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AWM2

This is Yamaha"s venerable PCM-playback engine, and it has grown over the years to include more and more features without changing the name. The first Yamaha keyboard to sport the moniker AWM2 was the SY77, released in 1989! So obviously the engine has progressed since then..

 

Jerry,

 

Tiny correction and not relevant to the MODX -- the SY series as Yamaha's first sample playback synths were AWM; AWM2 started with the W series.

 

(there's typos/error in their online 40th aniversary history pages and the various Wikipedia entries are incorrect)

 

Manny

 

Yup, I got my info from the 40th anniversary document, which is a great read. But many of the synth info sites also have it wrong, probably based on the Wikipedia info. Thanks for the clarification.I'll fix it in the entry itself.

 

Jerry

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Jerry,

 

Thanks a bunch for this! I'm greatly enjoying reading through this thread so far. It was sometimes a convoluted path moving those sounds, but Yamaha's tutorials were very helpful. I give credit to all their clinicians, and especially Phil "BadMister" Clendeninn - who was able to rescue me from more than a few EX5 and Motif rabbit holes between 1998 and 2008.

 

I am especially looking forward to your dive into FM-X on the MODX, since most of my explorations and limited programming have been in the AWM-2 domain. Would like to learn more about FM-X and it's inner workings. The specs and sounds so far are impressive.

 

Thanks Allan. Yes, the Yamaha clinicians are a great bunch, and I've been friends with some of them for decades now. I get a lot of insight from reading their application articles and responses to customers. Phil has been a friend for over 30 years now - he is one of the best in the biz.

 

Jerry

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as a new MODX owner, I have basic questions. If this distracts from the topic theme , let me know

 

for example...

 

The default drum volume is 120, when adding a rhythm part to a Performance

 

120 for a drum rhythm/beat is LOUD. I can't recall one instance for my music production

where default max volume on drums is needed.

 

{BTW, Kronos has similar defaults at 127}

 

anyway, is there a Global fix to lower the '120 default ' drum volume ?

 

Its extra work to level down drum sounds on each Performance.

 

'100 " would be more user friendly for drum volume.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Hi Greg:

 

I don't see any way to make a global change to that. Questions like this would be better served posted here. Many more owners, but more importantly, Yamaha staff do respond to issues.

 

Jerry

 

as a new MODX owner, I have basic questions. If this distracts from the topic theme , let me know

 

for example...

 

The default drum volume is 120, when adding a rhythm part to a Performance

 

120 for a drum rhythm/beat is LOUD. I can't recall one instance for my music production

where default max volume on drums is needed.

 

{BTW, Kronos has similar defaults at 127}

 

anyway, is there a Global fix to lower the '120 default ' drum volume ?

 

Its extra work to level down drum sounds on each Performance.

 

'100 " would be more user friendly for drum volume.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Next up is the FM-X engine. I"m going to state right up front that while I am familiar with the technical aspects of FM and can speak to the progression of Yamaha"s development of it, I do not have the decades-long practical experience and application history of using it, as I do with analog synthesis and sample-based synthesis technologies. So I can"t speak of things from that perspective. There are plenty of FM-programming experts who have long lived the walk and talk the talk. And I will point you to many articles that you can explore to take that type of deep-dive.

 

The FM-X engine in the MODX comes from Yamaha's FS-1R rack unit, first released in 1998. So much of the time users speak about the formant-shaping synthesis aspect of that product, but it was the first FM synth to introduce the features that now make up FM-X here in the MODX and the Montage. What are those features?

 

- 8 operators, up from 6 in earlier FM synths

 

- many more algorithms, or ways of combining/routing those 8 operators (88 algorithms versus 32 in the early DX models, and up to 45 in later models)

 

- a new approach to providing more waveforms than just a sine wave

 

- while there were some FM products that had a filter before the FS-1R, like the SY77/99 and W-series (even the DX-200!), the multi-mode filter in these newer models is more powerful.

 

- increased polyphony (64 for MODX, 128 for Montage)

 

Let me break a few of these down.

 

Operators and Algorithms

An Operator is a oscillator, usually though of as a tone-producing object. But if you understand FM there are two roles that an Operator can play. If it is a Carrier, it"s a tone-producing object as you might expect. A Modulator is an Operator that isn"t heard in and of itself: it is routed to a Carrier to modify its harmonic characteristics.

 

Dr. John Chowning is the 'father' of FM, and he likes to be called the discoverer of it, not the inventor, because the science behind it exists in nature, and he only discovered, explored and promoted it. For more on his discovery and history you might enjoy this recent article/interview I did with him.

 

Clonk

 

The basics of the science are that when one waveform modulates another at low frequencies it can be used to produce vibrato, tremolo, and other pitch and amplitude changes. That"s what an LFO is/does. But Chowning discovered that if the frequency is raised up into audio-rate territory the modulation starts to create timbral changes. So a simple sine wave (which has no harmonics) can be modulated to create much more complex harmonic structures. FM provides a very detailed, and controllable way to shape sound in this fashion.

 

The way you combine and route Operators to create these Modulator/Carrier relationships is called an Algorithm. And they can range from very simple basic (4 stacks of Carriers where each is modulated by a single Modulator), to various grouping of multiple Modulators feeding into a Carrier and so on. Add in the Yamaha discovery of Feedback, where the output of the modulated Carrier is then fed back into the process to increase the harmonic activity and you have a lot of possibilities. Where the original DX7 had 32 of these algorithms, it has grown over the years, and now we are given 88 to work with. This can seem very daunting to understand, but if you look at each Carrier as an oscillator producing a waveform, and the Modulators as 'parameters' that help to determine that waveform you can look at an Algorithm and at least understand how many waveforms it is going to produce, regardless of how they are made. And know that the final output of that algorithm is producing a single note of polyphony.

 

In the beginning, it took 2 Operators to produce any sort of timbral change from a Sine wave. The tuning relationship between them and the amplitude of the Modulator would define the timbre. When I said above that Yamaha discovered Feedback, it was a way of producing more timbral complexity without having to use another Operator (or group of Operators) to create additional harmonic/inharmonics, since it was just 're-using' the existing chain to get more complexity. A brilliantly efficient discovery.

 

More Than Sine Waves

Over time Yamaha explored using more than sine waves, so that you could start with something more complex to perform either role (Carrier or Modulator). Think of it this way: if you want to produce a Sawtooth wave, which has all the harmonics in the harmonic series, why spend a bunch of Operators â just start with a damn Saw wave! This way you"ve reserved more tools to do other things. Through the years Yamaha experimented with some additional waveform choices, even offering the ability to use PCM in the mix, but with the FS1R and now the MODX/Montage they have settled on a cool system. They now define that selection as a parameter called Spectral. As you might imagine, these other 'waveforms' act as a variable spectrum of harmonics, not unlike a wavetable that can offer a wide range of waveform possibilities.

 

G1flAKm.png

 

The choices are:

 

All 1 and 2: basically sawtooth waves that offer all harmonics, with slightly different ranges between the 1 and 2 choices.

 

Odd 1 and 2: basically pulse waves than only offer odd harmonics, again with different ranges each.

 

Res 1 and 2: Resonant wavetables with the range differences.

 

The All and Odd choices have another parameter called Skirt, which is how you step through, or sweep through the range of harmonics possible in each. Note that while you can sweep these 'values' there is a stepping sound when it goes to the next index. I hear 8 different choices per Spectral offering.

Note: for some, listening to these examples is only slightly more entertaining than watching paint dry!

 

7 Spectral Waves

 

All1, All2, Odd1, Odd2, Res1, Res2 w/Skirt at 64

 

All1, All2, Odd1, Odd2, Res1, Res 2 w/Skirt at 127

 

The two Res choices have one other parameter called Resonance, which like analog synthesis increases the level of the harmonics adjacent to the Skirt value, or the Cutoff of an analog filter. Again: while you can sweep both Skirt and the Resonance parameters, there is a stepping sound when it goes each index (8 for Skirt, 30 for resonance).

 

Sweeps of Res1 and Res2 at various Skirt and Resonance settings

 

To be fair, Yamaha has never claimed that these are smooth 'wavetables' meant to be swept. They are a wide range of timbral choices to be selected from. And you can sweep them, just embrace the steppy quality they offer â all"s good in love and synthesis!

 

This design gives you the ability to start with a waveform (the math works out to 512 choices) that is very definable in its harmonic content so you can produce FM results that are controllable, and the waveform timbre can be varied in an organic fashion. It makes a lot of sense to me, and gives us a system that we can understand based on analog synthesis, helping to get a lot of timbral possibilities from a basic 2-Operator, 1-Modulator/1-Carrier setup. Apply this fundamental building block to an 8-Operator design with 88 Algorithms and I know my head hurts already! But FM programming experts can benefit from this significant advancement over FM designs of the '80s and '90s.

 

In the interface of MODX I liked how Yamaha implemented an algorithm Search function, where you can define how many Carriers you want, and how many Operators are being chained to them. So you choose how many sounding building blocks you need and then can quickly find the choices based on the complexity of the associated modulation configurations.

 

7aHZdYx.jpg

 

You have an EG for the level of each Operator (with velocity mod of level with curve choices!), with Hold, Attack, Decay 1 and Decay 2 and Release stages with separate Time and Level controls, and a simpler Attack and Decay EG for each Operator"s pitch with velocity and key-tracking control.

 

FoqgQjs.png

 

At the Part level (the sum of the 8 Operators) you get additional pitch controls, including micro tuning tables that were added in OS 2.0. The filter choices are the same 18 types we looked at in AWM2, so they cover a lot of ground.

 

Without getting to far ahead of myself, since I haven"t spoken about the MODX sounds themselves, just let me say that this system is capable of a wide range of timbres, and while it can certainly produce the FM clichés that we remember/love/love to hate, it is capable of so much more. I hear plenty of sounds that are emulating analog synthesis, and just a lot of really great FM programming that reminds me this is a powerful technology. And that was just using one FM Element in a Performance. Getting ahead of myself again, with up to 8 Elements available you have a TX816 rack at your disposal, and if applied to creating a single integrated sound (as opposed to being used for multi-timbral sequencing playback) the result are impressive. We"ll come back to that.

 

The amount of modulation and movement possible with Motion Sequences, the Super Knob and a new feature called Smart Morph (which analyzes up to 4 FM sounds and then intelligently interpolates/morphs between them under your direct or modulated control) brings life to pads, synth sound effects and so many other categories of sounds. So color me impressed with how far Yamaha has taken FM, and how talented the team of sound designers was who shaped the factory sounds.

