Genos random style while playing bug - Cause & solution found

[GaryZ]

Hi folks. Unfortunately the chain has been closed out on this troublesome bug, but I'm quite sure I've found the solution and so wanted those interested to know how to fix it. I happened to be video recording an overhead shot of me playing a song with a series of registration buttons programmed, and suddenly I ended up with a seemingly random Samba style playing. By reviewing the video I could be certain it had not been an error on my part, and actually witnessed while watching it in slow motion exactly what did happen. What I discovered is that if you have a midi song file loaded in songs A or B and stored (accidentally in my case) in the registration number that fails (let's say No 3 for example), then when stepping thru the registrations, 1, 2 while playing, when I jumped to 3, the correct style loaded for perhaps 1/4 second, and then it switched the style to that of the midi song that which happened to be stored in registration 3.

Happily, I have found a solution, as there seems to be no easy way to remove a midi song file name from a registration once it has been stored, whether accidentally or on purpose. To remove it, you need to be in the registration where it's stored (3 in my case), then enter Quick Record mode for a midi file. Once the Quick Record screen is displayed, immediately press STOP to stop the recording. This will leave an "empty" song midi file now in A or B, wherever your problem was. At this point, you must Re-save the registration into the same slot (3 for me), then store the registration file back to your flash drive or USER as required. Note that in my case, I have found that once I accidentally had a song file attached to a registration, it generally was attached to each and every button of the registration (1-10). Unfortunately the only way I've found to remove it and completely cure the problem is to do the Quick Record trick in each button, until the song finally disappears since once it loads in any one registration button, it will not go away if you push another registration button, even if there is no song actually attached to it. So the only real way to clear it out is to be in a button where you have just cleared the song name, then try every other registration number to see if a song name is attached to it. Clear it the same way, then continue trying all the buttons.

I hope this helps, and I really do hope Yamaha addresses it at some point.

[panos]

Hi Gary,
Mixing midi songs with styles in a registration not a good idea really.
These are too different things so I wouldn't expect them to work so well together in a live playing.
I guess you could delete from the registration the unwanted midi song just by unchecking the midi song and re-save the registration

Our friend was changing styles from the menu which is not a recommended way to do also when playing live and not using regs for something like that.

These things work the same way and should be used the appropriate way in all models not just Genos.

[Fred Smith]

I hope this helps, and I really do hope Yamaha addresses it at some point.

Gary, the registration did what you asked: it loaded the style, then it loaded the midi. So what would you have Yamaha do?

In the future, when you have registration problems, here are a couple of tips:

1. Attach the registration when you post about possible "bugs". Had you done so, we could have solved this problem for you long ago.

2. When you want to delete a midi from a registration, there's no re-recording required. All you need to do is re-memorize the registration ensuring that the Song group is unchecked. It should take less than 15 seconds to solve the problem.

Cheers,
Fred

[Murat]

Hi Gary,
Thank you for offering your solution - perhaps it is in fact not a bug and the Reg is simply trying to call the associated MP3.

Here is my original post - I do think it is a bug but a minor one. My example below is an extreme one (Samba to 8Beat) to make my point clearer otherwise it happens with any style change.

Also, I haven't got any Registrations setup yet and I don't use playlists. I am fairly new to thee Genos (bought it last December - a Christmas present from me to myself - and yes; I did get permission from my wife before buying the Genos!). Coming from a Korg background it is taking time to get used to the way Genos works - once I master it all I will start building my registrations, playlists, OTSs etc. Point being, not much is setup on the Genos at the moment and the issue occurs when changing styles:


When I change a style (this happens randomly) the previous drum set and bass (perhaps other parts too but I didn't notice) gets carried over!

For example, if I am playing Samba and change the sytle to 8 Beat the Samba drum kit and bass carries over and the 8Beat style sounds really weird! Why is this happening? Surely, this shouldn't be happening? As I said this happens randomly.

[reya]

I must say I have never seen this issue of a style beeing replaced by the one stored in the MIDI song in a registration and I have songs stored in about all of my registrations. (MIDI and others)

Not that I use them all that much may they seem to stick even when not wanted, caused by the fact that when loading a registration that was saved with no songs, the songs allready displayed will stay selected
Example. Let's say I have a reg file called 'twosongs' and another called 'nosongs'. twosongs was saved with 2 songs selected and nosongs was saved with no songs selected.
After booting Genos, no songs are displayed.
Then I load nosongs registration. Still no songs are displayed. ok
Then I load twosongs registration. Now the 2 songs are there. ok
Then I load nosongs again. Surprisingly now the 2 songs are not removed and stay on the screen. Not logical I think ....
So when I save my nex registration fille, they get saved with it. I know that as Fred suggested, I can uncheck the songs group when saving, but mostly I forget. Genos should have blanked them out when loading nosongs.reg I think....

but that is a bit off topic. Just wanted to indicate I do not have the problem that style gets replaces by the midi song loaded.

