Sorry Scott, but its much too complicated. Look in the archives of the Yahoo PSR Songs group. A guy by the name of John Frings has created the Tyros definitions.

Hi Bryan,
you're a whizz. I haven't had a chance to check my emails yet, but if you haven't already done so, could you pleazzzze send them to me.
My husband would be most appreciative, as I was going to try and do it myself. Instead I've been grumpy and pulling my hair out , trying to figure out how to do it.

Thanks a million
best wishes
Rikki


[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pilot:
[B]Hi Pro

If you look inside the tables for XGworks, the 9000Pro is listed as PSR-9000Pro. Just thought you'd like to know. Incidentally, I'm updating the XGworks tables for the 9000/9000Pro if you're interested. I've done the instrument definitions which are already installable and I'm working on the rest.

Bryan

Hi all:

I'm just returning from a long weekend of wedding gigs and this is my first chance to reply to some of the posts here.

Peter: I have been using midi files on stage since 1983 and plan to continue. Noone has ever questioned me about using midi files live - it's just what I do. This being an arranger forum means that most of the discussions are about arranger-use, which I also use live... but IMHO it's quite acceptable and professional to use midi files for backing in small solo gigs.

Simon says:
"To be honest, I would be surprised if the drum expansion board did work properly with the 9000 pro. After all the 9000 pro accepts voice expansion cards, which you would assume enhance the keyboard voices of the instrument. I would have first checked with someone with the knowhow in Yamaha as to the extent of functionality of this card when playing it live from the 9000 pro, since again I assume the 9000 pro has limited control over new cards. Using a PC with the 9000 pro and midi is another question, here I would expect you to have fuller control over this card and access the sounds you require. It is possible maybe that you could direct percussion via midi back into the pro to trigger the card, but I'm assuming that this isnt the case?
This is obviously a very new expansion card, something I havent heard of before but it sounds quite nice. If you succeed in getting it to perform from the pro, I'd like to hear some samples from it if its possible... though it sounds as though you can only play it from the keyboard am I right?"

Simon: The PLG150-DR is a year old now. I did not check with Yamaha directly before getting the PLG150-DR (not sure who I'd call) but I did review everything I could find about the card, including downloading the owner's manual and reading it before purchasing. The key phrase that indicated that this card would have a common-sense feature like midi channel assignment within the 9000 Pro was in the PLG150-DR owner's manual on Page 15, which says the Part Assign (Yamaha-speak for midi channel) can be set by "any XG Plug-In system compatible mother device". The 9000 Pro is part of the XG-Plug family and has the XG-Plug symbol on the front panel. If Yamaha really wanted to clear things up they could have a page in the owner's manual that lists every device the PLG150-DR is recommended for and/or what limitations it will have with devices it is not recommended for.

The only way to use the PLG150-DR in the 9000 Pro is to assign it to one of the R1, R2, or R3 or the L1 sound and then assign that voice to whatever midi channel you want, which would make those slots unuseable for other live-performance parts (unless you want to play a keyboard drum solo). This applies no matter how the midi input to the card is coming in, from keyboard or external PC. My problem would be solved if the drum card defaulted to channel 10 but it defaults to channel 1. As you asked, the only way to play the drum card's sounds is from the keyboard, unless I reprogram all of my midi files so the drums are on channel 1 (I might be able to reprogram the arranger so the accompaniment drums are also on channel 1 - I dunno). But that's ridiculous - even cheap drum machines that cost less than half of what the PLG150-DR cost have assignable midi channels.

Here's the kicker: there is clearly a panel under the 9000 Pro's Plug-In Manager for programming the drum card's "Native Parameters" - this is where you assign the midi channel of the drum card or any other expansion card on every other XG-Plug keyboard (Motif, MU128 etc.). On the 9000 Pro, this page comes up blank for the PLG150-DR. Clearly this is where the "part assign" could and should be accessable - but Yamaha has not written the 9000 Pro's OS to allow it to access the drum card's parameters. That's why I asked Yamaha to look into making this relatively simple, minor upgrade but they refused.

It's funny that Yamaha designed the 9000 Pro so that you can add sample memory, a hard drive and two expansion cards yourself but they assume the end-user would not sophisticated enough to need to set a midi channel for a device. Or (more likely) the person at Yamaha support that answered my support request just wanted to be rid of me. I'd love for Steve Deming to respond to this subject, but it seems likely that we already have as much of a response from Yamaha as we lowly home-keyboard owners will ever deserve in their minds.

I have the VL150 and AN150 cards. Understanding and getting these plug in cards to work properly in the Motif is no easy task either. The documentation that comes with the cards and the pdf manuals that are available for them do not really give the user any clue how to integrate the card to the board. As a Motif user, it really seemed as if the cards were actually designed for something completely different ( maybe the SXg1000 card ), but were available as an afterthought to the Motif. Yes, you have the independent slots and can assign the card sounds to any channel, but getting there when you don't know how..... what a chore. The Motif manual does not in any way address how to do it, and neither does the documentation that comes with the cards. The Motifator site gives some basic instructions along with .pdf files for d/l that somewhat explain it ( if one can decipher through the Yamahaspeak ) , but the only way I was able to really understand it and make the whole thing work was via the Motifator's user forum... The other thing is.. many of the editable parameters available in the cards themselves cannot be accessed from within the Motif. Much of it has to be done it via external software. Basic editing can be done from within, but, particularly in the case of the AN150, there is a lot of editing power that cannot be accessed from within. That's another reason that the cards seemed to be an afterthought to me for the Motif.. It's all good when your connected to the computer but.....

