Help about E433 style structure?

[vbdx66]

Hello everybody,

I recently purchased a Yamaha PSR E433, which I find a very good keyboard in the low/middle-class price range.
I would like to extend the styles capabilities of the keyboard, which can stock up to 5 user styles in its flash memory.
The problem is that it is almost impossible to find styles which are already tailored for the E433. The only alternative is to convert public-domain styles that already exist for other keyboards (PSR S series, Tyros series...) and adapt them for the PSR E433.

Alas, the user guide says nothing about this.

So here is my question: could anybody here tell me more about the style structure of the PSR E433? In particular :
- what is the file format?
- what is the maximum file size limit?
- what about OTS?
- what about CASM?
- what is the maximum size limit of each part (intro, variation I, variation II, ending) of each style?
- is it possible to revoice an existing style that is using GM voice in order to use the better-sounding panel voices instead?

Well, you got the line. It is style programming that I want to dig into. Although this cannot be done directly on the keyboard itself, there is plenty of software to do it on the computer, but I don't know where to begin...

Any hint will be helpful. Also, if you have already done some style tweaking for the PSR E403, E413 or E423, I think that the same parameters should more or less be applicable, at least to a certain extent, to the E433.

Thanks for helping,

Vinciane.

 

[DickR]

An extensive discussion and advice is going on about the same thing by Ted Nicoson on psrtutorial.com. I suggest to have a look instead of repeating the same thing. He discovered also a very interesting and valuable 'extra' on the E433 that most people don't know about and is not covered by Yamaha's manual.
This is the link:

http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php?topic=21346.msg152871;topicseen#msg152871

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Vinciane

I have already covered much of this over on the PSR-Tutorial Forum and dislike making duplicated posts, but since it contains a fair amount of new information, I will post the entire reply here for those who are interested and do the same over there, for those who are interested, lest I be accused of "playing favorites".


I will answer your questions in the order of your asking:

Yamaha arrangers up through PSR-S700/900 and Tyros-2 use Yamaha Style-File-Format-1 (SFF-1), as does the E433. Arrangers PSR-S710/910/Tyros-3 and newer use Style-File-Format-2 (SFF-2), which is not compatible with the E433, but Jorgen Sorensen offers an SFF2-to-SFF1 converter at his website.

Through experimentation, I have determined the max style file size for the E433 to be 50Kb. The largest file I could find that would load was 49.7Kb, while 8 different files between 50Kb and 51Kb would not load.

The E433 appears to support OTS only for the preset styles. None of the user styles I imported would change voices via OTS. I verified that these styles DO contain OTS data by loading them into the PSR-3000 and playing them. I suspected that there may be a difference in the LSB/MSB codes that select the voices, but the Data Lists for the E433 and the 3K indicate that the LSB/MSB and Program Change (PC) numbers are all the same for the voices they have in common. It appears that the E433 just has an OTS scheme that is not compatible with the higher-end units. I am not certain that the E433 even checks the User Style slots for OTS data. This may be a show stopper for some users, but not a concern for others. A work-around would be to use Registrations.

The actual "rifts" or "tunes" in a style are determined by the various MIDI notes, but how the accompaniment algorithm uses those notes is determined by the CASM, especially as they are transposed up and down the scale by chord and key changes. A more basic question for the E433, being a low-end model, is "Does it even use CASM?" The best indication of this is Jorgen Sorensen's update of his CASM Editor program on 01-30-2009 to include support for the PSR-E413. That is a pretty good indication that the E423 and E433 also use CASM. At the current time, it does not appear that any of the CASM editors, available on the web, directly support the E423/E433, but this should only be a major concern for those creating new styles from scratch. The PSR's seem to do a fairly good job at using CASM data imported with styles from other models. The secret here is to be sure to use a style editor that does not destroy the existing CASM when tweaking or trimming styles.

Size limitations on the different style parts were taken directly from the presets. Style Number 110 (Forro) has both the longest Intro and Ending at 16 bars each. I was really surprised by this. I would have guessed only 8 or 12 on this level of keyboard. I tried to determine the length of the mains by counting the bars between repeated passages and came up with 12, but I think it is a pretty good bet that with Intro/Endings of 16 bars, that the mains can also be 16 bars each. Fills, of course, are one bar.

Yes, it should be possible to tweak a style to use high quality panel voices instead of GM/XG/XG-Lite voices, but you have to take into consideration that the E433 only has 32 voice polyphony. That is, it can only have 32 oscillators (sound generators), going at one time. GM/XG/XG-Lite voices typically only use one oscillator at a time. That is, they are single element voices. High quaility panel voices can be 2 or 3 element voices. That is, they use 2 or 3 oscillators to produce a single tone. Using very much of this in a "busy" style can result in obvious "voice stealing" as the keyboard's polyphony is exhausted.

I hope this helps !

