be checked for this behavior).

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E.9. Why Custom or User Voices do not sound the same when specified in a midi.

Voices can be referenced with midi commands inserted into a midi, but they will not play properly.

This is due to the way that Tyros deals with Preset Voices. When you select a Preset Voice, it also 'loads' effects and other settings. It does this by including the midi commands specifying these settings into the working area for the selection. User Voices are also made by changing the sound of internal voices with effects and other commands.

However, when a voice is specified in the midi using Bank Select values, etc, these settings, which are in addition to the voice parameters, are not included. The workaround is to use the PSRUTI Voicefile revoicing to define the voice.

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E.10. How to reproduce the sound of the voice demos or from a midi song file

Start a Quick Record and then press the Demo button for the voice. This will record the setup and the demo. You can then look at the midi to determine the settings.

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E.11. Tyros 2 Voices, Voice Creator, PC Custom Voice Editor, Voice Set Editor and the Flute Voice Editor

There are several types of voices available in the Tyros2:

Preset Voice Bank/ Panel/XG/GM/GM2/OrganFlutes Voices: These are built-in voice files. They are voices are organized into banks such as Brass, Strings, etc.

You can edit a built-in voice or organ flute voice to create your own versions.

Use VoiceSet to change the DSP, octave & harmony settings. The edits should be given new voice names, may be saved anywhere, and easily exchanged between instruments.

Use the Organ Flute Footage Edit to create new organ voices: These are defined by files with the extension .org. As with User Voices, these files can be located anywhere and easily exchanged.

Preset Voice Bank/ Custom Voices: These are voice files (extension .TVN) that have been loaded on to the Tyros 2 hard drive, or definition files, created by the PC Custom Voice Editor, combining up to 8 of built-in voice and/or installed TVN voice files.

Custom Voices are accessed by the Custom Voice Bank containing 128 voices, each element of which contains the path to a .TVN voice file that is stored on the hard disk. The Custom Voice Bank is maintained during power off.

The Custom Voice Bank may be edited by the Voice Creator and, if required, saved as a Custom Voice Library (.TVI) file and reloaded. Multiple library files exist as a way of allowing user access to more than 128 voices, and permitting voices to be grouped by use (e.g. GIG type, music genre, song project).

When the Tyros2 is powered up, the current Custom Voice Bank data is used to load to a RAM voice memory with TVN files located on the hard drive (access directly from disk would be too slow).

The Tyros 2 Voice Creator is used to create and edit the Custom Voice Bank:

Wave Import creates a TVN voice file from one or more .wav or .aif sample waveforms located on USB or placed on the hard disk via the HD Storage mode. Once the TVN file is made, the wav/aif files can be removed.

Custom Voice Bank Edit allows copying, deleting or renaming entries in the current custom voice bank, and monitoring the status of the RAM voice memory. You cannot add entries, change the TVN file references or manipulate TVN files (move, delete, etc) with this function.

Individual Load allows adding a new entry to the Custom Voice bank. TheTVN file should be previously installed on the hard disk via the Wave Import function or transfer by HD Storage Mode.

If you choose to load a TVN file from the USB, then the current version of the Custom Voice Bank will always look for the file there and it will fail to load on power up if the USB memory is not installed or the file is missing from the media. Loading the TVN file via the HD Storage mode is recommended.

Library Save saves all or individual items of the current Custom Voice Bank to a TVI library file. You have the option of saving just the path, or the path and the TVN files. Save just the path to use a single version of the TVN file on your HD. Saving both to the USB is one way to export a TVN file (the other is to use HD Storage Mode to copy the file), or to make a duplicate copy of the Custom Voice Bank and all related files (this can be large!)

Library Load allows you to replace current Custom Voice Bank entries with ones contained in a TVI library file. You have the option of replacing all or just individual entries.

Custom Voice Edit Via PC This program is does everything that Voice Set does plus it allows you to make a voice by combining one or more Preset or Custom TVN Voices that already exist on the Tyros 2. Start the PC Voice Editor on the PC and use this button only if the Voice Editor screen does not appear on the Tyros. The last step in this program is to save the file defining the edits (it does not contain any large sample files) on the T2 HD and make an entry into the current Custom Voice Bank.

Suggested Hard Disk Voice File Folders

Waveform Files (for wav and aif transfers via HD Storage Mode for later use by Voice Creator/ File Import)

TVN Voices (for saving TVN files created by Voice Creator/ File Import or for transfer of externally created TVN files via HD Storage Mode and installation by Voice Creator/ Individual Load)

TVI Library Files (for saving Custom Voice Banks with or without the associated TVN files)

Voice Edits (the .vce, .liv(live), .swv(sweet), .clv, etc. files created by VoiceSet, and the .org files created by the Footing Editor).

PC Voice Editor Files(for saving the edits of built in voices (.cnv) , or TVN voices (.cwn) created by the PC Voice Editor)

How To Instructions

How to load a TVN file to the Custom Voice Bank. Use HD Storage to move the file to the TVN Voices folder. Install in current bank with Voice Creator/ Individual Load.

How to load a wav file to the Custom Voice Bank. Use HD Storage to move the file to the Waveform Files folder. Install in current bank with Voice Creator/ Wave Import.

How to export a Custom Voice. Copy the file from the TVN Voices folder with HD Storage Mode.

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E.12. Why all organ flutes have the same #

The voice has the same number because it is the same voice sample. The different effects are achieved by a special DSP that somehow emulates the effect of the various stops on the organ. These settings are contained in one sysex event (see Organ Flute Data Bulk Dump in your manual) that has the form:

F0 43 73 01 06 0B 00 00 01 06 0n Data check sum F7

If you save any Organ Flute to media and look at it with a program such as Casm Edit ( for some reason the recent version of Style Dump is missing it), you will find this command where the Data portion instructs the PSR how to process the basic sound.

Your next question is probably " If they have the same number, then why do they sound different (and, when saved, show that they have different settings)."

Here is my best guess:

When you click on any Panel Voice, you really are activating a small midi file (the same one you get if you Save a voice). This midi loads the basic sample and then, using midi commands, edits the DSP, EQ or other settings necessary to achive the desired sound. When you create a User Voice ( using Voice Set on T2, Voice Creator on T1) you are simply creating this little midi file.

In the case of the Organ Flutes, clicking on the voice name executes whatever file was associated with this name and edits it accordingly.

The big disadvantage of this clever method is that you can never refer to a User Voice by its number and be assured of getting the same result as if you had made the assignment in the keyboard.

If you try to specify one using a PC program, all you will get is the basic sample plus what ever DSP and EQ was last selected. This is often not a big problem where similar voices are involved, but it fails completely for Organ Flutes.

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E.13. What does DSP do?

