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Yamaha CS6x MIDI question


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Hi folks! I used my Yamaha CS6x for live performance only. Really great synth and lots of bang for your buck but now I want to get this thing to communicate through MIDI and I don't know sh*t about that. I just know that I have to connect midi-out to midi-in of the interface (Emagic MT4) and vice versa. The main problem is - and these Yamaha manuals do suck because it's totally unclear how to do this - that I have to, sort of, make the thing understand that it has to transmit a certain sound using the transmit channel I want. The manual is babbling about something with parts. What does this mean? Told ya I don't know sh*t about MIDI. S80 owners, please do answer too because I have the impression that this one is using some of the same things as the CS6x.

Crazy, my old sound canvas never had problems like this. And my crappy PC always crashed but worked with midi. Now I have a great synth, a great mac, no more crashing but my midi doesn't work...

http://www.bobwijnen.nl

 

Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life.

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S80 owner here, let me see if I can help . . .

 

To do multi-part sequencing (ie. more than one sound at a time) you need to be in performance mode. Once there you need to set it to master keyboard mode and make sure that all the parts' layers are set to "off". Now make sure that Zone A is set to the midi channel you want to record on (eg. if you are recording the music for part one which is receiving on midi channel 1 you would want zone a to be set on midi channel 1). That sets up the synth to send midi out on channel one, receive that back after it goes through the comp, and route it to part 1 of the performance. There are other ways to do this, one of the things that makes the CS6X and S80 great, but this is the way I usually do it.

 

-Casey

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I would just add to Casey's explaination that you might want to go to Yamaha's synth site and download the PDF file for the S80 on performances. It can be found here:

 

http://www.yamahasynth.com/down/s80/s_power.htm

 

You'll find several PDF's that apply also the CS6x, including how to use the smartmedia cards and the plug in boards (which seems to baffle just about everyone).

 

Your right about the simillarities between the CS6x and the S80 -- they share the same OS and really the only difference between them (beside the keyboard) are the voice wavs and the dedicated knobs.

 

hope this helps,

-bruce

 

[ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: boose44 ]

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there's a few performances in the cs that are setup exclusively for multi-timbral use with a sequencer. I would use those as a starting point.

 

Thanks for links in the s80 site. Funny that they cross post those in the cs area.

Korg Kronos X73 / ARP Odyssey / Motif ES Rack / Roland D-05 / JP-08 / SE-05 / Jupiter Xm / Novation Mininova / NL2X / Waldorf Pulse II

MBP-LOGIC

American Deluxe P-Bass, Yamaha RBX760

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OK, finally we're on a roll! CS6x is sending data to my mac, yeeeeehaaaaa!

I have only one more question for you CS6x and S80 owners. Can you give me a step by step guide of how to send 16 separate MIDI channels. I know the CS6x isn't XG compatible, I don't need gunshots and helicopters but is there a way to send one piano sound on part 1, one moog bass sound on channel 2 etc. The only thing I read in the manual is about split, 4zone and layer and I don't nedd that yet.

Thanx for your ideas.

http://www.bobwijnen.nl

 

Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life.

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AFAIK you can't send on 16 channels at once, but you can receive on 16 channels. Follow my suggestion from above. Start with one of the existing ones and edit it.

 

There's more tutorials on the www.yamahas80.com site. I think there's one specially about this.

Korg Kronos X73 / ARP Odyssey / Motif ES Rack / Roland D-05 / JP-08 / SE-05 / Jupiter Xm / Novation Mininova / NL2X / Waldorf Pulse II

MBP-LOGIC

American Deluxe P-Bass, Yamaha RBX760

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Like Rod said, you can't send on 16 channels at once, but you could send on 4 or so! Anyway, here's the setup I use to sequence a song while listening to the parts I've already sequenced.

 

I start with a 4 zone performance in master keyboard mode. In the master Utility mode I set Midi receive channels to "omni" so all the channels are received, and transmit to channel 1.

 

In the 4 zone performance edit menus, hit the "A" key to edit zone 1. Set it to Midi = "on" and and TG = "off". This separates the CS's tone generator from the keyboard, so pressing a key isn't sent on to the tone generator, instead it goes out on midi 1 (or you can set it to some other channel in the Zone 1 menu) to your sequencer. Make sure that the "layer" command for parts 1-16) is set to "off". Now depending on the sequencer you may have to set the send channel to the receive channel (1-16) that you are working on at the moment (eg. working on moog on voice 2, set Zone 1 send channel to 2). Then, as you work, just hit record on whichever channel you are sequencing on and make sure your zone is sending on that channel, and start playing, the software will send the midi back on that channel and the board will make noise!

