Looking seriously at buying a SX 900 / 700 in the near future and have a few questions to ask the group.

Some background:

I'm trying to avoid paying for features/sounds/etc. I'm unlikely to use. Also, It would be in my interest to reduce the total amount of weight I'm lugging around.

I use a PSRS970, running 1/4' cables out - one goes to the TC Helicon old Voice live rack unit, the other goes into a channel on my powered mixer. There's also a midi cable running from the kb to the back of the TCH, too... My vocal likewise goes inot the rear of the TCH.

I run two patch cables from the TCH to a stero channel on my mixer, then run one cable from the mono (L) out of the mixer to the Bose Compact input...

It sounds clear, strong and I've been really happy with it for a long time. I play everything from Tin Pan Alley to 70's and 80's rock, country, R&B, Motown, Gospel, etc...Audiences are getting younger every month and I'm enjoying playing more contemporary material. I'm using a mix of styles, no accompaniment, MP3 files for my songs...

What I'm curious about is this:

Q: Could I run a mic into the SX900 / 700 and add a pedal to control the kb's harmony? Would that eliminate the following gear:

TC Helicon Voicelive rack & footswitch
Two 14" cables from the kb and the Midi cable
The powered mixer
The utility stand
Etc.

The biggest concern is the on board harmonizer and how it sounds compared to the TCH unit. I listened to the one you tube I could find last night and the on board harmonizer sounded pretty good, but its hard to really tell from a you tube video.

I'd really appreciate any sort of advice, feedback, suggestions that anyone has.

Thanks!

Hello Bill,

I’m pretty sure the vocal effects are the same on the 970 and sx 900. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong!

Can you elaborate why you need an audio cord from the arranger into the TC unit?

Doesn’t the MIDI (or USB cord) send whatever harmony information the pitch transposition needs?

And yeah, sadly, compared to pro units designed specifically to impress singers, there really isn’t a single arranger manufacturer that makes a standalone vocal harmonizer that is as well regarded as TC. I always feel that, if a company doesn’t make a great anything (harmonizer, vocorder, Hammond clone, whatever) in standalone format, it’s not going to have the code and chips to put one in an arranger…

Bill, yes, you can run another mic through the arranger keyboard, and use the onboard harmonizer. Take a look at: https://www.psrtutorial.com/music/articles/11-VHPrimer.html where Dan provided one of the best and most comprehensive instructional information on using Yamaha's harmonizers. He even provided a few demos and shows you how to avoid dropout.

Keep in mind, though, you will still need a mixer to use 2 mics. You can only route one mic through the keyboard, which will be outputted via your main out from the keyboard, while the TCH has it's own outputs, which will then be fed through the mixer in conjunction with the keyboard, and all terminating in the Bose L1 Compact. On some of the larger jobs, I used a pair of L1 Compacts, which provided excellent coverage for up to 250 ppl. For jobs larger than that, I fell back on my Bose L1 PAS, which was incredible, both sound and coverage area.

Hope this helps, but if you need additional assistance with the hookup, you have my telephone number - it's still the same.

Gary

yes, you can assign a pedal to switch the harmony on and off

George is right. Just plug in a standard pedal, hold down the Direct Access button and step on the pedal. The display will provide you with all the options. Be sure to save all this information into a Start Up registration so it can be instantly recalled when you fire up the keyboard, otherwise the keyboard will open with the default pedal setting, which is sustain.

Good luck,

Gary

I'm on my 2nd TCH Voicelive Rack and I think that's how they instructed me to set it up. My understanding is that the MIDI data is different from the full blown audio signal the unit puts out.

I have one 1/4" going from the RH output on the PSR 970S into the instrument input on the rear of the TCH and the other from the LH output on the kb going to a vacant channel on the mixer I use. It works with just the one line from the RH output, but by adding a 2nd connection for the signal into the mixer, it beefs up the keyboard. My Mic goes straight into the TCH. The signal coming out of the TCH is sent via two 1/4" cables to the stereo inputs on the mixer....

Q: Are you saying the midi cable ALONE should be transferring EVERYTHING the TCHJ requires?