Tables in the manuals give descriptions of the effects. For example:

HALL1: Reverb simulating the acoustics of a hall.
ROOM1: Reverb simulating the acoustics of a room.
STAGE1: Reverb suitable for a solo instrument.
Plate: Reverb simulating a plate reverb unit.
WHITE ROOM: A unique short reverb with a bit of initial delay.
TUNNEL: Simulates a cylindrical space expanding to left and right.
CANYON: A hypothetical acoustic space which extends without limit.
BASEMENT: A bit of initial delay followed by reverb with a unique resonance.
LARGE HALL: Reverb simulating the acoustics of a hall.
WARM ROOM: Reverb simulating the acoustics of a warm room.
WOODY ROOM: Reverb simulating the acoustics of a woody room.
RICH PLATE: Reverb simulating a rich plate reverb unit.
CHORUS1: Conventional chorus program with rich, warm chorusing.
CELESTE1: A 3-phase LFO adds modulation and spaciousness to the sound.
FLANGER1: Creates a sound reminiscent of a jet airplane.
SYMPHONIC1: Adds more stages to the modulation of Celeste.
PHASER1: Cyclically modulates the phase to add modulation to the sound.
ENS DETUNE (EnsembleDetune): Chorus effect without modulation, created by adding a slightly pitch-shifted sound.
ROTARY: Simulates a rotary speaker.

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E.14. How to specify User Voices in a pre-recorded midi.

The easiest way to do this is PSRUTI Voicefile Revoicing function.

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E.15. How to transpose just one of the right hand voices.

Use the Mixing Console/Panel View. You can depress Quick Access and a octave button to get there easily.

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E.16. I cannot make Aftertouch work with some voices. Why?

When you depress the keys of the PSR/Tyros, it senses the velocity (really the pressure).

If, at the end of the initial keystroke, if you have not exceeded the maximum pressure range, and this is followed by a delay of some milliseconds, and then additional pressure is exerted, aftertouch is triggered. That is, aftertouch requires sensing additional pressure a short delay after the original key stroke.

Historically, after touch effects have been applied to voices such as strings. Normal methods of playing with such voices are not dynamic, i.e. you do not pounce on the keys while playing a string part. As a consequence, it is likely always some range left in the sensor. Hence, when you pressed a little harder, after touch is triggered and the effect worked.

With Tyros 2’s many users have changed the Initial Touch to Soft 1 or Soft 2 and are playing more dynamically in order to trigger the SA voice effects. Unfortunately, this make it more difficult to get aftertouch effects from voices such as RockSax2. If you play the voice aggressively to get the velocity expression on the attack, there is nothing left in the velocity/pressure range in order to trigger the after touch. Playing a voice like this with moderate attack velocity and then applying pressure after a short delay works every time.

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E.17. How to change keyboard voices from Cakewalk.

The PSR Function/Midi/Edit/Receive default assignment has MidiPort 1 channel 1-16 assigned to the Song player in the PSR. To control one of the keyboard voices, you need to put the data on the default channel assigned to a keyboard voice (R1-R2-L) or change the part assignment for the channel you are sending it on.

The easiest solution with Cakewalk is just to leave the PSR midi assignments alone (so you can easily play midis from the PC as well as control the instrument) and use MidiPort 2 and the channel for the voice you want. To control Right 1, in Cakewalk/MidiDevices set the output to USB 0-2 and set your channel in the Track View Channel column to 2, the default PSR assignment for Right 1.

Now any commands that go out over this track (from a recorded midi or manual commands generated by changing the Bank and Patch data).

Please note that when you specify a voice using the Bank and Patch commands from the PC, the DSP normally associated with a Preset voice is not changed! For many voices it does not matter, but if you want to move to or from Wah Wah Guitar you will be frustrated. The workaround is to use PSRUTI’s VoiceFile Revoicing to edit the midi to the voice you want.

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E.18. How to avoid the long Custom Voice Loading time in Tyros 2

1) Push Cancel when the load starts (Eileen L)

2) If you want a fast loading time, and seldom use the Custom Voices, then one technique is to create an empty Library file and use it for normal activities and only load the one with the working voices when needed. Here is how:

a) In Voice Creator, use Voice Bank Edit and delete all entries.
b) Use Save Library file to save this with a new name. I called mine Empty.
c) Load "Empty". Now when the machine is powered up, it will not load any voices.

When you need custom voices, Load your previous library file.

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E.19. What are the preset and custom voice extensions in Tyros 2

VCE : Normal Voice Files
LIV : Live Voices
ORG : Organ Flutes
SWV : Sweet Voices
MGV : Mega Voices
SAR : S.Art Voices
CLV : Cool Voices
LDR : Live Drum kits
DRM : Drum Kits
----------------------------------
The Following are the Voices in the Custom bank [These are the Links to Voice Links to the Main Custom Voices(the Tvn-Voices)] :

CVN : Custom Voices
CVD : Custom Drums
-----------------------------------
The Following are the Voices which are loaded in the Custom bank (These are the Main Custom Voices) :
CVN: Custom Individual Voice for Tyros 1

CV0: Purchased Voice from Yamaha

CV1: Purchased Voice Edit from Yamaha

TVN : Custom Individual Voice for Tyros 2

UVN: Custom Individual Voice for Tyros 3

TVD : Custom Drum Voice
TVI : Custom Voice Library Voice
(from Cloyd D'mello )

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E.20. What is the difference between elements and waves in Tyros 2 ?

A voice is made up of up to 8 elements, each of which can have many waves.

Elements are components of voices that can be played together (e.g. Piano & Strings). Both sound when a note is depressed. With waves, only one plays for any specific note. Once a wave is mapped to a note (or a range of notes), the note is no longer available. Setting up separate elements makes possible mixing waves.

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E.21. Why does my voice category light blink when I depress it?

The setting Function/Config2/Voice Category is set on Open Only. Change to the Open & Select for the normal behavior.

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E.22. How to change the tune used to demo a voice

The Icon you choose will determine the short tune used for the Voice Demo button. So, if you want to use a different demo tune for a voice, just choose the icon that gives you the tune you want (from Bill at YamahaPKOwner)

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E.23. How to load custom voices on to a Tyros 2

First set up some folders on your Hard Drive using Storage Mode. I.e power-on while holding down the Music Finder key and on the PC use Windows Explorer to create three folders: TVI Library Files, TVN Voice Files and Voice Edits files for the following uses:

TVN Voices folder for saving TVN files created by Voice Creator/ Wave Import or for transfer of externally created TVN files via HD Storage Mode and installation by Voice Creator/ Individual Load

TVI Library Files folder for saving Custom Voice Banks with or without the associated TVN files

Voice Edits folder for the .vce, .liv(live), .swv(sweet), .clv, etc. files created by VoiceSet, and the .org files created by the Footing Editor

If you have partitions on the drive, I suggest not using the root (lowest) as this is where any HD recordings are stored and you should save the space.

Then copy the Tyros Voices from the PC (in either the TNV, TVI or voice edit form) to the appropriate folder on the T2.

Exit out of HD Storage Mode and start Voice Creator.

To load an individual voice (TNV), use Individual Load. To load a full Library (TVI) use Library Load. Exit Voice Creator and choose a voice in the usual manner but go to the Custom Voice section first. The Voice Edits you select in the same way but you will go to the file area to get it.

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E.24. How to access Tyros Custom Voices from BIAB

When you use BIAB to access those voices, you must make sure the voices you want are loaded into the appropriate Custom Voice locations on the Tyros. Then you access those voices using the following code scheme.

The Tyros Custom Voice are accessed from BIAB by using Control Change MSB = (3FH) 63; Control Change LSB = (00H) 0; and Program Change = (00H) to (7FH) 0 - 127. For the Custom Drums use Control Change MSB = (3EH) 62 ; Control Change LSB = (00H) 0; Program Change (00H) to (0AH) - 0 - 10.