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Tbh everything prior to your last paragraph sounds like catching up to FM7/8 and presumably other FM-centric VSTs. Nothing wrong with that as I'm sure many will prefer having FM built into a hardware keyboard but with the more recent features and capabilities.

 

As always I'm going to challenge whether the hardware version has the often touted interface advantage compared to a mouse and large screen. I'm speaking from the perspective of serious editing or creation of new patches. I think there have been several questionable biases toward recent hardware by some, specifically the Wavestate and Hydrasynth. When you get past a certain complexity the computer just makes more sense - at least to me. I also believe most of us who were seriously into programming the FS1R and it's predecessors were using computer editors.

 

I'm a bit surprised Yamaha didn't go with the algorithm-less approach ala FM7/8. There's no way I'd want to go back to pre-made algorithms after this.

 

I am intrigued by this Smart Morph function. I'd love to hear some samples of this if you have them.

 

Having mostly grumbled your review is excellent Jerry and very much appreciated!

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Hi (I don't know which name to use, don't want to give up your secret identity!):

 

I guess I would first say that I am not surprised that Yamaha has taken a "incremental" approach to their own technological path... I don't see them as a bold, radical "agent of change"...

:thu:

 

But I agree with you, that except for the Smart Morph and modulation features that are really outside of the FM-X engine itself, this is not an implementation that has progressed that much beyond the FS-1R (not counting the quality and diversity of effects). What I do think has progressed is the sound design team's comfort with it, their perhaps acquired skills over the years, that has resulted in a level of sounds that far impressed me than those offered in previous incarnations/decades. Not to mention the design of the Performance (which I haven't covered yet) that offers far greater possibilities for sounds than any previous Yamaha system. More on that in my next installment.

 

As regards interface advantage, I'm not familiar with a "touted advantage" for hardware as regards these models, and thinking about that, perhaps the Montage offers a better case for that than the MODX, given the larger control surface on the left side of the panel (with 8 encoders/sliders etc.) and all the dedicated switches it has on the right side for accessing/turning on and off operators/elements and such. There is no doubt that for me, the interface is complicated, and involves a lot of navigation. And I've already spoken to the small type, and small text fields. But I have the same problem with FM8 - I really wish I could scale the interface, given my nice large screen that is just mocking me!

 

In general, software has the opportunity to offer a better interface and programming experience, but I think there's an issue of familiarity that plays into this. The longer you spend with a system the better your chops get. Over the years working with products that I have been partially responsible for, my muscle memory develops and I could speed around the interface, even though some were complicated. So I can't speak to that regarding the MODX, with so little time spent with it, but overall I feel it's laid out well, but remains complicated to work with, certainly for the majority of casual to average users.

 

The best approach will always be a combination of software and a dedicated, or well-constructed controller interface for things. But other than mixing console-like control surfaces the market for a knob/slider/button festooned controller for software synthesizers remains a very niche thing...

 

I'll be recording some audio and will certainly cover some Smart Morph - I'm still working up my skills with it.

 

Thanks for the comments, input, and kind words.

 

Jerry

 

Tbh everything prior to your last paragraph sounds like catching up to FM7/8 and presumably other FM-centric VSTs. Nothing wrong with that as I'm sure many will prefer having FM built into a hardware keyboard but with the more recent features and capabilities.

 

As always I'm going to challenge whether the hardware version has the often touted interface advantage compared to a mouse and large screen. I'm speaking from the perspective of serious editing or creation of new patches. I think there have been several questionable biases toward recent hardware by some, specifically the Wavestate and Hydrasynth. When you get past a certain complexity the computer just makes more sense - at least to me. I also believe most of us who were seriously into programming the FS1R and it's predecessors were using computer editors.

 

I'm a bit surprised Yamaha didn't go with the algorithm-less approach ala FM7/8. There's no way I'd want to go back to pre-made algorithms after this.

 

I am intrigued by this Smart Morph function. I'd love to hear some samples of this if you have them.

 

Having mostly grumbled your review is excellent Jerry and very much appreciated!

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Good point Jerry regarding interface familiarity, muscle memory and FM8"s small fonts (and growing smaller by the month). I have to remind myself that I used to spend hours at a time almost every day on the original DX7. And this was prior to computer editors but it didn"t matter. I still enjoyed it a lot because it was so new and exciting. And I was a lot less picky, probably because I wasn"t reminded on a daily basis how much everything really sucks

 

I guess I"ve since gotten used to that matrix display with FM-8 and there"s not much reason to change at this point. Now can someone please point me to operator 4"s feedback path into operator 2? :(

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Yamaha has created a lot of good tutorials on the MODX (and the Montage), and Dr. Synth (Manny Fernandez) has some really interesting content there as well. Try these links:

 

Bad Mister Part 1

 

Bad Mister Part 3

 

Manny's Intro To FM

 

Manny explains FM-X

 

Or just do a search on their site for either FM or FM-X.

 

 

I've always enjoyed Gordon Reid's reviews and writing in Sound On Sound, here are some articles he did on FM that get deep pretty quickly, but are very interesting reads:

 

G. Reid FM Part 1

 

G. Reid FM Part 2

 

 

These publications from Yamaha are also a great read:

 

Part 1

Part 2

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Performances

OK, it"s time to get out of the building blocks and into some practical things.

 

The MODX only has one Mode, meaning you don"t have single sounds, and a different mode for multi-sounds etc. It always lives in what is called a Performance. A Performance can be comprised of up to 16 Parts; each of those can be either an AWM2 (sampled) sound, or an FM-X sound. Remember that an AWM2 sound can be made up of up to 8 Elements (a fully programmed oscillator/multisample), and an FM-X sound is made up from 8 Operators.

 

A Part can be key-limited to only play across a specific range, and/or velocity limited. Its velocity response can be offset as well. Parts can be set to mono or poly, and can be single or multi-trigger. Portamento is set at the Part level, as are transpose/detune, scale/tuning choices and pitch bend range (separate for up and down, of course!).

 

Each Part can be routed to 2 dedicated Insert effects, and then have send levels set to go into the Performance level Reverb and a Variation effect. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there"s even a 3-band EQ before the Insert effects and a 2-band EQ after them. Up to 8 Parts can be driven by its own arpeggio pattern, and Motion Sequence (more on that later). Each Part has a dedicated LFO (in addition to what happens at the Element level), which is mostly used to modulate effects parameters, but also can modulate Part Level, Pitch, Filter Cutoff, Resonance, Pan and the Element LFO Speed (nice!). All the onboard controllers can be set/routed individually for each Part in a Performance, so moving the Mod Wheel might open the Filter on one while modulating an effect in another and on, and on.

 

So a Performance can be used to create a highly complex single sound that uses multiple elements to produce (I"ll describe some piano sounds in a moment), to produce layered sounds, splits, sounds that are both split and layered and so on. Each Part has a setting called Keyboard Control, which is the on/off status, as well as Mute and Solo functions. If you hold a note and mute it, when you turn it back on it is still sounding. If you turn off KbdCtrl it shuts down the sound and the Mute or Solo have no effect. You would need to turn back on KybdCtrl and play a note again to start it sounding.

 

When you select a Performance you have a choice of what is shown in the display.

 

f8KP5OV.jpg

This is the basic screen, showing you the first 8 Parts.

 

If you press the Performance/Home button again you get this view:

3RMdyxi.jpg

Notice near the top it shows the status of all 16 Parts (green meaning on/being used), and the right side gives you helpful graphics to show sound names and key ranges. If you touch the 1-4, 5-8, 9-12 or 13-16 area, the fields below and to the right switch to show info for those 4 Parts. Notice than an unused Part shows as empty with a plus sign in the center. Touch that and you are taken through the steps to choose a sound to use there, and away you go.

 

Press Performance/Home a third time and you get this screen, showing the levels of each of the 8 elements within the sound (this only works with AWM2 sounds and drumkits, when you select Element/Operator for the sliders to the left of the display).

Ypgcq5w.jpg

 

Within any of these views, if you touch the Type/Name field you can toggle it between the sound name, or the sound category plus the technology used to make it. Touching field itself brings up a Category Search function to select a sound to use.

4lQOdD8.png

 

The Attribute selection box is very powerful â as you can see below you can really drill down to the type of sound not only by the musical instrument/family/genre, but also by aspects of the technology used to make it. Very cool.

KlhFe27.jpg

 

There is also a dedicated Category button to the right on the panel which is normally used to select Performances, this Category field has all the same features, but is for selecting Parts, which are going to be Elements from within another Performance. If you touch the Performance name itself and then press Edit you will be brought to some overall things to edit about the whole Performance, like overall volume, assignable switch modes, effects returns etc. Touch any of the lower fields within the display and then Edit, and you are brought to sound editing itself.

 

All of this has described what you see/can do when the left tab is on Home. Moving through the other choices brings up their respective screens. I"m not going to go through every one (there"s manuals for that!), but there are mixing screens,

acX2FFZ.jpg

and others that relate to functions that I am not going over right now. More laterâ¦

 

A General Rule/A Fly In The Ointment

The first 8 Parts in a Performance can be used to play sounds directly from the keyboard. They can be anything that you would do with up to 8 Parts combined as you wish. [added} These 8 Parts can all be triggered from an external source all on a single channel if desired - any Part that has Kybd Ctrl set on will respond to the same MIDI channel. Parts 9-16 are 'reserved' to be driven from external MIDI, usually for being sequenced from an external device. The one exception to that is that you can populate a Performance with 16 single sound Parts and switch between them one by one, so you can have 16 instruments pre-loaded and access them individually during live performance. But Parts 9-16 cannot be used live on the keyboard in conjunction with Parts 1-8, nor can they be combined into any layers/splits. [added} But with a new MIDI setting called Hybrid, added in OS 2.0 you can address the first 8 Parts all via the same MIDI channel as splits/layers/whatever, and then also address single Parts from 9-16 each on their own MIDI channel. So you can build up complex setups to be driven from an external controller, as long as it can send on multiple MIDI channels. If it can't, then you are limited to using 8 Parts, as you are from the MODX itself.

 

This has been bemoaned by users around the world, and may be the #1 requested 'fix' to the design of a Performance in the MODX/Montage. But as of this writing that"s just the way it is. It"s a shame. [revised] On my Kronos I often create setups that involved more than 8 parts â Korg broke that barrier back with the M3 in 2007! Korg Combis, Roland Studio Sets, and Kurzweil Multis all can be up to 16 parts with no rules imposed. So if you need more than 8 part setups you know the facts.