I came very close to going the 9000 pro route instead of the Motif because it has a lot of the "pro" features that I like from the Motif, plus it has the arranger, but I am glad I went the way I did, and this thread does nothing to change my thinking at all. It has nothing to do with the label "pro" for me ( I have a PSR2k and a PA80 ). It's just a feature issue and the want of a workstation to go along with my arrangers in my studio setup. I learned about Yamaha's true perception of their arranger boards and customers some time ago in dealing with repairs for my PSR740 and 2000. Exactly what is being said here was the way it was told to me by my dealer and Yamaha reps. If there was any doubt for anyone else, this thread should speak volumes. If that doesn't do it... go take a look at the Yamaha sponsored Motifator site. Think it's just coincidence that Yamaha doesn't sponsor any similar sites for their arranger users ?
Korg may or may not have the same perception for their arranger users, but if they do, at least it's disguised a whole lot better. The PA site is excellent and I haven't seen comments from the company that shows this kind of disparity in their perception of their arranger and workstation users. I just don't understand why Yamaha so openly does this. They GOTTA know that there are some pro level musicians using this stuff. There must be some reason and they reserve the right to market as they choose...

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 06-23-2003).]

This is very stupid on YAMAHA's part. The most probable use of the Drums card would be to use it's sounds from the drums part from the styles. But you can't do that.

YAMAHA, w a k e u p!!

Jim,

I have forwarded this issue to Japan to see what they think about an update. It might be a week or so before we hear back from them.

I'll let you know.


------------------
Steve Deming
Assistant Manager
Customer Support Dept.
Pro Audio & Combo Division
Yamaha Corporation of America

Since my last exchange with Steve concerning OPT voice editors for the 9000 Pro took a year to get a negative response from him, I didn't hold out much hope for a timely reply to his post this time either. So I posted a message about the PLG150-DR and the 9000 Pro on Motifator.com and got a PM from Phil Clendeninn (Senior Product Specialist, Yamaha Corporation of America) who basically promised also to look into this problem and report back this coming week. I'll let this group know if anything significant happens. Just thought I'd keep this subject active a while longer, though personally I don't see much hope.

Don't hold your breath. In my experience Yamaha is slow to reply, if at all, when they know the reply is going to be negative. Out of sight out of mind seems to be Yamaha's way of doing business.

If you are awaiting software updates for the 9000 Pro to include new features for OPT, I'm sure that is never going to happen. It seems as if the PLG cards and editing for those cards was an afterthought with Yamaha regarding the 9000 Pro and Motif. Perhaps that will be different on the Motif ES but that's of little consolation to the 9000 Pro and Motif owners.

Yeah I know. Steve Deming told me "they were working on OPT panels for the 9000 Pro now" last year, then told me last month that it wasn't going to happen after all, so that much has been confirmed. And I don't expect Steve or Phil of Yamaha to go out of their way to help me solve my PLG150-DR/9000 Pro problem at all - they both volunteered to do that on their own and seemingly out of genuine concern. If it results in any progress at all, great... if not, I won't be any worse off.

I find it somewhat reassuring that at least two brave people at Yamaha do seem to take legitimate gripes from knowledgeable users seriously enough to promise that they will look into the problem and report back. They put their own reputation and Yamaha's on the line doing that when they didn't have to, so I respect them for that. At the same time, threads like this one let Yamaha know that arranger users are both demanding and technically knowledgeable enough to find the shortcomings of their products. They won't be making the same assumptions about us as they have in the past, and whatever eventually takes the 9000 Pro's place will be a better instrument because of it.

Final followup on this topic:

I have been in contact with Mark Anderson, Assistant Manager PKB Marketing, Yamaha America for the past few weeks. After getting some attention on the Motifator.com board with my problem with the PLG150-DR and the 9000 Pro, Mark took some time to follow up with me. First he apologized for the response from Yamaha Support regarding setting midi channels "scaring and confusing" 9000 Pro owners and reiterated that the 9000 Pro was considered a PRO board. He also said that they would take my advice to create a spec sheet for all expansion boards in the future that specified how the expansion boards work (or not) with each keyboard they can be mounted in. If the PLG150-DR continued in production and manual reprints were ordered, my suggestion will be included.

After a few weeks Mark finally got a response from the head engineer at Yamaha Japan who worked with the 9000 Pro: basically the PLG150-DR will never work with the arranger styles, however they thought it might work with midi files and they suggested that I place a System Exclusive message in the front of each of my midi files to set the PLG150-DR to midi channel 10, to wit:

XG Parameter Change: F0 43 10 4C hh mm ll dd F7
hh: 70 (Plug-In Board Part Assign)
mm: 05 (PLG150-DR)
ll: 00 (Serial number) *1
dd: 09 (Track10)

(All numbers are hexa decimal.)

*1 If two PLG150-DR boards are installed, 00 means choosing the first
board
and 01 means the second board.

I'm posting this here in case anyone else is interested in trying it, however it does not work, at least as far as I can tell. I tried several different sequencer programs, variation of the SysEx message and MIDI settings on the 9000 Pro to allow it to accept SysEx messages and never got it to work. As I told Mark, it looks like a good idea that noone at Yamaha actually tried. Besides that, I didn't relish the idea of modifying hundreds of my midi files anyway. Mark offered to exchange my DR board for another board or Yamaha product of equal value but I have declined.

The end of this story is that I'm no longer interested in getting the PLG150-DR to work with my 9000 Pro. It may find use in a future keyboard or I'll sell it. At least I was able to take my complaints higher up the food chain in Yamaha than I ever expected and was able to express several frustrations that I had with the instrument besides the expansion board limitations, such as their disregard for the OPT voice editing panels we'd been promised (it turned out that a third-party in Germany where the 9000 Pro is more popular had proposed creating the voice editors then dropped the idea). I've been told that my concerns were spread throughout all the departments involved, for whatever gratification that was worth.