Genos 2: Transition NIGHTMARES

[hans1966]

In my case it was different, I come from the highest mid-range model (SX900) to the smallest of the family (SX600)

In this case I have to occupy some of the spaces both in registers and in specific styles that were occupied with the SX900 voices
Am I frustrated by it? Not at all.

On the contrary, it keeps me busy, since it gives me the opportunity to create new records using the resources that are on the keyboard.

As I said in a previous post,
Although the SX600 is the smallest model in the family of arrangers, it also has its charms.

Obviously who wouldn't want to have the flagship?, but I am aware of the budget I have and therefore what I can afford.

My father (he died a few months ago) told me this phrase when I was a teenager, and I was just venturing into the world of the electronic organ, but I wanted the one that at that time had all the bells and whistles, the famous Yamaha Electone D- 85, and I was playing a B-35

I remember he told me "The best musician is the one who makes even a piece of wood sound, therefore there is NO bad instrument, but rather a lack of creativity on the part of the musician."

just my thoughts

Hans

[sh]

Ok, Soundwonderland is making styles and registrations and what they wish is, that the same registrations and styles would work perfect on Genos1 and Genos2 -that would obviously make their work easier.

Nope, that is not what Soundwonderland is saying.

They say that a new arranger should be 100% backward compatible with it's predecessor (and not vice versa).
And it is not important if you are a professional or hobbiest. The need to touch existing regs (yes, not all, I know) to sound the same like on the former model is just something which shouldn't be neccessary. New models should be 100% backward compatible.

I do not regard this as whining. I want to make music and I don't want to have extra work to do in my very limited spare time just because Yamaha doesn't care even on their TOTL arrangers. If some folks are happy with that situation it's fine with me as well. But there *are* people out there which do not have the time to do that. My hope is that this is just be taken as a different viewpoint instead of being criticized as simple whining.

[Akki]

I do not regard this as whining. I want to make music and I don't want to have extra work in my very limited spare time to do just because Yamaha doesn't care even on their TOTL arrangers. If some folks are happy with that situation it's fine with me as well. But there *are* people out there which do not have the time to do that. My hope is that this is just be taken as a different viewpoint instead of being criticized as simple whining.

It should not be perceived as whining, not at all!
A professional player, musician, producer, or hobbyist is dedicated to creating, playing, and producing music, and seamless backward compatibility should be a standard expectation.
Considering the investment of $7000 and the ample CPU and memory resources available, the automatic recall of legacy DSPs, and not just DSPs but all elements from previous generations, should be inherent without requiring modifications to achieve a consistent sound with the prior model.
If individuals wish to enhance the sound by utilizing updated/newer DSPs, Voices, etc., they are encouraged to freely edit registrations, styles, voices, etc.

Simple as that.

[Heidrun]

Hi everyone,
I heard that there's a discussion here about my video.
It is always helpful to hear the background and reason for such a video.

So let me explain please.

We have thousands of clients around the world which love to use our registrations.
Also because they only want to enjoy music and not to program the preconditions.
Many of them would only buy a new keyboard if they can continue to use our software.

As you can see:
Here is a dependence - not only from users who want continue to use a software but also of sold Yamaha keyboards!

There is a big difference between a private user and a professional software creator:

The private one is able to protect himself by copying and using current preset styles exclusively from his usb stick.

A professional is not allowed to do the same to protect himself if Yamaha changes preset styles or leave old ones in new keyboards out, because we have to keep copyrights.
We are not allowed to also give Yamaha styles to the clients when we sell our own products.

That is the reason why we have to link our registrations with the internal styles of the keyboard.

However, this leaves us dependent on Yamaha's decision as to which styles they leave in and which they take out of a subsequent keyboard.

People who want to use their old registrations also in the new keyboard expect often a very bad surprise.
The more, if they revoiced the preset styles in their last keyboard to achieve a song-specific sound.

This revoicing meets now a missing or changed new preset style - and all the work and effort is destroyed one has done.