For example you would set MSB = 63 (3FH) LSB = 0 (00H) and Program = 0 (00H) for Custom Voice number 1.
(from Bill Grosse)

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E.25. How to change a voice and not change all parameters

If you go to Function/VoiceSet, you will see several options that either allow or deny a new voice to determine the Effects, EQ, or Harmony.

Perhaps turning off one or more of these might accomplish what you require.

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E.26. How to trigger a bass MegaVoice slide effect.

1.Direct access+pitch bend.

2.Set R1 (or r2) octave to +2 value (bass voices are typically set to -2).

The Pull off's are set on the second last octave following the above procedure, i.e. from C6 to G#6.

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E.27. How to eliminate the pause when voices are changed with a reg or OTS.

There is one effective solution to the problem, but it only works if you use two single voices per piece.

Set Right 1 to Voice 1, and Right 2 to Voice 2. Then I make two registrations: In one I mute Right 2, and in the second I mute Right 1. Now, if I change between these two registration settings (I effectively change from Voice 1 to Voice 2), there are no glitches, because deep within both voices are actually processed at once... I know, not a really elegant solution, and it only works for two voices, but I thought I might mention it anyway.
(Ben)

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E.28. Why keyboard voices can be different from what is in the registration.

A registration can contain a song name and the song file can contain revoicing of the R1-2 etc that is added to the song when you Execute in Song Creator with the Keyboard Voices checked.

If you execute a registration it may load the keyboard voices in the registration and then the song file, which overwrites the first set of voices.

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E.29. How to copy the voices used in a recorded midi to a sequencer.

You can do this by doing a bulk dump. See Heiko’s article at: http://www.heikoplate.de/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=431&Itemid=63 .

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E.30. What do the Initial Touch settings do?

There is no real definition of hard1 versus soft2 etc in the manual, other than the impression that it compensates for a touch of this description.

But in voice edit, there are two parameters, offset and depth. These are the voice parameters that are probably set by the choice that you make.

Note that if you use voice edit to make a version of the voice, you can determine where to place them to suit the music; for some applications this might be better than accepting the choice offered by the initial touch settings. There may be a combination which does not modify the volume so dramatically, or one which fits the music or your style better.

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E.31. How to change voices later in a midi file.

The easiest way to do this is when you are recording the midi. Use previously stored registrations or one of the OTS setups of the style to change the voice as you record. This will accurately change the voice including DSP, EQ and other settings.

This cannot be done in the Mixing Console (it only changes the voice, and only in the initial measure) or the Song Creator (you can not change the DSP or other settings).

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E.32. What happened to the chords in my midi?

If you loaded and saved the midi in a sequencer, most likely they have been removed. All sequencers (except XGWorks, no longer available) removes XF chord events and other "sequencer specific sysex".

This is also true of midi editors that are not Yamaha friendly. Fortunately there some that are, including CasmEdit and those on http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software.htm .

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E.33. Where are the sound effect voices (e.g. water sounds) in my instrument?

They are in the GM voices. Select a voice as usual and depress Up, Page 2, GM & XG, Page 2 and Sound Effects.

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E.34. How to change individual drum sounds.

It is possible to change the characteristics of individual drum sounds with an midi commands. The full list of commands is in the MidiParmeter Change Table (Drum Setup) section of the data manual and includes items such as:

Pitch coarse

Pitch fine

Level

Pan

Reverb

Chorus

Variation

Low pass filter

Cutoff frequency

Resonance

Eg attack rate

Eg decay1 & 2

You can add such events in CasmEdit. See: http://www.mnppsaturn.ru/osenenko/Main_eng.htm

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E.35. How to remove the mod wheel from controlling volume of T3 preset organ voices.

From the Main display:
1. Press the [ORGAN] button
2. Select Organ-a-Gogo
3. Press [5^] button (Voice Set)
4. Tab over to the 'Controller' tab
5. Adjust the 'Amplitude' parameter to 64

6. Press the [ I ] button to go to the 'Save' page

NOTE: The default destination will be "User', which is fine. Change it to HD or USB if desired.
7. Press [6v] to go into Save mode

8. Change the name if desired

9. Press the [8^] button to finish

(Steve Deming, Yamaha)

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E.36. How to switch off the distortion on some voices (e.g. T3 Whiter Bars).

Switch off the distortion effect by depressing the DSP button in the Voice Effect section.

If this does not achieve what you want, try this from Gino:

“I found if I reduced reduce the bass on the mixer, the sound is clear. After further experimentation I came up with something: If you go to Organ flutes, a window comes up with the Organ draw bars, on the left upper side of the window, you have a switch, with two Organ types Sine and Vintage, you can hear the Sine Organs are much cleaner, the Vintage organs have that rotor sound in the lower frequencies that is disturbing to my ears.”

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E.37. How to add a Custom Voice to a recorded midi.

If it is T2 or T3 and the voice is loaded in to the Custom Voice area (using Voice Creator), then in Mixing Console, select Preset and then the up arrow to get to the Custom Voice or Expansion Voice area.

It is not possible to revoice a midi to use a voice edit located in the User area. You can achieve the same thing by adding the midi commands that edit the voice to the midi itself. It is a bit of work in a sequencer (copy and paste from the User vce file). Alternatively, PSRUTI has a function called VoiceFile Revoicing. Normally one uses the Preset files for this function, but you can use voice edits as well.

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E.38. The SA2 button stays on after the foot is depressed.

When the footswitch is depressed and the SA2 effect ( button ) begins flashing and stays on, it is due to the polarity of the foot pedal being reversed.

Set the polarity for it so that it is not constantly on.

(from Craig on PSRTutorial)

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E.39. Custom voices for the Tyros 2 & 3.

Sources include:

PEMO http://www.orgel-studio.de/

KR Musicsoft http://www.kr-musicsoft.de/

World of Keys http://www.worldofkey.de/

Irish Acts http://www.irishacts.com/ezypal/index.php

Total Transformation http://www.totaltransformation.co.uk/

http://www.yamaha-tyros.de/tyros2/germany/
(from Craig on Yamaha PKOwners Forum)

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E.40. Why do voices change while playing a midi?

It is possible that you have used SongCreator to save some edits with the song not fully rewound. If you do this (in SongCreator/Channel Tab you depress Execute )and the keyboard voices box under the Setup item is checked, then the current state of the keyboard voices (R/L) will be recorded at that measure location. When the file is played, the voices will change at this point.

You can eliminate this by finding the event on the SongCreator/Sys/Ex page that starts with FF 7F 43 73 0D 01 and has a "~" as its last character (the sysex is VERY long and the PSR displays the fact with the ~). Just Cut this event and save the file.

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E.41. How to reproduce a demo voice?

You can easily see how a preset voice has been edited by making a Quick Record midi of the ‘demo voice’ and looking at the file in a PC program.

Set up a Quick Record, press Play and then the demo button. When finished, depress Stop and save the midi.

You can see the exact commands used to make the sound in a program such as CasmEdit or StyleDump.

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E.42. How to optimize voices when using midis off the net?

Many people use standard midi files from the Internet with it as backing tracks. While the Mixing Console has a “Song Auto Revoice” function, it generally does not make optimized voice replacements. (E.g .AutoRevoice only works on the voices listed on the setup page).

