Style Magic Problem

[Arnak]

Hi,

I am using Style Magic and have the standard drum kit on channel 1 which when played sounds fine.

However when I use the channel manager to move it to channel 10 where it should be it plays but there is no sound at all...

Any other channel is also fine, I thought that the drums had to be on channel 10?

Any idea what I am doing wrong, please?

Martin

[Joe H]

Drums can be on any channel.  You should look at the CASM editor and see if you need to change the settings or assign the drums to a style Part. (as it was before you moved it to a different channel.  If you moved the drums to channel 1 - 8 this would be absolutely necessary.

Joe H

[Arnak]

Hi Joe,

Great, thanks for that!

I'll have a look I expect that is what it is.

I just wish there were better instructions for this program.

Martin

[Arnak]

Hi,

An update to my problem.

It is not the casm that is the problem as I forgot to mention this is a midi file so there are no casm entries to start with.

Any other suggestions please?

Thanks,

martin

[WolfBack]

Forget the casm option at this time and focus at the source of the sound.
Did you listen the GM midi sounds from your inboard/external card of your PC or Mac?
If yes, the things is more complicated and maybe the Style Magic can't handle the midi protocols of your soundcard.
Lets try this:
On Style Magic select Setting / Instruments and in the Output port you must select the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (for PC) or your source soundcard port.
Restart your Style Magic program and try again.
If there's no sound on drum channel, go ahead on the same settings and choose your instrument (your keyboard that is connected via USB port on your computer).
Restart the Style Magic and listen the midi file on your keyboard instead of your soundcard.
I have the same issues because I'm too lazy to change the Output Ports on SM everytime I choose my instruments port sounds over my soundcard sounds.

[Joe H]

The way Yamaha MIDI instruments work is that if a keyboard or sound module receives a Voice message NOT supported by the instrument... there will be silence on the channel.

Joe H

[Arnak]

Hi Guys,

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

It appears that something I did caused a problem, I don't know what though.

I reloaded the original midi but did not at first change the channels at all, then played the midi and channel 10 worked fine.

Moved the channels over to the new locations, just in any order and 10 still works!  

So now I'll try and move them to where I want them and see if that makes any difference.

Martin

[Joe H]

You should still be able to use StyleMagic to do this.  If you load a MIDI and move the channels around then save the file as a MIDI song file.  It's always a good idea to save an edited song file or style file with a new name so you still have the original.

Joe H

[Arnak]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the advice.

Yes, I could use it as a midi song file but I would like to try and make a style first.

Martin

[Joe H]

OK... now I understand that you want to make a style from the MIDI song file and you are re-arranging the channels to match the style format.

Joe H

[SeaGtGruff]

The way Yamaha MIDI instruments work is that if a keyboard or sound module receives a Voice message NOT supported by the instrument... there will be silence on the channel.

That's not always the case. Often the instrument or sound module will default to an XG "capital" tone, or the equivalent of a GM tone (i.e., Bank 0). If I remember correctly, it depends on the value of the Bank Select MSB. Version 2.00 of the XG specifications document includes some tables at the end, and one of them lists the various Bank numbers and indicates what will happen if an unsupported Voice is selected from within a particular range of Bank Select MSB values.

[Joe H]

Michael,

What you are describing is a unique feature of the arranger.  I have own several Yamaha sound modules and several XG plug-in boards at the same time that worked together seamlessly.  Yamaha designed the system I'm referring to specifically for MIDI studio setups with multiple instruments.

With the arranger, the OS will select a "substitute" instrument so we will hear sound rather than silence... that is different than what I am referring to when I say a Voice (MSB - LSB - PC) is NOT supported by the instrument. Yamaha put a lot of thought into how we could easily have several Yamaha instruments playing together without having to do major MIDI programming or routing configurations.

Joe H

[SeaGtGruff]

No, what I'm talking about is a feature of the XG specifications, not of individual arrangers. Any Yamaha keyboard or tone generator which conforms to the XG specifications should behave in this way.

It was described at least 20 years ago, as seen on pages 101-102 of the XG Specifications V 1.32 October 19, 1998 YAMAHA CORPORATION. I prefer the XG Specifications V 2.00 April 2001 Yamaha Corporation because it's the most recent publicly-available version that I'm aware of, but I've mentioned Version 1.32 simply because it's from 20 years ago-- a nice round number.

In the V 2.00 document from 2001 the equivalent information is given in "Attached Chart 10" and "Attached Chart 11," which don't have page numbers within the overall document, but are numbered separately-- e.g., Chart 10 is one page long, whereas Chart 11 spans two pages numbered "1" and "2."

The second part of Chart 11 from V 2.00 gives the more complete description (highlighting added for convenience):



[attachment deleted by admin]

[SeaGtGruff]

Note: I'm not saying that the Style Magic program behaves this way. I'm saying that XG-compatible hardware from Yamaha should behave this way.

[Joe H]

Michael,

Respectfully... The arranger keyboard is XG compatible, GM2 compatible and GS compatible, but it is NOT strictly an XG instrument.  We are talking apples and oranges here.

I am speaking from my personal experience of having multiple Yamaha instruments in my studio and how the multiple instruments behave when used together. (non-proxy Voice banks)

Joe H