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Sounds

With 2,227 Performances (including 32 new Performances added in Version 2.5) I can"t begin to convey the breadth and depth of the onboard sounds. But let me give you my subjective view on the main sound categories that we"re all likely interested in. This post is all about acoustic and electro-mechanical keys.

 

Acoustic Piano

MODX offers 4 flavors of grand piano (CFX, S6, CF3 and S700) plus an upright. Sound construction varies from single Parts to multiple Parts, with switching from as little as 8 Elements up to complex setups like the CFX Concert, which has 9-way velocity switching from the notes up to G (spread across 2 Parts), 8-way velocity switching for the undampened notes from G#5 and above, plus a key off layer in Part 4. That"s 18 Elements in total!

 

The CFX has a very harmonically rich sound, and is the most detailed to my ears, with no discernable switches across the velocity ranges, nor egregious changes across the note range. Damper resonance (the ambience that is created when the

damper pedal is used to let notes sustain, and causes struck notes to also cause the other strings to ring a bit) can be added with an Insert Effect. Here"s two examples, the first without the damper resonance effect, the second with it added:

CFX no damper resonance

CFX with damper resonance

Note: This is an improv I recorded years ago originally for Ivory American Grand, re-purposed.

 

There is no modeled sympathetic resonance effect/technology, where the struck and/or open/held strings interact with each other, which some competing products do offer. This is most beneficial in solo and very small ensemble playing; otherwise it tends to be masked.

 

Kudos to the programmer who set up the Mod Wheel in the CFX Concert performance to turn the sound into a slow attack/bowed piano. So often the Mod Wheel is just disabled for pianos â extra points for creativity! Across all the pianos, most often the Super Knob is used for reverb depth, other times one of the assignable switches, many times the Mod Wheel adds some chorusing etc.

 

The S700 is a bit more mellow, which makes sense as it comes from a 7 foot grand, where the CFX is a 9 foot concert grand. But it is created as an only 3-way velocity switch (1-layer for the higher undampened notes, plus key-off), so it transitions much quicker to a harder struck tone, with less gradation. I preferred it within a track/band setting rather than for nuanced solo classic or jazz playing as it has the smallest stereo image and less nuanced dynamic range. And sometimes that"s what you need.

S700

 

The CF3 used to be the top-of-the-line Yamaha Concert Grand, since supplanted by the CFX. It"s also an all-around nice piano, constructed as a 4-way velocity switch (3-way for the higher undampened notes, plus key-off), so it"s the middle of three insofar as smooth transitions go.

CF3

 

There"s also an S6, a 6"11' model that has the brighter tone we tend to think of when we think the ubiquitous C7 studio model, constructed as a 5-way velocity switch (1-layer for the higher undampened notes, plus key-off). It sounds older technologically, as the note-by-note transitions sound a little more stretched, but that"s the microscopic view, perhaps not as important in a band/track context.

S6

 

Do you notice something? All the pianos are Yamaha instruments⦠if you want a Steinway, or a Fazioli, or a Bechstein you"re out of luck. Yamaha does offer a Bosendorfer, which can be downloaded for free, which is great, but their brand myopia is something to be noted.

 

The upright piano is very nice, constructed as a 4-way velocity switch, plus key-off. It"s a bit bright, not perhaps as moody as you may want, but that"s just programming. The Imaginary Upright could be tweaked to reduce the effects and it turns into a nice, darker upright sound. I also found the main Upright sound to be too dynamic, in that it really disappeared quickly as I played softer. But again, that"s just programming, and you could use the velocity offset (found on the Part Common tab) to quickly compress the low range of the velocity response a bit.

Upright

Note: This uses one of the Audition phrases from the MODX

 

Beyond the pianos presented by themselves there are all the usual piano plus strings, plus pad and various blends. I counted 27 dedicated acoustic piano Performances, plus another 6 that were categorized as Layers (additional blends), and 3 found in the Vintage category (including a Honkytonk) so there"s a decent selection to draw from.

 

There"s a very good 4-way switched CP-80, programmed both clean and with chorus, and with some layers, as well as an older CP-70 that is a single multisample. It sounds like a very '90s sampling approach to that '70s instrument.

CP80

CP80 plus pad

CP70

Note: These use the Audition phrases from the MODX

 

Electric Pianos

Rhodes

The MODX offers a decent range of Rhodes flavors/vintages, including: EP1 (3-way, medium tine amount), EP2 (4-way, very pronounced tine amount), EP3 (4-way, slightly less tine amount than EP2), EP4 (5-way switch, least tine amount), RD Soft (5-way 88-key suitcase? Less tine amount), RD Hard (4-way 88-key stage? Less tine amount), RD73 (5-way, medium tine amount) and RD78 (5-way, prominent tine amount â no surprise there!) â almost all with key noise and key-off noise elements. Sure, when explored under microscopic detail you easily hear the velocity switches, so let"s not compare them to the best software libraries and modeled approaches, but played in context these all work very well. I"m a tweaker, so often I will make small adjustments to the velocity range for different Elements to better match my touch, but these are really great Rhodes" for a hardware keyboard, and there"s a good selection of sounds made from them, with period accurate effects, amps etc. Note that any sounds labeled Dyno are not using samples from a Dyno-My modded instrument â they are programming recreations. On the plus side, that means you can dial back (or forward) the exaggerated bell/tine aspect. Here's a whole lotta sound examples:

74 Phaser

88 Key Case Soft

Bell Chorus

Case 75 Medium

Rd 73

Vintage 74

Dyno Chorus

Note: This is an improv I recorded a few years ago for Korg to use in some of their home digital pianos... the latter half I called Island Soul.

 

FM-X of course delivers a plethora of digital Rhodes simulations, and they run the gamut from the overplayed, to some really evocative mellower timbres, and they also blend nicely against the sampled Rhodes and in conjunction with acoustic piano. It"s really nice to have them available as real FM, not just samples of the sounds as was so often done through the '90s and the first decade of the 2000s. FM is highly dynamic, and samples don"t do it justice.

Case 73 + FM Blend

Gentle FM EP - my favorite

 

Wurly

MODX offers up three sampled Wurly choices: Wr1 (3-way â kind of short samples), Wr2 (4-way â longer, a bit more hollow-sounding) and Wr3 (5-way, with a bit more bite). FM-X also does an OK Wurly, and I had fun combining the two technologies. Scroll through the many amps/cabinets and distortion and I lost a lot of time. That"s a good thing!

Various Wurlie examples

Note: These use the Audition phrases from the MODX

 

Clavinet

There are 5 sampled Clav choices: the first 3 are all single multisamples that seem pretty old, in that they have the attack portion and go right into a small loop. They program up OK, but they"re more about the attack than any body or sustain to the sound, which is fine if your playing busy 16th note funk parts. In fact, most of the sounds using them decay away quicker than a real clav would to hide this aspect of the samples (listen to the end of the following examples). Clav 4 is 2-way, and Clav 5 3-way, and they are longer samples, making them more versatile. Stepping away from the microscope the many clav sounds are good, again making use of effects like touch and auto-wah, amp simulations and such. Yamaha makes no effort to describe which clav settings were sampled so you"re on your own, and they certainly aren"t trying to recreate all the rocker settings of the real instrument. I wish they had offered more variety of tones in this category.

Various Clav Examples

Note: These use the Audition phrases from the MODX

 

FM could always do a decent synthy clav sound, so I was surprised to only see 4 FM-X sounds included. Did I mention that the MODX could import DX7 sounds? So there"s the pathway to moreâ¦

 

Organ

All of the organ sounds in the MODX are either sampled or created using FM-X; there is no dedicated modeling engine to recreate the classic tonewheel organ sound. Given that decision, let"s focus on how Yamaha approached that using sampling.

 

Tonewheel

I"m going to ignore some obviously older samples that include Leslie spinning slow and fast, as well as some fully shaped rock sounds, jazz settings, and sounds with percussion on. These are the domain of tried-and-true ROMpler keyboards and arrangers, and while they give you the basic sound, they are not very true to the real spirit of the instrument. But when organ is not your main instrument, or you need a layer in a multi-sound setup they can work OK.

 

Since the Motif range of instruments (based on my studying all the Data Lists for the various models) Yamaha has provided what I"ll call DNA samples of all the elements of a tonewheel organ to build sounds from. Each drawbar by itself, some combinations of two or more drawbars, a single percussion tone (you can tune and shape it of course), rotor noise, rotor 'grit' and other standing-state noises that are part of what you hear coming out of a Leslie. While it is true that these noises increase with the number of notes you are playing (my audio examples have me playing 1, 2, 3 and then 4 notes so you can hear how the sound level does increase with more polyphony), these elements really do help to build a wide range of organ sounds, from pure to older and less maintained recreations.

Organ Noise Elements

 

So while it is an imperfect method, I found this approach to provide reasonable simulations of a tonewheel sound, and in fact I feel these are better than any other sampled approach I"ve encountered in a ROMpler type of keyboard. No doubt it doesn"t compare to a clonewheel approach, and the MODX suffers from not having enough sliders to give you control over the drawbars in realtime (Montage would at least give you 8). You can use Scenes (I know I haven"t described them in detail yet) to easily change between registrations, but they don"t move the drawbar levels gradually, nor will the sound sustain through the Scene change. But for non-purists who want a variety of decent organ sounds this approach beats other sampling approaches I have checked out. I enjoyed playing a lot of the Performances and they cover all the bases you would want.

AWM2 Tonewheel Organ Examples

Note: These use the Audition phrases from the MODX

 

The Rotary Speaker effects are well-featured: I liked #2 better, as it offers separate ramp up and down speeds for the horn and rotor and a built-in drive effect. Rotary 1 seems a bit simpler but it does have some different parameters. There are two parameters with Drive in their names (Drive Horn and Drive Rotor), but they are not a typical overdrive. They are the depth of modulation, or the doppler swirling effect inherent in a spinning speaker, so they can be used to tame the 'throbbing' sound per speaker. Lowering it for the Rotor is a great way of getting that 'Memphis' sound, which was having the motor disabled for the rotor to get a more consistent and fuller bass. Rotary 1 also has built-in 2-band EQ, which 2 doesn"t. Each has their strengths and they sound good for a synth keyboard.