What worked perfectly in the last keyboard is useless now!
You have to rebuild it from scratch!

Now imagine there are hundreds, thousands of registrations you have to renew in very quick time because people wait for them who bought the new keyboard and already sold their old one.

If you were me, would you stay calm and spend three months on a pointless activity - again and again and again with every new keyboard?

Of course we optimise our registrations and use new voices and effects.
But all the time the need to rebuild broken registrations only because of missing or changed styles - that's something that wears you down.

Genos styles put in an internal Genos2 legacy folder by Yamaha would need the storage space of 2-3 wave songs.

Then worldwide the users could keep their work and simply continue with their old registrations.
And could optimise their registrations step by step with new voices, effects - and styles, if the new keyboard has better matching ones!

Kind regards, Heidrun

[Michael Trigoboff]

This Jupyter notebook that I created will allow you to view or print out the contents of a Genos1 .msu file. It might be helpful for transitioning to Genos2.

[Heidrun]

Hi Michael, how could registrations could be rebuild if the styles are changed or left?

Although thanks for your idea.

Kind regards, Heidrun

[EileenL]

Hello Heidrun,
  This is just a thought but if someone has saved the Genos1 styles would it not be possible to just relink your registration to the relevant style. Would not then the registration add the changes made to this style like volumes and effects.
  I believe the Genos styles can be downloaded on this site. As I did say before I always save the styles of the keyboard I am passing on.

[Heidrun]

Hello Eileen,
thank you to think about what could be done best.

It could help for private usage to download the styles and to relink.
But that is the first point: How could it be avoided that this relinking must be done???

The second point for the software creators is that they have to make sure that their products still work on each customer keyboard!

They had to make sure somehow that users download the styles and are able to copy them to a specific location.
Only then could the registrations offered by a store access them again.
You know a lot of keyboard players yourself.
Do you think they are all capable of doing it?

All of this has to be communicated to the customer so that the software still works.
That's a lot more work for both - the creator and the customer.
If Yamaha simply leaved the styles unchanged in a legacy folder, all those effort would be no longer necessary.

Then everyone could simply continue working on the new keyboard in the same way as he left his previous one.

Kind regards, Heidrun

[EileenL]

Hello Heidrun,
  Have you had a word with Yamaha about this to see if it can be added as an update.
  to people like Martin or Simon. Most players I know would know how to re-link styles and are doing just that when using  there genos1 Registrations on Genos2 as they want to use the newer ones that use the Ambient drums.

[Heidrun]

Hello Eileen,

did they ever revoice them? Then it is not done only with relinking.

—

I just wanted to collect the reactions and answers of the users before I give all to the developers.

Kind regards, Heidrun

[DerekA]

I think this could be done going forward, but it's more difficult to apply retrospectively.

Each keyboard model would have to have a folder named e.g. Genos\styles or Genos2\styles or PSRSX900\styles (etc) so that the path to the style could be correctly hardcoded into the registration.

But this would probably solve part of the problem people have when moving between models in a range.

[robinez]

A professional is not allowed to do the same to protect himself if Yamaha changes preset styles or leave old ones in new keyboards out, because we have to keep copyrights.
We are not allowed to also give Yamaha styles to the clients when we sell our own products.

That is the reason why we have to link our registrations with the internal styles of the keyboard.

However, this leaves us dependent on Yamaha's decision as to which styles they leave in and which they take out of a subsequent keyboard.

People who want to use their old registrations also in the new keyboard expect often a very bad surprise.
The more, if they revoiced the preset styles in their last keyboard to achieve a song-specific sound.

This revoicing meets now a missing or changed new preset style - and all the work and effort is destroyed one has done.

What worked perfectly in the last keyboard is useless now!
You have to rebuild it from scratch!

Now imagine there are hundreds, thousands of registrations you have to renew in very quick time because people wait for them who bought the new keyboard and already sold their old one.

