Topic: Genos keys touch question

[Strideplayer]

Hi,
I have yet to find a Genos to try out.  Question - if I would play a Genos keyboard as a piano will the sounds produced be always the same loudness regardless of touch or will the sound conform to how hard or soft I play the keys? Like I would on a regular piano.
Thanks,
Strideplayer

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi Strideplayer,

The keys are touch sensitive. The volume is louder when you strike the keys harder and vice-versa. You can also set the touch sensitivity. If you tend to be a heavy hitter, you can tame the keys to not respond so loud. Conversely, if you have a light touch, you can set the keys to respond louder.

[Michael Trigoboff]

The keys are actually velocity sensitive. There is a switch thrown when you initially hit the key, and another when the key hits bottom. The time interval between these two events is used as a proxy for how hard you hit the key; the shorter the interval, the louder the sound, and vice versa.

The difference between velocity sensitive and true touch sensitive (like on an acoustic piano) is not perceptible to me, but it might be to other players.

[acparker]

I'd also like to point out that the Genos has after-touch, as well.  Pressing harder or lighter after the note has been struck allows for nuance in playing wind instruments, etc.

Adam

[mikf]

Hi,
……. will the sound conform to how hard or soft I play the keys? Like I would on a regular piano.

As said above, you can control loudness via your touch, albeit the method via velocity sensing. You will be able to control it. But to say it’s like a regular acoustic piano would be a stretch. Even my CVP which is miles better than the Genos in key feel, does not feel like a real piano. The lever - string - felt hammer feel of a real piano is so unique.
Mike

[pjd]

I agree with Mike.

I play Genos at home and occasionally need to sub for our pianist at church. The church has a Petrof acoustic grand piano.

Genos is so far away from the experience (demands) of playing the Petrof that I'm trying different Yamaha digital pianos. My goal is to find one that helps me with the transition to the acoustic grand. Even then, no way it's like playing the acoustic grand. 

Yamaha is rolling out digital pianos like the CSP and CVP series which have many auto-accompaniment and arranger-like features. You'll have a better piano experience with those instruments although one does give up all the bells and whistles of Genos. The $$$ outlay for Genos already puts a customer into CSP and CVP territory. The CSP/CVP support half-pedaling, VRM, and other features to improve expression. Genos, no.

A few thoughts -- pj

[pjd]

Oh, just a general observation...

Yamaha seems to be updating all of its digital musical instrument product lines. I wouldn't be surprised if Genos get a major overhaul (possibly a new model) this Fall.

Might be worth waiting until October or November -- once manufacturers announce products for the holiday season (feeding frenzy).

-- pj

[svpworld]

Genos has Yamaha's top of the line synthesiser (sprung) action keyboard, which is both velocity sensitive and features aftertouch.  Having said that the feel is very different to a digital piano action, but in my experience having played many different brands it's one of the nicest synth actions.  You can control the sensitivity in settings, albeit only 5 settings I think and not continuously variable.  I find it ok to play piano sounds with, but having just added a Roland FPX digital piano to my collection there would be no going back for playing piano!

Simon

[quadraf]

Yes, i found a curious (negative) thing about the action. When you select a sound and let play the "demo" you will hear the demo tune selected for that sound played beautifully!, but...when you want to play that same sound and try to play that melody you will never succeed to hear the same!!! this is because the demo's are played in,  with a different very well balanced keyboard wich is not the Genos!!. The sound will become out farly degraded when played on the Genos even if the sensitivity settings are set to optimal.! There is a way which how this could be resolved. If the curve of sensitivity could be grafically optimised with far more resolution, per sound!. An upgrade could do that...  Piano's could finaly be heard as they should (with feeling). Sorry for my rant.

[overover]

Yes, i found a curious (negative) thing about the action. When you select a sound and let play the "demo" you will hear the demo tune selected for that sound played beautifully!, but...when you want to play that same sound and try to play that melody you will never succeed to hear the same!!! this is because the demo's are played in,  with a different very well balanced keyboard wich is not the Genos!!. The sound will become out farly degraded when played on the Genos even if the sensitivity settings are set to optimal.! There is a way which how this could be resolved. If the curve of sensitivity could be grafically optimised with far more resolution, per sound!. An upgrade could do that...  Piano's could finaly be heard as they should (with feeling) ...

