Genos Demo to End All Doubts -:)

[Kytrinh]

https://youtu.be/wY7ytzcxlMA

[maartenb]

Yep, that's Keyboardplayer's demo, discussed already in Genos - Demos.


Maarten

[Marcus]

Very nice, but a better demo would be someone who had some experience with one for a while. This is only a out of the box demo.

I never had any doubts myself, I just rather be totally informed inside and out what the new Genos arranger offers.

Marcus

[Lee Batchelor]

Wow, I never heard that demo before. He's almost as good as Deane !

I just rather be totally informed inside and out what the new Genos arranger offers.

Yep, that's Yamaha's job, which we have yet to hear from!

[Jean Abdou]

https://youtu.be/wY7ytzcxlMA

Genos definitely is not made for EDM. Almost every song in EDM genre has side-chain or some sort of gate effects.

There are few things that sound cheesy when done on a keyboard and I don't know why they are so popular:
1- Layering a string with piano,
2- Playing any type of guitar (except distorted electric guitar with long reverb and a bit delay) on a keyboard.
3- Playing a string section polyphonically (This must be always sequenced), this is some weird impossible stuff.
4- Playing brass section polyphonically (that's why Genos/Tyros have ensemble button), the same as above.
5- Not programming the registration memory for the song you are playing!

In any PSR series, you can program your registration memory to advance by pushing a pedal or calling a MIDI event (correct me if I'm wrong).

Only certain instruments can be played live. The audience may not understand or notice it but seriously every note of a string section is already an ensemble it needs two string sections to play two notes simultaneously and more to play more notes.

[Lee Batchelor]

Interesting thoughts, Jean. Tell me, what is your primary musical activity - live, studio, MIDI? From your gear list, you don't own an arranger keyboard. How is it you know so much about them? I assume you do a ton of MIDI arranging on your Motif XF and can point out all the design flaws in any arranger from this? Just curious. Best...

- Lee

[vbdx66]

Hi Jean,

Interesting thoughts. IMHO there are other things that sound cheesy when playing an arranger keyboard:

- Playing a chord with a monophonic instrument voice like a saxophone or a flute.

- Using the Harmony feature of the keyboard without having any actual knowledge of harmony. One can hear at once that the harmony is being produced by the keyboard and it does not sound natural.

- Using the Intro or the Ending section of any Style when the melody of the one or the other has no relationship whatsoever with the song you are playing.

-Always using the OTS out of the box without trying for yourself which voices will sound best for the song you are playing.

- Playing a voice in a register which is not available to the actual instrument corresponding to that voice, e.g. playing a violin in the register of a cello.

And I am sure there are others yet.

Best Regards,

Vinciane.

[Oldden]

Hi Jean,
I think there are some good emulations of a guitar played on a keyboard. But most seem to need the Kontakt program with various extra downloads rather than the instruments we play. I Agree that almost all the demos you hear are poor, I think that is because the action of playing a guitar or a keyboard is totally different, and very few people can Play a guitar on a keyboard especially a classical guitar even half well. On YouTube there are quite a few good examples, and a lot of bad ones.
Oldden

[Bachus]

Genos definitely is not made for EDM. Almost every song in EDM genre has side-chain or some sort of gate effects.

There are few things that sound cheesy when done on a keyboard and I don't know why they are so popular:
1- Layering a string with piano,
2- Playing any type of guitar (except distorted electric guitar with long reverb and a bit delay) on a keyboard.
3- Playing a string section polyphonically (This must be always sequenced), this is some weird impossible stuff.
4- Playing brass section polyphonically (that's why Genos/Tyros have ensemble button), the same as above.
5- Not programming the registration memory for the song you are playing!

In any PSR series, you can program your registration memory to advance by pushing a pedal or calling a MIDI event (correct me if I'm wrong).

Only certain instruments can be played live. The audience may not understand or notice it but seriously every note of a string section is already an ensemble it needs two string sections to play two notes simultaneously and more to play more notes.

1. Is probably the most used combination, tough remember to switch damper off for strings and add sustain to the string..
2. Unless you have mastered the art of playing guitar parts on a keyboard...playing a guitar on a keyboard is totally different then playing other instruments.. you need to know what strings are used in what chords..  now i havent mastered this, but there certainly are some yamaha demonstrators like baartmans nad voncken that do quite well
3. Playing strings polyphonical, depends on how and where, many wellknown popsongs require this, as hats how the orriginal band played them to.. 
4. Same goes for polyphonic brass patches.. people have grown so used to m from many many synth brass patches, that they fit quite well in a huge part of the modern repertoir..
—� however 3 and 4 are indeed a no go if you aim to realistically emulate acoustic instrument, as said above... its just a matter of what effect you want to archieve..

5. Why dont you give this player a break... he plays the instrument straight out of the box witouth any prior preperation which makes his performance even more formidable...

