OTS voice odditiy. Problem with my Genos?

[Rich Z]

OK, so I searched though this entire OTS forum looking to see if anyone else has had this problem, but didn't see anything similar.  I took video of what I am experiencing, as it would be rather difficult to explain in words what I am hearing.  In a nutshell, the transitions between the four OTS buttons just produce some pretty odd results. Sometimes.  No consistency in what to expect from one button to the next from one style to another. I originally noticed this playing styles with OTS LINK set on, and I noticed that intermittently I would just got an unexpected blast from the speakers if I had any keys held down with the right hand during the transition. In many cases, it seemed like the previous voice was being retained, but the volume would increase dramatically. Then when I released the notes, the actual voice for that desired OTS button would play and at a much reduced volume.

I used several different factory styles to show this problem in the video.  None of those styles have been altered in any way, nor has anything else in the Genos really been modified in any appreciable way. These are all just factory preset styles and voices.

Oh yeah, that video -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqMFsgEMjIs

This does the same thing whether I am changing the main style variations using the OTS LINK on, or changing the voices via the One Touch Setting buttons.  It seemed like it would be less distracting to show the actual problem if I didn't have the style actually running in the background, so I used the One Touch Setting buttons instead of changing the style variations for the video. In the first section a sound is actually produced that isn't any of the four OTS button settings, so I don't know where that came from. Honestly, some of the voices via OTS are such a low volume in some styles that I can't even hear them.  So I am thinking that some of those preset factory styles need to be tweaked substantially to be useful.

So what is going on here?  Do I just have a defective Genos? This can't be normal, can it? This certainly doesn't seem like something someone would normally expect from any keyboard. And I certainly have not ever experienced anything like this from any other keyboard I have ever played.  Even using my Roland BK9-m with the Kronos I never had anything like this take place, EVER.  Yeah, if this was taking place with some styles from unknown sources off of the internet, I would expect that they might have just been created with some deficiencies.  But these are just plain vanilla styles as offered from Yamaha in a stock Genos.

Or do I just have something set incorrectly somewhere?  Or is this just the way the Genos is, Lord have mercy, and I have to adapt my playing to work around this strange circumstance?  That being said, when I had been watching a lot of YouTube videos of people playing the Genos, in retrospect it does seem to me that most people did not have that OTS LINK button enabled.  I'll have to watch a few again.

Arghh, I just thought of something.  I should have tried this out by actually changing voices from the voice selection screen to see if it does the same thing there. Sorry, I didn't think to try that at the time.

[ckobu]

This is a problem that has always existed on Yamaha arrangers. "Seamless sound switching" occurs due to the activate DSP effect on the sound and due to the pressed key. This also happens at Registrations and can be quite annoying to the ears. Watch a video that explains how to avoid the problem.

https://youtu.be/O5iUjXMDuhc?t=215
activate english subtitles

[DerekA]

And before you ask no, they won't fix this in a firmware update ... It's the way it's worked for the last 20 years. Yes, it is annoying, but it seems to be a limitation of the AWM2 engine as implemented on the arrangers.

[Toril S]

Just practice to keep your hand off the keys while changing voices.

[Rich Z]

Well, this certainly is a perfect case of "Hey Rich! We have good news and we have bad news for you! It's not a failure with your particular keyboard, ALL of them have this problem you are experiencing!"   

[andyg]

Some makes have implemented seamless switching better than others, but even on the best of them the results may not be what you want. I have a £25K Roland organ and that will glitch when things like reverb levels or volume levels are very different from one registration to another. I've learnt how to avoid those issues but I still sometimes find them on registrations I created years ago.

As Toril says, keep hands off the keys when changing sounds wherever possible - I drill this into all my students from the first time they use registrations, which is usually very early on as you need registration changes even at Grade 1 level and using OTS etc is definitely not encouraged (examiners can ask students to show how they set up the registrations!).

Actually, when using registrations rather than OTS, you can try to avoid the issue somewhat. If Reg#1 has sound in R1, Reg#2 should then have its sound in R2 and so on. Of course when you're changing registrations that involve multiple sounds, that won't be possible.

So either change registrations where there's a right hand rest in the music, or 'engineer' a short rest into the music - and if you time it right and practise, that rest only needs to be short.