Acoustic Basses

[sugarplumsss]

A few hours ago, while at Guitar Center I played Genos.  I had played it earlier, and had come away with impression that the Ac Basses in Genos were slightly better than the T4 ac basses. I still suspect the basic tone of the ac basses on Genos is better, more like an acoustic bass that is plucked.
However... on playing ac basses on Genos ( there were two preset ac basses on the first or second page ) tonight, i encountered some behavior ( Yamaha editing ) that seemed like poor editing on Yamaha's part. I cannot explain it very well.. just to say... there was a legato between bass notes that ruined the pizzicato effect of the bass. I had never noticed this on the T4. I, unlike most of you, play the bass lines myself, and have done so for 55 years- 5 on tyros. I am well respected in the area of left hand bass.
I am hoping this "un bass like" edit can be corrected, by the user. But it is disappointing to me, and dissuades me from the purchase until such time as I see a correction,, or easy edit.

Edit... I just now tried to replicate the un pizzicato like effect found earlier today on Genos, on my T4.. and sure enough... the edit/ design on the Genos ac basses.are poorly done. I could not duplicate the weird legato tone on Genos, on the T4.
This is not the first time a manufacturer will have a winning keyboard.  do an update ( Tyros to Genos IS an update )  where you gain some things, but also lose.

[DerekA]

Are you using a super articulation (SArt) voice? If so, then this is what it's supposed to do - legato playing produces a legato effect, staccato playing produces the staccato effect.

[sugarplumsss]

You asked "Are you using a super articulation (SArt) voice?" At the music store, I checked for how many acoustic basses are among the "out of the box" Genos ac bass presets... there are a total of 2 acoustic basses, and they both have this unmusical situation.

I am not sure of the articulation status. But what am sure of is.. the t4 does not " respond in this unmusical way. There is nothing musical about the sound the ac basses make in the genos, when my touch deviates very much... not the case with T4
. I have never used the articulation feature.
There is no intelligent or musical reason for the ac basses to make sounds that are far removed from an ac bass.
Again the T4 does not have this "articulation"    , thankfully.

How can I shut this presumed articulation feature off in the Genos?
On t4 there are two buttons designated as Articulation ...
I can't believe that merely pressing the articulation button is the solution. I am thinking it is a deeper edit within the sample, or legato feature turned off!

[pjd]

Genos ref manual, page 35. Gotta go -- plane landing!

-- pj

[jwyvern]

The main Acoustic bass on Genos for manual playing is a  SA type (not to be confused with SA2). IMO if you can play the default truly staccato it sounds OK but if you let some legato come in there is a sort of ringing tone in the background to my ears (difficult to describe  ).
You can try setting it to mono which cleans up the sound while stiIl preserving the SA expression possible through using a slight legato touch.
Or, if you prefer a less critical voice, go to the legacy bass folder and choose say the AcousticBass1 voice which is non SA (use as default or mono depending on preference) .

John

[pjd]

Sorry about that -- traveling. 

Genos Ref Manual, Voice Part edit, pages 27 and 28. The little blue icons show the articulations available for the selected voice in each part. If you see the icon that looks like a musical slur symbol, then the voice implements legato.

My last post refers to SArt2 voices. I don't think there is a way to disable articulations for SArt voices.

Sorry, I'm now a long way from my G, otherwise I would experiment a little. I've moved from S950 to Genos and find myself triggering more and sometimes unintended articulations (like legato) because many G voices are "smarter" than S950. I get tripped up with the SArt2 Jazz Flute, for example. I need to clean up my playing and be more careful about playing detached notes versus legato/slurs.

Wish I could be more help right now -- pj

[sugarplumsss]

The context of my post is something like this

-I am on the fence about purchase of Genos.
-I need compelling reasons to do so.
-In my experience, manufacturers will do an update that does not only make improvement s but unfortunately, mysteriously also include "debits", such as this ac bass.

I guess these is the option of going to the legacy folder and using an older ac bass.. but that kind of defeats the point. Thank you for reminding me of this option.

