Topic: Registration Voice Sound Volume change

[gayancc]

Hi

I have various voices with different volume levels; let's say the volume of the first voice is low, and the volume of the second voice is high. The problem arises when I switch from the first voice to the second one, as the volume of the second voice increases automatically before the volume of the first one. Is there any way to address this issue?

Edit: Topic title edited by Roger Brenizer

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi gayancc and welcome aboard.

Can you give us some specific scenarios? You may be referring to "seamless sound switching", which is something we requested for Genos 2 but never got. It's a real problem in certain scenarios. Some other companies have had it for years - not Yamaha.

[Amwilburn]

Hi gayancc and welcome aboard.

Can you give us some specific scenarios? You may be referring to "seamless sound switching", which is something we requested for Genos 2 but never got. It's a real problem in certain scenarios. Some other companies have had it for years - not Yamaha.

*Slight* correction: actually, everyone had SSS (yes even Yamaha). Right up until around 2002. Then new larger samples and DSP's arrived, and mucked that all up. In 2008 (? I think it was) Roland made it a priority again, and put SSS back into their Fantom X; Then Korg decided it was a priority, and I believe it was the PA4x (2015, but it might have been the  earlier PA3x from 2011) and they've had SSS on their arrangers since PA3x or 4x now.

Basically Yamaha has *not* had SSS since around the Tyros 1 (which is a long time) and you can still get SSS if you use the pre T1 sounds, but ideally you want it working on everything. Oh, Yamaha *did* put SSS back into their synths in 2015; but not, for some inexplicable reason, on their even higher end arrangers. (that includes the $10k+ CVP models).

But they thought it was important enough for a $3k ModX.

Yeah, I thought they were going to address it in G2 as well.

Mark

[Lee Batchelor]

Thanks for the clarification, Mark. I admit I wasn't sure of my facts. I had the right idea though. Yamaha dropped the ball on one of the MOST important features that needs to be on a $7,000 keyboard. No excuse!!!

[ton37]

I still wonder about this isue: could it be that Yamaha has to choose between their beloved and unique registration function and/or SSS? I meant that if SSS would be incorperated it has negative influence on the registration memory functions?
I haven't see on internet an comparison about these SSS effects with other brands? Besides those brands doesnot have a registration memory? I have experienced that in some situations there is a musical SSS failure when one switches from  one reg. to another. So I know how to avoid that.

[BogdanH]

I still wonder about this isue: could it be that Yamaha has to choose between their beloved and unique registration function and/or SSS? I meant that if SSS would be incorperated it has negative influence on the registration memory functions?
...

Is hard to say what exactly the reason is, but it must have historical roots. That is, the way styles internally work, it's probably impossible to correct that now -at least not without major changes, which would maybe break backward compatibility.
If I'm wrong with above, then the only other reason I can imagine is: Yamaha simply doesn't care about that, by thinking "is good enough as it is for our targeting customers".

Just my 2c,
Bogdan

[ton37]

Is hard to say what exactly the reason is, but it must have historical roots. That is, the way styles internally work, it's probably impossible to correct that now -at least not without major changes, which would maybe break backward compatibility.
......

Just my 2c,
Bogdan

Mmm.. only your selected quoted comment makes some sense, allthought I wonder if backwards compatibility could be the main reason?? Guess there is an 'technical' reason for? (or just simple: SSS=$$$  ?) But I am especially, as most of the comments refer to other brands,  interested in how SSS is properly integrated into another keyboard (brand). I can't find any examples of it on the internet (accordingly to SSS I mean)? You will find examples (but I have also discovered them myself and try to avoid it) where it causes problems with the Yamaha (Genos, etc.). And mostly especially via the stored Registration Memories.

[Lee Batchelor]

Great discussion. I find there are two issues with not having SSS.

(1) The sudden velocity changes are a real problem In certain cases on stage, a lack of SSS makes the song impossible to play without knocking the ear drums out of your listeners. It's been suggested that we lift our hands off the keys to stop triggering the MIDI notes. That is very difficult to remember when playing a song that is complex and is often totally unnatural for a piano player to do. Plus, I'm a musician, not an "on the fly" software tech. That's Yamaha's job to fix that on such an expensive keyboard.

(2) A lack of SSS suppresses fills I often use a new Registration button to bring up a part for a solo. For example, I'll be playing the song with the B variation stored in Reg 1. I'll copy Reg 1 to Reg 2, and then change Reg 2 to play variation C with a fill first. When switching from B to C, the fill is often partially cut off or not there at all. The CPU just can't seem to support that simple transition.

