Organ sounds severe limitation

[Rich Z]

Hi Rich --

I watched your demo video and actually read your on-screen comments.  A few thoughts...

The JS organ voices are really old. Some of these voices were first introduced in Tyros 3 (2008), "WhiterBars JS" (8/32/30), in particular. That voice is switching (or crossfading) between the WhiterBarsSlow and WhiterBarsFast samples. You can hear this by selecting WhiterBarsSlow (104/1/18) and then selecting WhiterBarsFast (104/0/18) in the Legacy voice category.

Both WhiterBarsSlow and WhiterBarsFast have the Leslie sampled in. That is, the Leslie effect is an integral sonic component of the base waveforms. If one crossfades a slow Leslie waveform and a fast Leslie waveform, ya get a swirling steaming heap of sonic rubbish.

The world and even Yamaha have moved on since 2008. However, Yamaha made a marketing mistake by featuring the JS organs so prominently. Manufacturers usually put the flagship piano voice at the top of the piano category -- it should be the same for drawbar organ voices.

Overall, I wouldn't bother with the JS voices. (Even complaining to Yamaha.) If you're speaking with a customer service rep at Yamaha, they are likely to respond, "That's the way the JS organ voices are expected to behave," i.e., it's not a bug; Move along, nothing to see here.

It's better to pressure Yamaha to improve the Organ Flutes engine and the rotary speaker DSP effect. They invested in the YC61 organ technology. I'd like to see an improved version of that YC technology in Genos.

I'm glad that you have passion about this issue and are raising issues with Yamaha.

All the best -- pj

Thank you.

Yes, my presumption is that the best voices would be the ones prominently displayed on the first page of the group. They would be the ones most often selected, IMHO, when I go looking for a good organ voice. I know they were the first ones I tried, and honestly, had I been at a store looking at a Genos, and with a lot of experience playing Hammond style organs, I would most likely have just passed on looking and further at the Genos and moved on to looking at something else. This could be a marketing issue that they really should address.  But honestly, it is quite discouraging to learn that this problem has been long ongoing without having been addressed long ago.  So I suspect it never will be.

As for actually playing the Genos, yeah, I can just choose to NOT select any of those JS organ voices when I want to use one, but I have noticed that in many (most?) of the styles I have been looking at that have an organ sound as one of the upper key choices, they have chosen to use one of those God awful JS organ voices.  I haven't noticed this so much in the actual style itself, and I guess I would be interested to hear that by pressing the rotary selection button if that affects the style organ voice too. Sorry, but the Genos is a big gulp to swallow and I am trying to figure things out as quickly as available time allows.  Yeah, I am retired, but Lord only knows where the time goes.  I don't know how I got anything at all done when I used to have a daytime job. But then again, just making a post like this might take me an hour or so. 

As for Yamaha, after generating the video and sending the YouTube link to them, as well as a link to this thread here, I haven't heard a peep out of them.  So it is possible that they are going into "ostrich" mode about it, I guess.  Quite probably someone up the chain of command just said "Oh, THAT complaint again?  Just ignore it and they will eventually go away."  IMHO.

[MadrasGiaguari]

Dear Rich,

a decent Leslie simulator must be a big problem to solve for manufacturers. I had many Korg flagships, and the organs sound and effects was just the same as Genos: many JS sounds (without ramp up/down), poor drawbars sound, awful Leslie simulator.

Korg and Yamaha programmers have professional habit with organ and Leslie sounds. Therefore they PERFECTLY KNOW the enormous limits of their organ setup, even better than us. But the fact that both companies, the best for arrangers IMHO, have not been able so far to develop a good result in this area shows that there must be some obstacles that we cannot understand.
I want to say that they know exactly the problem and don't need to get our complaints to discover it.....

In the mean time, as I showed in the short video I posted, other company, like Hammond Suzuki, have been able to produce a much better Leslie effect, and do not use at all funny stratagems like the JS voices. Other company, like Neo Vent for instance, make just the Leslie effect, that's very effective (still a simulation.... but decent).

