Topic: Half-Time measurement in score and how to play it with Genos

[lucassus]

Hello fellows in our music world with Genos! 

It’s my first post here, but I want to share with us a little trick by me done when we have to play in example 2-4 measure in a 4-4 score measurement with a style.

To be honest I found two easy ways to play it. Probably there is also a way to edit some of the styles in DAW, export to Genos and/or play it with already recorded backing, but while I am newbie and want to do this in a simple way I would share my solution to this situation.

SOLUTION 1
First is, maybe not so elegant and desirable, to assign to pedal a Half-Time function. The best results I found for myself is to change it to Hold A mode, so it will only work while pedal would be pressed down. Manually pressing fill self exactly in the first beat of 2-4 measurement (that’s a tricky one ) will do the job.

SOLUTION 2
The more elegant and for my liking way is to do it with retrigger function.
The first step is to set a function RtgOnOff and RtgRate to knobs. Next I set style with a desired variation (A, B, C, D) to registration memory ie. reg1. Before I set reg2 I start to play a style, so the function RtgOnOff would be available to me (it is only available when a style is running). I set RtgRate to 2 and RtgOnOff to ON and memorize it in reg.2. In addition I set my pedal 2 in reg1 to change to reg.2 and in reg.2 to go back to reg.1.
This way is more elegant, while we don’t have a drum fill in that particular moment in score and in addition our measurement of style and beats of 2-4 in overall 4-4 counting is ok.

I hope that this will help someone in that huge world of music and possibilities of our Yamaha keyboards like Genos2 or other.

Best wishes, many inspirations and flexible fingers from me!

[Stijn]

Welcome to the forum 'Lucassus'.

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't this the same as the 'Style Section Reset' function, see Owner's Manual, p 46 (Tap Tempo) and Reference Manual, p 39 (Tap Tempo)

[During playback of a Style, you can rewind to the top of the section (“reset” the playback position, for stutter repeat effects)
by tapping the [TAP TEMPO] button. This is called “Style Section Reset.” ]

Stijn

[Patt22]

Hello,

You have the "Haft" on the Genos which divides a bar in two.
With "Direct Access" and "Tempo" you have the "Styles Section Reset" function which restarts the bar on any beat with the "Tempo" button And on Mfc10 .. Styles started!

Another for Genos, Tyros and ...

- Direct Access key + Syn/Stop
- Click on Syn/Stop Windows, this will open a window with notes ...
- Choose the shortest note to suit your playing ... ( to understand how it works, put in an eighth note ... ) and close.
- Important: this operation must be memorized in the registration.

- Ready to play, activate Syn/Stop ( registration or manually ) and start the style with intro as dab ... and apply the following to the place and time of your interpretation with left-hand chords ...
- Any plated chord equal to or slightly below the eighth note will cause a Style Stop ...
- Replaying a chord this early will cause a Start on the first beat, while keeping it plated for more than an eighth note, and the bar will play normally!
- If you keep the following chords plated for more than an eighth note, the Start/Stop, or rather Stop/Start, will not be triggered.
- The shorter the Stop/Start note, the better the precision and fluidity of the piece!
- Of course, the Start/Stop function can be deactivated as soon as it is no longer useful in the performance.

[lucassus]

Thank you for your great tips!
I just forgot about that function and had tested it today. Works great 👍 It really helps me in this half-time measurements and makes song registrations easier to do and use while playing 👌🙂

To be clear and precise for those who don’t know, in Genos we have an opportunity to set Tempo Tap/Reset to one of the pedals. This “tap” should be done exactly on “three”, to reset it on “one” in the example above. In that situation we often have to change chord, so simultaneous with this change tapping a pedal with this function works great 👍

[maartenb]

Not having a half-bar fill is one of the few frustrations I have with Yamaha arrangers. Other brands have had this for decades.

As a workaround, Jojosoft created a half-bar generator (thank you!), but the results are mixed.

While Reset is a great feature, I think it's barely useful for a half bar, since it's not exactly timing accurate.

In Genos there was a half-hearted attempt to offer a half-bar fill by using an extra button or pedal. It just cut the fill short.

Is this function gone in Genos2? I haven't searched for it myself yet.