 

Now something that you'll notice is that some voices don't have the depth/effects they had in voice mode. This is because performances have their own 5 band EQ settings that affect the sound in Perf mode, and only 1 voice can have insert effects in Perf mode (yeah, it's the thing everybody hates about this synth, Why Yammy, Why?). To get around this I set the insert effects to whichever part I'm working on at the moment in the "Common" menu of the performance, and then record the audio of each part in voice mode when the sequence is finished.

 

-Casey

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I start with a 4 zone performance in master keyboard mode. In the master Utility mode I set Midi receive channels to "omni" so all the channels are received, and transmit to channel 1.

 

Whoa, wait a minute. Does this mean I can't play the entire keyboard with the same sound all over it?

 

Now something that you'll notice is that some voices don't have the depth/effects they had in voice mode. This is because performances have their own 5 band EQ settings that affect the sound in Perf mode, and only 1 voice can have insert effects in Perf mode (yeah, it's the thing everybody hates about this synth, Why Yammy, Why?).

 

I noticed that before, exactly my thoughts. This really bites wind.

 

Thanx for your tips. I'm so glad the whole thing is working so it's time to experiment.

http://www.bobwijnen.nl

 

Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life.

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Bob,

 

I'm not sure I understand what's giving you difficulty. First, set up your sequencer with different "instruments" that correspond to midi channels on your CS6x, for example

 

Piano, USB1, Ch 1

Bass, USB1, Ch 2

Guitar, USB1, Ch 3

Drums, USB1, Ch 10

 

Next, on the CS6x, assign a piano patch to channel 1, a bass to channel 2, etc.

 

Now, in Logic's Arrange window, select the track that say Piano ( or create a track and assign it to the Piano object ). Now when you play the keyboard, you'll hear the piano sound. You can record piano parts, too. Similarly, when you select each successive instrument in the Arrange window, you'll hear it play back and you can record it's parts. The beauty is that all of the parts will play back together.

 

One of the example files that I sent you is set up this way. It should give you some ideas as to what is possible with this kind of setup.

The Black Knight always triumphs!

 

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Piano, USB1, Ch 1

Bass, USB1, Ch 2

Guitar, USB1, Ch 3

Drums, USB1, Ch 10

 

Hi Dan, back again. It's not giving me problems. I was just wondering which mode to use, split, 4zone or layer. The CS6x is NOT XG/GM compatible when there's no XG plugin board installed. I'm not sad about that at all. The only thing was how to get piano at ch 1, bass at ch 2 and I think the easiest way is to make a lower piano part and the same piano part for upper register (split mode). I thought I had to use layer but that gave me strange results. Tomorrow I'm setting things up completely. I guess it will work without no further problems.

 

Thanx everybody for your help and tips, I really appreciate it.

http://www.bobwijnen.nl

 

Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life.

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Originally posted by Superbobus:

Piano, USB1, Ch 1

Bass, USB1, Ch 2

Guitar, USB1, Ch 3

Drums, USB1, Ch 10

 

Hi Dan, back again. It's not giving me problems. I was just wondering which mode to use, split, 4zone or layer. The CS6x is NOT XG/GM compatible when there's no XG plugin board installed. I'm not sad about that at all. The only thing was how to get piano at ch 1, bass at ch 2 and I think the easiest way is to make a lower piano part and the same piano part for upper register (split mode). I thought I had to use layer but that gave me strange results. Tomorrow I'm setting things up completely. I guess it will work without no further problems.

 

Thanx everybody for your help and tips, I really appreciate it.

 

Bob,

 

I think you're knocking yourself out with extra work if you go the splits/zones route. That's only for live playing when you need to control multiple sounds simultaneously from the keyboard.

 

I'm sure that the CS6x has a "multi" or "performance" mode where multiple MIDI channels are active at the same time. THIS is the mode you want for sequencing. - I'll bet you a Heineken that the CS works this way. Can any Yamaha guys out there confirm this? - This is definitely the way to go for sequencing. Your CS6x manual should have a diagram of an example multitimbral setup.

