Onsong iPad App Change Yamaha CP4 Performances

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I would like to be able to have the OnSong iPad app automatically change the performance on my Yamaha CP4 when I change the song in OnSong. I've been able to get the CP4 to register some events in the OnSong midi editor, like playing a note. Does anyone have any experience with this to point me in the right direction? I posted a ticket with the OnSong people a few days ago but haven't heard anything from them yet. Or maybe there’s another app that might do this, maybe SongBook? Thanks.
 

SeaGtGruff

I meant to play that note!
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I don't have OnSong, so I don't know what it can and can't do.

But I have the free version of SongBook+, and it can do what you're talking about-- although the results might vary depending on your keyboard. That is to say, SongBook+ can send MIDI messages to your keyboard, but the specific ways in which your keyboard is able to respond will depend on your keyboard's capabilities.

Based on the "Bank Select" table on page 37 of the CP4 STAGE/CP40 STAGE Data List I would say that you can set up SongBook+ to send the Bank Select MSB/LSB and Program Change values which will select the specific Performance you want to recall on your CP4, whereas it seems the CP40 does not have that capability. But if you had the CP40 then you could still select its preset voices-- which you can also do on the CP4.

SongBook+ is free to download, install, and try, although you will be limited to 1 "book" of 15 songs. You can unlock the full version for about $45, which is more than OnSong costs, but the unlocked version will let you use up to 15 "books" and an unlimited number of songs. Since the basic, limited version is free, you can try it out to see if it's right for you.
 

EdK

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I generally use 2 keyboards at a gig. A Korg Triton Studio and a vintage Korg M1. In one particular song, I have the need to use 4 different patches (2 on each keyboard). Both the Triton and M1 have two modes (Program and Combi). Program mode being a single patch and Combi being a mult--patch "combination". I believe Yamaha has something similar (Combi mode same as Performance mode. Not sure what Yamaha equivalent is for Prog mode)

Switching between Program and Combi mode is easy while performing as all I need to do is press the Combi or Prog button. BUT setting up 4 patches for one song (2 on each keyboard) is a time consuming process...even if no mistakes are made. I had to find a way to automate this process.

To make a long story short, I now keep all my charts on an iPad and use the unRealbook App. The beauty of UnRealbook is you can create setlists on a gig-by-gig basis, cycle through the songs by simply touching the screen to turn the page or even select a song out of sequene in the setlist (even if it's not in the setlist) by bringing up the songlist menu. For each chart, you can store MIDI commands that are sent to the keyboards to prepare the patches for that chart in less than 1 second and I'm ready to go. It work fantastic even with performing multi-song medleys. You can even create 'hot spots' in the chart to send additional patch change commands while performing a song.

Many more features as well.

I use an iPad 2 (16 gig), an M-Audio UNO USB to Midi adapter, and an Apple Camera connection kit to provide the USB port on the iPad.

UnRealbook is only $9.99. No limits (the only limit is the amount of storage you have) I currently have well over 600 songs in it plus the entire RealBook and have barely made a dent in the amount of storage it uses)

PM me if you need more details or assistance with sending MIDI commands.
 
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You must not have much on your iPad Ed.

I use an old 16Gb with zero images yet with the Apps alone it is full.

I would suggest to anyone considering using an iPad to go for at least 64Gb.
 

EdK

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WOW... Something's got to be eating up all your storage. I also have an old iPad 2 with only 16gig with a total of 22 Apps and still have 5gig unused. Like my PC, I don't use iTunes on it unless I have to. I've found it's notorious at eating up lots of space....especially with videos....or any other App for that matter that might be storing video's. Also music files stored in WAV format take up a fair amount of space but even then no where near the amount video's use. I store all my music in MP3 format as MP3's are universally compatible across all operating systems (Windows, Linux, IOS, etc) rather than proprietary formats like Apple's AAC, etc

As for my music charts, they're all in PDF format with a max of 150dpi resolution. Most are only 100dpi and display just fine.

If I were you, I'd check to see if you have any video's stored. Delete what you don't need to gain back lots of storage with little effort.
 
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WOW... Something's got to be eating up all your storage. I also have an old iPad 2 with only 16gig with a total of 22 Apps and still have 5gig unused. Like my PC, I don't use iTunes on it unless I have to. I've found it's notorious at eating up lots of space....especially with videos....or any other App for that matter that might be storing video's. Also music files stored in WAV format take up a fair amount of space but even then no where near the amount video's use. I store all my music in MP3 format as MP3's are universally compatible across all operating systems (Windows, Linux, IOS, etc) rather than proprietary formats like Apple's AAC, etc

As for my music charts, they're all in PDF format with a max of 150dpi resolution. Most are only 100dpi and display just fine.

If I were you, I'd check to see if you have any video's stored. Delete what you don't need to gain back lots of storage with little effort.

No images, no videos, no music, no apps that are not music related.

The only data is that related to the Apps

Its just full.
 

EdK

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All I can suggest is to check all your Apps and see if any of them are taking up an unusual amount of space. I don't have my iPad with me as I'm writing this but I think there's a way to have the iPad show you how much space each App is using.
 
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I generally use 2 keyboards at a gig. A Korg Triton Studio and a vintage Korg M1. In one particular song, I have the need to use 4 different patches (2 on each keyboard). Both the Triton and M1 have two modes (Program and Combi). Program mode being a single patch and Combi being a mult--patch "combination". I believe Yamaha has something similar (Combi mode same as Performance mode. Not sure what Yamaha equivalent is for Prog mode)

Switching between Program and Combi mode is easy while performing as all I need to do is press the Combi or Prog button. BUT setting up 4 patches for one song (2 on each keyboard) is a time consuming process...even if no mistakes are made. I had to find a way to automate this process.