Another way to make the songs dissappear is press the following button sequence SONG SONG EXIT (so press SONG twice). and both songs are gone.

Rudy

[GaryZ]

Gary, the registration did what you asked: it loaded the style, then it loaded the midi. So what would you have Yamaha do?

In the future, when you have registration problems, here are a couple of tips:

1. Attach the registration when you post about possible "bugs". Had you done so, we could have solved this problem for you long ago.

2. When you want to delete a midi from a registration, there's no re-recording required. All you need to do is re-memorize the registration ensuring that the Song group is unchecked. It should take less than 15 seconds to solve the problem.

Cheers,
Fred

Hi Fred,

I do appreciate what you're saying, and in theory, that should work, but in fact it does not on a Genos, at least neither of the 2 I own nor any of the 3
friends I have that also own Genos keyboards. In all our cases, simply un-checking the save song option when saving a registration does indeed clear the check mark,
however it absolutely does not remove the song from the Registration Memory. I do appreciate Rudy's finding that pressing SONG SONG EXIT works to clear a loaded song,
and I will in future use that trick, but before reading that suggestion, the only way I had found to clear it was to record a null song in each registration as I outlined in my initial post.
Rudy cites examples of "nosongs" and "twosongs", and is absolutely correct. I even tried using Murray's Yamaha registration manager utility, I can see the song name there,
but unfortunately there seems to be no way to remove it with this utility either. In any case, I appreciate your suggestion - if only it worked, it would make life things a lot more simple.

As to the keyboard doing what I asked it, you are again correct. I asked it to load a song - I agree. I did not ask it to change the loaded style in the registration.
I believe that if the song file is indeed a true midi file, it should be fully encoded to play the 16 channels without having to actually load a new style to do so. I can take this file
from the Genos and play it on any other midi device, and the device will do its' best to reproduce all 16 tracks - albeit with less sound quality than the Genos, but
nevertheless it is able to do so without actually have the capability to reproduce a style. To the best of my knowledge a midi file is simply a series of instructions on how to reproduce
a series of notes, effects or drum-beats, much like the old player pianos; it is not a file which should include a reference to a Genos Specific style name, so unfortunately I can't agree with
you that it is functioning correctly when the Genos loads the active style, and then switches it milliseconds later to the style the midi file was recorded in.

Nonetheless, I thank you for your attempting to help me out, I do appreciate it...
And yes - good idea; I will attach a sample file if I have another issue. I'm new to using the form, and it never occurred to me but it's an excellent suggestion for the future.

With thanks...
Gary

[Dromeus]

When you record a MIDI song using style playing, a STYLE No. Sy*** Event is written to the song file. Thus it remembers which style was used to record the song and upon loading that song file that style will be reloaded. Moreover Style Section Control actions are stored, too. Thus, when playing such a song file  the style control buttons will show all the actions performed when recording that file. These sy***es are documented in the Datalist. This is the expected behaviour (also in the complete Tyros line) and therefore not a bug. You may remove these sy*** events if you don't like that behaviour. You can do it using the onboard step editor or a third party tool like Heiko Plate's PSRUTI.

When you deselect the SONG checkbox before storing a registration, a flag is stored not to use this song information. Consequently upon hitting that registration button no song file will be loaded. Note that it will NOT clear a song file already loaded in the song player. Again, this is intended behaviour. When you look at the registration with a tool like Registration Manager, you find indeed that the information is still there, but it will NOT been used. This is common pratice in computer systems. If you delete a file, the contents will not been overwritten, rather the file name is removed from the directory and the disk space is flagged for reuse.

In a nutshell I agree 100% with Fred's posting above. It's not a bug, nothing has to be fixed here. I hope this makes it clear, so you can avoid your problem in the future.

[murrayb]

Gary:

If you're in the registration editor and want to remove the song (audio or midi or both)  select Remove Groups, in the bottom right corner of the screen, and click Process.  Check the song parts  you want remove and click the green button to complete the removal.

Removing the song group can also be done in batch on an open bank, or a complete directory of banks.

Cheers
Murray

[GaryZ]

Murray. I'd just like to thank you for the tip you gave me for clearing items from a registration using your amazing registration manager, and as well to say thank for your program. It's proven invaluable to our group as we do a lot of conversions of registrations devoloped on the Genos to work on Both Tyros and Clavinovas. Your work is sincerely appreciated.
Thank-you...
Gary