The Black Knight always triumphs!

 

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On the CS6x layer and split are two of three different performance modes (of course you can also construct layers and splits in voice mode but it's more difficult). I recommended the third mode - 4 zone - because you can enable just one of the 4 zones making it the transmit channel. This zone is the entire keyboard (unless you set it to some other key range) so you don't have to set two parts of a split to one voice/channel for example, although that would work.

 

One of the problems in this OS is that it's pretty powerful as far as controller functions go but the manual sucks!

 

-Casey

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Sorry guys, I'm getting more and more confused. I can choose a patch in performance mode, say external A1 and program around, assign parts to MIDI channels, but... if I change to patch A2 the interface will lose what I assigned to A1.

Dan, I searched around in performance mode but I can't find no other way but the split, 4zone and layer possibilities. I understand the Logic setup but this synth makes me MAD! Here are some more questions.

How do I set the part layer off, whatever that means.

Where is zone A? (Casey, you wrote that about your S80, right?)

I just can't seem to find out how to set up something like 16 sounds I can send on 16 channels, one at a time, and receive 16 channels back, all at the same time. On my old SC55 this was a piece of cake but the sounds in there do suck. What I need is a step-by-step guide, from level zero, how I can reach this goal.I will go to the links but for now I have square eyes watching the screen.

Hopefully the audio setup for Logic is easier.

Sorry guys, if I'm putting your patience to a test.

http://www.bobwijnen.nl

 

Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life.

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[cracking knuckles] Ok here we go . . .

 

First, save your current settings (everything!) to the smart media card in case you make a mistake and lose something you liked.

 

Before starting hit the [utility] key and make sure that your board is set to "midi receive" = "omni" and "transmit" = "1". "sync" should = "midi". You will want to change this last one back for live playing (no sequencer).

 

1. Go into performance mode.

 

2. Make sure the master keyboard mode is on.

 

3. Select a performance you would like to work on. There is one performance already programmed for sequencing, I believe it is internal performance H-16. If you aren't going to use this one then I recommend that you use a blank one, to get a blank one erase one you don't like with the [job] key.

 

4. Hit the [edit] key and make sure you are in the "common" edit menu by turning knob A all the way to the left. Scroll down with the page knob until you get to the "mode" edit window and set the mode to "4-zone". Also, farther down, you can set the part that gets the insert effects, Look for the "Eff Part" menu and set the channel there to the channel of the voice you want to have the insert effects.

 

5. Set all the voices to the ones you want to use by hitting buttons [1] to [16], or you can select the voices by scrolling through the channels with knob A. Each button brings up the voice edit screen for that channel. If you scroll down in each voice edit screen you will be able to set the voice and change parameters. One of these is the "layer" parameter. Set this to "off" for all voices.

 

6. Hit the [A] key. This will bring up the edit screen for Zone A, one of the 4 zones you can use. We're only sequencing one part at a time here so we won't use the other three zones. By default they're inactive so don't worry about them. As far as this one, set the midi channel to whichever voice you're working on at the time. Turn the "TG" setting to "off" and the "midi" setting to "on".

 

7. Save the performance with these settings by hitting [job], select the destination memory slot (where you will store your performance) and hit [yes]. If you use one of the preset performances you will need to store it into the user memory since you can't overwrite the internal performances.

 

8. You should be ready to go! Just record into your sequencer one part at a time. When you finish one part and are ready to move on to the next one set the midi channel in Zone A to the new part and you're ready to get to work on the next track.

 

You might find the S80 manual easier to understand. Take a look at: http://www.yamaha.com/menuitems/manuals/dmi/S80.pdf

 

-Casey

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THANX A LOT, CASEY!!! We are on a roll! The thing is, apart from the earlier mentioned sound canvas, I have never ever worked with MIDI so for me the question was not how, but WHERE. Thank you so much!

Dan, I still haven't figured out who will get the beer... :D You were right about performance but Yammy wants me to go the zone way.

http://www.bobwijnen.nl

 

Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life.

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Casey - thanks much for the excellent Yamaha synth primer.

 

Bob - good luck! Casey's instructions should have you sequencing like a maniac in no time.

 

I have an idea. Let's all buy a beer and pretend that it's from each other! Effectively, it works out the same, right? ;)

The Black Knight always triumphs!

 

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