The PC program MIdiPlayer will select voices according to the "Voice setting , i.e. Panel+ XG, XG, GM, etc, but I would not claim that this is optimized, for two reasons:

1) MidiPlayer uses several assignment schemes(including typical replacements, picking a preset voice if one exists, picking a voice in the 112 bank, defaulting to GM, etc) but these are mechanical, and the closest or the most appropriate for the music(e.g. saxes and organs vary by genre, accordions by country, etc) may not be selected.

2) MidiPlayer changes the voice assignment, but does not alter the effects. Generally this is not a big issue, and may be preferred if the midi's author has gone to the trouble of fine tuning the effects, but there are cases where you might want the sound to be exactly like a PSR Preset voice. These all have their own effects settings, but MidiPlayer will not include them. PSR's Mixing Console does not change the effects either.

The PC program PSRUTI has two voicing functions that to consider:

Voicefile Revoicing: This facility does include the effects of preset voices. It is manual and you have to make the choices.

Revoicing from Revoicefile: This facility allows you to select voices in advance that you want to use. It would allows you to have separate revoicing assignments for various types of music (rock, jazz, Irish, etc).

There is no best answer. In some cases, professionally made midi files will have been carefully crafted by the author, and revoicing may initially make them worse.

You need to judge each midi on a case by case basis. Typically, I compare the original with a MidiPlayer Version revoiced using Panel + XG, and Panel. If this sounded like an improvement, I might experiment with some of the important voices in PSRUTI to see if they can be further enhanced.

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E.43. Aftertouch issues with converted voices?

In response to a report that the OTS of T2 styles processed by the T3 File Converter sound better if the aftertouch on right hand voices is disabled:

If you don't want to change the global settings you could go to Voice Set/Controller Tab/scroll to Aftertouch for each voice and disable the settings. Make sure Filter & Amplitude are at 64 and all the LFO settings are zero.

Once you're in that screen for 1 voice of the OTS, say R1, it's quite quick to move to R2 /3; just press the green part select buttons as necessary.

Then resave the OTS (or wait till you've done them all and save all 4 per style.)

(from John on YamahaPKOwners forum)

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E.44. How to prevent R3 being muted when R1 and R2 are turned on

Make sure the split point for R is set just above S+L (e.g. B2 vs Bb2 ).

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E.45. How to change voices in the middle of a midi file

MidiPlayer, in Voice View, shows all the program changes in the file. If your midi already had a program change that will do the job, then it is easy to change.

If there is no program change event, then you will need to use CasmEdit, Sound Creator( insert MSB Bank Select, LSB Bank Select and a Program Change event at the desired location. Program change must be last.) or a sequencer to create one.

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E.46. Why voices with echo/harmony cut off.

Usually it's associated with the Touch Limit in the Harmony Screen being set "too high" - which is designed to disable Harmony when notes are played at lower velocities.

I normally make sure TL is set at zero so it doesn't interfere.

I've also noticed that using the Full Keyboard Fingerings (including AI) can result in a patchy effect.

Also Single Fingered while not becoming patchy can result in some harmonies which are less "desirable" to my ears.

From John on PstTutorial

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E.47. NEW! How to insure a voice is not interrupted when changing registrations.

If your registration is changing the keyboard voice for R1, then R1 continues to play, but with a new attack at the time of the registration change.

If the registration changes the sound by enabling R2 with a different voice, then the voice on R1 sustains without any change until the key is released.

To avoid interrupting a voice that is sounding, always assign a voice change to another right hand voice.

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E.48. NEW! Sound effects for Tyros.

You can use the midi SFX, or WAV SFX Files (there are loads free on the Web but I bought about 100,000 for $10 or something ridiculous).

Because the Tyros will play wave files, you can import them onto your HD where you can use them 3 ways:

A - If it's a song (perhaps originally an MP3) then you can have the original artist performing it. Just select it in your HDD Recorder and press Play.
B - Record it as a Voice (using Digital Voice Creator) then, say you allocate it to Middle C, if you play it higher you can get a 'Chipmunk Effect' or if lower a longer, slower deeper note.
C- and my favorite - record the SFX Voices onto Multipads and you can save that MP to appear within a particular Registration.

(From Freddie on PKOwners forum)

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E.49. NEW! Hints on editing the on board piano voice.

One of the great things about owning a Yamaha instrument is that you have the ability to customize many of the features to your own liking. The Voice Set editor lets you do just that with any of the on board sounds, including the slightly harder to find XG based ones. They can then be stored in the User Drive ready for use at any time. A lot has been said about the Piano voice on the Tyros, but if like me you desire something a little less thin, you can create the perfect Piano sound for you!

Firstly select right one voice button and now select Grand Piano. At the bottom of the screen you will see voice set. Push the upper button five. The first page is common settings. Here you can alter volume, touch sense, octave, mono/poly and portamento. As I play up the keyboard and also like a nice rich sound, I take it down an octave but this is a matter of choice.

Tab to the next page Controller here you will see that you can set modulation and after touch. I am not going to alter anything here. Tab to next page Sound. Here we can alter all sorts of things but for this exercise I am just going to alter the brightness and raise it to six. If you look above this you will see a button marked compare so you can listen to the voice as it was and as it is now so far.

Tab to the next page Effects. First is reverb depth, now this is a matter of choice but as I don't know how to use a sustain pedal correctly, but I don't want the Piano to sound to staccato, I set the reverb to about fifty on hall three and DSP depth to thirty five.

The last thing I set is the DSP. Again this is a matter of choice. I will set it at Delay and choose Tempo Delay.

Tab to the last page Harmony. Here you can choose what harmony you want your Piano to have when button is selected. I would usually set it to block. Just to check the sound you have just created you can push the compare button and hear how the sound was and how it is now.

(From Eileen on CraftyMusic forum)

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E.50. NEW! How to edit a SA voice.

You can't edit many of the Voice Set functions with SA2 voices in the normal way as you say because they are grayed out. But they can be edited (in Voice Set) in an abnormal way.

For instance, I sometimes use a faster vib, even though grayed out, to give a useful change of character to the clarinet and sax. The way you can do it is to load a "normal" live, sweet or cool voice, say into R1, then alter its Voice Set parameters to what you want.

Now disable Voice Set on R1. (Function/Regist Sequence/Freeze/ Voice Set) & load, say, the SA2 sax. If you go to Voice Set now you may still see grayed out settings but the latter should have changed to the values that you entered earlier. Don't forget to re-enable R1's Voice Set before moving on!

I've just checked - and you can set the SA2 sax. for example to mono in this way.

(From John Vernon on PSRTutorial)

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E.51. NEW! Voice effects on the PSR & Tyros.

These instruments offer a great variety of effects, but they can be complicated to assign.

Let’s take the easy ones first. Reverb and Chorus are available to all keyboard sources, the 16 song channels and the 16 keyboard channels (R1-3, L, MP 1-4 , Style 9-16). You just have to assign how much effect you want (called the send value in midi). Note that recent instruments have some very powerful and creative Reverb & Chorus effects, many of which are almost never used by casual players. This is unfortunate since they are so easy to access and control in the Mixing Console.

The next most general effect is called DSP1 or Variation. It can be used like Reverb/Chorus and assigned to work with all sources (i.e. called the variation system effect), or it can be available to just one channel (in this case called an DSP1 insertion effect). The front panel button allows the users to switch the effect on or off during live play (not possible with Reverb or chorus or other DSPs). The button is sometimes used to allow organ players the ability to add rotary sounds or change speeds during live play.