If you were me, would you stay calm and spend three months on a pointless activity - again and again and again with every new keyboard?

as a sound developer I have a different opinion about this, you used the registration system on existing styles instead of developing complete new material. The registrations are just a collection of settings for that existing style, so it contains the mute elements, sound edits, effect setups, chord sequence, etc. But it's all based on existing material of the genos 1 version.

So in my opinion the people that buy registrations from you are buying it for that specific Genos 1 version. I don't think it's fair from customers to expect that that registration set for the Genos 1 also automatically works on the Genos 2.

I think that when you buy a new version of a keyboard like the Genos 2, and they won't change anything to the existing styles, then everyone would be disappointed, because why would you buy a genos 2 if the styles are exactly the same, so I think it's normal that the genos 2 styles (also the existing ones) uses the new drumkits, new sounds, the new reverbs and a new mix setup for nowadays standards (the mixing standard has changed a lot over the years).

So that would mean that if you want to support it as a commercial supplier that you have to spent time on it to create it again for the genos 2, and I would find it fully acceptable if you would charge an upgrade fee for that because it is a lot of work.

But expecting a full backwards compatibility as a commercial supplier is in my opinion not correct, that would hold back all the innovations the genos 2 has and why would someone upgrade to the genos 2 to have exactly the same?

This is how almost any new keyboard or synth works, in almost any case you have to rework the set again to make full advantage of the new functionality. The same thing happened on the pa5x, those styles were all changed to the new features including new mixing setups for nowadays standards including new EQ profiles and limiter settings and new effects with the programming.

For private users there is indeed no problem, they can just copy the old styles and use those in their own registrations and they basically downgrade the genos 2 to the genos 1 again for their own registrations.

[Heidrun]

as a sound developer I have a different opinion about this, you used the registration system on existing styles instead of developing complete new material. The registrations are just a collection of settings for that existing style, so it contains the mute elements, sound edits, effect setups, chord sequence, etc. But it's all based on existing material of the genos 1 version.

So in my opinion the people that buy registrations from you are buying it for that specific Genos 1 version. I don't think it's fair from customers to expect that that registration set for the Genos 1 also automatically works on the Genos 2.

I think that when you buy a new version of a keyboard like the Genos 2, and they won't change anything to the existing styles, then everyone would be disappointed, because why would you buy a genos 2 if the styles are exactly the same, so I think it's normal that the genos 2 styles (also the existing ones) uses the new drumkits, new sounds, the new reverbs and a new mix setup for nowadays standards (the mixing standard has changed a lot over the years).

So that would mean that if you want to support it as a commercial supplier that you have to spent time on it to create it again for the genos 2, and I would find it fully acceptable if you would charge an upgrade fee for that because it is a lot of work.

But expecting a full backwards compatibility as a commercial supplier is in my opinion not correct, that would hold back all the innovations the genos 2 has and why would someone upgrade to the genos 2 to have exactly the same?

This is how almost any new keyboard or synth works, in almost any case you have to rework the set again to make full advantage of the new functionality. The same thing happened on the pa5x, those styles were all changed to the new features including new mixing setups for nowadays standards including new EQ profiles and limiter settings and new effects with the programming.

For private users there is indeed no problem, they can just copy the old styles and use those in their own registrations and they basically downgrade the genos 2 to the genos 1 again for their own registrations.

I also think so that it is too late for already released keyboards.

But there's a chance for coming ones?!

Less effort & much positive impact for all who make registrations using preset styles...

[Heidrun]

Hmmmm... why does Yamaha leave previous voices, Multipads and effects unchanged in our keyboards?
Are they a problem for newer ones? No.

They guarantee only a backwards compatibility.

Why not also for styles?

[EileenL]

I do see your point but there is probably a reason why this is not done. I think most want to use the new styles with new drums and effects which really do sound good.

[Heidrun]

But the same applies to all the other old material we have in our keyboards!

Old styles => unchanged in legacy folder
New styles => in front and visible immediately

[ton37]

Tmo. @Heidrun has a legimate point. We as consumers whish that a swap to a newer Yamaha model can be made seamless. Technically Yamaha has to make that possible for whome wants that. That can they do in the hardware of through  good yamaha conversion software! Yamaha should take their customers more serious and   make efforts in a better communication to their customers.