I don't remember ever having these two issues on my Tyros keyboards. I have no doubt that Yamaha could have fixed this on Genos 2. They didn't. It's for this reason and a few others I decided to stay with Genos 1. There are just too many things Yamaha didn't improve to make it financially worthwhile.

Darn...I slipped off topic again 🤣! What was the question?

[ton37]

Thanks @Lee you for the explanation.
At point (2)SSS: That's something I had already discovered, but it's good that you summarized it. But that is also the case with the Genos/SX series. The special thing about it is that SSS is present in the Yamaha MODX8+. My simple translation of this is: more polyphony must be temporarily released to allow the sound to continue for a while. And as far as I know the MODX does not work with Registration Memories. So I wonder if, that is a reason that it could not be done 'technically' (otherwise it could be made possible via an update). As the amount of polyphony is present in the Genos2.

[Lee Batchelor]

Thanks Ton. Perhaps there is a technical reason why it can't be done. And to be honest, very few of our listeners at concerts can hear the glitch - at least I think they don't. A seasoned musician in the audience would pick it out but they rarely show up at such venues.

The only work around I can think of is to pre-score the song in a DAW and play it back over the Audio player in the Genos. Then, we can have our cake and eat it 🎂.

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi

I have various voices with different volume levels; let's say the volume of the first voice is low, and the volume of the second voice is high. The problem arises when I switch from the first voice to the second one, as the volume of the second voice increases automatically before the volume of the first one. Is there any way to address this issue?

Edit: Topic title edited by Roger Brenizer

Gayancc, please feel free to contribute to your post. At the moment, we are all making HUGE assumptions about what your actual problem involves, which is (or may not be) Seamless Sound Switching. It could be something else that is easy to fix. You're among friends and the only experts on the planet, other than Yamaha themselves 😀. Talk to us 👍.

[DrakeM]

I thought the original post was regarding the different volumes set up in his OTS.

That is easy to fix using the keyboard's style creator program with this page of instructions.

https://www.psrtutorial.com/lessons/start/s55_ots.html

You really ought to set up each song you play as a custom style and set the whole thing up for your song. That way there is no incorrect volumes anywhere during the performance. Spend the time and set the style up and Song name it as a Custom song style.

[pjd]

Registrations and SSS are separate, unrelated concepts.

SSS is not a polyphony issue per se. It has to do with the way the tone generation hardware pipeline synthesizes sounds and applies effects. In roughly the Motif XS time-frame (2007, SWP51), Yamaha found a way to decrease the time it takes to generate a tone and apply an effect to the tone. We hear the decrease as reduced latency from keystroke to the first outgoing sample. They accomplished this feat by starting synthesis in one pipeline stage (TG) and completing synthesis while applying the effect:

       Note -->  TG stage  -->  Effect stage  -->  Sample stream to the DAC

My understanding is, the effect and filtering are applied at the same time. (This stuff is patented, BTW.)

So, there are plenty of TG stage "channels" (256 AWM2 channels in SWP70). The Effect stage hardware, DSP, is far more limited. Note processing must pass through both TG stage and the Effect stage to be heard. To have SSS, both the TG stage and Effect stage processing must be kept alive in order to let the original notes sustain and complete.

The SSS requirements in Montage/MODX effectively force the voice programmer to pre-reserve the TG and Effect (DSP) hardware resources required for the new voice.

Yeah, this is very nerdy and geeky. Yamaha's hardware is faaaaaaaaaar more complicated than most people imagine. 

If this doesn't make sense, sleep well tonight. Somebody in Hamamatsu knows how it works. 

All the best -- pj

[ton37]

Oh boy, this is way, way over my head @pjd. I expected it to be a technically difficult matter, so I think it would be wise to leave it to those who know about it. In any case, thanks for your response. I'm just going to play again without having to worry about it .. 

[Lee Batchelor]

I thought the original post was regarding the different volumes set up in his OTS.

That is easy to fix using the keyboard's style creator program with this page of instructions.

https://www.psrtutorial.com/lessons/start/s55_ots.html

You really ought to set up each song you play as a custom style and set the whole thing up for your song. That way there is no incorrect volumes anywhere during the performance. Spend the time and set the style up and Song name it as a Custom song style.

Agreed Drake but we still have no idea what the EXACT problem is. It could be one of several. The OP needs to communicate with us. Until then, I'm finished contributing.

[Amwilburn]

Thanks for the clarification, Mark. I admit I wasn't sure of my facts. I had the right idea though. Yamaha dropped the ball on one of the MOST important features that needs to be on a $7,000 keyboard. No excuse!!!