The other DSPs: The T3/4 has the most, with one dedicated to the mic and two to just the styles. But every PSR/Tyros has some. These are insertion effects; that means that they are assigned to one channel only and generally come with pre- assigned settings (that can be changed if needed). The functions available are the same as DSP1 in insertion mode.

The big problem with the DSPs is that there are not enough of them. The song player has 16 channels, but there are not enough non-variation DSPs to go around (in truth, it is unusual that one is needed for every channel). But this does make DSP assignments complicated, and it has caused much frustration with some users.

If you look in your Data Manual, you may discover the issue can be even more complicated: Chorus can also send part of its output back though reverb. And DSP1 can do the same to both Reverb and Chorus. Fortunately, with all the effects available, this is seldom needed today.

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E.52. NEW! How to control sustain for the Left voices.

To use your pedal to do the sustaining, press Direct Access and depress the sustain pedal. At the bottom of the Controller/Sustain screen that comes up you can choose which parts are affected - including the Left, which by default is set to "off".

(From John Vernon on PSRTutorial)

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E.53. NEW! How to trigger effects with SA voices.

On the voice selection screen, depress the Info button at the bottom to learn how to create effects while playing.

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E.54. NEW! How to change a voice’s modulation speed.

The modulation speed is a property of each voice. You can change it with "Voice Set".

To change it for the Right1 voice: [F] -> [6 up] -> Tab to "SOUND" -> Change "VIBRATO"SPEED".

Your changes will get lost if you select another voice. But you can save your changes in a registration or a user voice.

(From Kurt on PSRTutorial Forum)

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E.55. NEW! How to make a Custom Voice more legato.

To cut down the attack of the voice so it starts more "smoothly", there are various ways of doing it. Whether you are considering a normal or custom voice the simplest way is probably to edit the Attack parameter in Voice Set's Sound Tab (rather than use the PC Voice Editor).
If you raise it significantly by say 10 or even more you should hear a reduction in Attack and choose a value which suits what you want. You can then save the "New" voice within Voice Set as a User Voice which will link to your Custom voice and apply your new edits to it. (Note: changing delay values in Voice Set don't seem to have much effect on most voices).

Alternatively if you prefer the edits to be saved directly into the Custom voice (uvn) file you should load your custom voice into R1, push Voice Creator /Wave Import, select Voice Set from there, and put in the above values you need. Push Exit to get back to the Save icon and push Save, in which case you get the custom voice file saving option and the option to assign it to a position in the custom bank.

More complicated, you can load your voice into the PC Voice Editor and edit the attack, delays, alter how the attack is affected by velocity etc. etc. In fact you can edit the whole Envelope for each element if you want by going to the AMP EG tab for each.

(From John Vernon on PKOwners Forum)

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E.56. NEW! How to adjust sustain (introduced by the Sustain button).

You can alter the amount for individual voices by going into Voice Set / Effect/EQ tab and altering Panel Sustain.

If you want to keep the voice separately as a User push Save in Voice set. Alternatively if you are compiling a Registration the sustain will be saved with the voice (as long as voice is ticked when memorizing the settings, followed by Saving the Reg.)

(From John on PSRTutorial)

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E.57. NEW! What is a CVN file?

The is a voice edit made on a Tyros UVN file.

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PSR AND TYROS

F.1. How do I reset my PSR/Tyros?

Occasionally (e.g. sometimes after playing midis of unknown origin) the instrument may sound a little strange. Usually this can be corrected by a system reset initiated by holding down the topmost white key while turning on the power. Other reset options can be found on at Function/Utility/System Reset Tab.

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F.2. In the PSR-2000, should the User Area be used for styles?

The ram storage in instruments such as the PSR-2000 is very small. It is often advisable to save the User Area primarily for multipads, registrations, temporary song storage and styles that will be called up by Registrations (unlike Tyros, registration on the 2000 cannot recall styles from floppy).

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F.3. Why does my PSR/Tyros have two midi ports?

Instruments use two midi ports to access 32 channels of midi.

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F.4. Where are the Save and other controls in later PSRs and Tyros?

In earlier units (<PSR-2000), the commands were all action oriented (load, save, etc.).

With newer instruments controls have an object focus. First you must select the thing you wish to operate on (song, style, multipads) using the display controls, and then all the things (actions, mostly) that you can do with then become visible.

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F.5. Hints on getting started with PSR/Tyros

Depress Exit repeatedly to get back to the main (top level) menu.

To do any action (load, save, etc), first select the Object of the action (style, Multi pad etc) on the Main menu. Pick the actions from the screen options.

Always save a registration after you set it, otherwise it will be lost when you turn off the instrument or load another registration.

Depress Mixing Console repeatedly to cycle between Style, Panel and Song. You have to use Song or Style Creator to save any changes made in Mixing Console to a song or style.

To record a song, depress Rec & Top together and then Rec and Then Play. To stop recording, depress Stop and Rec again. The easiest way to save a song you just recorded is to press Rec & Top together.

By default, changing styles will cause the split point and fingering mode to change. (Click Direct Access & Accompaniment to modify). To prevent this, go to Function/Utility/Config 1/Parameter Lock and place a checkmark beside Split Point and Fingering.

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F.6. How can I keep keyboard settings (e.g. split point) from changing?

Depress Function/Utility/ Config 1 and scroll down to Parameter Lock. In Tyros, there are settings for:

· Fingering type

· Split Point

· Master Eq (the only one that is on by default, I am not sure why)

· Reverb Type

· Rev+ Chorus + DSP return level

· Mic settings

Checking these boxes means that the only way that they are changed is manually via the menus. No longer will changing styles switch the split point, fingering, etc! Caution: the lock setting applies to changes that might be made by Registrations. If you want the Registration to change DSP settings, be sure to leave it unlocked.

The PSR-2000 has fewer entries (and does not have some of the annoying changes either).

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F.7. My Tyros is acting strangely. What could be wrong?

After effect from midi Songs There are many midi songs available on the net and from commercial suppliers that have been tailored for specific sound cards or instruments. These may contain effect, lyric and control commands which can confuse Yamaha instruments or leave them in a strange state. To correct, restart the instrument by turning the power off and on. If this does not work, do a system reset by holding down the top most white key why turning on the power.

The program MidiPlayer automatically eliminates problem midi events. If you play midis using MidiPlayer, or process the file in the program (open then save), most of these problems will be eliminated.

Interaction with open computer programs. This can occur if your instrument is connected to the PC via Midi, and a sequencer, Band In A Box or other program that can receive and send commands is running. For example, selecting a style on the Tyros with OTS Link Off can cause the right hand voices to changes. This happens because changing settings generates a series of midi commands that are sent to the PC, received, processed and retransmitted to the instrument. Closing the PC program or turning off the midi retransmission (called Midi Thru or Echo by some programs) eliminates the strange behavior.

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F.8. How do I check which OS is on my keyboard?

To check the Tyros OS version:

1) Depress Function /Utility /Owner tab

2) Hold down the Owner Name button for 5 seconds and then the OS version will appear.

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F.9. Pausing the instrument accompaniment in Tyros

With Tyros, you have to be in Fingered mode in order that holding down any three adjacent keys will play just the drums alone.

If you play 4 keys, the lowest will be a bass note along with the drums. See: F.18.

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F.10. How do I access all song effects on the Tyros/PSR?

