How to put sustain in the split?

[Fraudy]

Greetings, God bless, I adquirido a Yamaha YPG 235, I don't know how to put the sustain on the split, I don't speak English but you can leave me your answer and I'll translate it, please I need help.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

According to page 59 in the Owner's Manual, "The sustain function does not affect split voice." I'm afraid there's no way to do what you want on the keyboard itself.

However, on page 110 of the Owner's Manual, the MIDI Implementation Chart indicates that Sustain (or Control Change 64) can be transmitted as well as received by the keyboard. That would suggest that you could use Sustain on the Split Voice by turning off the Local Control (so the keyboard is silent and acts like a MIDI keyboard controller), send the keyboard's MIDI to a computer or other external MIDI-capable device, and have the external device send the MIDI back to the keyboard to be sounded (treating the keyboard as a MIDI sound module). You should then be able to turn Sustain on or off in the Split Voice by using the external MIDI device to send a "Control Change 64 on" message to the keyboard on whichever MIDI channel is being used by the Split Voice.

 

[anotherscott]

According to page 59 in the Owner's Manual, "The sustain function does not affect split voice." I'm afraid there's no way to do what you want on the keyboard itself.

However, on page 110 of the Owner's Manual, the MIDI Implementation Chart indicates that Sustain (or Control Change 64) can be transmitted as well as received by the keyboard. That would suggest that you could use Sustain on the Split Voice by turning off the Local Control (so the keyboard is silent and acts like a MIDI keyboard controller), send the keyboard's MIDI to a computer or other external MIDI-capable device, and have the external device send the MIDI back to the keyboard to be sounded (treating the keyboard as a MIDI sound module). You should then be able to turn Sustain on or off in the Split Voice by using the external MIDI device to send a "Control Change 64 on" message to the keyboard on whichever MIDI channel is being used by the Split Voice.

It's a good thought, but I don't think it will work. There's no indication in the manual that the upper and lower voices are associated with different MIDI channels.

In fact, I'm not sure there is any available external MIDI control available for the keyboard playable parts. Based on the manual, it looks to me like the board may function as a 16-voice MIDI module completely independently from the sounds assigned to the keys.

The manual says that when addressed externally over MIDI, "by default (factory settings) the instrument ordinarily functions as a 16-channel multi-timbral tone generator, and incoming data does not affect the panel Voices or panel settings"* . Also possibly relevant, it says "the internal tone generator is active when local control is on, and inactive when local control is off." All of which makes me think that using your idea of addressing the sound generator of the board as if it were an external module (via Local Off) could result in losing all the front panel arranger and sound selection capabilities. :-(

But based on your sig, you have a lot more Yamaha arranger experience than I do! So maybe you know otherwise...?

* - although it says this is the "default" behavior (factory settings), there appears to be no way to change any setting for this... so it's not really the "default" behavior, it's the only possible behavior (I'll blame poorly translated english documentation). I contacted Yamaha about something similar on another arranger model, and they confirmed that there was no way to alter this behavior. (Though the reply I received was barely comprehensible in its english, so I don't want to say its definitive.)

 

[SeaGtGruff]

You are correct about incoming MIDI not being able to affect the panel voices on many models-- at least, I haven't been able to figure out how to do that on my PSR-E models, which have the same disclaimer.

As far as I know, the outgoing MIDI does use different channels for the different "keyboard parts"-- that is, Main, Dual, and Split-- at least on all of my PSR-E models. Main is sent on channel 1 (0), Dual is sent on channel 2 (1), and Split is sent on channel 3 (2). (The numbers in parentheses are the channel numbers as they actually appear in MIDI messages, which are 0-15, rather than the channel numbers as commonly given in software and "humanized" MIDI references, which are 1-16, in my opinion one of the stupidest decisions MIDI experts made, as though humans are much too feeble-minded to start counting with 0, leading to a lot of totally unnecessary confusion when talking about channel numbers.)

On some early models the channels for Dual and Split are swapped around-- Split is 2 (1) and Dual is 3 (2), perhaps because Split was a thing before Dual was.

Anyway, echoing the MIDI back to the keyboard and inserting some additional MIDI messages is a painful way to accomplish this, and I wouldn't recommend it for any users who don't even know what I'm talking about, but for users who do already understand the gist of it then it should be doable-- but still a pain unless you're using software that's specifically designed to make it easy.