Personally, i enjoyed this demo, with all its small flaws.. imdontbthink it was the players goal to sound like ultra realistic emulation of acoustic instruments... he just wanted it to sound as a keyboard performance.. at which he succeeded fairly well witouth any prepeation time..

[Bob88]

  A great demo  because it IS out of the box.   Just imagine what the player will come up with in a few weeks.  Surely the critics will add there performances soon.  Bob

[travlin-easy]

Personally, I really enjoy the sound of strings layered over the piano, but that's just a matter of preference.

Be realistic. It's an outstanding demo of the Genos and  what it can do right out of the box, which is what it was intended to be. The guy behind the keyboard is an excellent player - I am not! I only wish that my hands were that accurate when I was on stage for all those years. Fortunately, I had my vocals, which I relied on heavily and they kept me in business for 30 years.

All the best,

Gary 

[usaraiya]

Best out of the box demo!

Who is he?


Uday

[Keyboardplayer]

Who is he?

I'm myself

I'm not a pro-musician or demonstrator if that is what you're asking (Yamaha, if you are reading this, you can still sponsor a Genos  ). Just another keyboard enthusiast 

[travlin-easy]

Welcome to the forum - glad to have a very talented individual such as yourself here.

All the best,

Gary 

[Marcus]

It's an arranger keyboard. The player/owner can do whatever they want with it. Who really cares, especially in our modern age.

Modern EDM and the like get a pass for breaking all rules in standard music theory, with some vocalists in modern music that couldn't sing a note without some vocal processing or pitch correction, never mind "bleep" this or "bleep" that, all through the lyrics that are unintelligible for the most part. Not all modern contemporary or EDM music is bad, but at least some (supposedly artists/pros) take some music theory or singing lessons.

The video demo was a good overview of the Genos. I stated it many times, you only get what you pay for, and the more educated you are about the product the better.

Marcus

[Ed B]

Welcome back! Good to hear from you Joost. You did a great job on a borrowed keyboard right out of the box . It sounded great to me even though your sound system was set up for the Tyros 4.
Looking forward to hearing more. Hope all is well.

Best
Ed B

[Lee Batchelor]

To add to Vi's list of no-nos on an arranger:

1- When playing a wind instrument, a common error is to play a phrase for a lot more than 15 seconds or so. Remember, all wind instrument players (trumpet, trombone, flute, clarinet, oboe...) need to breath. They can't just play a one minute phrase without several quick pauses. A common error is to play one l-o-n-g legato phrase with these voices.

2- Vibes or xylophone - play with two fingers. These players don't play full chords, although, Peter Appleyard perfected the holding of multiple mallets in each hand, so there are some exceptions. Also, I'm not sure those guys play grace notes either. Perhaps someone can correct me on that.

3- String pads are a contradiction in terms. I never use them. It's impossible for strings to sustain notes through an entire song. Violin bows change direction and you can hear it. String pads, if real, would need a bow 1,000 feet long for a 3 minute song! Turn them off. They completely destroy the sound.

[Mjm]

I'll put my 2 cents in here. I  think if a sound is played, and (to me) it's a pleasant sound, then I will like it!
I'm not a purist who thinks that only sounds that are played in such a way that they sound like the actual instrument are the only acceptable ones. I  personally love a piano/string layer, but that's just me. As the old saying goes "one man's trash is another man's treasure".
I have no problem with those of you that want the authentic instrument sound- more power to you! But, I don't think it's fair to criticize people who may like a sound that doesn't measure up to your standards of authenticity.
I guess what I'm saying is, to each their own.

Best regards, 

Mark

[soundphase]

I'll put my 2 cents in here. I  think if a sound is played, and (to me) it's a pleasant sound, then I will like it!
I'm not a purist who thinks that only sounds that are played in such a way that they sound like the actual instrument are the only acceptable ones. I  personally love a piano/string layer, but that's just me. As the old saying goes "one man's trash is another man's treasure".
I have no problem with those of you that want the authentic instrument sound- more power to you! But, I don't think it's fair to criticize people who may like a sound that doesn't measure up to your standards of authenticity.
I guess what I'm saying is, to each their own.

Best regards, 

Mark

I agree with you, but I thank Lee Batchelor for his helpful advice.

[maartenb]

3- String pads are a contradiction in terms.

For a single string instrument, yes.

For a string ensemble, I think it can be done. The players constantly change direction of their bows, just not all at the same time. If each player gradually lowers the volume at the end of the bow, changes direction, and gently increases the volume to normal, it could be inaudible if the ensemble is big enough. It's the same with a group of monks chanting Om, keeping the sound going for much longer than a single breath of air.

Can somebody with experience with string ensembles like orchestra's confirm, please?