Yup, unfortunately

*facepalm Yamaha*

PJ, true that SSS and registrations don't have anything to with each other (and in fact you can get bad sound switches using OTS, as mentioned by Drake) but it's the OTS and Registrations that makes it really an issue; if you had to stop playing a key so you can quickly use your right hand to select another voice /patch /instrument, you'd be forced to briefly let go of the key, thus eliminating the vast majority of SSS glitches present.

Yamaha *has* SSS on Montage and MODX; and yup, it's not purely about polyphony. The Roland guys explained it pretty well back with the FAntom X launch: they had to double the number of DSP's so that they could hold the old voice, and maintain the old DSP, then switch to the new patch, with a new DSP, independently.

It also has to do with how much memory a sample takes vs the available buffer (think of blitting in computer graphics, where you 'render' 1 frame to a buffer and when it's done, you quickly copy it in one go to the screen buffer (or, even faster, simply switch the pointer of the screen buffer to the now completed frame in the video buffer! But I digress)

In other words, large samples and DSPs caused the voice change glitches (and yes, they've been present since Tyros 1. Technically even before, as I found a lack of SSS on CVP200 series as well). The Genos and Genos 2 have 28 dsps + Rev and Chorus (vs only 4 on some of the older models) which should be enough!

But Yamaha added more to this by also adjusting the sample playback volume for each voice! (go look at voice edit when you're changing voices with OTS or registrations, you'll see a different sample playback volume for each voice!). Which means the only way to get SSS on a modern Yamaha arranger is to either use the old voices (GM/XG) or they needed double the claimed polyphony so that one tone generator (and 1 dsp) could keep playing the original note and a new tone generator and newly assigned DSP could then take over with the new voice.

OR code each voice /dsp yourself to account for hiccups, which shouldn't be on us.


The irony is very rarely on a workstation or synth do you hold a note while changing to a new sound (which of course, is where Yamaha does have it working). But it happens quite often on arrangers!

Mark

[Lee Batchelor]

Thanks for the explanation, Mark. I must give that a try.

The problem is, I often play run up phrases to the solo while the drums are filling in (the C fill in) - a little habit I learned having played in numerous bands for 34 years, and hence can't "lay off" the keys as Yamaha would have me do. Nevertheless, I'll try skipping the run up phrase and use my right hand to press the next Reg button instead.

It becomes a case of the "the lesser of two evils." Give up the musical phrasing that leads to a solo OR prevent my Genos from blowing peoples' brains out during a Reg change. You're right - that shouldn't be on us, when the solution seems to lie in a few dollars worth of cheap, extra memory!

[gayancc]

Hi

Thank you all for the wonderful input. i'm really sorry i was out whole weekend couldn't contribute to the conversation. And Yes SSS  "Seamless Sound Switching" is the issue sorry i didn't know exact technical word. It seems it's Yamaha Genos Software issue which Yamaha not care to fix. Thanks for the all valuable information

[Lee Batchelor]

No worries, Gayancc. Good to have you back.

I played around with various methods for preserving the levels when switching and nothing works. Lifting the hand off the Right side parts is the only way to make it work. I don't believe this is noted in any of the manuals (someone correct me if I'm wrong) because Yamaha would be admitting to a serious shortfall in their $7,000 keyboard, when cheaper models have it 🙄. The good news is, this technique works well for switching registrations, as well. It's a matter of adjusting our playing style instead of relying on technology to do the heavy lifting. After playing for decades one way and then being asked to change for the sake of a proper sound is not easy. I guess it's the only option .

[EileenL]

We all must be used to lifting our right hand when playing Brass or woodwind instruments to give the poor player time to breathe so it should not be hard when changing registrations.

[Lee Batchelor]

Very true, Eileen. Of course, not everyone plays mouth driven instruments on the right hand, all the time. It's an unnatural chore when playing B3, e.piano, and regular piano. Maybe someday we'll get SSS . Stay well!

[DaPaleRider]

Very true, Eileen. Of course, not everyone plays mouth driven instruments on the right hand, all the time. It's an unnatural chore when playing B3, e.piano, and regular piano. Maybe someday we'll get SSS . Stay well!

True. For example. When I play Main A with an organ voice and go to Main B with a fill and guitar voice, the organ sound break the moment I press on Main B. With SSS the organ sound could finish until the end of the fill.

[BogdanH]

True. For example. When I play Main A with an organ voice and go to Main B with a fill and guitar voice, the organ sound break the moment I press on Main B. With SSS the organ sound could finish until the end of the fill.