 

[anotherscott]

As far as I know, the outgoing MIDI does use different channels for the different "keyboard parts"-- that is, Main, Dual, and Split-- at least on all of my PSR-E models. Main is sent on channel 1 (0), Dual is sent on channel 2 (1), and Split is sent on channel 3 (2).

Good info there. If the split voice is being sent on channel 3, then it seems likely that it will also receive on channel 3.

In that case, the task may be able to be accomplished another way besides the possible solution of your Local Off method. The goal is essentially to find a way to connect a sustain pedal that sends on the desired MIDI channel(s). That could conceivably be accomplished by connecting the YPG and a sustain pedal to a computer/tablet and routing the MIDI from the sustain pedal back out to the YPG. The downside compared to your approach is needing to have some other device that will let you connect the sustain pedal to the computer, but the upside is that, if the Local Off method results in any lost functionality of the real-time front-panel controls/display, that might then be avoided.

As for how to connect a separate pedal to the computer, the DOREMIDI MPC-10 should work, or one of the Audiofront adapters.

But before doing any of this, as a "proof of concept," one could send some MIDI sequence to the board that includes sustain pedal operations on channel 3, and see if notes you simultaneously manually play below the split point are sustaining based on that incoming MIDI info, and if that continues to work fine even as you use the front panel controls to change the sound assigned for the split voice.

None of which is to alter your conclusion that this not for the faint-hearted MIDI novice.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Unfortunately, the panel voices on most of the "simpler" models do not respond to received MIDI. That's why the whole "output the keyboard's MIDI and bounce it back to the keyboard with Local Control turned off" is necessary. Models that do have the ability to affect the panel voices with MIDI will have function settings for it.

 

[anotherscott]

Unfortunately, the panel voices on most of the "simpler" models do not respond to received MIDI. That's why the whole "output the keyboard's MIDI and bounce it back to the keyboard with Local Control turned off" is necessary.

So a (keyboard-playable) part that transmits on a particular channel will not respond to MIDI received on that same channel? Then I guess you could not record your live performance into an external sequencer (DAW), and then have that performance played back on the same board?

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Yes, you can, but the "parts" used for playback will be different than the "parts" used while you were originally playing it live:

- Keyboard parts = Main, Dual, and Split voices, including any extra notes generated by the Arpeggio and Harmony features.

- Style parts = The 8 parts used for playing Styles and Patterns.

- Song parts = The 16 parts used for playing Songs and received MIDI messages.

Note that some incoming MIDI messages do affect the settings on the keyboard, but those are generally System Exclusive messages, not Channel messages.

When you turn off Local Control and echo the keyboard's MIDI back to itself, the outgoing MIDI is generated by the keyboard parts even though they're silent, and the incoming MIDI is sounded by the song parts.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

To add to what I said, if you record your performance as MIDI on an external device and then sequence it back to the keyboard at a later time, you can play the keyboard parts using other voices while the incoming MIDI is being sounded by the song parts. In other words, the voice and voice settings used (for example) by the Main part will be separate from and will not conflict with the voice and voice settings received on Channel 1 and sounded by Song Part 1.

 

[Fraudy]

Según la página 59 del Manual del propietario, "La función de sostenido no afecta la voz dividida". Me temo que no hay forma de hacer lo que quieres en el teclado.

Sin embargo, en la página 110 del Manual del propietario, el cuadro de implementación MIDI indica que el sostenido (o cambio de control 64) se puede transmitir y recibir en el teclado. Eso sugeriría que podría usar Sustain en la voz dividida apagando el control local (para que el teclado esté en silencio y actúe como un controlador de teclado MIDI), envíe el MIDI del teclado a una computadora u otro dispositivo externo con capacidad MIDI y tenga el dispositivo externo envía el MIDI de regreso al teclado para que suene (tratando el teclado como un módulo de sonido MIDI). Luego debería poder activar o desactivar el sostenido en la voz dividida utilizando el dispositivo MIDI externo para enviar un mensaje "Control Change 64 on" al teclado en cualquier canal MIDI que esté utilizando la voz dividida.

Muchas gracias, Dios te bendiga mucho