To make a long story short, I now keep all my charts on an iPad and use the unRealbook App. The beauty of UnRealbook is you can create setlists on a gig-by-gig basis, cycle through the songs by simply touching the screen to turn the page or even select a song out of sequene in the setlist (even if it's not in the setlist) by bringing up the songlist menu. For each chart, you can store MIDI commands that are sent to the keyboards to prepare the patches for that chart in less than 1 second and I'm ready to go. It work fantastic even with performing multi-song medleys. You can even create 'hot spots' in the chart to send additional patch change commands while performing a song.

Many more features as well.

I use an iPad 2 (16 gig), an M-Audio UNO USB to Midi adapter, and an Apple Camera connection kit to provide the USB port on the iPad.

UnRealbook is only $9.99. No limits (the only limit is the amount of storage you have) I currently have well over 600 songs in it plus the entire RealBook and have barely made a dent in the amount of storage it uses)

PM me if you need more details or assistance with sending MIDI commands.
Thanks for all this good information.

After struggling with Yamaha's confusing guide I finally figured out how to change the CP4's 'performances' with OnSong. For others searching for this, when you edit an OnSong song you can add MIDI: 63.80:115 where 115 is the performance number minus 1. So 115 is actually performance 116.

There are other things I'd like to do like adjust the volume of a part per song, but I have no clue how to even begin with that. Specifically, if I have a split, say bass on the bottom and organ on top, I'd like to be able to reduce or increase just the organ volume for a particular song. Song A might have the organ a little quieter, song B might have it a little louder.

Do you know if this is doable?
 

SeaGtGruff

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All I can suggest is to check all your Apps and see if any of them are taking up an unusual amount of space. I don't have my iPad with me as I'm writing this but I think there's a way to have the iPad show you how much space each App is using.

Yes, there is...

- Settings
- General
- iPad Storage

It may take a few minutes for the list of apps to finish populating and for their memory usages to be shown. They will be in descending order by their memory usages. If you select an app in the list, it will show how much memory is used by the app itself and how much is used by the app's related data files.

Be cautious using the "offload" or "delete" options with any apps you really care about, as they might not be able to be reinstalled at a future date if you update your iPad's OS and the developer doesn't update the app to meet any new compatibility requirements of the OS version.

Thanks for all this good information.

After struggling with Yamaha's confusing guide I finally figured out how to change the CP4's 'performances' with OnSong. For others searching for this, when you edit an OnSong song you can add MIDI: 63.80:115 where 115 is the performance number minus 1. So 115 is actually performance 116.

There are other things I'd like to do like adjust the volume of a part per song, but I have no clue how to even begin with that. Specifically, if I have a split, say bass on the bottom and organ on top, I'd like to be able to reduce or increase just the organ volume for a particular song. Song A might have the organ a little quieter, song B might have it a little louder.

Do you know if this is doable?

Yes, and yes.

Second "yes" first:

Yes, you can use the Channel Volume message to set the volume of a given channel. I forget the CC number, but I think it's something like 10 or 11. You can look it up in just about any online MIDI reference; I'd look it up myself, but I'm replying on my iPad, and navigating away from a reply that's in progress can lose any part of the reply that hasn't been auto-saved yet. :( Note that the CC message is usually referred to as just "Volume," but it's a channel message, so I'm calling it "Channel Volume" to distinguish it from the "Master Volume" SysEx message.

However, if you are selecting performances, you might need to set the part volumes on the keyboard itself within the performance and save it. If you're using the "same" performance for different songs but want to have different part volumes for each song, you might need to set up and save multiple performances. It can depend on whether your keyboard allows you to associate and control a given keyboard part with a given MIDI IN channel, or (if that option isn't available) whether you have the keyboard's Local Control turned off and are using an app on the iPad to echo the keyboard's MIDI output back to the keyboard to be sounded.

First "yes" second:

Yes, Yamaha has an unfortunate habit of publishing lists of voices and performances where the Program Change values have been increased by 1 to conform to the "humanized" 1-128 numbering scheme, even though the actual Program Change values within the MIDI messages must conform to the 0-127 numbering scheme. And Yamaha isn't the only company that does this; even the MMA (MIDI Manufacturers Association), in its infinite wisdom, does this in many of their online listings of the General MIDI sound sets! And DAWs and other software can confuse the issue even more by whether or not specific programs or apps use the true 0-127 numbering scheme or the 1-128 numbering scheme. Some programs, such as Ableton Live, might even use the 1-128 numbering scheme for the Bank Select MSB and LSB values! I think it's insane, but I don't get to make the rules and tell the rest of the world what to do, so all we can do is be aware that there are two different numbering schemes, pay attention to which numbering scheme is being used by which hardware and by which software, and then add or subtract 1 to adjust the Program Change values as appropriate-- and, if necessary, do the same adjustment with the Bank Select MSB and LSB values, although as far as I know Ableton Live is the only DAW that requires it.

The exact same situation exists with the MIDI channel numbers, which are 0-15 inside the actual MIDI messages, but which seem to be universally referred to as 1-16. But again, this can depend on the hardware or software, so all we can do is be aware of the situation and pay attention to which numbering scheme we need to use with any given hardware or software.
 

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