That only happens if we replace the voice on the channel that is currently in use. For example: in Main A, organ voice is assigned to R1 and in Main B guitar voice is assigned to R1 again. What happens in this case when we switch from Main A to Main B? Yes, organ voice is ditched (cut off) and guitar gets in charge -it's to be expected.

Solution is:
In Main A, organ is assigned to R1 and guitar must be assigned to R2 -and the same for Main B. Also make sure that the loudness of the same voices is equal in Main A and Main B. The only difference between Main A and Main B is, in Main A: R1 is activated, and in Main B: R2 is activated.
Now you have seamless sound transition.

Bogdan

[DaPaleRider]

Thank you Bogdan for the great tip!

[RONBO]

That only happens if we replace the voice on the channel that is currently in use. For example: in Main A, organ voice is assigned to R1 and in Main B guitar voice is assigned to R1 again. What happens in this case when we switch from Main A to Main B? Yes, organ voice is ditched (cut off) and guitar gets in charge -it's to be expected.

Solution is:
In Main A, organ is assigned to R1 and guitar must be assigned to R2 -and the same for Main B. Also make sure that the loudness of the same voices is equal in Main A and Main B. The only difference between Main A and Main B is, in Main A: R1 is activated, and in Main B: R2 is activated.
Now you have seamless sound transition.

Bogdan

I do that as well.  Works great.

Also, if you shut off OTS link and change variations you won't hear this annoying issue.
In other words keep the same voice from one variation to the next.  Just a quick way to avoid a train wreck.

Regards

Ron

[KurtAgain]

The only difference between Main A and Main B is, in Main A: R1 is activated, and in Main B: R2 is activated.
Now you have seamless sound transition.

This works because R1 and R2 usually use different DSPs. At least as long as you haven't changed the DSP assignments yourself. But then you know what you're doing (hopefully ).

[Lee Batchelor]

That only happens if we replace the voice on the channel that is currently in use. For example: in Main A, organ voice is assigned to R1 and in Main B guitar voice is assigned to R1 again. What happens in this case when we switch from Main A to Main B? Yes, organ voice is ditched (cut off) and guitar gets in charge -it's to be expected.

Solution is:
In Main A, organ is assigned to R1 and guitar must be assigned to R2 -and the same for Main B. Also make sure that the loudness of the same voices is equal in Main A and Main B. The only difference between Main A and Main B is, in Main A: R1 is activated, and in Main B: R2 is activated.
Now you have seamless sound transition.

Bogdan

That's brilliant, Bogdan. I never thought of that, obviously. Thanks.

[ton37]

An addition to @Bogdan"s workaround to avoid SSS- problems. Before switshing to the next Memory press the 《break-button》. If you analyse the vids of the Yamaha demonstrators they do this all almost automaticly. 

[BogdanH]

I must admit that I rarely use "break" button, mainly because I try to avoid pressing button while playing (unless really necessary). I guess I need to investigate more into this to see, if there are additional benefits

I would only like to summarize proper voice transitions (to avoid SSS issue)...

From what I said in my previous post, it's obvious that as long only single voice is used in each variation, we can always have seamless transition when we change variation (OTS actually). It's obvious that we can also use different voice in each variation, without loosing seamless transition.

If we use one voice in one variation and in next variation two voices are needed (or vice versa), then seamless transition is still possible (because we have three voices on disposal: R1,R2 and R3). In this case however, we can't use any new voice in following variations, without loosing seamless transition.
But that is true only if we change voices by using OTS LINK feature -because in this case voice is automatically replaced at the beginning of the variation. If we replace (but not activate) voices manually (by pressing OTS button) in the middle of variation, then we can still have seamless transition. The only downside is, that we lost one OTS button setting (because it's used only for replacing voice that's not currently in use).
But we have 10 registration buttons, so seamless transition shouldn't be a problem as long we are switching between 2-1-2 different voices.

Obviously, if we use two voices, we can't switch seamlessly to another two voices (additional R4 would be needed for that).
In short: seamless transition is only possible if the voice that we wish to replace is currently not in use (not in transition).

So... does Yamaha have SSS issue? I would say yes and no:
No, because in 95% cases SSS problem can be solved by planning carefully.
Yes, because OS should take care of that -but I guess, that is only possible if each voice channel (R1-R3) would have additional temporary (hidden) channel that would serve this purpose.

Bogdan

[andyg]

Very true, Eileen. Of course, not everyone plays mouth driven instruments on the right hand, all the time. It's an unnatural chore when playing B3, e.piano, and regular piano. Maybe someday we'll get SSS . Stay well!