 

My main gripe is the Chorus/Vibrato. It just doesn"t sound right to my ears, and it is a single setting that is modulation the LFO for each Element, both the rate and the depth. Looking into the programming each Element"s LFO is set to slightly different rates to help approximate chorusing, but the result just sounds synthetic to my ears.

C/V Example

Given that tonewheel cognoscenti rarely agree on which clonewheel gets this all-important aspect of the sound right, I am sure they will not appreciate this approach. Yamaha has made great strides over the last decade or so with their VCM (Virtual Circuit Modeling) approach to effects, I think they need to focus some attention to modeling the chorus/vibrato circuit of a tonewheel organ soon.

 

Likewise, using a sampled percussion element doesn"t allow them to get the poly on attack/mono retriggering aspect of percussion behavior right. Perhaps with the development of the YC-61 stage keyboard with a true modeled organ engine (which came out after the development of the Montage) Yamaha can add it to this range (is that even possible?), or make next-gen instruments that include it.

 

The FM-X organs are not a realistic substitute for a true tonewheel sound, but they are nice options to have for dance and electronic music use. I enjoyed using the Super Knob to change registrations and these sounds certainly have their place.

FM-X Tonewheel Organs

Note: These use the Audition phrases from the MODX

 

Combo

MODX has samples for some combo organs, I can see (and hear) both Vox and Farfisa options, with many more choices for the Farfisa. Some other generic names like Compact Electronic and Portable Electronic are likely taken from older Yamaha combo organs. I enjoyed the Performances for these, and while I didn"t like all aspects of the programming (I lean towards more subtle depths for vibrato settings in general) these sounds are easily tweaked to match my/your tastes. Again, the wealth of amp effects and two Leslie effects add greatly to the variety you can achieve. There"s only 2 FM-generated combo organ Performances, but they sound great.

AWM2 Combo Organs

Note: These use the Audition phrases from the MODX - sorry for the "organist on speed" in the beginning!

FM-X Combo Organ

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Yamaha has generously made some additional sounds available for free, downloadable from their website for both the Montage and MODX.

Extra sounds from Yamaha

Bosendorfer Imperial Grand

The first up is a Bosendorfer Imperial 290 grand piano â an instrument we all would love to have. And we can. Easily downloaded, copied to a MODX-formatted USB stick and loaded into the MODX"s Flash memory, my first reaction was, 'Nice woody character, a refreshing change from the Yamaha pianos.' It"s 10 layer velocity switching with 2-way for the upper undampened range, plus a key off Element, so it transitions really nicely under the fingers. But after playing it for a while I felt that it had a bit of a chorused, or phasey quality⦠at first I wasn"t sure what it was. The presets are too wet for my taste, but that is conveniently mapped to the Super Knob so you pull it back easily. Maybe it"s that it seems to be a little far-mic"d and it"s some room ambience that is captured in the sound. Turning off all the effects proved that was the case. Then you add a s***-ton of Hall Reverb and pretty deep Damper Resonance effect and it"s just too much (for me, certainly). Listen to the two audio files, below, the first with their programming, and then the second with ALL effects off. It"s still a somewhat ambient, in-the-room piano sound.

My 2-chord improv on Imperial Grand main Performance stock

Same 2 chord improv, no effects

 

So seriously taming the effects programming helped me to like it more. I checked out the promotional videos (again) for the Imperial and they all sounded better â obviously the performer also turned down all the effects depth. As an example, this demo sounds really nice (and not like how the presets sound):

 

As another example, here's one of the Audition phrases playing the sound:

Imperial Grand Audition Phrase

 

Playing more, I found some issues in the middle register, with a too-fast decay, which quickly moves into the noticeable loop. I usually wouldn"t get this microscopic, but the fast decay was making the middle register especially 'plonky' â a deep technical term I"m sure you all understand. So here are some long notes played up from the G below Middle C, and then even longer notes so you can really hear how it quickly decays and settles into the loop.

under the microscope

Note that these are the shaped sound, not the raw waves. You don"t hear these things when playing fast, or not holding notes very long, which is too often the case in demos. My take: I would have gladly traded off some velocity layers to lengthen the samples more. It"s a potentially great-sounding piano that for me is undone by these issues. YMMV, of course.

 

Chick"s Mark V

It is well known among Rhodes cognoscenti that Chick Corea has a specially modded Mark V instrument with a very bright, percussive tone. Yamaha helped him to sample it years ago, and they have been offering versions of it for their instruments for some time now. This is my first chance to really play it and analyze it and I love it. Sure, it"s a specialized sound, just like a Dyno-My modded instrument is (this is not a Dyno Rhodes), but it surely has its place. It is based on 4 sampled levels and 1 key-off noise (most sounds have a 5th Element, but it reuses the 4th waveform for some different programming, not really a different timbre). Whatever â it plays great, with almost no discernable jumps in velocity transitions, because it is always somewhat bright.

Chick's Mark V

 

16 Performances are provided and they cover a good variety, from the basic instrument to the slightly amped sound of his early Return To Forever days (think Light As A Feather), on to layered sounds and even two Performances split with a right hand lead sound.

More Mark V Performances

Sure, I would have made a few programming differences, like in that early RTF sound I would not have put the tape delay on a switch, as it turns on way too wet already with no control over the depth. I'd swap that function with the Super Knob, which is increasing the amp distortion. I want more range on the delay depth, and I don"t need to make the amp go so far into metal overdrive (which is not at all true to anything Chick has ever recorded). But it"s a programmable synth and those are easy changes. Overall I give the free library a hearty both thumbs up.

 

Purgatory Creek Vintage Keys

OK, these are not from Yamaha, and I can"t start exploring all the third-party libraries for the MODX, but I"ve known Bill Busch for many years through my role at Korg, and when he saw I was doing this review he offered to let me check out this library. Since I"ve been discussing the primary categories of electro-mechanical keys it is worth a quick mention.

 

He offers two Rhodes, a 1975 MK1 and a Mark V. Both feature 6 velocity-switched layers, a key-off Element plus real release samples, which are the sound of the note sustaining through to when the dampers make full contact. They really add character to the sounds, especially in the lower end. Well-sampled and well-programmed, I enjoyed them immensely.

 

He offers both a 200a and 140b Wurly, both made from 4 velocity-switched layers, plus a Key Noise, which is the impact sound when a note is played, plus release samples and key-off noise. Again, this approach adds a lot of realism to the sounds.

 

Remember when I wished that Yamaha went deeper in their Clav sampling? Here"s the answer. Vintage Keyboard Collection offers every tonal setting of the Clavinet, with 6 velocity-switched layers plus key-off noise, with long samples and⦠suffice it to say my wish was granted in spades. The muted settings are synthesized, but they sound more than good enough.

 

Add in a Pianet N (5-way plus release samples) and a CP70 (3-way) and it"s an excellent collection â a steal at only $59. Well done, Bill!

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The longer you spend with a system the better your chops get. Over the years working with products that I have been partially responsible for, my muscle memory develops and I could speed around the interface, even though some were complicated.

 

It will be interesting to see how MIDI 2.0 Profiles and Property Exchange affect this. In my ideal world (yeah, right!) some company would make a "be-all-and-end-all" hardware interface that manufacturers would adopt as a standard for their Profiles.

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The longer you spend with a system the better your chops get. Over the years working with products that I have been partially responsible for, my muscle memory develops and I could speed around the interface, even though some were complicated.

 

It will be interesting to see how MIDI 2.0 Profiles and Property Exchange affect this. In my ideal world (yeah, right!) some company would make a "be-all-and-end-all" hardware interface that manufacturers would adopt as a standard for their Profiles.

 

I agree, Craig, they are interesting concepts that I can't wait to see implemented. But I think the statement to quote would better be this:

 

"The best approach will always be a combination of software and a dedicated, or well-constructed controller interface for things. But other than mixing console-like control surfaces the market for a knob/slider/button festooned controller for software remains a very niche thing..."

:idea::2thu:

 

Jerry

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The longer you spend with a system the better your chops get. Over the years working with products that I have been partially responsible for, my muscle memory develops and I could speed around the interface, even though some were complicated.

 

It will be interesting to see how MIDI 2.0 Profiles and Property Exchange affect this. In my ideal world (yeah, right!) some company would make a "be-all-and-end-all" hardware interface that manufacturers would adopt as a standard for their Profiles.

 

I agree, Craig, they are interesting concepts that I can't wait to see implemented. But I think the statement to quote would better be this:

 

"The best approach will always be a combination of software and a dedicated, or well-constructed controller interface for things. But other than mixing console-like control surfaces the market for a knob/slider/button festooned controller for software remains a very niche thing..."

:idea::2thu:

 

Jerry

 

Yes, they are a niche thing but I think there are two main reasons for that.

 

* They're not ergonomic. With the control panel of an analog synth, you see the signal flow...the filter controls are grouped together, the envelope controls are close to each other, etc. With a general-purpose control surface that works with anything from a mixer to a soft synth to a lighting controller, it doesn't excel at any of its applications. And the way the VST spec is set up, it's a crap shoot as to what parameters will show up on page X of a multi-page menu. I don't want to hijack the thread and get into a discussion of how to solve this, but I do have several practical ideas that I think would make most people want to create sounds using the control surface as opposed to using a mouse.

* The controls don't feel "analog." The stair-stepping and zipper noise just doesn't feel like that's what a control should do. Hopefully 32-bit resolution will take care of that.

 

What made me think about all this is I have an OB-8 set up in my studio, and it's a joy to program compared to using a mouse with a soft synth equivalent. I realized if it was a control surface, those same controls could cover the most common controls of almost any virtual analog synth or sampler.

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The best approach will always be a combination of software and a dedicated, or well-constructed controller interface for things. But other than mixing console-like control surfaces the market for a knob/slider/button festooned controller for software remains a very niche thing..."

:idea::2thu:

 

Jerry

 

Yes, they are a niche thing but I think there are two main reasons for that.

 

* They're not ergonomic. With the control panel of an analog synth, you see the signal flow...the filter controls are grouped together, the envelope controls are close to each other, etc. With a general-purpose control surface that works with anything from a mixer to a soft synth to a lighting controller, it doesn't excel at any of its applications. And the way the VST spec is set up, it's a crap shoot as to what parameters will show up on page X of a multi-page menu. I don't want to hijack the thread and get into a discussion of how to solve this, but I do have several practical ideas that I think would make most people want to create sounds using the control surface as opposed to using a mouse.

* The controls don't feel "analog." The stair-stepping and zipper noise just doesn't feel like that's what a control should do. Hopefully 32-bit resolution will take care of that.