Again, I do not use the styles the way the keyboard was designed for.
I am the player, not some sound designers.

C'est la vie, right?

[Lee Batchelor]

Sugarplumness, I think it's all right to invoke the odd Legacy voice (read below). Overall, the Genos is a huge step up from the Tyros series. Don't let one instrument fog your opinion. The Genos has so much more to offer.

As for Legacy voices - on occasion I play in a country band and like to add the odd Steel Guitar voice. The Genos Steel is utter garbage compared to the Tyros 5 and earlier Steels. It's probably the same voice but is processed through a different amp or something. Perhaps I'm not being fair. The Legacy Steel cuts through the mix on stage beautifully. The Genos Steel sounds like a piece of crap heard on AM radio in some truck stop in the southern U.S., circa 1950, complete with the cigarette stench and french fries smell . It's gutless. So, Legacy voices are sometimes better.

I applaud Yamaha for consistently providing banks of voices from previous keyboards. Sometimes they're needed or preferred. If you want aggravation from a company taking away the really nice things you used to enjoy on a previous model, try buying a 2018 or 2019 Honda Odyssey. Honda needs to take lessons from Yamaha.........but I digress .

[sugarplumsss]

Another day on Genos...  The basses issue was somewhat circumvented.. not sure how... I just adapted to it. But I was left with a negative feeling about the bass.

You see, for me, more than the vast majority of professional pianists, bass in left hand is vital to my style. Even as a kid, i noticed pianists who had much more technique than I, could not even begin to approach what I brought to the table, with my sensitivity to that spectrum.. the dance grooves. I gravitated to B3 organ 50 years ago, but left hand bass on keyboards since before the Korg M1, has always been my calling card. Being a bass player is likely a contributing reason, but not the only reason.
All of this to say, I am running against the tide of arranger keyboards.. and the way the left hand (Bass) and right hand ( pianos ) make me feel, is paramount. Not so with 99.9 % of you.

On a brighter note... the jazz drums ( I am partial to jazz, though I play many styles of music, unlike many jazz types ) were so darned nice- a noticeable improvement over t4.. really life like!!
My sense now is, the Genos is a big step forward for most of you.
Any nonsense that it is not, is just that, hooey.
The Genos drums, alone, just push it over the top.

But it remains to be seen, in my unique situation, whether or not I will go in hock and buy it.
Generally my final word on it is... spend time with it at the store, before buying.

[voodoo]

Hi,

the acoustic basses from Genos and T5 (and also PSR-S970) are exactly the same, including Regular vs SA and including DSP program. Only the names have been changed slightly and two voices have been moved from panel voices to legacy folder.

If you don't like automatic legato play, use the non-super-articulation versions of the voices instead. That can be a wise decision in many cases, when keyboard intelligence is not wanted.
Which voices did you use on Tyros? With or without SA?

See picture below.

Uli

[attachment deleted by admin]

[panos]

Sorry for enterfering this post but is there an example from someone with a Genos of how this "strange" bass sound like?
I wonder if it is made that way on purpose for todays dance music or something,
were sounds with "weird" effects maybe used without the user cares a lot if the sound is made by a bass, a piano or any other organ as long as it suits his musical project.

I am just curious to hear what kind of strange bass is this,if you don't mind.
I know curiosity killed the cat, not the... rat. 

[Toril S]

I am also curious!

[sugarplumsss]

If you are not a left hand bass type player, which most are not, this is a non issue for you.
I may have made an error in my judgement of the ac basses ( there are only two ac basses on T4 and Genos that I am aware of )
You see, I seldom use the ac basses on T4. But I certainly have tried ac bass in the past five years of owning T4.  I never noticed my complaint about Genos ac basses, when I did try ac bass on T4.
To settle this... I am going to try extensive use of ac bass on t4 while home, to see if the un-bass-like legato occurs or not.

Normally I either play a bass line, or sustain a bass note, that's two "states of bass". I do not play a bass melody where bass legato would be noted. Either a bass line or bass sustain. 
I will get back shortly with the results of ac bass on t4.