I'd disagree to a certain extent. Almost ALL music should 'breathe', regardless of the instrument that's playing the melody, not just brass and woodwinds. Phrasing is so often overlooked, and that's perhaps not surprising given the amount of printed music that's devoid of phrase marks - like almost all keyboard books! I teach people how to phrase, looking at the 'shape' of the music, looking at the lyrics etc. It goes hand in hand with that other often missed out essential - dynamics! It doesn't take long to start doing it and it becomes second nature after a while.

And then, changing registrations at the end of a phrase - during the short 'lift' makes perfect sense. And that trick of putting sounds into different parts, R1, R2 etc, is also something that I get all my students to do.

Yes, there will be times when you have a big registration change involving three right hand sounds and that's where you must lift. It's not just Yamaha, I have the last of the big Roland Ateliers and that can glitch with a big change. There are work arounds for it when it happens.

[Lee Batchelor]

You're 100% right Andy. My piano teacher once told me, "Remember, rests are notes too. You just can't hear them."

I was trying to (or should have been) more specific. Pressing buttons while trying to play a lead up phrase on the right hand is not possible. You know as well as I do that solos are often preceded by introductory phrases. That was my point - and not the one on my head 🤣.

[BogdanH]

...changing registrations at the end of a phrase - during the short 'lift' makes perfect sense.
...

-absolutely.

SSS can become an issue when we can't afford to lift the key at phrase (variation) change -which can happen quite often. For example, if aloha guitar (long sustain) is used in Main A and saxophone in Main B.. when we switch to Main B, we still wish to hear guitar decaying in background (while we already hit first saxophone note). In this case we keep last guitar key pressed (until tone naturally decays) and at the same time start playing saxophone.
I think overlapping voices is needed quite often when we move from one voice to another and it can give more realistic (live playing) impression.

Bogdan

[Lee Batchelor]

100% correct, Bogdan. Chopping off notes is done at times but most of the time one instrument decays as the new instrument moves to the front of the score. Yamaha DOES NOT make this easy. They force us to be computer geeks instead of real musicians, and they could have prevented the former but simply chose not to .

[ton37]

I'd disagree to a certain extent. Almost ALL music should 'breathe', regardless of the instrument that's playing the melody, not just brass and woodwinds. Phrasing is so often overlooked, and that's perhaps not surprising given the amount of printed music that's devoid of phrase marks - like almost all keyboard books! I teach people how to phrase, looking at the 'shape' of the music, looking at the lyrics etc. It goes hand in hand with that other often missed out essential - dynamics! It doesn't take long to start doing it and it becomes second nature after a while.

And then, changing registrations at the end of a phrase - during the short 'lift' makes perfect sense. And that trick of putting sounds into different parts, R1, R2 etc, is also something that I get all my students to do.

Yes, there will be times when you have a big registration change involving three right hand sounds and that's where you must lift. It's not just Yamaha, I have the last of the big Roland Ateliers and that can glitch with a big change. There are work arounds for it when it happens.

Good point @andyg. Phrasing is often forgotten in the melody. One of the most striking examples of the frequent misuse of playing the Saxophone or the Flute by keyboard musicians (even among very experienced keyboarders!). Just pay attention to it. Sometimes it is played for minutes without any note stopping. The digital saxophonist must almost have the lungs of a whale or can be carried out of the room after playing his solo.

[DerekA]

-absolutely.

SSS can become an issue when we can't afford to lift the key at phrase (variation) change -which can happen quite often. For example, if aloha guitar (long sustain) is used in Main A and saxophone in Main B.. when we switch to Main B, we still wish to hear guitar decaying in background (while we already hit first saxophone note). In this case we keep last guitar key pressed (until tone naturally decays) and at the same time start playing saxophone.
I think overlapping voices is needed quite often when we move from one voice to another and it can give more realistic (live playing) impression.

Bogdan

If you must do this, the simplest solution is to put one voice on R1, and the other on R2. Then use the registration to switch between R1 active and R2 active. There is no glitch.

[BogdanH]

...the simplest solution is to put one voice on R1, and the other on R2. Then use the registration to switch between R1 active and R2 active....

You probably didn't read the whole thread... because that's exactly what I explained before.

Bogdan

[DerekA]

You probably didn't read the whole thread... because that's exactly what I explained before.

Yes, you're right. Sorry.

[Lee Batchelor]

Yes, you're right. Sorry.

Thanks guys. It's a brilliant idea. I never thought of that and will definitely try it.