Understood on the comment about a free standing device like the TCH generally out performs any "add on" effects like Yamaha provides...

I've listened to the SX900 harmonizer via a youtube video, and some of it sounded fine, but damn, some of the harmonies the guy demoed sounded like a vocoder setting, except it wasn't, lol...

I don't use many harmony variations. I have three that gets it down for me. Duo, Trio and the Elvis / Slapback effect. That's all I need...


Thanks, Diki...

Thanks for the response.. I think you're right...

Hey Gary, I worded that awkwardly...

I only need one vocal mic...not looking to add a 2nd...

Thanks!

Thanks, George...

I don’t believe the TC units can look at audio and MIDI simultaneously, and to be honest, the audio in chord recognition is designed primarily for either a guitar or a piano, relatively simple waveforms with no unpitched information. Feeding it a complete mix with drums and percussion not to mention passing notes and chords the style may have isn’t all that good at generating nice clean tracking.

It might be interesting to disconnect the audio cord and see if things still work well without it (if you’ve set up the correct MIDI channels from your chording hand). Or pull the MIDI/USB and see if just tracking audio gives you a lot of glitches.

Either I’m reading this wrong, or it seems you’ve sacrificed one whole side of your stereo mix to control the harmonizer. Even if you’re running mono, the effects and stereo panning of internal drum kits means you need to get both sides to the mixer.

This would kind of wild if what you're saying works, lol...

27+ years doing this and still can't hook stuff up right... ffs...


I'll test this out prior to tomorrow's gig and report back...

Thanks, Diki!

I just tried it with just the midi cable and the harmonies were off and no keys came through the PA.

THEN I connected the psr to a vacant channel on the mixer and it sounded weak and harmonies tracked oddly.

Then Hooked it up as I usually do and it sounded great, with harmonies spot on.

I don't claim to understand AT ALL why this way sounds good and the other ways didn't...

I would probably guess that perhaps you don’t have your NTA (notes to arranger) channel from the keyboard set to control the harmonizer correctly. In theory at least, the harmonizer wants to hear simply the notes that determine the chord you are playing, which is why they work so well with a guitar input.

You might want to take a closer look at how you have the TC set to receive MIDI, it should be decent tracking without audio ins…

If you are losing one side of your stereo mix to controlling the TC, perhaps your mixer has a spare ‘send’ or monitor output that you can use to send to the TC so you aren’t losing half your mix. AFAIK, there’s no way to have both outputs of a stereo output send the exact same thing. Yes, you might have all the instruments and kits panned centrally, but there are a lot of sounds and ALL the kits with distinct left and right side sounds (say a drumkit’s Tom toms going left to right) and the effects like reverb’s phasers and especially panners need both sides to sound the way they’re intended. Even if you run mono, you need both sides…

If you can’t get the harmonizer to work with MIDI alone, try using a mixer send…

You must set the keyboard's midi input to Keyboard and Style in order for the midi information to be read.

Press Function, Select MIDI then you can make the selection of Keyboard and Style. This will remain permanent and be default when you fire up the keyboard.

Hope this helps,

Gary

Gary, I km not that familiar with the Yamaha Way, but on Roland’s there was a dedicated NTA channel that output the chord information only (derived from what you are playing). It’s basically the output of the chord recognition once it figures out the chord (rather than what you actually played, for instance if you are using chord shortcuts or one finger stuff).

Is it possible to send that to the harmonizer? That’s what’s basically happening with internal harmonizers, I believe.

The method I posted sends the midi information to the harmonizer via the midi output connection of the keyboard, which I feed directly into my TC Helicon Harmony-M. I then output the Harmony-M back through the keyboard's Line In, which eliminates the use of mixer for the mic. I can set the effects on the Harmony-M, and the type of harmony, then combine it with any additional effects I wish to select from the keyboard, thereby providing a tremendous amount of variables to select from, which is all saved in a set-up registration. Everything is then outputted from the keyboard's audio outputs to the PA system(s)

Gary

Gary, if you just take the arranger’s MIDI out to the harmonizer, what Part or Channel do you select to output, or do you send it all and the harmonizer filters which one is used to derive the chord?