Regards,

Ted

 

[vbdx66]

An extensive discussion and advice is going on about the same thing by Ted Nicoson on psrtutorial.com. I suggest to have a look instead of repeating the same thing. He discovered also a very interesting and valuable 'extra' on the E433 that most people don't know about and is not covered by Yamaha's manual.
This is the link:

http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php?topic=21346.msg152871;topicseen#msg152871

Hi Dick, many thanks for the link, I followed it and I noticed that actually, if I am not the one that started the thread on the other forum, it is me who oriented it towards E433 style structure, but I didn't get the following emails from this particular thread, which is the reason why I reposted the same questions (more or less) here. Very useful information, thanks again. Hope this will benefit to other forum users, too.

 

[vbdx66]

Vinciane

I have already covered much of this over on the PSR-Tutorial Forum and dislike making duplicated posts, but since it contains a fair amount of new information, I will post the entire reply here for those who are interested and do the same over there, for those who are interested, lest I be accused of "playing favorites".


I will answer your questions in the order of your asking:

Yamaha arrangers up through PSR-S700/900 and Tyros-2 use Yamaha Style-File-Format-1 (SFF-1), as does the E433. Arrangers PSR-S710/910/Tyros-3 and newer use Style-File-Format-2 (SFF-2), which is not compatible with the E433, but Jorgen Sorensen offers an SFF2-to-SFF1 converter at his website.

Through experimentation, I have determined the max style file size for the E433 to be 50Kb. The largest file I could find that would load was 49.7Kb, while 8 different files between 50Kb and 51Kb would not load.

The E433 appears to support OTS only for the preset styles. None of the user styles I imported would change voices via OTS. I verified that these styles DO contain OTS data by loading them into the PSR-3000 and playing them. I suspected that there may be a difference in the LSB/MSB codes that select the voices, but the Data Lists for the E433 and the 3K indicate that the LSB/MSB and Program Change (PC) numbers are all the same for the voices they have in common. It appears that the E433 just has an OTS scheme that is not compatible with the higher-end units. I am not certain that the E433 even checks the User Style slots for OTS data. This may be a show stopper for some users, but not a concern for others. A work-around would be to use Registrations.

The actual "rifts" or "tunes" in a style are determined by the various MIDI notes, but how the accompaniment algorithm uses those notes is determined by the CASM, especially as they are transposed up and down the scale by chord and key changes. A more basic question for the E433, being a low-end model, is "Does it even use CASM?" The best indication of this is Jorgen Sorensen's update of his CASM Editor program on 01-30-2009 to include support for the PSR-E413. That is a pretty good indication that the E423 and E433 also use CASM. At the current time, it does not appear that any of the CASM editors, available on the web, directly support the E423/E433, but this should only be a major concern for those creating new styles from scratch. The PSR's seem to do a fairly good job at using CASM data imported with styles from other models. The secret here is to be sure to use a style editor that does not destroy the existing CASM when tweaking or trimming styles.

Size limitations on the different style parts were taken directly from the presets. Style Number 110 (Forro) has both the longest Intro and Ending at 16 bars each. I was really surprised by this. I would have guessed only 8 or 12 on this level of keyboard. I tried to determine the length of the mains by counting the bars between repeated passages and came up with 12, but I think it is a pretty good bet that with Intro/Endings of 16 bars, that the mains can also be 16 bars each. Fills, of course, are one bar.

Yes, it should be possible to tweak a style to use high quality panel voices instead of GM/XG/XG-Lite voices, but you have to take into consideration that the E433 only has 32 voice polyphony. That is, it can only have 32 oscillators (sound generators), going at one time. GM/XG/XG-Lite voices typically only use one oscillator at a time. That is, they are single element voices. High quaility panel voices can be 2 or 3 element voices. That is, they use 2 or 3 oscillators to produce a single tone. Using very much of this in a "busy" style can result in obvious "voice stealing" as the keyboard's polyphony is exhausted.

I hope this helps !

Regards,

Ted

Hi Ted, thanks a lot, this is most useful information and now I am a bit less in the dark, you must have spent days programming your E433, I am quite impressed

I did convert some styles that were under the 50 kb limit and they did not work, I think this is because I inadvertently deleted CASM data :-( So I will try again to convert them and when this is done, I'll tell you whether it is working (it should). By the way, what does the acronym CASM mean? I am at a complete loss here... Neither do I know what MSB and LSB mean, if you would kindly excuse a total newbie in style tweaking...

If you want to use all intros, variations and outros of a particular style, I imagine you could do this through registration, "dividing" a particular style in two parts, part 1 containing intros 1 and 2 of the original style, as well as variations A and B and outros 1 and 2, and part 2 containing intro 3, variations B and C, and outro 3 of the original. You could then assign, let's say, Bank 2 Reg 1 to part 1 and Bank 2 Reg 2 to part 2. This way, you would have access to all variants of the original, higher-end style, on the E433, which would be quite nice. I'll try that as soon as I have got time and tell you whether it works.

