Touch sensitivity of organ tones in the E4xx keyboards

[vbdx66]

Hello to all,

I have a question pertaining to the PSR E4xx series, especially concerming the models from the E433 to the E463.

Could someone please check (unfortunately, I cannot check this myself because I currently haven't any E4xx model at home) whether the panel voices in the category "organ" respond to touch sensitivity when the Touch Sensitivity function is set to another value than "fixed"?

What I mean is, if the Touch Sensitivity is set to Soft, Middle or Hard, will the panel Organ voices respond to how hard the keys are pressed just in the same way that a piano voice would do by default?

This question has been raised in another forum and I am not satisfied with the answer provided.

Thanks,

Vinciane

[Fantomas]

Hi Vinciane,

I've just made this test for you.
All organ voices from 019 to 033 are not affected by the TOUCH parameter value.
Soft value equals to fixed value for example.

In other words, if you press the piano key hard or soft, the sound is exactly the same.

That's a shame I think.... and I don't understand this choice made by Yamaha...

[vbdx66]

Thanks Chris.

Well I don't understand this either. From what I heard, it seems that the organ voices from the XG bank will respond to touch sensitivity, though. This is a small consolation.

Regards,

Vinciane

[SeaGtGruff]

Organs and certain other keyboard instruments-- such as harpsichords, as well as traditional analog synthesizers-- do not have touch-sensitive keyboards. Some organs do use a "swell" pedal to increase or decrease the volume of the sound, but of course that isn't the same as a touch-sensitive keyboard such as a piano (pianoforte) has.

[Dick Rector]

Michael said it correctly. Organ tones don't have touch-sensitivity. Think of a church-pipe-organ. Voice is open or closed or it is a yes or no sound. Indeed you can change the loudness (forte) with a swell-pedal but not by harder or softer playing on the key's.

[EileenL]

Organs have never had touch sensitivity on them. It is all controlled by the swell pedal. It would be impossible to get the same effect with touch. Just watch an organists footwork on a swell pedal and you will see.

[vbdx66]

Hi everybody and thanks for your advice,

Of course I know that organs are not touch sensitive but here we are not speaking about real organs, but about organ samples in a keyboard's ROM memory. It would be nice to be able to tweak the touch sensitivity as we can tweak other parameters, just in case we would like to use these "organ tones" to edit an original patch.

Regards,

Vinciane

[jwyvern]

On Tyros and Genos the lack of touch sensitivity is dialled in via Voice Set. If you can get to Voice Set or Edit in these E keyboards you may be able to raise the Touch Sensitivity "Depth" to say 64, and reduce the "Offset" to a similar value and reintroduce touch sensitivity similar to other voices.
John

[SeaGtGruff]

Vinciane, I assumed you were already aware that the keyboards of real organs-- including (as far as I know) of modern electronic organs such as Hammonds-- are not touch-sensitive, and I wasn't arguing for or against Yamaha's decision to make organ voices respond the way they do (or don't).

Personally, I think it would be nice if this behavior were something that could be switched on or off with each individual voice, rather than a global keyboard setting-- which is apparently overridden at the voice level for certain voices.

For all I know, it might already be possible to control this at the voice level-- certainly it can (I think) be controlled at the voice level on the PSR-S models and above, and it must be possible on the PSR-E models if Yamaha is doing it, although it might as well not be possible if there's no way for users to access this on the PSR-E models.

Even though it wouldn't be "authentic" for organ voices to respond to velocity as most voices do, it might still be interesting to play them that way-- as though they're organ patches on a synthesizer that has touch sensitivity.

[pjd]

On Tyros and Genos the lack of touch sensitivity is dialled in via Voice Set. If you can get to Voice Set or Edit in these E keyboards you may be able to raise the Touch Sensitivity "Depth" to say 64, and reduce the "Offset" to a similar value and reintroduce touch sensitivity similar to other voices.
John

Hi John and Michael --

Good idea, but the E-series is challenged in this area. There are a few voice parameters accessible through "The Functions," but touch sensitivity is not among them.

I think that E4xx will respond to XG MULTIPART Sy*** messages. Velocity sense depth and offset are accessible via Sy***:

08 nn 0C   1   00-7F   VELOCITY SENSE DEPTH 0...127
08 nn 0D   1   00-7F   VELOCITY SENSE OFFSET 0...127

Even tho' it's XG lite, the tone generator may respond none the less.

Of course, the issue is getting the instrument to store the modified voice...

All the best -- pj

[jwyvern]

Quoting Michael,
"Even though it wouldn't be "authentic" for organ voices to respond to velocity as most voices do, it might still be interesting to play them that way-- as though they're organ patches on a synthesizer that has touch sensitivity"

My thoughts exactly. The fact that organs don't have touch sensitivity is a limitation of the technology available when they were designed rather than being put in as a desirable musical feature IMO. So why not, since we now have the technology, add it where it makes sense to use it, especially since on keyboards there must be a higher proportion players already used to playing with touch in the first place. It doesn't need to supersede the role of swell pedals which will continue to have their own uses especially for global effects.
John

PS. to Paul. Have just seen your response thanks for the info- looks like no go then