Okay, folks... Here goes.. XG Voices are an extension to the GM Midi specification. You can do things with XG voices that you can't do with regular panel Voices. You can get different types of effects, etc., with an XG Voice that you can't get with a Panel Voice, correct?

Why I am wondering about all of this is because my next Arranger, or non Arranger Keyboard if it happens to be a Yamaha, will all have XG capability (if it supports Midi). Does Yamaha ever improve on its XG Voices? We all have these really nice Panel voices on our PSR 2000/2100 9000Pro and Tyroses, etc., but sometimes the XG Voices just don't cut it, at least on my PSR 2000 anyway. When Yamaha increased the Wav ROM on the PSR 2100 to twice that of the PSR 2000 does that mean that some of the increase goes to the XG Voices as well? If so, are the XG Voices of 'better' quality (sound) than its predecessor? Or does it just mean that Yamaha "compressed" the PSR 2100's Wav ROM to a 2:1 ratio and that the PSR 2000's Wav ROM is 'uncompressed'? thereby negating any sound improvement on the PSR 2100? PS: [It has been noted that you can't tell any difference or improvement in sound quality over the PSR 2000] except for possibly the 'additional' Sweet!, Live!, and Cool! voices on the PSR 2100, but these are additional voices and not the ones already on both boards.

For instance, will the Motif ES's XG Voices be "any" better than the ones on my PSR 2000? If so, in what way? Does Yamaha ever use any "Real" Sampled instruments when making up the XG Wav Samples? From what I understand my PSR 2000's XG Voices are not Sampled from "real" instruments whether it be Strings, guitars, horns, etc. Yet the Panel Voices I think are "all" sampled from real live instruments, ie., real Violin, real Guitar, real Sax, etc.

Also on a side note: Do any of you Tyros' owners notice any improvement in the GM2 Midi Standard over GM? I would think Yamaha would have included a midi demo or two on the Tyros that was sequenced using GM2 to show off GM2 capability.--( You just don't hear much about GM2) by way of how good it is over GM. The internet Buzz over GM2 just doesn't seem to be there.

I guess my point is: is XG as; as XG is; or ever will be? In other words, is there no variation in quality from one Board to another and that it's just a standard that can't and won't be improved upon whether from one Board to another or even in the XG Specification itself? Or is there a Yamaha Board that has a 'Killer' XG sound set? Will the next High End Arranger from Yamaha {with internal speakers I hope} , have a better XG Voice set than my current Keyboard has? Or will the Motif ES?

BTW, when playing Midi files on my PSR 2000, I get absolutely fantastic sound from my XG Voices but sometimes I switch over to an even better Panel Voice when called for. But when I " personally play" the Keyboard using an XG Voice, sometimes I get less than desirable results. An example of this would be the XG Brass or XG Woodwinds.

Does anybody have any insight into this or these matter[s]?

Best regards,
Mike

There's no difference between panel and XG voices when it comes to effects - there may be a difference in the software you use, however. For example, none of the XG editors I've used have panel voices because they've all been designed for XG synths. I've had to update XGworks, XGEdit and XGGold to get the panel voices. And none of them address all the effects and their parameters without further updates. I only use XGworks now because it's the only one that can address my whole synth. If you use the XGworks XG editor on your 2000 you can layer several voices and apply all 5 DSPs in any combination to one or more voices. That way you can 'improve' the XG voices or mix them with the panel voices.

Generally speaking, the XG voices are the same across all keyboards. This is for compatibility. It's the panel voices that get the improvements, often layering two or more sounds as well as increasing the size of the samples. I was comparing a 9000 and 740 side by side the other day, and I was using the styles and XG voices. For example, playing a number with the Atmosphere pad and the Big Band Ballad I could detect no difference between the keyboards. Neither could anyone else.

Bryan

That's a really good question. I noticed on the PSR's they list what..? 480 or so XG voices...?, but if you look at the QY sequencers they use XG voices but the voice set consist of 547 voices with 22 drum kits. So I guess the quality and quantity is different.

Squeak

There are different levels of XG and they don't always apply across the spectrum of synths and keyboards.

XG Level 1 (basic) has 32 note polyphony, 16 parts and reverb chorus and variation for the DSPs and 480 voices

XG Level 2 (MU100) has 64 note polyphony, 32 parts, reverb chorus and variation, and 2 insertion DSPs. The MU 100 has 1074 XG voices plus other modes with more voices

XG Level 3 (MU128) has 128 note polyphony, 64 parts, reverb chorus and variation, and 2 insertion DSPs.

There is now an XGLite which is a subset of level 1

When you look at PSRs, however, there is a mixture. The PSR740 and 2000, for instance, have 480 XG voices plus panel voices, 16 parts, reverb chorus and variation, plus 4 insertion DSPs, one of which is used for Vocal Harmony but can be used as a general insertion DSP via sysex. The PSR9000 has an extra DSP over the 740/2000 plus a few more panel voices. Yamaha claim that there are many effect types (e.g. the MU100 has 12 reverb types and 740 has 24 reverb types) but they're all presets and there are only 5 basic reverb effects. Same with the 2000 and 9000. So when it says that there are 102 effect types on the 740, there are really only 38 basic ones. The 102 are all presets. It pays to look in the back of the manual and decipher the gobbledegook just to see what you are really getting. It was quite an education constructing the XGworks updates for these keyboards.

Bryan