 

What made me think about all this is I have an OB-8 set up in my studio, and it's a joy to program compared to using a mouse with a soft synth equivalent. I realized if it was a control surface, those same controls could cover the most common controls of almost any virtual analog synth or sampler.

 

Oh I agree, and I was not thinking about some generic control surface intended for different purposes. It has to be designed to be a synth interface. I wouldn't want to mix records using a Push-style device - the best control surfaces for recording/mixing mimic a desk, right? The best interface for a synth should be designed like... a synth. It has to be laid out as you suggest. And with a lot of knobs/switches/sliders/whatever it wouldn't be cheap. Plus they need to be high resolution as you discuss. So I'm not saying it's economically viable... or maybe it is. I don't know for sure.

 

Here's an interesting viewpoint: Omnisphere added their hardware integration feature, and it's really cool, but in some ways you can look at it and go, "if I already have this great sounding and well-laid out synth why do I need to replicate it in software?" But then you realize that you can have any type of filter (that Omnisphere has, which is a lot), and you realize that you have a likely much more robust Mod Matrix, and so on, and you start to dream of our favorite synth's interface/control surface married to any type of possibility in the engine. Now that's enticing! But as you infer, this sounds like a great topic on its own. Hope you're well, my friend.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry to be missing - a lot of writing and programming deadlines came up. All fun stuff, I wish I could tell you about. Soon.

 

Here's a quick drive-by of some other sound categories, including some observations of how the Super Knob, arpeggiators and controllers interact with the sounds.

 

Acoustic Guitars

All are really nice, and many include well-programmed performance gestures like note slides, mutes and harmonics. Across various Performances these gestures are introduced in different ways. For example, in Picked Son of Gt, the Super Knob crossfades between open strings and mutes. While Assign 1 switch introduces the slid note when held momentarily, and Assign 2 does the harmonics.

 

Ac Chicken Pick is a 3-way velocity switch (muted on bottom â more open on top with a lot of attack noise, more open across the range, and hard accented across the range), and Assign 1 does the mutes. The Super Knob increases reverb.

 

NylonHrmonics Vel is a wonderful acoustic with a natural attack with Assign 1 handling the mutes and Assign 2 doing the slid note. The Super Knob changes the timbre via manipulation of an Insert Effect EQ.

 

My observation is that had these assignments been somewhat standardized then you could more easily swap out sounds later during a recording or even mixing session and retain the performance gestures. As it is, you would be best served by recording MIDI so you could go in and simply swap out the needed controller ID to achieve the same effects across various sounds. Easy enough to do, but not as simple as just trying out a different sound if you use the extra programmed variations/gestures in your recorded track.

 

Every sound has a well-programmed arpeggio that helps to simulate natural guitar performance style. I liked them a lot, and mixed tastefully within a track they really gave the impression of a realistic performance. Single 6-string (steel and nylon), 12-string, layered, picked, fingered â all the expected categories are covered nicely.

 

 

Electric Guitars

The clean electric guitars are really standouts â well sampled/programmed (with the caveat of varied choices for the gestures) and a great variety of tones. It"s not easy to get a good attack on an electric guitar for a sample that plays well from a keyboard (since there is little variation to the trigger) but I really felt the pick (or fingers) on the strings.

 

Small note: There"s a Pedal Steel sound that is made up from picked electric guitar samples and sounds nothing like the intended target. No slide on the neck etc.

 

Distorted Electric Guitars

Also excellent across the board. Again, the care to get the attack right helps to make these sound less like bad keyboard simulations. The effects really shine here â nice variety of distortion timbres and amp/cabinet choices (13 selections). Modern Pick Hero is a favorite â the Super Knob goes from a clean sound with some delay through various stages of distortion and saturation. Assign 1 does harmonics, and Assign 2 the mutes. Rotator AF1&2 is a nice Leslie swirl (with the Assign functions reversed from the last example), and Grunged Up achieves a really saturated tone but sounds real to my ears.

 

Basses

Acoustic basses are good, with key-off sound and some effects in the top range (slides down, string slaps etc.). Playing lines I started to wish that every note didn"t have so pronounced an attack, and looking into the waveforms they do offer ones with the Start Offset set to avoid the initial noise/attack, yet no program used them effectively (meaning setting them to Legato XA control). Upright Bass AF1 uses the Assign1 switch to use these samples in place of the heavy attack ones, and the Program is Poly, so it can"t use the Legato XA control technique. Strangeâ¦

 

Electric basses run a good gamut of tones and styles. My only wish is for a fretless bass that has a little bit of 'bloom' to the note, so it opens up a little more after the attack. But there"s only one fretless waveform choice⦠And there are no FM-X simulated basses⦠a decent fretless could be created using it, or mixed with the AWM2. And then I realized that I was using the Category search to choose electric, when I went to the synth category there were all the FM-X basses, including a couple of fretless. I didn"t take the time, but I bet a nice bloom sound could be whipped up combining the two technologies.

 

Synth Basses

Too many to cover! Odds are, if you"re looking for something you"ll find it out of the 78 provided. Given that there is no virtual analog/modeled analog engine in the MODX Yamaha"s programmers did a decent job of covering the ⦠(not going to say it) using samples and FM-X, but you may find the absence noticeable.

 

Strings

Solo strings include both sampled vibrato versions and non-vibrato. The source material is very good, but my ear was bothered listening to the Audition phrases because the Super Knob is programmed to cross-fade between two differently programmed parts and it didn"t sound natural to keep fading back and forth between them. Yamaha offers two approaches to dealing with attack transients and legato playing: The first two sounds (Solo 1stViolin AF1 and Solo 2ndViolin AF1) require you to 'play' the Assign1 switch to change between the attack and legato versions. Later in the list Violin Solo 1 and Violin Solo 2 AF1 let your fingers control this, which I find more natural. Interestingly the solo cellos always allow you to make the changes with your fingers. Another thing to note: Most all the solo strings have the vibrato 'baked-in' to the sound. They"re well sampled/looped, but you are not in control of when they come in, nor how deeply.

 

Ensemble Strings

When the Montage was released, Yamaha made a big deal out of their new sampling session, the Seattle Strings (first used in the Tyros 5). And they are really nice, especially for a keyboard. Warm and with a nice room sound they are very natural-sounding. There seems to be two different string source sessions, with solo and ensembles, and a variety of performance techniques (legato, pizzicato, tremolo etc.). Look in the Pizzicato category to find Spicato Large Performance, the only representation of that performance technique⦠I didn"t find a representation of Marcato attack, but perhaps it"s hidden under one of the switches or the Super Knob and I missed it. There you"ll also find a Disco AF1 Performance with those necessary quick fall-offs. Especially expressive are the many Performances that use the Super Knob to build up the size of the ensemble, or control dynamics. When operated by a foot pedal it becomes a wonderful way to create nice dynamics in your playing.

 

Solo Brass

Again, many are sampled with natural vibrato, but the depth of it is tasteful. I found a number of sounds with more limited dynamic range than I would like (I couldn"t get as soft as I wanted), but selecting another curve from the Level/Pan Page could change that. You do have to do that for each Element, so it"s a few steps.

 

All the usual suspects are there: trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, trombone, French horn, euphonium, and tuba.

 

Ensemble Brass

Good variety here for both pop and classical needs. When you see the word Swell in a Performance name it does not mean it is programmed to swell up in volume. It means the Super Knob will give you that control (great when controlled by a pedal). And when you see AF in the title it often means you"ll get fall-offs, or doits when using that controller. One Performance was strange when exploring those switches (Slow and Speedy) until I realized that the Super Knob was set to cross-fade between two sounds, and it wakes up with them both layered. Pressing the switch caused one sound to do a strong 'shake' while the other did a fall-off. Not a very useful settingâ¦

 

You might not expect to find mixed brass and woodwinds in the Brass Ensemble category, but there is no mixed category, so be sure to explore there to get your big-band and pop-rock mixed section sounds. There is only 1 Performance named with Sfozando in the title, but another called Velo Falls is also sforzando until hit hard. You need different speeds of sforzando in music production and live performance, and you may wonder how to vary that â the sounds in the MODX have no performance notes or explanations provided for them â I wish they did. In this case I found that the Assignable setting for the four knobs provides that control using Knob 2.

 

Woodwinds

Sax sounds on a keyboard are a tough area â they work fine in ensemble, or mixed settings, but rarely do as solo instrument. So while they are well-done from a sampling/programming standpoint (except for a lot of limited dynamic range issues in the ensembles), I"m not going to dwell on them here. The soprano sax holds up the best for me.

 

Flutes are really nice â concert flute, piccolo flute, wood flute, panflute, blown bottle, shakuhachi â you know the score. Ther Sweet Flute is fun to play, with nice hard-blown overtones when hit hard, and the sampled vibrato just works. What doesn"t work? The Tron Flute simulation is fine except for a way too prominent noise source called Anemone that I guess is supposed to simulate some mechanical noise in the mechanism. Wayyyy too prominent, and it gets louder with each note pressed, so even a triad takes it up way too far. It was set to 27 and I had to take it back to around 12-14. I know, get out of the weeds, Jerry!

 

Other woodwinds include oboe, clarinet, bassoon, contra bassoon, recorder, whistle, ocarina and shehnai â all with nice character, and some (the oboe and bassoon in particular) with really nice attitude. This area finishes up with a variety of harmonicas (a pretty nice bluesy one, but don"t whip it out if there"s a real player on the gig!) and the obligatory bagpipe. If you"re looking for more exotic winds be sure to check out the Ethnic category, blown sub-category.

 

Next post I"ll dive into the synth sound category (lots there) and the rest of the choices.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Game changing discovery! I can dump my own screen shots from the MODX â no more bad camera shots. Sometimes it"s the little things in lifeâ¦

 

Moving on to synth sounds, it"s probably no surprise to read that I found lots of great stuff here, across all the expected types (lead, pads, comping, basses, imaginative effects etc.).

 

142 leads cover a lot of the sounds I would want for playing across the usual genres. Both AWM2 and FM-X deliver plenty of great sounds. My main 'loss' is no real synced oscillator technology for those essential sounds (Cars covers, Jan Hammer leads etc.), and a well-known issue Yamaha has with AWM2 mono/legato mode triggering with sounds that have a strong attack transient (the transient re-triggers even though you"re playing legato).