[Bill]

I think there maybe some misunderstanding regarding the difficulty in solving the problem.

It maybe easy for some folks to correct the problem, providing you know the name of the style that is Missing.
Take a look at the screen shot below and you can see that there are often many styles that do not show up on the Registration Manager. If you don't know what it was, it gets difficult.

Even when you know the name it is not easy.
You can find another style or maybe a voice that is missing, but that requires a degree of Musical Interpretation (which I don't have a lot off. That is generally why I bought someone else's Registration in the first place)  I know all the technical steps to change things but there is more to it than that. 

I bought the Genos 2 because of the improvements that it brings. so if they choose to revise or improve a style that OK. However generally what they do is remodel the style and save it under a new name. However they then rub salt into the wound and delete the old version. This is simply to make us think they are giving us more NEW Styles than are.

Regarding the changes made two MIDI setups - I do Not know the reason for the changes, however, WHY do they not tell us before hand. The could simply give us an option to convert the old MSU files on line to the new MSI files.  Surely there cannot be much data in the files.

Yamaha are just to secretive. They are also to distant from many users - ie being all very competent musicians the think everyone else is.

Regards
Bill



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[Heidrun]

Thank you Ton - full agreement.

In my experience there are 3 points most important to keep a business well done in view of the consumers:

Very good product quality

Fair prices

Customer proximity (responding to requests and quick help)

[Wim NL]

Can the regitratie not be changed with yamaha registation manager from Murray Best?

https://www.psrtutorial.com/util/best.html

I did in the past changed all my registrations from HD to USB as a backup for when failing th HD.
By changing the drive letter.
So this can also change your pad from internal memory to a folder on your harddrive or USB

There was a option to change all your registraion in a single action.
Only i don't know if this still works with Genos1 Genos2

[BogdanH]

...
If Yamaha simply leaved the styles unchanged in a legacy folder, all those effort would be no longer necessary.

If Yamaha would make a copy of Genos1 styles in (new) Legacy folder on Genos2, then Genos1 registrations still wouldn't work, because links (to styles) need to be updated for new (Legacy) style location. And this can only be done manually step-by-step for each registration.
But yes, in that case you could at least do that, because you would know that styles 100% exist (in Legacy). That would still be a lot of work you, but faster than creating new registrations from scratch.

You have my sympathy for troubles that you're facing, but that's the price of progress. I'm not defending Yamaha: it would be nice if Genos1 styles would exist on Genos2 and if Yamaha would provide some automatic registration converter... But it didn't happen and won't happen.

From consumer perspective, I'm with robinez: if I buy something for for Genos2, then I expect to get the benefits of what Genos2 offers.

...
However generally what they do is remodel the style and save it under a new name....
...This is simply to make us think they are giving us more NEW Styles than are.

-quite true.

Just sharing my thoughts,
Bogdan

[Heidrun]

Wim, I don't speak only for myself.
After some really hard weeks I am nearly through with our adaptations.

But worldwide there are folks that probably have the same adaptation work.

The solution cannot be to use apps to fix problems - but to avoid them!

[Heidrun]

Hi Bogdan, also styles have an internal adress and links will not be broken if they are moved in a legacy folder.

[Heidrun]

Bogdan, just imagine our software shop would make mistakes or we would do things that are not consumer friendly.

If we now would tell our clients what they should use to repair it - what do you think would happen to our shop?

[ton37]

.......

So that would mean that if you want to support it as a commercial supplier that you have to spent time on it to create it again for the genos 2, and I would find it fully acceptable if you would charge an upgrade fee for that because it is a lot of work.

...........

For private users there is indeed no problem, they can just copy the old styles and use those in their own registrations and they basically downgrade the genos 2 to the genos 1 again for their own registrations.

....... But it didn't happen and won't happen.