Just curious…

If the TCH has been putting out proper harmonies hooked up as is, would that mean the settings in the PSR-S970 are already set set properly?

Diki, there are several options for the midi output. These are: All parts, KBD & Style, Master KBD, Song, Clock Ext., Midi Accord 1, Midi Accord 2, Midi Pedal 1, Midi Pedal 2, Off. Through trial and error, KBD and Style worked best for me with the Harmony-M. Now, each of these settings can be edited, but I did not have to edit the settings, as they worked perfectly without changing the transmit channel, which was Channel-1.

Now, this setting triggers the Harmony-M while playing full fingered, or full chords in the Multi-finger mode. It does not recognize single finger chords like the onboard harmonizer does. I suspect some editing would allow the single fingered mode to trigger it as well, but I don't know how to do this. This does recognize all other, full fingered chords with no hiccups or delays.

Bill, you can check to see where your keyboard is set by pressing: Function, MIDI, and the display will show you the highlighted area where your keyboard is outputting the information via the MIDI output. Additionally, when I first got the TC Helicon Harmony-M, I had t set the MIDI receive channel on the TC and save the information to default. It was pretty easy to do, if I recall.

Gary

The thing that worries me is that, deprived of the audio input, the harmonizer didn’t really work at all well. It ought to work pretty well without the audio, maybe not as good as both (I’m not really familiar with your particular TC, is there anything in the manual that cautions against using only MIDI..?) and if it isn’t, it seems to me that something is out of whack…

Mind you, if your current setup works, it works! I’d still try using a send from the mixer to get both sides of the arranger to your speakers in future, though…

Gary,

On my PSR S970, the first option, "all parts," is highlighted...

Also, my TC Helicon Voice Live Rack is set to MIDI Channel 1

Bill, when All Parts is selected, this means that you can trigger from the right hand as well as the left. I think this is the setting Uncle Dave used because he used his right hand to trigger his external vocalizer. When KBD and Style is selected, only the left hand style triggers the vocalizer.

Hope this helps,

Gary

Bill, perhaps it’s the setting on the VoiceLive? If it’s only responding to Ch1, what’s being sent from the arranger on that channel? It certainly isn’t the whole style, that’s a bunch of different channels…

Once again, full and fair warning, I don’t really know Yamaha’s, so maybe Gary can fill you in here

From what I could determine, the TC by default is set to channel 1, and automatically detects the channel that is being transmitted from the arranger keyboard via the midi output connection of the keyboard. On my TC Harmony-M I had to set it by performing the following:

For Advanced Users
MIDI Setup Mode
The MIDI operations of Harmony-M will work for most
simple setups, but there may be times when more
detailed control is necessary. For this, it's possible to
change the default settings for several necessary options
in the MIDI Setup mode.

Harmony-M's buttons have
alternate functions in this mode and are listed below.
To enter MIDI Setup Mode, hold the A/B and On
footswitches. The 3 LEDS in the indicator bar will flash
indicating MIDI Setup mode.

It is not possible to enter
MIDI Setup mode using an external footswitch.
To exit MIDI Setup mode, press the On footswitch only.
In MIDI Setup mode, the following settings are selected
by the buttons on the face of Harmony-M:

o Main Receive Channel (Selected by the Manual
button) - Receive Channel is ready to be set by
default as you entered MIDI Setup mode (Manual
button lit).To change the receive channel:

1. Play a note on your keyboard.
or

2. Manually adjust the channel shown in the Preset
display window with the Voice 1 and Voice 2
buttons.

The LED in the Preset button indicates channel
ten and the 10s position. If the Preset button is lit
and the number 6 is shown in the window for
example, the receive channel is set to 16.The
default channel is 1.

o Continuous Controller (CC's) Receive Channel
(Selected by the Double button) - By default, the
CC receive channel changes along with the Main
receive channel.

If you need to change the CC
channel separately to avoid unwanted parameter
changes from your arranger keyboard or a
sequencer, press the Double button and then
move a slider on your keyboard that's transmitting
on the desired CC channel.This can also be
manually adjusted with the Voice 1 and Voice.