The question is: are Yamaha engineers working on this item? I guess the only way to find out is to wait for the next generation of arrangers. May be....

Ciao

Angelo

[pjd]

Yes, my presumption is that the best voices would be the ones prominently displayed on the first page of the group.

Yeah, I am retired, but Lord only knows where the time goes.  I don't know how I got anything at all done when I used to have a daytime job. But then again, just making a post like this might take me an hour or so. 

Hi Rich --

Thanks for reading through all of that. As to the time -- I'm retired, too, and amen! 

As to prominent voices, Yamaha arranger marketing seems to have this fetish about "Super Articulation." Yes, the SArt and SArt2 sax voices are great. (Love 'em.) But, not every SArt is the best and wonderful, i.e., the JS organ voices.

Some marketing guy problem told the developers to put SArt at the top of the list. El-wrong in this particular case.

Hey, hey, keep having fun -- pj

[pjd]

I tried to reproduce the Korg Module gospel organ on Genos. Some wins, some losses. Here's my short list of issues:

• Vibrato only; no chorus (e.g., C-3)
• Hammond vibrato/chorus scanner not simulated
• No key click
• No rotor noise
• No leakage
• Cannot access all DSP parameters including rotor ramp time (REAL ROTARY)
• Only one insert effect; cannot chain with amp simulation
• Volume control is post-effect; pedal should affect pre-amp overdrive

If you would like to read a longer analysis, please see:

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/critique-genos-drawbar-organ/

There are also a few old blog posts worth checking, too:

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/genos-needed-dsp-improvements/
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/genospsr-organ-registrations/
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/yamaha-modx-gospel-organ/

Best to everyone -- pj

[Lee Batchelor]

Interesting, guys. I'm learning the songs for this new R&B band that hired me. I have listened to the guy I'm replacing. He plays a Roland synth made in 2012, in mono through a keyboard amp. I'm running my Genos in stereo through two Bose Compacts, which blow away any keyboard amp in mono. The old Roland organs make the Genos ones sound pretty poor. I can get by with the Genos ones but I really wish the Genos had more of a Hammond sound.

Did someone post a link to good custom B3 sounds that could be loaded into the Genos through the dreaded YEM software?

[Rich Z]

Dear Rich,

a decent Leslie simulator must be a big problem to solve for manufacturers. I had many Korg flagships, and the organs sound and effects was just the same as Genos: many JS sounds (without ramp up/down), poor drawbars sound, awful Leslie simulator.

Korg and Yamaha programmers have professional habit with organ and Leslie sounds. Therefore they PERFECTLY KNOW the enormous limits of their organ setup, even better than us. But the fact that both companies, the best for arrangers IMHO, have not been able so far to develop a good result in this area shows that there must be some obstacles that we cannot understand.
I want to say that they know exactly the problem and don't need to get our complaints to discover it.....

In the mean time, as I showed in the short video I posted, other company, like Hammond Suzuki, have been able to produce a much better Leslie effect, and do not use at all funny stratagems like the JS voices. Other company, like Neo Vent for instance, make just the Leslie effect, that's very effective (still a simulation.... but decent).

The question is: are Yamaha engineers working on this item? I guess the only way to find out is to wait for the next generation of arrangers. May be....

Ciao

Angelo

Actually, in the video that I created and provided the YouTube link to earlier, I actually tried my Korg Kronos and my Kurzweil PC3 with their organ sounds and Leslie emulations, and they were decent enough for practical use. Far, FAR better than what Yamaha has provided with those JS organ sounds.  And even more telling, the OrganFlute voices on the Genos have a pretty passable Leslie emulation too. It doesn't need to be perfect, at least for most people I guess, but it SHOULD be a lot better than what those JS Organ voices are able to muster. Yamaha obviously has the capability to fix those JS organ sounds, and I honestly can't comprehend anyone thinking they were suitable enough to use "as is", so why Yamaha hasn't addressed and fixed this issue just escapes my comprehension.  I guess I need to send them another nag-o-gram. If Yamaha thinks I will go away easily, they have another think coming.  I can be one hell of a squeaky hinge when the circumstances warrant it.