There are two types of DSPs on these instruments: 1) System, a common effect that can get input from any of the 16 midi channels based upon the amount selected by the effect slider, and 2) Insertion, an effect which is applied to a single channel only, and in a fixed amount set by the instrument (the slider is inactive)

By default, the song DSP is set to insertion DSP 1, Delay LR, Part=Off. If you want to apply an effect to just one part, depress Mixing Consol button until you get to Song 1-8 or Song 9-16, tab to Effect, depress the Type screen button, and use the screen buttons at the bottom to select a channel and the effect desired. Since the effect amount is fixed, the sliders remain grayed out. If you want to assign an effect to more that one channel, use the screen buttons to select another DSP and change the part to the new channel.

To use a system effect with a midi, in Mixing Console, tab to Effect, depress the Type screen button, and the Parameter screen button. And then you must do something that is not so obvious! Depress the Parameter button (4 or 5 at bottom of screen) until the next to last entry. You will notice that there are several "hidden" parameters, one of which selects whether the effect is System or Insertion. Change the entry to System, depress exit to go back to the Type and select an effect. When you have done this, depress Exit again and you will see that the effect sliders are now active.

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F.11. Assigning Song (Style or Voice) Buttons

There are 6 Song button on the main panel (next to the Preset Styles). You can use these to access a directory or a file directly with one button depress.

To set a target, depress Song and then the TOP of button 8 (View) to change from the direct view (10 songs only) to number input mode. Go to the file or directory that you are interested in and then depress the screen Memory button and one of the 6 Song buttons.

The numeric display shows 16 songs on a screen, and you can advance by 16 with the buttons to the right of the screen. I do not think there is any limit < 250 (I saved 56 to one folder and it was OK). You can select song by scrolling the screen 16 files at a time or directly by number.

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F.12. Description of Tyros 1 Storage

The Tyros has several storage areas for user files Floppy Disk, User Area and Hard Disk (optional)

Each area is subject to two limitations:

1) The Size of the media:

· Floppy: 1.4 meg

· User: 3.3.meg. If you the total of styles, songs, multipads, and registrations exceed this amount, you will get an error message. The User area (along with the Preset area) is displayed differently than the other storage medias: The type of file you see is determined by the screen button you pushed. For example, if you push the style button, the only file you see will be styles. With a hard disk directory, all the files (styles, midis, multipads, etc will display). This matters because if you want to delete things to make room, you may have to the other types to see what is filling it up.

· Hard Disk: The size of the disk divided by the number of partitions. 10 Gb/ 3 partitions = 3.3 Gb per partition.

2) The number of files per directory or folder, reported to be 250. This means that the top directory of a partition can have 250, each one of these can have 250, each one of these can have 250, etc.

HD_00

My Styles

Jazz

Smooth

Acid

Country

My Songs

Christmas

Wedding

Jewish

Irish

With Beer

With orange juice

When you start Tyros, all the songs, regardless of their location, are treated the same way. They stay where they are until loaded into a working area by use of the song button, Next to media and selection, or until loaded by a registration.

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F.13. How do I tell if Tyros/PSR will remember specific settings?

Consult the Parameter Chart in the manual. Items that are stored will show an “O” in the appropriate column. (The identification of this “O” was omitted in the Tyros manual).

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F.14. How do I initiate the test mode?

When your Tyros is switched off, press C#2,F2,G#2 and then turn power ON. You will now see a test screen. You can scroll through the tests using the Tempo +/- buttons. Press start/stop (style control) to start a test. To get out of this mode, switch the keyboard off and then back on again.

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F.15. How can I get Tyros to remember tempo changes?

There are two ways of changing style tempo on Tyros.

1) Load the style and use the tempo buttons to make your selection. The depress Digital Recording/ StyleCreator and then Next to the first page that gives a Save button. Click Save and go from there.

2) Load the style and go to the Digital Recording/Style Creator and change the tempo there. Then Next to a page that has Save (if it is not available) and save.

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F.16. Viewing the channels that display in the Score window

While in the SCORE window, press SET UP. You can then select whichever tracks you like for left and right channels by pressing the 1 & 2 buttons, then depress OK.

(From Will at SVPworld Forum)

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F.17. How can I determine the free hard disk space on Tyros?

Depress Styles, then next to a hard drive partition, depress View at bottom of screen and then properties

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F.18. How to trigger rhythm solo or cymbal then bass solo.

If you are in Fingered (or AI Fingered) Mode and hold three adjacent keys down with the left hand, only the rhythms part of the accompaniment will sound.

If you are holding a root note below any three adjacent notes, then a cymbal will sound and the bass part will solo.

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F.19. Why does the accompaniment occasionally play a single note base line?

This occurs when you key in a chord containing both the root and a full octave above it, for example C Chord: C E G C. The effect varies depending upon the style but usually it plays just the root. From George on SVPworld Forum.

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F.20. How can two PSR’s be set up in a Master/Slave organization?

There are two arrangements for linking two PSRs via midi:

1) Play on one PSR and use the second as a tone generator. In this case, the accompaniment and voice selection is done on the PSR that you play (Master), but the Slave generates the sound. Connect the Midi Out of the Master to the Midi In of the Slave. Set both instruments to Function/Midi/All Parts.

2) Play on one PSR (the Master) and but use the accompaniment styles and voices that are selected on the second PSR (the Slave). Connect the Midi Out of the Master to the Midi In of the Slave. Use Function/Midi All Parts and Edit to set the transmit of the Master to transmit Lower on a specific channel, e.g. 16. Set the transmit characteristics of the other channels (9-15) to Off. Set transmit clock to on. On the Slave, use Function/Midi All Parts and Edit to set root and chord recognition to the channel selected for the Lower data (e.g. 16).

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F.21. What is the difference between the fingering options?

There are seven types of fingering available on the Tyros.

1. Single Fingering If you do not have any knowledge of how to play a chord, then this is the simplest! Rather than have to use 3, 4 or more fingers to play a chord, you can use one finger to play full major chords in any key. Press any single key in the accompaniment section and get a corresponding major chord in that key. To get a minor chord e.g. Cm, ALSO press the nearest black key to the left and to get a 7th e.g. C7, ALSO press the nearest white key to the left of the main key. For a minor seventh e.g. Cm7, simply press the nearest black and white keys to the left of the main key, i.e. a total of 3 keys.

2. Fingered mode Here you can play your own chords using at least 3 fingers as you would on a piano. The keyboard recognizes most chord variations, see accompanying Tyros literature or the Tyros's on screen chord tutor.

3. Fingered on bass Basically the same as above, you play your own chords using several fingers, but the bass line in the accompaniment will take the lowest note in the chord you play as its root... this allows you to play slash chords or "on bass" chords, i.e. playing for example a C bass with an F chord by ensuring the lowest note of the chord is a C.

4. Multi Finger Probably the best choice if you do not know all chords, since you can play single finger chords AND also finger chords yourself! If you play a single key or add notes to the left as in single fingering, you get automatically generated chords. On the other hand, if you play a full chord with several fingers, the tyros will recognize it also. A combination therefore of single finger and fingered modes 1 and 2.