[pjd]

The following tables summarize the Acoustic Bass voices in Tyros 4 and Genos:

Tyros 4 voice     MSB LSB PC#  Voice type
----------------  --- --- ---  ---------------- 
SoftAcousticBass    8  33  17  S.Articulation!
AcousticBass        8  32  17  S.Articulation!
AcousticBass      104   1  33  Cool!
AcousticBass        0 112  33  Regular     [Legacy]
SoftAcousticBass  104   2  33  Cool!
AcousticBass        8   0  17  MegaVoice

Genos   voice     MSB LSB PC#  Voice type
----------------  --- --- ---  ---------------- 
SoftAcousticBass    8  33  17  S.Art!
AcousticBass        8  32  17  S.Art!
AcousticBass1     104   1  33  Regular     [Legacy]
AcousticBass2       0 112  33  Regular     [Legacy]
SoftAcousticBass  104   2  33  Regular     [Legacy]
AcousticBass        8   0  17  MegaVoice

Yamaha is pretty good about backward compatibility. If a voice has the same MSB/LSB/PC# as an older model, then the voice programming (sound) is the same.

So, looking carefully at the tables, the Genos acoustic bass voices are the same as the Tyros 4 voices, except for a little renaming. The renaming is not significant with respect to voice programming/sound. I think the Genos Data List mis-classified the two "Cool!" voices as "Regular". They're still cool. :-)

The only other difference is where a user will find the acoustic bass voices in the Genos voice selection menu (versus T4). Genos shows only the two Super Articulation voices in the main voice selection pages. The rest of the Genos acoustic bass voices are with the Legacy voices.

On Genos, touch the "go to parent folder" button, then look for the Legacy folder. Touch "Legacy" and then touch "Bass" to find the legacy voices.

Hope this info helps to sort things out.

All the best -- pj

[sugarplumsss]

Thank you for this exhaustive explanation.

To reiterate, when I first heard the Genos ac bass, my first instinct was, it was better than T4. My issue was the manner it dealt with my touch on the keys.. presumably legato. I prefer the T4's way of handling that touch I use. I still think the Genos DAC etc, will make a better sounding bass though !!

OT    OT!
The following comments have nothing to do with my issue with Genos ac basses ( btw   I only saw two, not 5 or 6 ac basses on Genos among presets ) which were strictly about the legato/ touch of this user , and nothing else. 99% of you do not play manual left hand bass, so I apologize for fact that this is only for a tiny minority of you.


Yesterday I spent considerable time on t4 with ac bass.. I modified the tone/eq in voice set  on the ac bass. I liked it enough that I asked myself, 'why are you not trying ac bass in live situations?'  Of course this is not my first rodeo..  everything changes within a few moments of being on a gig...in other words, regardless of how the ac bass sounds at home,  I seem to always  default to the Lo Bass sound exclusively.

This is all about musical instinct, not some isolated idea about "oh how nice this ac bass sounds". No, it is about a harmonious alchemy between the left bass and right hand sounds.
I cannot begin to explain it... I just know, my instinct takes over, and leads me away from ac basses.
More OT 
To those interested, I will go a little more into it.. but it is not technical talk, but rather the words of a musician not esp versed in extensive editing of sounds.

50+  years of experience suggests to me that my musical instinct about preferring one bass sound over another, is sound.. ( no pun intended ). Another way to say, my instinct will hear some quality in the preset bass that suggests to me, "this is the bass sound that works best"  and fiddling with parameters to improve a bass sound is not worth it.

more OT
Next thing I want to mention is difficult to discuss for me.. The sum of the parts ( Left and Right 1  2  3  ) is different than the individual parts in isolation.
Because a certain sound sounds appealing in isolation, does not mean combined with other voices. that "sum of the parts" will be the ultimate combination.
So choosing various combinations of Left and Right voices boils down to instinct, not science.  One example.. after years of using concert piano on t4, I discovered Rock piano works better for me with the other voices!  I like the tone of the Concert piano a bit better, but the rock piano perhaps "blends" better.
OT
I will go one more layer into an insight I had the other day with a guitar player. This pertains to playing in a group setting, not as a solo one man band.
An essentially acoustic musician such as myself, always was drawn to an acoustic instruments tone and tonal flexibility . In my case, saxophone, elec bass, piano, B3 organ and Fender Rhodes.  ( Some purists would argue, Rhodes, B3 and Elec bass are not acoustic... point taken)
I would always be in search of the best sounding instrument I could find and or afford.
This idea at first glance means, I want a beautiful tone or better yet, a flexible tone that can express various moods.   

