Hello! I have a PSR 740 that I want to use as a sound module controlled by my midi keyboard controller. The manual isn't much help for being able to assign separate midi channels to the XG/GM sounds I want to use. All I get now are drums on midi channel 10 and piano on all of the other channels. Anyone know how to make that happen? Is it even possible? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Yamaha PSR 740 and Midi channel assignment
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The reason you're getting those sounds is because those are the default GM channel voices-- GM Standard Drum Kit (which is actually the only GM drum kit) on channel 10, and GM Acoustic Grand Piano (which is GM Program 0) on all other channels. If you don't select specific voices on the MIDI channels, those are the sounds you'll get.
Does your MIDI keyboard controller have the ability to send Bank Select and Program Change events?
If it can send only Program Change events then you'll be limited to the GM Standard Drum Kit on channel 10 and any of the 128 GM voices on the other channels.
But if it can send Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change events then you should be able to select any of the PSR-740's drum kits and voices on any of the channels-- although you might be restricted to using a drum kit on channel 10, depending on whether or not channel 10 is specifically set to the mode that uses kit voices rather than melodic voices. There's an XG message that lets you set the mode of each channel (kit voice or melodic voice), and I think the default setting under XG is for channel 10 to use a kit voice, but it can be changed by sending an appropriate XG message.
If your MIDI keyboard controller can send neither Bank Select nor Program Change events, you'll need to select the channel voices using some other means, such as by using an additional external device to send those events, or by creating MIDI song files on your PSR-740 and using them to control the channel voice selections.
I'm not certain how things work on the PSR-740, but on the PSR-E models I'm familiar with the channel voices are changed as soon as you select a song for playback; you don't even need to start the playback, just select which song you want to play back. So if you use the Song Assembly feature (or whatever it's called) on the PSR-740 to create a multi-track MIDI song recording, you can select which voices you want to use for the various channels and save the song file. Then, when you select that song file file for playback, it should automatically change the channel voices as indicated within the song file, and any notes you send from your MIDI keyboard controller to your PSR-740 should be sounded using those voices as desired.
If you want to set up your MIDI keyboard controller or other external device for sending Bank Select and Program Change messages to the PSR-740, you'll need to refer to the Voice List in the documentation for your PSR-740 to see which Bank Select and Program Change values select which voices. Sometimes the Voice List is included in the Owner's Manual for a given model, but often it's included in a separate Data List that usually includes other things like a listing of the effects, the arpeggios, and other features.
There are only 128 possible Program Change values, numbered 0 through 127-- although the Voice List might number them from 1 through 128, in which case you'll probably need to adjust the listed values.
However, there are 16,384 possible Bank Select values, which are broken down into two parts-- the MSB or "Most Significant Byte," and the LSB or "Least Significant Byte," both of which can vary from 0 through 127 (hence the total of 16,384 possible Bank Select values, since 128 x 128 = 16,384).
The Voice List should list the Bank Select MSB, LSB, and Program numbers for each of the PSR-740's melodic voices and kit voices (that is, its drum kits and sound effects kits). If the Voice List uses values of 1 through 128 for the Program numbers, but the MIDI keyboard controller or other external device uses values of 0 through 127, be sure to subtract 1 from the listed Program number to convert it to the equivalent 0-to-127 value.
Does your MIDI keyboard controller have the ability to send Bank Select and Program Change events?
If it can send only Program Change events then you'll be limited to the GM Standard Drum Kit on channel 10 and any of the 128 GM voices on the other channels.
But if it can send Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change events then you should be able to select any of the PSR-740's drum kits and voices on any of the channels-- although you might be restricted to using a drum kit on channel 10, depending on whether or not channel 10 is specifically set to the mode that uses kit voices rather than melodic voices. There's an XG message that lets you set the mode of each channel (kit voice or melodic voice), and I think the default setting under XG is for channel 10 to use a kit voice, but it can be changed by sending an appropriate XG message.
If your MIDI keyboard controller can send neither Bank Select nor Program Change events, you'll need to select the channel voices using some other means, such as by using an additional external device to send those events, or by creating MIDI song files on your PSR-740 and using them to control the channel voice selections.
I'm not certain how things work on the PSR-740, but on the PSR-E models I'm familiar with the channel voices are changed as soon as you select a song for playback; you don't even need to start the playback, just select which song you want to play back. So if you use the Song Assembly feature (or whatever it's called) on the PSR-740 to create a multi-track MIDI song recording, you can select which voices you want to use for the various channels and save the song file. Then, when you select that song file file for playback, it should automatically change the channel voices as indicated within the song file, and any notes you send from your MIDI keyboard controller to your PSR-740 should be sounded using those voices as desired.
If you want to set up your MIDI keyboard controller or other external device for sending Bank Select and Program Change messages to the PSR-740, you'll need to refer to the Voice List in the documentation for your PSR-740 to see which Bank Select and Program Change values select which voices. Sometimes the Voice List is included in the Owner's Manual for a given model, but often it's included in a separate Data List that usually includes other things like a listing of the effects, the arpeggios, and other features.
There are only 128 possible Program Change values, numbered 0 through 127-- although the Voice List might number them from 1 through 128, in which case you'll probably need to adjust the listed values.
However, there are 16,384 possible Bank Select values, which are broken down into two parts-- the MSB or "Most Significant Byte," and the LSB or "Least Significant Byte," both of which can vary from 0 through 127 (hence the total of 16,384 possible Bank Select values, since 128 x 128 = 16,384).
The Voice List should list the Bank Select MSB, LSB, and Program numbers for each of the PSR-740's melodic voices and kit voices (that is, its drum kits and sound effects kits). If the Voice List uses values of 1 through 128 for the Program numbers, but the MIDI keyboard controller or other external device uses values of 0 through 127, be sure to subtract 1 from the listed Program number to convert it to the equivalent 0-to-127 value.