Anyway, at the very least I would like to be able to remove those JS organ voices and just replace them all with something using the same JS names that the styles would use as replacements whereby the Leslie emulation wouldn't just make my skin crawl.

Out of curiosity, does anyone here really like and use those JS Organ voices and prefer they stay as they are if given a choice?

So can those preset JS organ voices be edited in any way?  Or are they burned into Genos concrete? And if they can be edited, can that Leslie emulation on them be repaired?

I was trying my hand at setting up some files in the EXPANSION section of the Genos, and in testing, I used some styles that had one or more upper voices the Hammond style organs.  Of course I tried the Rotary switch button, and yeah, they were obviously the JS organ voices.  I did find one style that had an organ voice in the backing track, and I tried but was not able to get the rotary switch button to have any effect on them.  I guess I was surprised.  Playing something like A White Shade of Pale and only having the upper keys responding to that Leslie effect but not the backing organ chords in the style would just sound awful, IMHO.

[Rich Z]

Interesting, guys. I'm learning the songs for this new R&B band that hired me. I have listened to the guy I'm replacing. He plays a Roland synth made in 2012, in mono through a keyboard amp. I'm running my Genos in stereo through two Bose Compacts, which blow away any keyboard amp in mono. The old Roland organs make the Genos ones sound pretty poor. I can get by with the Genos ones but I really wish the Genos had more of a Hammond sound.

Did someone post a link to good custom B3 sounds that could be loaded into the Genos through the dreaded YEM software?

FYI, I just loaded up that YEM app today and got my Genos talking to my PC via wireless.  It was all relatively painless, IMHO.  I loaded up a batch of packs, told it to target the Genos, and then had them all packaged and sent to the Genos at the click of a button while I just sat back and twiddled my thumbs.  Took about 20 minutes, all total.

Easy peasy...

[Lee Batchelor]

That's good to hear, Rich. I hope it's as easy for me. One of the worst words a technical writer can use when he or she is writing a set of instructions is, simply. What is simple for one, is a royal nightmare for someone else.

[pjd]

So can those preset JS organ voices be edited in any way?  Or are they burned into Genos concrete? And if they can be edited, can that Leslie emulation on them be repaired?

Hi Rich --

Since the JS organ voices are Super Articulation, they cannot be edited by YEM. Yes, they are fixed in concrete.

As I mentioned earlier, none of the JS organ voices use the rotary speaker DSP effect. The Leslie speaker is recorded into the base waveforms, AKA "the samples." Essentially, fixed in concrete.

Just because the front panel button is labelled "Rotary SP", it does not mean that it invokes the rotary speaker DSP effect, which is dynamic (ramps up/down, etc.) The button is just a control button and in the JS case, the button selects either the slow rotary sample or the fast rotary sample.

Hope this helps -- pj

P.S. Please feel free to send my links to Yamaha. My criticism identifies what needs to be added and fixed.

[pjd]

Did someone post a link to good custom B3 sounds that could be loaded into the Genos through the dreaded YEM software?

Hi Lee --

I have the Easy Sounds "Organ Session" pack installed. "Organ Session" uses the in-built rotary speaker DSP effect. The pack contains new drawbar (individual and frequently used combinations) and percussion samples.

Easy Sounds also offers "Live Organ." The "Live Organ" pack has new samples, too, but the Leslie effect is recorded into the samples. I don't have any experience with "Live Organ" and chose "Organ Session" because it employs the DSP effect (which is tweakable).

Hope this helps -- pj

https://easysoundsshop.de/en/yamaha-electronic-keyboards/yamaha-genos/7/genos-organ-session-download

[Lee Batchelor]

Many thanks, PJ. I now remember seeing your post on this. I'll look into these.