5. AI Fingered This one often confuses people! It's almost identical to "2. Fingered", the only difference is that unlike fingered mode, you can play less than the required 3 notes to create a chord (once you have played at least one full (complete) chord and the keyboard makes assumptions from the last chord you played on how it should complete the structure of the chord... this makes it easier to take your left hand from the keyboard to operate the accompaniment during a song. So if you played F (F A C) you could then change to Fm simply by playing F and Ab (the Tyros adds the C). Try it! It also makes it easy to walk down through chord sequences by just changing the position of one or two fingers in the accompaniment.

6. Full Keyboard Handy if you do not want the keyboard split into two! Allows you to use the entire keyboard for your selected voice, for example piano and the tyros will detect which chords you play from your left and right hands to trigger the accompaniment. Probably a good choice for pianists, but be warned as it can get confused if you don’t always play chords but melody lines on the keyboard! Also, it recognizes chords from the notes you play in your left and right hands separately.

7. AI Full Keyboard Essentially this mode is supposed to overcome the problem of using Full Keyboard mode when you don’t play chords i.e. you play single melody lines, arpeggios and other techniques in between. It is essentially a combination of full keyboard mode with AI fingering as opposed to the previous mode, which relies on a combination of fingered mode and full keyboard. So, putting that in plain English, the accompaniment is based on chord recognition from the previously played chord if your playing has less than 3 notes to identify a chord from (see AI fingered mode). Since it works according to the previous chord you play (when you don’t fully finger the next chord in your performance), it might not always suit every song.
The advantages of these last two modes (full keyboard) is that you get the entire keyboard to play on using both hands if you are a pianist, and the tyros will attempt to add an accompaniment by examining what you play. The downside is that it has to make a lot of assumptions on what you play, and those assumptions are not always correct!

If you need to ensure your chord changes in the accompaniment are always right but you don’t need to play the full keyboard with both hands as a pianist, then choose something like Fingered (if you know chords), Single Finger if you don’t know any chords, Multi Finger if you only know a few. If you want additionally to vary the bass root from the chord root note (slash chords) then try Fingered On Bass. If you want to play like a pianist with both hands and want the Tyros to add a backing, try the full fingered modes.

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F.22. How to make the PSR/Tyros play bass like an organ with a floor pedal.

To set the foot pedal, depress Function (left of screen), then Controller , select Pedal tab with the Next button (to right above screen) if necessary, then use button 1 below screen to scroll down to the Bass Hold setting. Check that the pedal polarity is as you want and that is it!

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F.23. What is the Sxyz data in the Tyros style file names?

This item, e.g. S660, in the file name specifies the icon that Tyros (and the later PSRs) uses in the display window.

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F.24. How can I determine the amount of user memory used?

With Tyros, if you select Styles, then User and then View and then Property, it will display the free area.

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F.25. Saving Mic Settings

1) Setup the instrument so that the only way Mic settings can be changed is manually, i.e. not by a song or style. To do this: Function/Utility/Config1 Tab and scroll down using buttons on left to parameter lock. Make sure that Mic (and other settings you want to 'lock' until you change them) is checked. Depress the Exit button to get back to the main menu.

This setting is saved in the Setup file that is loaded every time you start your machine. If you do a system reset, then this file will generally revert to the factory default and you will have to make the changes again or load a Setup file that you have stored with your settings. To save such a file, after making your changes go to Function/Utility/System Reset and using the buttons on the right side of screen, depress system setup, then Next to User (or HD or Floppy), then Save, and then use a new file name. Do not take the default, as it will only confuse you later. To load a file, go to Function/Utility/Reset and then Next to the location of the file and double depress the button next to the file name.

2) To set the Mic reverb setting to 0, depress Mic Settings/Talk Settings Tab and set reverb depth =0. Depress Exit repeatedly to get back to the Main menu (otherwise, the setting is not stored in the setup file!). This setting should be there until you change it or do a system reset.

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F.26. How do I save edits to the Midi Setup?

After making changes in Function/Midi/ Edit, Exit to the Midi Preset window and then Next to the User area. A save command will appear.

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F.27. How to save a chord/midi/ style setup where the chord triggers the style.

1) Depress Memory and make sure the Mic settings are set.

2) Select a midi and a style and the settings you want in the Vocal Harmony section using the Mic button.

3) Record a registration and Save the bank.

When ready to use this setup:

1) Recall the registration bank and depress the desired registration. That should bring up the style and the midi.

2) Now the un-obvious part: Depress the Vocal Harmony Mic button and then depress the registration again. This will bring up the Mic settings. I have no idea why the extra registration depress is required. But it works!

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F.28. How to turn off effects.

1) Press [FUNCTION]
2) Press [E] (Reg.Sequence/Freeze/Voice Set)
3) Press [NEXT] twice (Voice Set)
4) Uncheck ''Effect'' for <R1> or any/all voice sections (according to your needs)
5) Press the [DSP] button to turn Off DSP

Now when you change voices, the DSP will not turn on.

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F.29. How to prevent triggering accompaniment when playing a midi with chord & Vocal Harmony.

Set the accompaniment split point to C1 (lowest key). Leave the left split point where you want it. This allows playing the left and right voices along with the accompaniment triggered by XF or other chord source.

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F.30. Why does a string part sometimes play with accompaniment off?

On the Tyros, when accompaniment is turned on, but not playing, the left hand plays what sounds like a string voice. This is determined by the Stop Accompaniment being set to Fixed at Function/Utility /Style Setting. When set to Off, no sound is heard from the left hand. When set to Style, a sound derived from the style voices is heard.

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F.31. How to disable controller data when interfacing to a PC.

When you turn Local off, you disconnect the keyboard from the tone generator, so that you don't trigger notes twice. But when you're using the Mixing Console [to send setup data], you're no longer dealing with Note data, you're dealing with Control Change data. You'll need to disconnect that loop too. If you can't filter it in your software, you can set the Receive filter to ignore control changes. That will stop the problem, but of course, after you finish what you're doing with the mixing console, you'll want the control data that you've recorded to affect the Tyros, so make a note to turn it back on when you're done. (From Yamaha)

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F.32. How do I to switch off midi song channels while a song is playing?

There are two options:

1) Depress Channel On/Off then song tab and use the toggle buttons at the bottom of the screen to disable any specific channel. You cannot save this configuration.

2) Depress the Mixing Console button to the Song pages and use the slider to turn down the volume of a channel. To save this configuration, go to Digital Recording/Song Creator/ Setup and depress Execute, then Save.

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F.33. Eq settings for the PSR-2000/3000

From Gary as PsrTutorial forum: Here are the EQ settings I use on the PSR-2000 that really seems to bring out a lot of the mid and high range voices. It is particularly effective when used with the grand piano.

Through many hours of experimentation, I have found the following settings to be effective for playing large rooms, halls and outdoor jobs. In the USER1 slot, select edit, then set the "Q" control at 0.7 and the "FREQ" control at 1.8 kHz. Now adjust the EQ sliders for the Gain to the following settings: EQ1=6, EQ2=4, EQ3=4, EQ4=8 and EQ5=10. Press the "STORE1" button and your settings will then be saved to that memory location. You'll be given a chance to rename USER1 to something that might remind you of what this settings is for. Now press the [EXIT] button and you will be returned to the main "MASTER EQ" screen.

Today, I readjusted them on the 3000 to EQ1=7, EQ2=5, EQ3=4, EQ4=8, EQ5=10 and the results are a bit better, especially for the piano, guitar and sax voices.