Hope this helps,

Gary

Bottom line is, which style Part or which keyboard Part is ALWAYS playing the full correct chord for the harmonizer to derive the correct notes and intervals to transpose your voice to?

Do you always full LH chord the arranger section? Probably that LWR Keyboard Part channel. Do you do a combination of LH chording and full keyboard chording? Probably the LWR and UPPER Part channels.

I didn’t see in the above manual excerpt if you could select multiple channels as control channels or not. If it can’t, you are kind of in a bit of trouble if you don’t run the arranger the same way all the time. You might need to swap around VoiceLive MIDI templates…

Bottom line with any of the harmonizers. None of them are really designed for arranger players, they’re pretty much designed to either accept an acoustic guitar’s audio output, or the MIDI output of a single channel stage piano/organ etc. Throwing a whole bunch of different channels at them at the same time is a scenario they don’t really want to deal with. The simpler the input, the better the tracking.

Now add in drum notes, if you’re sending a style’s entire MIDI output at a harmonizer if it actually COULD see them all, and you’ve got a whole bunch of non-harmonic notes mixed in with the good ones to confuse the poor chord detection system.

But of course, throw an arranger’s full audio at a harmonizer, and now you’ve got all the drums and percussion throwing non-pitched sounds at that poor detector too! That they work at all is something of a miracle!

If I can figure a way to take a photo of the keyboard information, I'll post it, but I don't know if it will make a difference. From what I have read from the TC manuals, it appears that midi channel 1 only, is used to trigger the harmonizer from the keyboard.

Gary

Does the PSR allow you to choose which Part sends on which channel?

That’s one thing that has saved my bacon on the BK-9 several times. You not only get to pick and choose which Parts (Keyboard and style/SMF) transmit, receive MIDI, and which channels you want it on, but you can store eight completely different full setups (MIDI Sets) and link them to each Performance (registration) independently.

This has made working with finicky outboard gear a lot easier to control live, when you don’t have time to faff about changing setups on the fly. For the home user, handy but not essential, but on a gig it’s a lifesaver!

Diki, There are more options to save and configure than you can shake a stick at.

If you're not 100% satisfied with the harmonizer in your Yamaha, here's something that I noticed on their previous-generation models that bears mentioning...

Yamaha's chord recognition tends to have a bit of a hair trigger. If you play in "AI Fingered" (or any mode other than "Fingered" or "Fingered on Bass" which require a minimum of three notes), the arranger begins to decode the chord as soon as you press the first note. If you press the additional notes needed to form the complete chord even 0.15 seconds late, you will see false chords and very short false notes in the recorded MIDI. Now you might not HEAR them, because Yamaha is also very good and sneaky about using portamento to bend the original notes to what's needed for the chord. BUT-- if the harmonizer is also being driven by the chord channel, it may be receiving those premature, spurious note-on messages, and it might also be using portamento to correct your vocals, adversely affecting the tracking, sound quality, etc.

Wait, there's more... for years people on this forum have bragged about the TC-Helicon built into Korgs. Now I don't sing, but I always wondered whether it was really the TC-Helicon technology, superior integration, or the fact that Korgs "batch" their chord recognition input! Yes, through experimentation I've observed that my Pa800 waits about 0.2 seconds from when the first key is pressed before acknowledging a chord. There is a definite "window," albeit brief, to press additional notes or even release incorrect ones before the arranger signals the new chord. There are almost never false notes in the Korg's recorded MIDI. I find the Korg less responsive to play, and you definitely have to lead the beat by a little more to make your chord changes timely. But I can see where this approach would provide more positive input to a vocal harmonizer.

As I've stated, these observations were made on previous-generation arrangers. Perhaps both companies have since changed their approach, or maybe I'm just tilting at windmills. Your thoughts?

That delay, insignificant as it may be, is still present in today's TOTL models. That was one of the reasons I purchased the TC Helicon Harmony-M, which eliminated the delay, and the overall harmonies sounded superior to those found in the onboard selections. However, I have modified some of the Mic Settings for the onboard vocal harmonizer and was able to get some really good results, and additionally, the number of vocal harmony options were far more varied than those offered with any of the outboard harmonizers I've used in the past.

All the best,

Gary