Do you hear a substantial difference between the Organ Session samples and the Genos Organ Flutes with DSP?

[pjd]

Do you hear a substantial difference between the Organ Session samples and the Genos Organ Flutes with DSP?

Hi Lee --

Well, both Organ Session and Organ Flutes depend on the same rotary speaker DSP effects. Of course, Organ Session chooses the specific rotary speaker set-up in accord with its sound designer (Peter Krishker).

I just spent some time comparing A/B. I tried to take effects out of the comparison -- no reverb, same rotary speaker preset. I also tried to use the same drawbar registration, e.g., first three bars out.

Thus, the comparison comes down to the qualities of the Yamaha drawbars vs. the Organ Session drawbars. The difference is subtle. I would call the Genos drawbars cleaner than Organ Session. The Organ Session samples have a hint of overdrive and grit. It's like Yamaha recorded the samples direct while Organ Session mic'd a Leslie cabinet with the motors stopped. Organ Session is a little gutsier.

So, the big question -- Does Organ Session change my life?  I would say, "No." Organ Session is inexpensive enough, that I don't regret the purchase. I wish Organ Session had samples with C-3 -- none of the patch names suggest C-3. That would be a genuine addition to Genos which doesn't simulate the Hammond chorus/vibrato scanner. Would be great for gospel.

Would be interesting to compare against "Live Organ."

Gave old Lester K a listen, too. It's more than "Organ Session," but it might be a more lively alternative. Decisions, decisions. Lester K would be one more piece to take to the gig...

Hope this helps -- pj

[Lee Batchelor]

Great help, PJD. I appreciate your time and effort. I'm still considering a Lester G. (I rejected the Lester K because you can't control the acceleration parameter. Why is beyond me.)

I'm also toying with the idea of moving my Bose L1 Compacts that have served me well for 9 years. I'm looking at two new Bose L1 Pro 8s. They have a stronger midrange response and more power. The bass driver is more robust as well. They could be a game changer for better B3 sounds from the Genos. Thanks again.

[MadrasGiaguari]

Dear Lee,

before purchasing Lester, I would suggest to consider Neo Instruments Ventilator II (Ventilator 2), that is much better on the high octaves (or/and with highest drawbars). Lester is ok, but on the treble organ sounds makes more a Vibrato than a real Leslie.

Here an interesting demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxF_MkTWQYE

Ciao

Angelo

[Lee Batchelor]

Thanks, Angelo. I'll look at the video .

[Rich Z]

Hi Lee --

I have the Easy Sounds "Organ Session" pack installed. "Organ Session" uses the in-built rotary speaker DSP effect. The pack contains new drawbar (individual and frequently used combinations) and percussion samples.

Easy Sounds also offers "Live Organ." The "Live Organ" pack has new samples, too, but the Leslie effect is recorded into the samples. I don't have any experience with "Live Organ" and chose "Organ Session" because it employs the DSP effect (which is tweakable).

Hope this helps -- pj

https://easysoundsshop.de/en/yamaha-electronic-keyboards/yamaha-genos/7/genos-organ-session-download

I've been listening this "Organ Session" offering, and I really like what I hear. I am using headphones and it appears to use a panning technique for the rotary effect, which is quite nice. What is interesting is that the Leslie tone cabinet ALWAYS has the speakers rotating, and they are never stopped when powered up. They are either slowly rotating, or at a faster speed when called upon. The panning effect seems to emulate what your ears hear from a real Leslie with that upper speaker basically transmitting the sound at one ear and then the other to produce a rotation effect.  I didn't really care much for the "Live Organ" offering.  Seemed like too abrupt of a transition between the slow speed and high speed rotation.