Hi quadraf,

With the standard Initial Touch setting "Normal", higher velocities are difficult to achieve. I therefore recommend using the Initial Touch Curve "Easy 2" on the Genos. In many cases this brings you much closer to the sound of the voice demos (which were obviously often recorded/programmed with higher velocities).

Please also see the attached screenshot (from page 39 of the Genos Reference Manual).


Best regards,
Chris

[andyg]

When you select a sound and let play the "demo" you will hear the demo tune selected for that sound played beautifully!, but...when you want to play that same sound and try to play that melody you will never succeed to hear the same!!! t

Having been involved in programming some demos (not for Yamaha), they were either played in and then heavily edited on computer or created entirely on the computer. The idea is simply to show off the voice, voices or whatever, at their best. So you have access to 128 levels of velocity etc. Of course there may not be 128 levels of tone available! Some of the more complex demos were multi-tracked, not using any of the built in styles, which goes some way to answering the often asked question "Why can't I get it to sound like that?"

[quadraf]

Yes chris i tried al the "easy2" and many more settings (which are still to crude) but could not get satisfying results. Therefore my proposal for the high definition graphical aproach where you can shape the exact velocity curve. My deepest wish for the next upgrade or even better update! (software).

Greetings Hans

[BogdanH]

If I may add something... and by keeping in mind, that Genos's keybed is much better than on my SX700.

Initial touch setting is meant to adjust overall sensitivity that depends on how heavy hands the player has. As we know, some play very gently (as being afraid to damage the keys) and some tend to hit keys almost all the time. If we increase touch sensitivity, then we will obviously get richer sound even at moderate keys pressings. In this case however, we obviously lose a bit of lower sensitivity range and sensible quiet passages will be harder to play.

Real piano has no touch sensitivity settings -there's only one (normal) sensitivity. On keyboards, increased/decreased touch sensitivity only corrects our wrong keys hitting, to get result similar as we would hit keys normal -that's the only purpose of initial touch setting.
What I'm saying is, if we have a feeling that we can't get the right sensitivity, then there can only be two reasons:

1. We don't have good enough playing technique for chosen voice
In short, if we play a sax or harmonica, we don't hit the keys the same way as when playing piano. Obviously, we don't choose different sensitivity for each voice we play -we need to develop a proper technique.

2. Voice characteristic
Actual touch sensitivity is defined in voice itself and is expected to be defined for normal sensitivity. If we look into YEM's voice creation, we can see that there's not only touch sensitivity curve defined: each note in each layer can have different volume and sound characteristic. Means, if voice is not created perfectly, no touch sensitivity setting can correct that later. But as I said, that's not even the purpose of Initial touch setting.

Conclusion... It's up to us who to blame: lack of our playing skill, or voice creator.

PS: I hear you Mike Keybed quality also plays an enormous role in this regard. But I'm sure we all agree that's not really a problem on Genos.

Bogdan

[DerekA]

I think it would be interesting to have an applet on the menu which would let you select a velocity curve, and display the velocity being received as you repeatedly hit a note on the keyboard.

I know you can record a MIDI file an see the recorded velocities. But real-time feedback would help to understand how the selected velocity curve is interpreting your playing.

Maybe you can already do this if you're hooked up to a DAW receiving live MIDI, I don't know. But I like doing things on the keyboard itself.

[overover]

... Initial touch setting is meant to adjust overall sensitivity that depends on how heavy hands the player has. As we know, some play very gently (as being afraid to damage the keys) and some tend to hit keys almost all the time. If we increase touch sensitivity, then we will obviously get richer sound even at moderate keys pressings. In this case however, we obviously lose a bit of lower sensitivity range and sensible quiet passages will be harder to play. ...

Hi Bogdan,

The Genos (in contrast to PSR-S/SX and Tyros models) has the initial touch curve settings “Easy 1/2” in addition to “Soft 1/2”. This means, similar to the "Soft" settings, you can produce higher velocities/volumes with moderate playing strength, but still play quiet passages well. (My favorite is the "Easy 2" setting.)

Yamaha should definitely introduce the "Easy 1/2" settings (as well as at least one fully user-programmable initial touch curve) in future PSR-SX models.


Best regards,
Chris