From consumer perspective, I'm with robinez: if I buy something for for Genos2, then I expect to get the benefits of what Genos2 offers.
-quite true.

Just sharing my thoughts,
Bogdan

In my humble opinion, neither of you are 'thinking' from the consumer's point of view. To put it simply: there are many consumers who have been buying Yamaha keyboards for years and have paid a lot of money for them. Do those customers have to keep putting in work because Yamaha makes it very difficult for them to simply keep the 'old' and buy the 'new'? Whether you do it commercially or as a hobby does not matter in this case. I'd rather spend the time playing than having to do all kinds of tricks to manually update my playlists again. When you see what people are not capable of doing digitally these days! We live in 2024! I don't see why Yamaha can't prevent that, let THEM explain why that's not possible!! 

[EileenL]

Hello Bill,
  The Genos styles left of Genos2 have been given to us in the free Genos complete pack so we have not really lost any. As to showing (Style not on Genos) this is probably due to the fact you used a third party style and did not make a note of which one so that you can re-link it. I always find it a good idea to make a folder and save all the third party styles used on registrations in this Also give them the name of the registration so you can easily find them and re-link.

[Gunnar Jonny]

After some really hard weeks I am nearly through with our adaptations.

Happy New Year Heidrun.
Looking forward to hear the differences when it's ready.
At the moment your Piano Buddy styles help me exercise my left hand playing.
Also eager to see what new stuff to come during 2024.

All the best!

[Wim NL]

Yamaha should update and ad this missing styles in Genos2

Pop   3.08   PianoBallad
Pop   3.10   6-8PopBallad
Pop   4.06   PowerBallad
Pop   4.10   Acoustic8BtBallad
RetroPop   3.10   80sShuffle
RetroPop   5.04   DiscoChocolate
RetroPop   5.07   80sDiscoBeat
Oldies   3.01   60sVintageRock
Oldies   3.10   6-8SlowRock
Dance   1.03   Dubstep
Dance   2.05   US ClubDance
Dance   2.09   ClubDance2
Dance   3.03   DreamDance
Dance   4.01   DJ ClubHouse
Dance   4.02   DJ MiamiHouse
Dance   4.03   DJ ElectroHouse
Dance   4.04   DJ GangstaHouse
Dance   4.05   DJ GrindHouse
Dance   4.06   DJ PianoHouse
Dance   4.07   DJ ElectroStep
Dance   4.08   DJ Eurodance1
Dance   4.09   DJ Eurodance2
Dance   4.10   DJ TropicalHouse
Dance   5.02   TurkishEuro
R&B   4.06   Worship6-8
R&B   4.07   WorshipSlow
R&B   5.04   SoulBallad
Entertainer   1.05   MalleDiscoKing
Entertainer   1.09   ElectroSchlager
Entertainer   2.04   AustrianDiscoPop
Entertainer   2.05   AustrianGuitarPop
Entertainer   2.07   YoungFox
Entertainer   3.02   SchlagerRock1
Entertainer   3.03   SchlagerRock2
Entertainer   3.04   SchlagerRock3
Entertainer   3.08   SchlagerRumba
Entertainer   3.09   Schlager6-8
Entertainer   4.05   SchlagerPalace
Entertainer   4.09   DiscoFox
Entertainer   5.01   PandaHipHop
Entertainer   5.05   MallorcaDisco
Entertainer   5.06   PartyArena
Entertainer   5.07   SoftSchlager
Country   2.05   CountryBallad3
Country   2.09   Country8Beat2
Country   4.03   ModernPickin'
Jazz   4.05   JumpJive
Latin   1.08   CoolBossaNova
Ballroom   1.06   Quickstep1

[Heidrun]

Hi GJ,

please do us all the favour, check our products before you get our updates and tell the folks what you can hear.

And then the same after my adaption...



Kind regards and also happy new year to you!

[Wim NL]

Hi Bogdan, also styles have an internal adress and links will not be broken if they are moved in a legacy folder.

I am not shure of that.
It will be in a different folder so another path name.