Unfortunately the website is in German, so I can't make heads nor tails out of what they are describing there. I have been looking for a link for an English translation, but so far haven't found it.  I would like to purchase it if I knew exactly what I would be purchasing.  Does this have to be installed via YEM?  I am assuming the install instructions would be in German too, so that wouldn't help me much. 

Anyone see a link to an English translation on that site so I could place an order if this seems like what I want? 

[Rich Z]

Ah! I found that little button for the English translation!!

[Rich Z]

BTW, this is quite nice! -> https://easysoundsshop.de/en/kapro/164/kapro-legendary-tonewheel-organ-download

[Lee Batchelor]

Yes, very impressive Rich. Sadly, they don't offer many demo tracks. What they do offer does sounds more grainy and authentic than the Genos samples.

[Rich Z]

Arghh, I'm not sure about buying from that EasySoundsShop place.  They are charging everyone that VAT tax regardless of whether the purchasers are required to pay it or not. Sort of feel like they are gouging us customers who don't need to pay it.  Sort of rubs me the wrong way, to be honest.  I might get over it, or I might not.

[Joe H]

Buyers in the US don't pay the VAT... only those in Europe pay.  If in doubt, contact them to confirm.

Joe H

[Rich Z]

I was in doubt, since all of their prices indicate "Prices incl. VAT"

So I asked: "Since I am located in the USA, do you provide prices minus the VAT for a purchase I am considering? I believe I am not liable for that tax in the USA."

And they replied: "We decided to build our pricing based on a mixed calculation with the goal that every customer around the world pays the same price."

Just rubs me the wrong way. I guess I just recoil from the idea of paying any tax I am really not legally obligated to do so and some company wants to charge it to me anyway. Just me, I suppose.

So I have to decide whether I can live without their products or not. It is bad enough that I would have to spend my money to correct a deficiency in a Yamaha product, but this VAT thing is akin to rubbing salt in a wound, IMHO.

[Lee Batchelor]

And they replied: "We decided to build our pricing based on a mixed calculation with the goal that every customer around the world pays the same price."

That is shady. We have a similar tax in Canada called HST. It is 13%. I believe that when a visitor to our country makes a purchase, they receive a rebate for the tax. I don't know how this company can accurately calculate their prices so that everyone is treated fairly. There are just too many tax structures around the world to make this fair for everyone.

[Joe H]

It sounds like Easy Sounds has changed their pricing policy.  I have bought several packs from them in the past and wasn't charged the VAT.



Joe H

[Lee Batchelor]

Agreed, Joe. I too have bought products out of the U.K. and were never charged the VAT. It sounds like the old shell game to me.

[EileenL]

Have you tried any of these Lee

https://www.cms-sounddesign.com/freeware/organ-freeware/

[Lee Batchelor]

No I haven't Eileen. I shall. Many thanks!

[Joe H]

It sounds like Easy Sounds has changed their pricing policy.  I have bought several packs from them in the past and wasn't charged the VAT.



Joe H

I sent an email to Hans.  He gave a reasonable explanation. Since their packs are strictly a download, he explained that some people in Europe claimed to be in another part of the world/country to get around the VAT.  So they had to implement the new policy of charging everyone the same price that includes the VAT.

There are "cheaters" everywhere!



Joe H

[Bill]

I think there is possibly some misunderstanding here.

If someone lists the UK or EU  they are entitled to purchase items without paying the VAT (providing they show their passport).  However they will need to declare the item when returning to their home country.

Purchases ONLINE are different - the seller is expected to charge the appropriate TAX for the purchaser's country.  For many small sellers this is quite difficult to work out what rate to apply.  The use of a VPN (to evade paying the appraise tax) is making things even more difficult for sellers to stay inboard to the law.

Bill

[Lee Batchelor]

Have you tried any of these Lee
https://www.cms-sounddesign.com/freeware/organ-freeware/

Hi Eileen. I downloaded an organ voice. It is a .ppf file format. Do I use the YEM software to install this on my Genos? If so, which version do you recommend? I believe some are having major issues with the newest version. Thanks.