Uncle Dave,

What is the vocal/guitar processor that you are talking about? What does it do?
Appreciate any info you can give.


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Ed

Don,

I love my psr9000, but I do find myself running out of polyphony. Mostly, when I use piano and strings together and use sustain pedal with fast runs up keyboard.

126 notes polyphony - I thought I would never run out. Oh, well, it only happens occasionally.


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Ed

I think what Dave is talking about is one of Yamaha's plug in boards. Yamaha makes several plug ins that can be installed into the PSR9000Pro. These boards include more polyphony, more effects and in most cases, more midi channels. There is one board which is the vocal processor board which adds a vocal harmonizer and additional effects, and this is probably what he is talking about. However, there is already the same vocal processor in the PSR9000 series and I don't know if you will be able to install this second unit. I've wondered about this and I will have to check this out.
George Kaye

George,

Dave was talking about the VHG1 voice/guitar processor board option for Korg Pa80:

Hardware options include a vocal/guitar board that gives you two totally separate effect processors. In Guitar mode you have a complete set of multi-effects, e.g. modulation, noise reduction, distortion and compression, plus equalisation and you can use up to five effects simultaneously. The vocal processor includes a harmoniser that turns a single vocal into a four-part harmony, plus offers you effects and equalisation.

Paul Ip
from Texas

Paul & George,

Thanks for the info. Do you know if there are any other options(or software) other then the foot controller, that really make a difference in the sound of the unit? Not that I am dissatified, but I'm always looking. I have the psr9000 not the pro.
Thanks

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Ed

Paul's right. I was refering to the PA80 vocal/guitar board. The Yamaha problem is evident when you play the best sounds layered with the best sounds and try to play big chords with the right hand. If all you do is use the arranger and play melodies, or simple chords - you may not notice it, but I need to be able to lay into thick piano/string pads and I use the sustain pedal alot so it's a wash for me. Even with all the rhythm OFF - try this:
Layer the #1 piano with the #1 string sound and play a two handed piano style song with alot of sustain like......Memory or All I ask of you - something juicy like that. It coughs like a dying smoker. Most of the better sounds have too many notes tied up in the sound to be effective in layering. 126 goes like lightning when every finger uses up 16 or more partials. Adf the sustail to that and you hic-cup like crazy.

Hi George

According to the 9kPro manual, you cannot use the vocal harmony board in the 9kPro. Its too bad, because it might have been useful when applied to vocal samples.

Note, if you hold the sustain long enough, any synth will run out of polyphony. It is because of the layering possibilities that Yamaha's 126 notes of polyphony can seem like much less. Each patch can have four layers and you can layer three patches. This would leave about 12-note polyphony, which is easily exhausted using a sustain. Yamaha could avoid this problem by reducing the amount of layering available to us, but most would rather have the option. The reduction of polyphony due to layering is not a Yamaha-specific problem. I have the relatively new Roland XV-5080; I can easily configure it in performance mode so that its 128-note polyphony is reduced to 1-note polyphony. (Kurzweil's VAST is less prone to extreme polyphony reduction, but it starts with a max of 44 notes.)

The 9kPro addresses the specific situation of running out of polyphony using sustained piano runs, because you can add a piano card that adds 64 more notes of polyphony for the piano sound.

MisterED,

About Yamaha PSR9000's capability, I can think of a few things:

Have you used the sampling feature of 9000 yet? With a pair of optional 32 MB SIMMs you can have a total of 65 MB of sampling memory. You can record, save and load sounds as wave files with optional internal hard disk / external SCSI storage via your 9000's SCSI port. 65 MB of sampling is equivalent to more than 13 minutes of sound.

Clif is right that with sustaining and heavy sound layering any synth can easily run out of polyphony. Have you tried layering sounds with a different keyboard or sound module using MIDI B out port of your 9000?

Have you tried playing MIDI files with lyrics (karaoke files with .MID as file extension) and output the lyrics display on an external TV screen with the RCA video cable hookup at the back of your 9000?

How about using the built-in harmonizer for effects/harmony on sound input from another sound source/keyboard through the left-front mic/line input jack?

Have you installed Yamaha CBX driver on your PC(s) such that you can use software on your desktop/laptop to communicate with your 9000 through its "To Host" serial port so you can try software packages linked to the following page?
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/js/musik/740pages/link7406.htm

Paul Ip
from Texas

". Each patch can have four layers and you can layer three patches. This would leave about 12-note polyphony, "

Doesn't 9KPro have 8 layers per patch? I know PSR9000 has 8 layers. I was just wondering if the synth engine is different from PSR9000.

Hello Sri,

I have been playing the PSR 9000 for one year and tested the PA-80 yesterday. So I can say you my oppinion.
Yesterday I was very surprised when I heard the PA-80 piano. It sound very well, very exciting, better than the PSR 9000's one. It has also nice tenor sax. But the other instruments, I tested, were not as realistic as on the PSR 9000 (guitars, organs, flute, brass, chromatic percussion). I did not hear synthesizer voices on the PA-80 (which are sure its strength), because I use them very seldom. So in the instruments competition I would definitely vote for the PSR 9000.
I also did not like the standard drum kit on the PA-80, it sounded too artificial (the other drum kits were very good). The live! standard kit on the PSR 9000 is (according to my taste) rather better than the PA-80's one.
The PA-80 has very nice styles, but I had not time to test all the styles. I was disappointed with many Latin styles and liked Ballad styles. Here I cannot say which keyboard has better styles, on the PSR 9000 you will sure find an appropriate style (from the 210 factory styles) for many songs.
I also find the PSR 9000 easier to play live than the PA-80.
About the PSR 9000 there were already written many articles, so I suggest you could go to the japan Yamaha site to experience about the features, visit e.g. the Harmony Central site and read the opinions of the PSR 9000 players AND go to a music shop and try both keyboards, because that is the best criterion for your choice.

Regards

Marek

P.S.: For others: Please distinguish the PSR 9000 and the 9000Pro (without PSR), in order not to cause any confusion.