 

Continuing on, there"s 153 Syn Comp â This is such a broad category, basically if it"s polyphonic it"s probably in here. Both technologies are used to great effect, and often combined together nicely. Vintage recreations, modern dance genres, and on and on. Every time I found a sound that I liked and I went under the hood to see what was being done with the controllers and the arps across multiple Parts I was very impressed. There are so many tools in the MODX to vary the sound in realtime, to introduce variations in the arps (and there"s 10,000 of them, for crissake!) and in modulation that I lost a lot of time getting this entry written. And that"s a good indication of the power under the hood of this instrument. Let me deconstruct just one seemingly simple sound to give you an idea:

 

FM&AN Classic Arps

This Performance sounds like a nice layered synth sound driven by a slightly gated arp pattern. Made up of 4 Parts, Part 1 is an FM-X dark plucked sound, and the 3 others are AWM2. Part2 is another plucked sound, but a touch brighter, Part 3 is a much brighter sound, and Part 4 is a sawtoothy pad/choir sound. Part 1 has two assignable knobs set to 1) Amp EG decay and 2) Amp EG offset for one operator in the algorithm, which basically brightens up the sound by adding more harmonics. Part 2 uses Knob 3 to modulate the filter cutoff, and filter envelope attack. Part 3 uses Knob 4 to control its volume, so it can be faded in and out. Part 4 uses Knob 5 to sweep both the filter cutoff (widely) and resonance (just slightly). Then all of these knobs are tied into the Super Knob so you can control all of that at once if you want to. And Scenes are used to make variations in the grooves and patterns the arps generate, as well as what parts may be active or not. Note: I added another Part with a drum groove to help me 'find the 1'.

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wAZGvxl.png

 

Listen to it here: FM&AN Classic Arps

When you turn on the Arp it wakes up in Scene 1 only driving Part 1, and the Part 4 sawtooth choir just sustain over it. Parts 2 and 3 are muted by arps that are control sources to mute a Part.

 

Switch to Scene 2 and now the same Arp pattern also drives Part 2 for a slightly stronger sound. Scene 3 adds the same arp pattern to drive Part 3, which given its brightness increases the energy significantly.. Scene 4 changes the arp pattern for all 3 Parts, as does Scene 5. Scene 6 changes parts 1 and 2 to a faster, wider sweeping arp pattern, while muting Part 3. Scene 7 drives Parts 1 and 2 with one arp pattern, while a different one drives part 3. Finally, Scene 8 drives Parts 1 and 3 each with a different pattern and mutes Part 2. Whew! But this gives you an idea of how control and variety can be developed within even what at first seems to be a simple pad with an arp sound.

 

70 Sound FX Performances cover all the imaginative pure synthesis stuff as well as natural sound FX.

 

204 Musical FX (many like Korg Combis) make great use of the multiple arpeggiators, Scene changes and such. It"s easy to get lost for hours in these grooves/mini songs/sounds. As you travel deeper into this category you get into very cool, imaginative synthesis textures and moods that are less groove-oriented, and more soundscape-ish.

 

Here's another cool one:

Flying Dub

3pDBuOT.png

A cool/murky AWM2 pad sound with some looping noise elements sustains in Part 5 while an FM bass in Part 3 is arp-driven . Scene 2 adds a clangorous FM-X ostinato in Part 2, and then Scene 3 adds another FM-X sound in Part 1, that"s a kind of lo-fi arcade sound. Scene 4 adds a drum groove to all of that. Scene 5 switches the drum to a half-time groove while varying the arps for Parts 1 and 3, while muting part 2. Scene 6 again switches up the drum groove and brings in a new arp pattern for Part 2, while muting Part 1. And so onâ¦

Flying Dub

 

Here"s a few others that really captured my attention:

cVk2Qu3.png

Hot Corner

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The Green Flash

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Sentimental Boy

Y5cdGFp.png

CirrocumulusClouds

 

And a personal favorite: Wave Surfer Uses the Super Knob to simulate Wave Sequencing. 8 Elements, each of whose amplitude level is modulated by an Assignable Knob, which are then sequenced by modulating the position of the Super Knob.

Ew65ef5.png

Wave Surfer

 

Exploring these sounds is the area of the MODX voicing that draws attention to some of its other cool features. Yamaha makes a big deal out of the notion of motion, even calling the whole synthesis system Motion Control Synthesis (AWM2 plus FM-X, plus all the other 'stuff'), so let"s briefly touch upon the tools for providing it. Of course LFOs and envelopes provide motion in synthesis in general. Assigning knobs, sliders and other controllers to parameters can provide motion, usually driven by the user. Multiple controllers and parameters can be tied to the Super Knob so you can create compound and complex controller gestures with a single gesture. But there are two other ways to automate controllers and parameter changes in the MODX: the arpeggiators and Motion Sequences.

 

I"ve been mentioning the 8 arpeggiators available per Part, but mostly in the context of their normal behavior â taking the notes you feed them and playing back permutations of them, or complete melodic (or in the case of a drum kit, rhythmic) phrases. But MODX arpeggios can also contain controller data, so it becomes a sort of step sequencer for changing parameters such as filter cutoff, part volume (or expression), panning, pitch bends, Mod Wheel values (CC1) and so much more. These can be included as part of an arp that is playing notes, or be only controller events. Here are a couple of examples of filter chopping and volume gating that is being driven by an Arp:

Arp Gating and Slicing

 

Motion Sequences are an even deeper and more detailed way of driving parameter changes in highly complex ways. In most synths a mod sequence is a type of step sequencer where each step contain a value that can used to modulate a parameter. Think of each step as a single control voltage, and perhaps you have smoothing, or slew rates to control how the values change from step to step. These are very cool tools to use, and by smoothing the transition between steps you can actually build a custom LFO or envelope shape. Keep the steps more jagged and you get those bubbling, percolating filter changes (think ELP Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2 â Welcome Back My Friend) or discrete panning jumps. Well MODX takes this concept to much further reaches than I"ve ever seen before.

 

To steal some text from my pal BadMister:

⢠A MOTION SEQUENCE is a series of up to 16 steps â it can be as short as one step or as long as 16 steps.

⢠It can send values that are Unipolar (only positive or only negative) or Bipolar (able to go in both positive and negative value ranges)

⢠Each Step has an amplitude setting and can be extremely complex.

⢠A MOTION SEQUENCE can be set to Loop, or to play when Triggered (like an Arp).

⢠A MOTION SEQUENCE can be be adjusted as to timing, intensity and feel (also like an Arp) via MS FX.

⢠A LANE is a pathway to a specific parameter or multiple parameter destinations.

⢠You can assign up to eight desired Motion Sequence types for any one LANE.

⢠You can also set up to four LANES for one Part.

⢠Up to eight LANES can be used simultaneously for the entire Performance.

 

So that is a pretty complex construct already. But where a Motion Sequence further differs from step-sequencers and the controller-transmitting arps is that each step in a Sequence can have a varying shape, or multiple events within it, and these can be played forward or backward (per step) and with varying intensity. So they can have time-evolving movement within a single step. Even deeper, each step can draw from one of two Pulses, which can be thought of as two different sources, but contained within a single Lane. I"ve never seen a system this deep before, but I don"t work deeply in modular synthesis systems, so perhaps there are corollaries there. Suffice it to say this is some really powerful and complex stuff.

CAbvWI5.png

Here"s a few audio examples of some effects a Motion Sequence can produce:

MS Volume Gating

MS Filter Chopping

 

If you want to read up more on them, I recommend this tutorial.

MS Tutorial

And if you"re brave enough, take a deep dive with Dr. Synth himself in these two FM-X with Motion Sequences tutorials:

Dr. Synth Tutorial 4

Dr. Synth Tutorial 5

 

Finally, I"ve been mentioning using Scenes a lot, so let"s go over what they do. A Scene stores both a snapshot of many parameter values, as well as a choice of an arpeggio and a Motion Sequence for each Part in the Performance, along with their play/mute status.

k3u6keB.png

Parameters that can be stored in a Scene include Part volume, pan, effects sends, filter cutoff, resonance and envelope depth and shaping of the Amp envelope (ADSR). A recent update (V2.0) added the location of the Super Knob plus the Kybd Ctrl parameter, allowing Scenes to turn on and off Parts in a Performance, so a single sound can turn into a split, or layer, or a Scene can be used as a sort of mute group between the first 8 Parts. These are wonderful tools for building up variety within a single Performance, or a quick way to change sound combinations without having to switch to another Performance. I wish Scenes could be named, and then changing them could bring up a momentary text field (like how moving a knob or slider does). Yamaha, are you listening?

 

Closing up the synth sounds section, let me say this. The absence of true analog/analog modeling is certainly felt⦠sampled sync sweeps and slow or fast Pulse Width Modulation (or simulations via FM-X) can help approximate things, but they are not substitute for the real (or virtual) thing. And the thickness/power and slight instability of an analog oscillator just can"t be replicated with sampled waveforms, and at times FM-X can hint at it, but it"s a convoluted route to take that I think few understand how to harness. But I am talking purely about technology and what I want. And if this was a review of the Montage itself I would rightfully complain about this. A lot. But it"s not: what should we expect from a synth that streets for $1,400 (61 key version)? If you look at the competitive marketplace, the Kurzweil PC3K-6 and Roland FA-06 do have modeled/virtual/whatever analog engines. Korg does not offer it in the Krome series, and the newly-released Nautilus is about $500 higher in price. So it"s not a complete miss in the competitive marketplace, but it sure would have put Yamaha further ahead of the pack in this regard. I expect we"ll see a Montage II in the future and Yamaha will add some other engines. It"s just logical. But considering what to leave out of the Montage feature set to get to the MODX price, likely if Yamaha had added it the price would have risen by some unknown (to me) amount. No doubt the price point will drive that decision. So I"ll just complain about it a little. âº

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Let me talk for a minute or two about some issues I have with how controllers are presented in the interface.

 

Given that each controller can be routed to multiple destinations at the same time, and can be doing different things across each Part in a Performance, I can understand that it must be hard to convey what is happening in the interface. But⦠I sure wish that when I turned one of the 8 Assignable Knobs the display told me something more than 'Part # Assigned (or not)' and a value. Even if a Performance has a single Part the message doesn"t tell me anything more specific. In the FM Vocal Lead sound, which is a single FM-X sound, Knob 1 is affecting the level of Operators 3 and 5 (both acting as modulators). Knob 2 is controlling the level of Operator 7 (also a modulator). Digging a little deeper I found that what the screen shows is a text field that you can enter yourself. So a programmer could have written something descriptive⦠I wish they had â it would make for a better user experience. Here"s another example: the sound 3o3 Talker is a single Part Performance using AWM2, and Knob 2 increases the send into the Variation effect, which is a Talking Modulator. Knob 3 changes the vowel of the effect. These could easily be communicated better than just 'Assigned'.