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F.34. Using Mixing Console to set up voices for sequencer recording

When recording from the PSR to an external sequencer, Yamaha recommends using the Mixing Console to setup voices, effects, etc. Then open the midi in the sequencer and multi track record to measures after the setup commands put there by the PSR. For this to work, you must have at least some note data in the track before you edit the setup in the Mixing Console. You can not 'setup' and empty track. I ensure this by starting with a type 0 midi that I made on a sequencer with one note in each channel, 1 to 16.

After editing each track in the Mixing Console, depress Top, Open Sound Creator, depress Next to the Channel Tab, and button B to the fifth item, Setup. There you will see a list of items that can be recorded to the song any time that you depress the Execute button that is shown on the screen.

First, make sure that Voices, effects, etc are all checked, and then depress the Execute button, and it should tell you that it is recording your changes. See H.6. for more detail

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F.35. Why are the boxes in Song Creator/ Channel/ Setup sometimes grayed out?

The section is grayed out if you are not at the beginning of the midi. Hit Top and it will appear!

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F.36. How to add GM and XG voice changes using Song Creator

On the Channel page, select a measure location, hit Ins to insert an event, then scroll up and sideways to the Note field and use the data entry to change this to Prog. Then move to the right and select a midi program change number.

It also allows you to enter controller events so that you can specify XG voices. In this case, before the Prog event, create a Ctrl event with first data word to the right= 0 (MSB Bank Select) and then 0. Then another Ctrl event with the first data word =32 (LSB Bank Select) and then the Bank number that you want.

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F.37. Where is the Harmony/Echo On-Off control on the PSR-3000?

It is in the "Voice Effect", the button is at the right hand side at the end of the second row of the Voices. It also controls DSP On/Off, Sustain, Touch, and Mono/Poly.

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F.38. How to remove empty measure at the end of a recording.

This will remove bars from the end of the measure (bar) selected to the current end of the song.

1. Use FF to move to the Bar for song end.
2. Press Rec.

4. Play one note
5. Press Stop and Play together.
6. Press Stop.

Don't forget to save the song after the changes.

(Bill Grosse at PSRTutorial forum)

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F.39. How to control the vocal harmonizer with a foot pedal.

The following SysEx messages programmed into a remote midi foot controller trigger the Vocal Harmonizer on/off. This includes turning on/off the vocalizer's green status indicator light as well. (From Gary)

F0 43 10 4C 04 00 0C 7F F7 (Vocalizer off)

F0 43 10 4C 04 00 0C 40 F7 (Vocalizer ON)

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F.40. How to create Megavoices guitar effects with the keyboard.

1. Select a mega guitar voice, e.g. distortion.

2. Select 'Upper Octave +'

3. Play the highest C note for slide effect

4. Press 'transpose+' five times.

5. You will now get five different guitar effects on the upper five notes.

(Rick & Glidem on Svpworld forum)

If you want to record the effects in a Multipad, then use the Mixing Console to transpose:

E.g. Set the Distortion MegaVoice as R1.

In Mixing Console/Panel pages/Tune set the Octave for R1= +1.

You can now record the Multipad using the effects.

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F.41. How to save vocal harmony settings.

There are two possible methods: 1) Saving and recalling via Function/Utility/User Effects and 2) Saving a registration with the mic setting checked (if it alone is checked, it will not change other items and can be used for special mic effects during a performance). (Gary and Valhal)

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F.42. How can I keep my PSR from making a hissing sound?

Make sure the mic gain is turned down. Of course, if you have the master volume control cranked full blast, then you'll get that with any kb. (Scott Langholff)

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F.43. How to prevent loss of pedal and mic settings when power is turned off?

Mic and pedal settings are not be saved unless you save the information to a registration. Most of us do this and name the registration SETUP or something similar. Then, when the keyboard is first turned on, the very first thing you do is select that registration and the mic and pedal settings are recalled at the touch of a button. (travlin’easy).

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F.44. How to change transpose while a midi is playing

You can do it with the front panel Transpose rocker, but it is easy to make a mistake. Here is another way:

· Depress Memory and enable Tune/Tran; uncheck all other items

· Create a registration bank named Transpose and with button 1 = +1, button 2 = +2 , etc.

· Set Transpose Setting in Function /Controller = Master.

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F.45. My PSR is acting strangely. What did I do wrong?

Strange PSR behavior may have many causes:

Non PSR Midis If you play midis that were developed for specific sound cards, they might use some of the same commands but in different ways and thus can leave the instrument in a strange state. Good practice is for every midi to initialize all commands, but with so many possibilities, this is often impossible. It does not happen very often and a system reset is by far the quickest and most effective cure.

Custom Voices I have noticed that working with the Custom Voices can also produce unstable setups. This is not something that most of us do every day, and again, when in doubt, just do the quick system reset.

Sequencer feedback. Very often, users open a sequencer program and forget to turn off Echo at the PSR or PC. This means that commands bounce back and forth. I suspect that occasionally one side or the other corrupts one of the echoes and that can lead to a strange state. I have never been able to reproduce this behavior, but when Echo is off, my system is more stable.

Foreign files. A lot of people want to use registration files that were developed for other instruments. While this seldom creates any problems, the potential is there to set up unusual conditions. The registration file has the ability to determine almost every characteristic of a PSR. Remember that Yamaha does not release information on the definitions and when they change or how. So any converted registrations have the potential to do something unintended. I have never seen an example of this, but the potential is there.

Given its complexity, the PSR/Tyros is an exceedingly stable instrument. Mine will go for many days or even weeks. But occasionally, most times from causes unknown (including my grandchildren that think that the Tyros is some fantastic Star Wars console and push all the buttons as no engineer might never have anticipated), I have to just hold the rightmost white key while turning on the power. I would do it all the time except it resets the settings that I make in the Parameter Lock section of Function/Config 1.

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F.46. How to record just the chord events along with the right /left parts?

Do a Multi Record but only set the R-L voices to record (ch 1-4). The style chord events are sysex and will be recorded even if the channels controlled are not.

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F.47 How to Defrag the Tyros 2 Hard Drive

Tyros 2 cannot defrag the internal HD.

If you need to defrag the HD, start up in HD Storage mode ( Press MusicFinder and turn on), with your windows XP PC connected.

Select the Tyros 2 HD in My Computer and defrag from the properties command.

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F.48 How to determine when the Tyros folder sizes are near the limit

Use the program HDCheck. It will report all the file sizes and give you the option of splitting any folder into two.

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F.49. How to control Vocal Harmony?

When you turn on Tyros, the Vocal Harmony light is always lit. To make it default to "off", many users create a registration called Setup and start it every time they turn on the instrument. There a number of other settings that often are put in this registration to ensure a known state after startup.

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F.50. How to access 32 channels of midi on Tyros.

The instrument makes use of two midi ports called Midi A and Midi B. Both can support 16 channels. Midi A will transmit via USB 0-1 and the Midi A midi port. Midi B only transmits from the Midi B midi port and not USB.

At the computer, data from the instrument is accessible via Yamaha 0-1 In USB driver and the Midi A and Midi B ports(assuming you have a midi interface that installed that supports these).

You can receive data from the computer on Yamaha 0-1 USB out (midi A), Yamaha 0-2 USB out (midi B) or the Midi A and Midi B midi data ports.

I.e. you can send and receive 32 channels at once only via the midi data ports. If you use USB, you can transmit 16 channels a