But my recent insight came to me this way.. Tone is NOT just about our subjective idea of a beautiful  tone... Tone also serves another function in a band setting.
A tone eg of a guitar, has to communicate not just the guitarists vision of beauty or a cool sound, but beyond that, it must also communicate time feel, and clarity of the notes in the chords.  The guitarist I was advising had a tone, he personally liked, but it altogether failed in regard to clearly making the harmony obvious ( a necessity when playing in an unrehearsed situation, which is pretty common ) and it failed in defining his beat.  He thought his tone was cool, but I knew better.

Again, this was all based on my instinct.. I long ago, unconsciously knew this about tone...( your tone must not only be expressive to you, but must define a pitch clearly and a beat clearly )  but when I met this guitar player I was forced to think deeply about my unconscious instinct about tone.
They say the teacher learns as much as the student he teaches.  I hope this is not too far afield, and that some among you will appreciate this insight. By being forced to critique his tone, I was reminded of this buried truth.
A little less OT
This talk about tone applies to our keyboards.. the tones in the 4 voices we use manually, have to not just sound cool, in isolation, but collectively. And that combination of tones is no simple matter.
My guess is, as Yamaha continues to make new keyboards, the DAC will improve the total sound quality when several voices are playing at once.

Again, when I first heard the Genos ac bass, my first instinct was, it was better than T4.
I still believe that... so go and buy it!

[sugarplumsss]

Sugarplumness, I think it's all right to invoke the odd Legacy voice (read below). Overall, the Genos is a huge step up from the Tyros series. Don't let one instrument fog your opinion. The Genos has so much more to offer.

As for Legacy voices - on occasion I play in a country band and like to add the odd Steel Guitar voice. The Genos Steel is utter garbage compared to the Tyros 5 and earlier Steels. It's probably the same voice but is processed through a different amp or something. Perhaps I'm not being fair. The Legacy Steel cuts through the mix on stage beautifully. The Genos Steel sounds like a piece of crap heard on AM radio in some truck stop in the southern U.S., circa 1950, complete with the cigarette stench and french fries smell . It's gutless. So, Legacy voices are sometimes better.

I applaud Yamaha for consistently providing banks of voices from previous keyboards. Sometimes they're needed or preferred. If you want aggravation from a company taking away the really nice things you used to enjoy on a previous model, try buying a 2018 or 2019 Honda Odyssey. Honda needs to take lessons from Yamaha.........but I digress .

OT
Appreciate all of this info... but I am now curious how the Honda vans have recently let you down. Which year was the peak, and which year introduced issues for you?

[sugarplumsss]

Panos and Toril 

Just try the ac basses on the Genos.  Play it extensively
and see if you notice some un bass like sounds
I think legato playing where you don't completely lift your finger off one note and play another note. I am sorry, that does not sound sensible... you just have to play the basses a lot until you notice it. I am a long time bass player.. so I am sensitive to inauthentic bass sounds. Maybe you are not a bass player so it may not be an issue.
As Lee said, Yamaha is helpful by providing legacy folder.
I just think Yamaha could have done a little better job with the basses in general.
But to repeat, I think Genos has a better tone in general, so basses will sound a tad more realistic... but that is true except for the legato touch aspect. The raw bass tones as well as drums and EP and ac pianos, are likely best yet.

[Lee Batchelor]

Sugarplumness, I'll send you a private message about Honda and the 2018 Odyssey issues, otherwise I'll be WAY off topic on this forum .