Genos Abruptly Stops Playing

[rickbrenner]

In the second setup i.e. Concert Guitar on 1 with guitar tremolo 1, 12 string picked with guitar tremolo 2 and steel acoustic finger on 3 with rotary speaker 2, I was able to replicate the "problem" and that is because all three voices are guitar(s) which have key-off (note off) effects - when you hold a note over a certain time - when you let your foot off the sustain pedal while the keys are pressed the key off (note off) is engaged and the sounds stop which is a normal occurence in certain situations for a guitar Super Articulation voice. So this is not a 'bug' it is a feature. PS: I'm not sure why the "problem" occurs for you in both instances since I could not replicate the "problem" when using the CFX concert grand on R1.

This is my take on it anyway. It would be nice if a Yamaha representative chimed in to clarify any possible misconceptions we might have.

Mike

This makes a lot of sense.  I will try to find out more about it.  One thing is for sure - if I keep my foot off the damn pedal it doesn't happen!

Rick

[jwyvern]

Rick,
Having seen your reply to keynote I have revisited your setups.
I can get the abrupt cutoff with 3guitars with effects, and also the 2guitars plus piano with no effects.
With the former I can still get it with 1 or 2 guitars active.
Similar results with the other setup although if the piano is the only voice active it behaves (no abrupt cutoff).
So the guitars appear to be instrumental in the problem (pun intended?).
But the message continues to be "don't use the sustain pedal for those situations" 

John

[rickbrenner]

Rick,
Having seen your reply to keynote I have revisited your setups.
I can get the abrupt cutoff with 3guitars with effects, and also the 2guitars plus piano with no effects.
With the former I can still get it with 1 or 2 guitars active.
Similar results with the other setup although if the piano is the only voice active it behaves (no abrupt cutoff).
So the guitars appear to be instrumental in the problem (pun intended?).
But the message continues to be "don't use the sustain pedal for those situations" 

John

John - thanks so much for taking the time to duplicate my settings and the cutoff problem.  Glad to know it isn't because I have a defective Genos.  It seems to me that there should be a more elegant and intelligent way for Genos to behave in such a case.  It was be awful if that happened at a gig.

Rick

[rcyeager]

Hi,

I have been experiencing this same issue with certain built-in sounds:

1. Select the built-in 70sSuitcaseBallad voice

2. Hold the sustain pedal down and play a bunch of notes, enough to hit the polyphony limit (256)

3. Hold down a final chord of keys and lift the sustain pedal.

Instead of the expected behavior that the final chord of keys sustains their sound b/c they are depressed, the Genos instead will go totally quiet.  That's bonkers!  It's clearly a flaw somewhere in the Genos.

This has been driving me nuts since I got my Genos over a couple of years ago.  I guess I just learned to live with it b/c it doesn't happen with every voice, plus you have to seemingly hit the polyphony limit.  But lately I've been playing more electric piano voices and this behavior makes some of them unplayable.

Finally took some time to try to figure out what the problem was.  Repeating the same experiment above with the Chorus effect turned off fixes the problem.  I guess this is equivalent to playing the 70sSuitcaseClean voice which also doesn't have the problem.  So maybe that means that the issue is caused by certain effects.  I experimented with varying effects and found that chorus and some other effects cause the problem, while other effects don't.  But the effects by themselves aren't the issue b/c other voices work ok with them.

Last night I discovered that Yamaha is now offering Genos expansion packs for free at their online store.  So I downloaded this pack that contains electric piano voices: https://shop.usa.yamaha.com/en/downloadables/sound-expansion-library/premium-packs-voices/vintage-keyboard.html

When I tested the voices, none of them had this sustain issue.

I've found several built-in voices in Genos experience this issue...various electric piano, guitar, and string voices.

The workaround seems to be to find expansion voices and load them as replacements to the built-in voices.  I'm now scouring eBay and other online stores to find replacements for the voices I most commonly use that have this issue.

Hope this info is helpful.  The Genos is a wonderful instrument, but this issue has been driving me nuts and causing me lots of anger when I play...nothing worse than the instrument cutting out and ruining an otherwise beautiful performance.

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi
I tried that
Play a bunch of notes then lift the sustain and the sustain cuts completely off and does not carry on.
Play a bunch of notes and make sure you hit the notes and leave your hands on a little longer as it is sustain and then it carries on. During that slowly lift you foot off the pedal. That worked for me.
I think that we all have to learn nuances similar to bending guitars and making the resonator guitar slides and sax trills. All takes time.
I think the main man here may be getting nasty problems which Yamaha can sort out for him
Sustain has to be what it says or notes will get jumbled in the musical sense.
The style is unaffected. The band plays on!!


