beginner Questions with e433

[Roger]

hi, I am a beginner at Keyboards. I have just bought a Yanaha e433 and its great, but I can't seem to get my head around recording, esp with drums. When I try a song (different) starts up and I have to give up.

also is there a way to adjust the volume on the drums?

The manual is incredibly breif on details, very disappointing to be honest.
I am sure I just need a nudge in the right direction and I will be ok, as I am pretty good on picking up new tech etc

any hints or advice?

Thanks a lot

 

[The Y_man]

I think the 433 allows onl;y the whole backing volume to be adjusted - not instrument by instrument. P42 of manual

The Y-man

 

[Roger]

OK thanks for that, that is what I feared. It is disappointing, I would have thought a pretty basic option?

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Roger

Sorry, I have been away for a while and just noticed your post today. I do not know if you are still watching this thread, but I will reply anyway, just in case you are (or for anyone else interested in this matter).

The more expensive PSR arrangers are equipped with onboard style editors so that you can change voicings, volumes, etc, but unfortunately, the E433 is not so equipped. However, there is an external way to accomplish something similar. The E433 is able to load and play "User Styles" from other PSR keyboards. It can load up to 5 at a time from a USB flash drive, which itself, could hold many thousands of style files, depending upon its size. There are several thousand style files available for download from the "PSR TUTORIAL" website. Many of these should be directly useable by the E433 without modification. The differences are that the larger PSR's allow three intros, 4 mains. and three endings for each style, while the E433 allows only one, two, and one respectively. From a 3-4-3 style file, the E433 would only play Intro ONE, MAINS ONE and TWO, and ENDING ONE. The additional limitation is that some (many ?) of these styles are in excess of 50 Kb in size while the E433 will only load styles up to about 36 or 37 Kb in size, so you would need to watch the overall style file size, but not to worry ! Michael Bedessem on the PSR TUTORIAL site and Jorgen Sorensen, on his own site, offer PC based utilities that will allow you to select the desired style parts and discard the rest in order to pare down the file size so that modified versions of the larger styles will work on the E433. These utilities will also allow you to change voicings, volumes, etc that you want to do. The E433 will only load the SFF-1 style files of the older PSR's (up through the 710/910 and Tyros 2), it will not load the SFF-2 styles of the newer arrangers (750/950 and Tyros 3/4), but here again, Jorgen offers a utility that will convert SFF-2 styles to SFF-1, so that you can have the best of all worlds. One other limitation, if an imported style has any one of its parts (intro, main, ending) that exceeds the allowable space for that part on the E433, even thought the overall file size is less than 36 Kb, the E433 will not load it.

If you are seriously interested in customized styles for your E433, I would recommend joining the PSR TUTORIAL FORUM and looking into the above utilities.

The PSR TUTORIAL FORUM can be found at:

http://psrtutorial.com/


and Jorgen Sorensen's site can be found at:

http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/


Good luck !

 

[Roger]

Thank you very much Ted. I will definitely look into what you wrote and look at that thread
cheers

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Roger

After working with my E433 for a while today, I decided I needed to clarify a few of the things I said in my previous post. Even though you could store several thousand style files on a 2 Gb flash drive, the PSR arrangers have some design limitations that must be taken into account. All of them seem to have a maximum number of files that they can handle in any given directory (folder), and this is usually somewhere between 130 and 150. The actual number varies from model to model. Sadly, the E433 does not support directories (folders), at all, when it comes to style files on the USB flash drive. They all have to be in the root directory in order for the E433 to "see" them, so you would be limited to roughly 130 styles immediately available online for loading into the five User Style slots. Of course, you could always create hundreds of directories and put hundreds of styles into each of them, but you would need a PC or laptop to move them in and out of the root directory at around 130 at a time so the E433 would recognize them. Look at it this way. Even if you stick with just the root directory and nothing more, that's still 130 to 150 additional styles that you don't have access to right now. It just seems like a horrible waste of flash drive space. And . . . now . . . for the most disappointing drawback of all. While the larger PSR's can load style files from USB flash drives almost instantaneously, this process is painstakingly s - l - o - w on the E433 - like from one to three minutes per style, and the operating system is not always good about informing you when a load is complete. So, this is not something you would want to attempt in a live setting, even if you are playing just for friends or family. I am afraid that in the time it took to load just one style ( let alone 5), you would lose most of your audience to the fridge, or the washroom, or the Blackberry, or the iPad, or the TV, or just nodding off. For my part, I have decided I will look at those five User Style slots as sort of semi-permanent pre-sets. I will probably just load them up with five of the hottest dance rhythms and just use them that way until there is some major genre change, and then I will set aside a couple of hours for reloading them with new styles.

I say this, not to discourage you in any way, but rather, to save you any frustrating surprises. I realize that these limitations will severely hamper your original plans. Don't feel too bad about your E433, we are having similar problems with "voice" file storage on Roland's new top-of-the-line Jupiter 50 and 80 synths and song file storage on their mid-range Juno-Gi synth.

Best of luck !

 

[Roger]

Wow! Thank you very much for your kind advice

I will look into it

 

[ThomasM]

I'm just a newbie looking for answers.
I have an e423 digital keyboard. I have several songbooks of which I can play most of the songs "without" the chords. my problem is combining the chords with the melodies. I was told by one guy to learn the songs with just the right hand as best you can before inserting chords. Now here's the problem. I play the chord, then four notes then I have to search for the next chord. It would be far much better if I could memorize the chords so I wouldn't have to go looking for them as I play the melody. This results in a very choppy rendition of a song that doesn't even sound like any well known song. Another thing, the chord being played has long gone down in volume before I even hit the last note in the measure. How do I match the chords to the song being played?
Another thing, my brain can just process one hand at a time not both at the same time on different keys. Is this a conditioned reflex?

 

[The Y_man]

It's something you learn - and everyone leans differently.

You do need to memorize how the chords are held.

Don't get too ambitious at the start - I started by playing songs that essentially only had the white keys
C major
F major
G major
A minor

You'll be surprise how many tunes you can get with those 4. In fact there are many church sessions I get through on just those four codes (variously transposed).

Add a D minor and E minor if you need more variation.

The other thing is - don't be afraid of the technology on board the machine - use it.

The e423's auto accompaniment means you don't have to hold the chord down - you hit the keys and can let go, so you can go concentrate on the melody (other than the first note!)

The Y-man

 

[Wes]

Right, those first four chords are enough to play just about every pop song ever written. Add in Em and you could play Pachabel's Canon ... in C.

 

[The Y_man]

Right, those first four chords are enough to play just about every pop song ever written. Add in Em and you could play Pachabel's Canon ... in C.

Whence the transpose +2 comes in real handy

The Y-man

 

[ThomasM]

I play the song Frankie & Johnnie flawlessly with the right hand in different tempos and it sounds great! However when I do the chord thing, it don't sound right :-( . the chords it calls for are C - F - G - Gm7.

 

[Wes]

Which version of Frankie and Johnny? I think the one by Johnny Cash is all I-IV-V7 -- so, in C, it would be, C-F-G7...but the usual key is G, so, G-C-D7.