Maarten

[BogdanH]

hello Maarten,
I fully agree with you: as it is now, half-bar fill on pedal isn't really usable and only serves the "keyboard has it" purpose.

Bogdan

[Fred Smith]

hello Maarten,
I fully agree with you: as it is now, half-bar fill on pedal isn't really usable and only serves the "keyboard has it" purpose.

Bogdan

OK. What would make it usable?

Cheers,
Fred

[BogdanH]

hello Fred,
In my opinion, in style creation should be an option where we could define what kind of fill-in we wish. And if we decide for half-bar, then it should actually have half the size of full bar.
Now we only have full size bar and to imitate half-bar (while playing), we need to press the pedal which then skips the first half of fill-in... and if we forget to do that, we get out of rhythm. Someone might say "hey, you need to pay attention".. well, that's poor excuse for not having a real half-bar fill-in.

The thing is, many times we have the following scenario: one pedal for increasing registration sequence and one pedal for repeating currently active variation (including fill-in). But to execute fill-in in half-bar mode, we need third pedal. Yes, it can be done by pressing on button as well, but that's not the point. The point is, to make half-bar fill-in possible, we need to pay attention on additional 3rd switch. That wouldn't be necessary if we would have real half-bar fill-in. I mean, when we play, we can already be busy enough with two pedals.

As said, is just my opinion,
Bogdan

[Fred Smith]

In my opinion, in style creation should be an option where we could define what kind of fill-in we wish. And if we decide for half-bar, then it should actually have half the size of full bar.
Now we only have full size bar and to imitate half-bar (while playing), we need to press the pedal which then skips the first half of fill-in... and if we forget to do that, we get out of rhythm. Someone might say "hey, you need to pay attention".. well, that's poor excuse for not having a real half-bar fill-in.

The thing is, many times we have the following scenario: one pedal for increasing registration sequence and one pedal for repeating currently active variation (including fill-in). But to execute fill-in in half-bar mode, we need third pedal. Yes, it can be done by pressing on button as well, but that's not the point. The point is, to make half-bar fill-in possible, we need to pay attention on additional 3rd switch. That wouldn't be necessary if we would have real half-bar fill-in. I mean, when we play, we can already be busy enough with two pedals.

A half-bar is probably the best reason to allow fills other than 1-bar long. Probably more important is to allow the half-bar fill to be stored in a registration.

The way I handle a half-bar is to use Jorgen's technique, which is to double the tempo of the fill. I can then put this in a registration, so it plays seamlessly for me while I'm sequencing through.

It's not a perfect solution, but it works for me as I don't have to change my routine, and don't risk missing the fill.

Cheers,
Fred

[Amwilburn]

Mine is similar to Fred's; what I do is change the time signature from 4/4 to 2/4, doubling the number of bars of each section first (except endings, which is usually double then - 1, you don't usually need an extra half bar at the end), so that it still plays out the same acoustically, but now my fills are all only half the original bar length (and yes, that sometimes requires me to reprogram the crescendo of the fill into the first half rather than the 2nd half)

I then save this as the same file name, but add "Half" so that I know this is the half bar version.

But doing a registration at 2x the tempo for the single half bar is actually even more elegant! (requires less programming)

Mark

[BogdanH]

Thank you for replies, Fred and Mark
Yes, there's always a workaround.. one just need to be a bit innovative 
That is, missing real half-bar isn't really a deal-breaker for me.. but it would be nice to have it.

Greetings,
Bogdan

[Patt22]

Thank you for replies, Fred and Mark
Yes, there's always a workaround.. one just need to be a bit innovative 
That is, missing real half-bar isn't really a deal-breaker for me.. but it would be nice to have it.

Greetings,
Bogdan

Reset on TapTempo is on PsrX700/900 ... page 116 for Pedal and Assignable.
The Haft Bar Fill in is on the PsrX700/900 ... page 114 for Pedal, Assignable and Rotary.

For those who don't have these functions, such as Tyros and older Psr models, there's the Syn/Stop solution, programmable as in the previous message.
With practice and dexterity you'll get the hang of it, and the registrations are there if possible.
These 3 solutions amply cover my needs, are very easy to access and very reliable ... it's all a question of "just in time", and you have to work at it...