QPBm0Wj.png

To be fair, lots of other synths don"t do a great job at communicating things like this, but the tool exists in the system and it just went unused. That"s a mistake in my book.

 

Likewise, for the Super Knob, regardless of what it is assigned to control, it seems generally to have been left On for all the 8 Knob Links, so when moving it the screen shows a lot of knobs turning etc. when nothing is happening for many of them (yes, they do say assigned or not below them, but why not just shut them off?). It"s just sound data clean-up and assignments, but had it been done the user could more easily learn/quickly understand what"s going on.

 

/rant over.

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Great stuff really enjoying this thread! I'd love to hear what you think of MIDI functionality, in particular using the MODX to control other boards or other boards controlling the MODX?
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  • 3 weeks later...

Smart Morph

One of the most intriguing developments for the MODX (and the Montage) came with the release of OS 2.5 (3.5 for the Montage), called Smart Morph. This new feature takes multiple FM-X sounds of your choosing, analyzes them through Machine Learning, and then distributes the results onto a screen grid with 1024 different cells that represent stages of morphing between the various sounds. This process is based on something called a self organizing map, and while I"m not an expert (although I do play one on select Internet forums!), the gist of it is that there are points on the grid where each of your selected FM-X sounds is sounding as it was programmed, and then as you travel towards another target, the machine learning has calculated changes of various parameters to 'arrive' at another target sound intact. The complexity of that process is directly dependent on how many sources you ask the process to interpolate between â you can choose up to 8 sounds to use. Some may think of morphing as a continuous, or smooth changing of the sound, but this process delivers you many small, discrete steps along the way. Some of your finger travels across the grid will sound very smooth and evocative; other times the steps are somewhat abrupt/choppy/glitchy. Not that there"s anything wrong with that! I"ll explain more about that in a few.

 

How It"s Presented

The final sound that you play will be in Part 1 of a Performance.

pHoAya6.png

 

The process uses FM-X sounds that you place in Parts 9-16, which are not really part of your playable range of the Performance, and you still have Parts 2-8 to add more to your Smart Morphed sound later. So the best way to get started is to choose an INIT FM-X Performance from the Category Select function.

orAWZIk.png

 

This gives you a 'receptacle' in Part 1 for the machine learning to come. From there you select the brown Smart Morph tab and you"re ready to select sounds from the Edit Tab for Parts 9-16 (presented as empty squares with a plus sign in them).

W73ZV6x.png

 

Touch a square and you"re taken to Category Search of only FM-X sounds. Shop away, trying the selected sound via the keyboard as you go.

tdAvaYL.png

 

I have read things from Yamaha that suggest you want to use a minimum of 4 sounds for the process, but I saw a

that only used 2, and I thought starting small would help me to try to understand what is happening. Sometimes it did, but often the changes were too abrupt without more choices being 'fed' into the Learning process. It doesn"t matter what slot you put a sound into, and what you leave empty; the process will use whatever you give it, however you give it.

 

After choosing your sounds you can just press the Learn area to the bottom right of the screen and it"ll start churning and learning.

9z26nmT.png

Or you can select the next tab Analyze, to make some other choices before asking it to Learn.

HZQisjR.png

 

Here is where it gets difficult for me to explain (or even understand) what really happens, as what the system says it is doing, and what I hear at times can be hard for me to reconcile. If you just press Learn and the system does its thing, when it is ready the Analyze screen will show you three parameters that it has intelligently chosen to act upon across the various sounds. There is a huge list of potential parameters available, and you can decide to pick from them yourself, or let the system decide.

a7iHhQ7.png

88ZsJam.png

rWmuSrl.png

 

What confuses me is sometimes the things that it said it chose, like a panning parameter, don"t seem critical to making the sound variations that I hear. And I am almost always hearing way more timbral change than can be attributed to only three parameters. It presents these 3 parameter choices as related to colors on the screen, but that seems like a tenuous relationship, in that the 3 colors are not always even represented on the resulting screen map. Whatever, it"s not important (I think). Either you directly choose 3 parameters, or you let the system decide, press Learn, and after a short amount of time (counted down onscreen) you have a sound to explore.

 

There will be small white squares on the resulting screen, and if you are on the Edit tab there will be lines going from each white square back to your original sound selections.

iBsz9ZY.png

 

Touch the white square and its associated sound plays back properly. Start sliding your finger away from those squares and the sound will keep changing, taking on more of the characteristics of the next white square"s sound you selected as you approach it. As I said earlier, there are 1024 discrete stops along the way, and some result in clearly changing parameters/timbre, others seem to just fade out. Some changes happen very gradually/smoothly; at other times it"s a huge step. What can cause the larger, jarring jumps? Big differences between two sounds, like if they are set to different octaves to begin with are not going to gradually slide between the pitches, at some point your sound just jumps an octave. If the learning is morphing a Coarse Tuning of an Operator you"ll hear the stepped, chromatic gliss. The system can actually choose to morph between algorithms â now there"s a concept that no FM system has ever offered before! But that change is going to happen all at once at a point in the grid, and as you would expect, that kind of change is a huge timbral difference.

 

In practice you"ll find that there are a bunch of points out of the 1024 that sound really cool, and when you find one you like you can save that as a new sound, in another Performance. Then go back to your working area and keep playing around. So a single Learned Smart Morph might throw off many new sounds. At any time you can go back and press Learn again and it will re-process and come up with a new map of sounds to explore. You can even Undo the most recent processing and go back one step to try again. The beauty of the system is you really don"t need to know anything about FM-X, you can just choose some cool timbres and let the system have it"s way with them and then shop around the grid for interesting result. Rinse and repeat endlessly.

 

On the Montage you can more easily see what is changing as you move your finger around, as the 8 rotary encoders and 8 sliders all have LED rings that show their position. So Operator tuning and level is being displayed in realtime. Watching demo videos I kept noticing that much more was changing than just 3 parameters and that led me to contact my friends at Yamaha and discuss this further. And they confirmed that a lot more is happening under the hood, but they couldn"t explain any of the intricacies of the learning algorithm/code/process. They, and many of the sound designers who worked on it all came to the conclusion that you"ll be far better served to just let the system do its thing, and that trying to create more deterministic results is a fool"s errand. So in the end I (and they) think it"s best to let the system do its thing and then trust your ears.

 

I am really intrigued by this feature, and it delivers loads of sounds that I would never know how to begin to make. I"m certainly glad that Yamaha didn"t reserve this feature for only the flagship model in their range â they certainly could have. Finding cool paths to travel across with my finger to create shifting sonic landscapes is a bit more of a search, but if you move slowly you"ll find a number of sweet spots in almost every permutation it spits out. I"ve always felt that well-implemented Randomize features in synths are a good thing to have for finding those 'happy accidents'⦠this is a whole new level of exploration in that direction.

 

There"s one more aspect to the feature, and that is that you can assign a range/direction of movement on the screen to the Super Knob, choosing 2 points that can be traversed in a straight line. That can be 'played' manually using the Super Knob itself, or the movement of the knob can be controlled with a Motion Sequence for timed and/or repeating gestures. Scenes can also be used to change the location of the Super Knob, along with all the other things a Scene can do.

scp0QL5.png

Edit; sorry, I've exceeded the number of images I can embed in a single post!

 

All good stuff, but I can"t help but wish for more. You are presented with a grid that looks like an X/Y pad, but you can"t create, or record more sophisticated gestures. No swirling allowed, for instance. I see that interface and I think Vector control: even though the MODX doesn"t have a joystick controller, could there be a way to record your finger movements on the display to create much more intricate and interesting movements? If you are recording audio you can capture the result of your gestures, but there"s no way to record that gesture internally for it to play back automatically. Feature update?

 

Wishes aside, I think Smart Morph is a big deal and I applaud Yamaha for coming up with it. It works well as an intelligent patch randomizer that delivers a whole spectrum of related possibilities in one playable interface, and it"s yet another way that they deliver on the Motion Synthesis credo.

 

Synth geek note #1: Once the process is complete, all of the sonic possibilities are stored in Part 1, and you don"t need Parts 9-16 â they can be deleted to save memory, or to use for other purposes. They would only be needed if you wanted to run the Learn process again. So this means that the sound in Part 1 is much more than a regular sound, as it contains all the parameter attributes of up to 8 other sounds as they have been morphed and spread out across the grid. So you might think you can go into that sound and edit aspects of it further. But you would only be editing the parameters that are stored in that one square of the grid out of 1023 other places. Once you move your finger to another spot your edit is either gone, or possibly being changed. But remember that at any one spot on the morphing grid you can hit Store and save that setting as a new sound/Performance. Then it is frozen as the values as they are in that one spot, and you can then go and edit away. Just note that your new saved result is no longer a morphing object, it"s a regular FM-X sound.

 

Synth geek note #1.1:Starting from an INIT FM-X sound means there are no effects on your sound, and no other modulation assignments. So you would want to create those settings for a completed, production-ready Performance. And you can add other sounds to Parts 2-8 if desired.

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Here are a few sound demos from the Factory Presets supplied with the update (I"m either moving my finger slowly around the grid, or letting the stored Motion Sequence move the Super Knob):

P0FUReK.png

Glavinet Exploration

 

Morphalux Exploration

iBsz9ZY.png

 

Neomorph FM

lFLN3xv.png

 

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Compu Sigh

fmFkDJH.png

 

FM Variations

GDikh1S.png

 

If you want to study up more on Smart Morph I recommend these two places to start:

Yamaha Article

Yamaha Tech Talk Stream

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I'll add one more thought I forgot to articulate: As for choosing your own parameters for the learning to use (on the Analyze Tab); no doubt if you know lot about the design of the sounds you are going to use, then you could choose parameters that would have the most impact, or the specific impact you want. To say that another way: If you want to get deterministic results you need to fully understand the materials you are working with. If you know which Operator is the critical one affected the timbral aspect you would like to target, and if you choose sounds that all use that same Operator as a Modulator (for example) then selecting that parameter for the analysis should yield some result that moves in the direction you want. I assume. ;)

 

If I had the time I would study and try to prove this out better, but it makes sense to me.Perhaps Manny has explored this some?