As far as revoicing is concerned, I want to do that only for very few, specific styles. For instance, I have found two interesting styles for Baroque music (yes, I know I am a bit mad...). But the GM voices for harpsichord, strings and oboe are not realistic at all and the style as it stands sounds "toyish", so I want to use the panel voices instead. It is more a matter of curiosity, I'd like to know whether the styles will really sound nicer with some panel voices in place of the GM voices.

Thanks so much again for all the useful info and I'll let you know as soon as I can where my experimentations have brought me.
And in the meantime, I'll manage to find some time to play the E433, as well as smelling roses or looking at the stars... ;-)

 

[joso]

Hi

Do not delete CASM. The style might sound odd. In some cases even very odd. And behave strangely.

As Ted wrote:
The actual "rifts" or "tunes" in a style are determined by the various MIDI notes, but how the accompaniment algorithm uses those notes is determined by the CASM, especially as they are transposed up and down the scale by chord and key changes.

Regards
Jørgen

 

[vbdx66]

Hi

Do not delete CASM. The style might sound odd. In some cases even very odd. And behave strangely.

As Ted wrote:
The actual "rifts" or "tunes" in a style are determined by the various MIDI notes, but how the accompaniment algorithm uses those notes is determined by the CASM, especially as they are transposed up and down the scale by chord and key changes.

Regards
Jørgen

Hello Jørgen,

Thanks for the advice. I did not delete CASM on purpose but just because I didn't know what its purpose was, now I realised I shan't delete it.

By the way, what do the acronyms CASM, MSB and LSB stand for? Please excuse these rather naïve questions but I am very new to style tweaking.

I just posted a question on your website about your software Style Revoicer, because I'd like to use it to revoice some styles for the PSR E433 (for instance, the GM harpsichord just sounds toyish and I'd like to use the panel harpsichord voice instead) but I am not sure this will work, since I saw the E413 listed in Style Revoicer, but not the E433. I guess I could choose the E413 in the keyboards' list, check in the E433 data list with voice number stands for which voice and revoice my styles referring to voice numbers instead of voice names and this should work fine, or am I mistaken? For instance, Strings are n° 50 on the E413 and n° 67 on the E433, so if I am revoicing a style for the E433 and I want to use the Strings panel voice, will it be ok if I choose Voice n° 67 in Style Revoicer, even if this number stands for the Sweet Soprano Sax on the E413?

In the meantime, thanks for all the help you are giving to everybody here and wish you a nice day,

Vinciane.

 

[Ted Nicoson]

Vinciane

About 10 hours ago, I posted an answer to your questions regarding MSB, LSB, and CASM that you had posted over on the PSR Tutorial Forum. You might want to check over there before re-asking here, so as not to waste people's time and efforts.

Ted

 

[vbdx66]

Hi Ted,

Sorry for the waste of time and thanks for your answers, I'll go to PSR tutorial to read your post. I don't get emails from PSR Tutorial, do you know what this might be due to?

Regards

Vinciane

 

[Ted Nicoson]

I have no idea what the problem is with PSR-Tutorial not sending you notification emails. I never rely on those on any forum, but it is a common courtesy to your fellow forum members to go in and check for replies to a post, email or no email, before reposting somewhere else, especially when it involves research time to get answers.

Ted

 

[joso]

Hi Vinciane

Hello Jørgen,

Thanks for the advice. I did not delete CASM on purpose but just because I didn't know what its purpose was, now I realised I shan't delete it.

By the way, what do the acronyms CASM, MSB and LSB stand for? Please excuse these rather naïve questions but I am very new to style tweaking.

I just posted a question on your website about your software Style Revoicer, because I'd like to use it to revoice some styles for the PSR E433 (for instance, the GM harpsichord just sounds toyish and I'd like to use the panel harpsichord voice instead) but I am not sure this will work, since I saw the E413 listed in Style Revoicer, but not the E433. I guess I could choose the E413 in the keyboards' list, check in the E433 data list with voice number stands for which voice and revoice my styles referring to voice numbers instead of voice names and this should work fine, or am I mistaken? For instance, Strings are n° 50 on the E413 and n° 67 on the E433, so if I am revoicing a style for the E433 and I want to use the Strings panel voice, will it be ok if I choose Voice n° 67 in Style Revoicer, even if this number stands for the Sweet Soprano Sax on the E413?

In the meantime, thanks for all the help you are giving to everybody here and wish you a nice day,

Vinciane.

Thanks for your most kind words.
I will update my software programs to handle E433 shortly.
In the meantime please read http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/articles/software_7.htm
This page explains how to use my software without the coming update.

Enjoy!
Jørgen

 

[Sharaf]

dear friends, please tell me where I can find Indian styles or something close to it...for yamaha e433.. thanks in advance!!!

 

[Nin]

I need some helps
My Yamaha e433 the style funtion not working, i follow in Digital Keyboard book also on YouTube but still mute