All the best
John

[tyros2009]

Seems to me that Genos has a lots of software bugs (my career was in software / firmware development, i.e. writing codes to run machines). I have plays a lot of Yamaha keyboards from cheap ones to Tyros3 / Tyros4 and NEVER had this kind of issues. Genos software is getting more complex. However, any bug like this is not acceptable.
I ordered a Genos few days ago, but the store tries to ship to me an open box Genos with missing parts. So I cancelled that order.
Reading these posts about Genos issues, I have to think twice before order it again from a different source.

[PierreSW]

Seems to me that Genos has a lots of software bugs (my career was in software / firmware development, i.e. writing codes to run machines). I have plays a lot of Yamaha keyboards from cheap ones to Tyros3 / Tyros4 and NEVER had this kind of issues. Genos software is getting more complex. However, any bug like this is not acceptable.
I ordered a Genos few days ago, but the store tries to ship to me an open box Genos with missing parts. So I cancelled that order.
Reading these posts about Genos issues, I have to think twice before order it again from a different source.

I completely agree that Genos has a lot of bugs left to fix.
Have never had as much trouble with all the Tyros as I have had as with Genos.
But maybe it's just my Genos that is in trouble, and then Yamaha thinks that an update is not necessary.

[Amwilburn]

JSB is correct, this is polyphony limit, with a key off sound sample that's basically overriding the held note. This is because Yamaha was using a last note priority in the OS (that would be correctable) instead of held as the priority.

You do *not* need to download new samples to bypass (not fix, until Yamaha has an option for polyphone note priority); just use the Legacy versions with no key off sample. It's not a bug with the Genos itself per se; it just hasn't shown up because there's no S.Art EP with key off sample on any of the other boards (and if we put that exact sound there, the same problem would arise)

Anyway, for now, just grab the legacy versions. Yes the problem is exacerbated when you have 3 sounds with 'key offs' (which the new acoustic guitars on the Genos also have).

I know we shouldn't have to. I've let them know.*



*Who am I? Believe it or not, before the CVP309 series was released, Yamaha Canada had flew out a couple of the Yamaha Japan staff to meet with me, and we sat down for a few hours, and I sketched the flip up lid with the screen on the inside. I also demanded USB A ports, stop with the Smart Media cards and floppy (they ended up putting all 3 in). If you think I'm joking, you can ask Yamaha Canada or Japan. Peter Baartmans knows who I am; and I'm happy to say he's one of the nicest, talented and funniest people I've ever met).

I had *nothing* to do with the chipset (that was simply ported from Tyros 1, with some CVP specific sounds added). But prior to that CVP's used an apothecary table style, multi slat lids (which often jammed, and I thought inelegant) with the screen very far away on a slope on the inside. Yamaha just wanted my opinion on the physical cabinet. And flew me out to Toronto for the product launch of 'my baby'

Mark

[Amwilburn]

Well, they've replied back to me, asking me for a video of the notes stopping. It's *very* hard to catch; has anyone already filmed this?

thanks.

*Update: (I sent them the mp3 from earlier in this thread; I couldn't catch myself doing it, even though I did manage to break polyphony about 3 times in 30 minutes)

They asked me why this hadn't been encountered before (in 3.5 years); I replied that it would never occur during 'normal' playing: "The reason I suspect it's not been documented before, is when I'm actually playing I would never play that way (I tap the sustain every bar regardless). But yes, if you intentionally try to 'break' the e.piano by overloading the poly, you certainly can. However, the simple fix would simply be to change note priority to held down as top priority (and that only matters because of the key off sample of the new e.pianos and some of the new guitars)."

to which they replied that they'll let this go until Yamaha Canada receives an actual customer complaint (there hasn't been one in Canada yet). Playing to intentionally break poly is different from regular playing.




*Anyone* in Canada actually get this to happen without trying?

Mark

*edit again 8/13/2021
I was using just R1. Using R1 + R2 + R3, I can get it to happen frequently, and I've sent them a video of it. We'll see if that's enough.


But complaining to Yamaha on a forum does nothing. You need to contact your local dealer (we're a dealer across Canada, HK & China) and have *them* contact Yamaha. Proper channels.

[tyros2009]

I don't know if this helps: I had weird issues with my SX600 when it is connected to my Windows 10 PC with an USB cable.
The PC seem to do something to the keyboard thru the USB cable. So when I play a style (any style), it could sound fine then suddenly the bass part of the style sounds staccato !! Unplugging the USB cable and the keyboard get back to normal.
BTW, I returned the SX600 , not happy with sound quality, went ahead to order a Genos.