 

Jerry

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It took me several re-reads to digest all this but I got to say this is a fantastic write up. I found the placement of the pics really helpful and it all makes sense now. Tbh while I find this morphing concept fascinating it would drive me nuts. I always need to know what and why things are happening. I'd also want the ability to velocity control, filter and modulate different components of the post Learn product. As you indicated you have to let go the deterministic approach and accept what the machine comes up with. Never :saber:

 

This doesn't diminish how cool and fun I think what's offered here can be for the right person. Just not me. Again I really enjoyed reading about this and appreciate the amount of work that went into it. :2thu:

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It took me several re-reads to digest all this but I got to say this is a fantastic write up. I found the placement of the pics really helpful and it all makes sense now. Tbh while I find this morphing concept fascinating it would drive me nuts. I always need to know what and why things are happening. I'd also want the ability to velocity control, filter and modulate different components of the post Learn product. As you indicated you have to let go the deterministic approach and accept what the machine comes up with. Never :saber:

 

This doesn't diminish how cool and fun I think what's offered here can be for the right person. Just not me. Again I really enjoyed reading about this and appreciate the amount of work that went into it. :2thu:

 

Thanks Marky!

 

It took me a while to try to grok this feature, including a really helpful discussion with my pal Blake Angelos at Yamaha before I committed to my viewpoint. I am confident that we on the outside of developing the algorithms will never likely know how it does what it does. But why does it have to be a deterministic tool? Happy accidents can be a wonderful thing, and push us into areas we never might have gone, and likely couldn't have gone. But let me re-state something I wrote in the section that perhaps you missed.

 

Once it does its voodoo, and you move around the grid, hopefully (likely?) you come to one single point that has a timbre you like. Store that setting as a new Performance, and you get that frozen set of parameters, with no more references to the source materials, and no ability to morph any more. From there you can do all the normal editing you want. So it's as you want it.

 

My discussion of the lack of determinism was about trying to guide the process in a desired direction. I'm not sure you can effectively do that. But once you get a result you absolutely can turn that into a regular sound that have full control over.

 

:2thu:

 

Jerry

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Thanks for the clarification Jerry. I've used other tools like randomizers that can also reveal something cool. But I'm often left feeling if I could just eliminate this one aspect, or move this wobbly part further into the "sequence" etc. Many of my fm patches are happy accidents, no problem with that. I guess I just need final determination over the end result. I'm just a control freq., but I hear you and will definitely check it out at some point.

 

Btw the one question I had until I got towards the end was how it saved the data. I'm sure you're aware of the often voiced complaint regarding the original Wavestation patches (or was it the wave sequences?); If you went in and modified the patch and it was used elsewhere it screwed with all the performances using it:redwall:. Yamaha's approach with the MODX is excellent.

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Btw the one question I had until I got towards the end was how it saved the data. I'm sure you're aware of the often voiced complaint regarding the original Wavestation patches (or was it the wave sequences?); If you went in and modified the patch and it was used elsewhere it screwed with all the performances using it:redwall:. Yamaha's approach with the MODX is excellent.

 

Yes, "dependencies" should die a harsh death in any system!

 

Korg still has them, in how Combinations reference Program locations, and if you edit that Program it still affects all the Combis that reference them. Tone Adjust has gone some way towards lessening that issue, but if the Combi fully "absorbed" the Programs as part of their structure it would be better. But that's a huge memory issue.

 

Jerry

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Let"s cover some gigging/functional things that we all require from a keyboard.

 

The Feel Of The Keyboard

I didn"t weigh in on this right away, as I wanted to live with the MODX 6 for a while. So now I can say that⦠I"ve played worse. The keys feel 'OK' for a lower-end product, without much wiggle or twist. They have an OK initial resistance, or break-point for a synth action. But they are not an action that I enjoy playing. I find that I cannot control my dynamics as well as I would like, and when recording MIDI from it I often found notes that would jump out at a much higher velocity level than I thought I was playing. Often this happens from the black keys, which seem to play/feel a little different than the white. I play pretty light/controlled (especially in the home studio, versus on a gig) and while my playing usually lives within about 25-90 max, I would often have notes that jumped out to the high 90"s on up, markedly higher than notes played around them. I fault the key action for this. I didn"t take the MODX out to any gigs or full-band sessions since I don"t have any of those these days, but I imagine the lack of control would be slightly less noticeable, since I would be playing a bit harder. But overall, it"s a lower-end feeling keyboard. Not as poor to play as my Korg Pa900, but not that much better. Something has to 'give' to get the price-point down. No one can write about the feel of an instrument as advice for you â you have to touch/play it yourself.

 

Splits/Layers

While the MODX has no dedicated buttons or functions for creating a split or layer, it"s simple to do. Some people like to take an existing Performance and just change out a Part to what they need, but let"s look at building it up from an existing single sound.

 

You may be starting from a sound that only uses 1 Part, or it uses a few. Doesn"t matter. The Main Performance view shows the 8 available Parts for live play from the keyboard, and any unused one just has a large plus sign in the center.

VeJxhl4.png

Touch that and you can add another Part to your Performance. By default it will span the entire keyboard so you"re already in Layer territory. If you want it to be a split the channel strip view of the Part already shows the key range. Touch either field to change the low or hi limit of the range. You can use the Data Entry wheel or the Inc/Dec switches to change the value, but in a nice touch, when you highlight one of those fields, a new indicator shows up on the left of the screen called Keyboard.

r1tedIx.png

Touch it and you can now use the keys of the keyboard to select the value. After entering one of the field you do have to touch the other to make it active, or you"ll be constantly changing the same lo or high limit. So just remember to change fields, and then turn off the Keyboard indicator when finished.

Aside: I always loved the way we handled this at Ensoniq â you would enter the key for the low range and then the field would automatically move to the upper. Because that"s what you almost always want to do. If that want what you wanted it kept cycling back and forth. Easy. And the MODX does allow you to use the Enter Key to invoke keyboard entry: repeated presses of Enter toggles the function on and off.

 

Once you"ve assigned your sounds you can either edit more at the Performance level, for things like controller assignments and filtering, and control over the Variation, Reverb, Master FX and Master EQ. Editing per Part gives you access to the Insert Effects (A and B), per Part controller assignments and more. It"s all very straightforward and logical, once you understand how a Performance functions.

 

The only tricky thing is defining what you want (if anything) from the Assignable Knobs. They are already going to be assigned to things so you need to look at what they are doing and remove functions that you don"t want, or just to clear up a controller so it can do what you do want. The MODX makes this easy to see: with the Performance name highlighted press Edit, select Control, and on the bottom left either choose Common or a Part. There is a box on the top row called Auto Select that when touched shows you the assignments for whatever controller you move.

Gu2lHd1.png

So you can easily delete functions you don"t want to free it up. If you start from an INIT Performance there will be no Common assignments, only assignments for the sounds you bring into each Part.

 

Note: This is only an issue if you need more from the knobs than the 3 rows of pre-defined functions provide.

 

Usually, the other things you need to deal with will be found within Part Edit, Mod/Control and the Receive SW Tab, so you can filter out sustain pedal from a range, Mod Wheel, Pitch Bend and those sorts of things.

GpTT05T.png

Other per Part edits (like transposition etc.) are of course available editing each Part.

 

I can understand why people like dedicated Split functions, as they often allow you to play a full range sound, instantly divide it up into a pre-determined split, and then go back to full range when needed. But I consider it 'nice to have', not 'critical'. I do wish the MODX had a category field for splits, as it would make it easier to find these common/useful sounds. Korg has always offered Bass Splits and Lead Splits as Combi categories. Very helpful.

 

MIDI Control Of External Devices

Any Part in a Performance can be set up to also trigger an external MIDI device. Let"s first remember that the MODX can play 8 Parts from its keyboard, and so it is an 8-zone capable instrument for transmission/control over itself and external devices. Within Part Edit, Part Settings is a Tab called Zone Settings, and below it Zone Transmit. Turn on Zone in Zone Settings and you have some basic controls as shown below:

V2iUBQ2.png

 

The Zone Transmit tab gives you control over which of the controllers will transmit for that Zone, as well as Bank and Program Changes. Once you select a channel for the Transmit Ch field you get even more parameters to deal with.

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But what messages will they transmit? This is found in another area, within the Utility button. Utility, Settings MIDI I/O has a field at the bottom right called Control Number. Selecting that opens up the assignments for most of the switches and pedals, and these are saved per Performance.

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About the only things I can see missing are the ability to limit, or taper the range of a controller so it doesn"t always send the full 1-127 range, or the ability to invert the behavior of the controller (drawbars, anyone?). Depending on what device you are communicating with, these may be able to be defined at the destination.

 

Note that a Part can"t be defined as an External one only: it has to have something loaded into it to get to all these functions. So if you truly need a discrete Zone for external use only you need to turn off the internal sound for that Part. Edit part, Part Settings, General has a field for Part Output. Change it from the likely default of Main L&R to Off and you"re there.

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A/D Input

You can connect an external audio device to the MODX and merge it into the Main Ouput audio stream. Great for submixing another keyboard into it I like that it has both front panel On/Off and a volume knob easily within reach â no menu diving required.

 

USB Audio and MIDI

The MODX is very capable in these areas. Via USB audio is transmitted over 8 channels, either configured as 4 stereo pairs, or 8 mono streams, plus a main stereo pair. So a total of 10 channels into your computer/whatever. The Main stereo pair includes the System/Master effects and EQ, the others only include whatever Insert effects you use. A good design.

 

The specs for the MODX state there are 4 channels for audio to be brought into the MODX. As I can understand it this would be the two analog inputs and 2 channels of USB audio. The MIDI over USB design offers three Ports: Port 1 handles the main sound and controller messages for the sound engine itself. Port 2 carries Remote Control messages for using the MODX as a control surface to operate your DAW with. Port 3 is a 'bridge' between USB MIDI and the 5-pin DIN MIDI port, working in both directions. So the MODX can act as a USB MIDI to DIN interface in your studio/rig if needed. Nice.

 

Note: Early on in this process I was answering a question regarding if you need to use the Steinberg USB MIDI driver for the MODX to work with a computer (the user was using LINUX, for which there is no driver). At the time I tested and it all seemed to work fine without the driver, and I recently came across a response by BadMister (Phil!) MIDI/AUDIO drivers that confirms that the MODX will act as a class-compliant device. The driver helps to achieve lower buffer settings for audio and for generally more robust performance, but is not required.

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