Maarten

[vbdx66]

To add to Vi's list of no-nos on an arranger:

1- When playing a wind instrument, a common error is to play a phrase for a lot more than 15 seconds or so. Remember, all wind instrument players (trumpet, trombone, flute, clarinet, oboe...) need to breath. They can't just play a one minute phrase without several quick pauses. A common error is to play one l-o-n-g legato phrase with these voices.

2- Vibes or xylophone - play with two fingers. These players don't play full chords, although, Peter Appleyard perfected the holding of multiple mallets in each hand, so there are some exceptions. Also, I'm not sure those guys play grace notes either. Perhaps someone can correct me on that.

3- String pads are a contradiction in terms. I never use them. It's impossible for strings to sustain notes through an entire song. Violin bows change direction and you can hear it. String pads, if real, would need a bow 1,000 feet long for a 3 minute song! Turn them off. They completely destroy the sound.

@Lee:

Actually a very good vibraphonist can play up to four notes at once with two mallets in each hand but you have to be a true virtuoso to do this! Listen for instance to the great jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton. But I dont have a clue as about which notes can be played together. Obviously, both notes played by the same hand may not be too far appart.

As for wind instruments, there is another problem, the sound attack and evolution of the sound over time. A French guy called Jean-Claude Risset, who was both a composer and a sound engineer, devoted years of his adult life to the modelisation of wind instruments with computers (he worked some time in the Bell Labs with the American engineer Max Matthews to achieve this). It is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Now, on recent Yamaha keyboards, off course you have the SA1 and SA2 voices, but to correctly use them, you need at least some basic knowledge of how wind instruments are actually being played, otherwise the result will sound clumsy.

(By the way and off topic, Risset was a lover of Yamaha instruments, he composed some intricate piano pieces for the DiskClavier pianos were the music being played by the pianist interacts with the DiskClavier through a software which Risset and his staff programmed to this effect.)

As for string pads, it depends. Of course, if you want to mimick a real string section you won't use them, but since the mid-seventies, we have been used to pop music heavily relying on string pads provided by analogue, then by FM synthesizers, then by other synthesis techniques, including sampling of real string instruments, so I guess it is alright to use them depending on the type of music you are playing.

@Mark:

Of course, if you do not care about how real instruments actually sound, you can do what you want, but it is still best to have an accurate hear and at least some command of harmony if you want the overall effect to be pleasant. For instance, a combination of piano and strings has been usual in New Age and church music for some time now and it can sound very nice. But to play electronic music as such, IMHO an arranger should not be the instrument of choice, because its sound palette might be too limited, it would be best to work with a synth or a worstation, or on a powerful computer with VSTs.

Best regards,

Vinciane.

[organaut]

I really enjoyed this demo. Straight out of the box. It shows that the OTS is very useable and someone at Yamaha has been very creative and took the time and trouble .I found many of the Tyros OTS a bit bland and dry so hardly ever used them at my gigs.

I would have thought that if someone is a purist they are never going to be satisfied with electronics nomatter what so maybe they would be better with a real piano or violin?
I do see where a purist may be coming from even though I'm not one myself (except with leslie organ simulation)  I feel they may be suffering the effects of something called "uncanny valley" you can look that up on the web but it stems from the repulsive reaction to robotics being very lifelike but not quite hitting the spot so the results are a feeling of revulsion to synthetics. (like drinking non alcoholic beer and having a strong hunch that there's something not right about it) The closer technology gets to realism, the worse the uncanny valley effect is on some people.  These new strings in the demo remind me of ELO (electronic light orchestra) on Mr. Blue sky

[Marcus]

Remember, one can change and save practically every voice and setting on the arranger to suit (re-save OTS settings etc). The beauty of an arranger keyboard.

As far as Leslie effects. I used to run a Leslie Speaker through my Tyros 3, with the organ channel through the SUB outputs. The present rotary DSP effects are not bad, beats transporting a physical Leslie cabinet, but there are nice compact variations.

Marcus

[DerekA]

I think that the aim of a arranger is provide a really good, but not completely authentic, simulation of a large variety of instruments.

If you want authenticity, use a DAW with gigabyte-scaled samples.

[Pianoman]

I would love to hear Styles that can be used for audiences of all ages and ethnicity.
Meaning audiences at live gigs between the ages of 21 upwards.
And also where the demonstrator does not drown out the styles when playing. The small nuances in the Styles are as important if not more important as the sounds. Most top of the line arrangers have phenomenal sounds anyway. Styles such as Rock, RocknRoll, Soul, Reggae, Hip Hop, Funk, Blues, Rythm and Blues, Electronic Dance,
Blues Rock and more, need to be shown more, to attract musicians under the age of 50.

I have almost given up searching on YouTube and on forums for demos that show something other than 1920s music.
It would be nice if someone would make a video that just runs one style after the other. WITHOUT playing a single note. That way we can see what styles the Genos has to offer.
I won't see an actual Genos before December or maybe even January here..
It would be wonderful to hear all Styles before making a decision to buy an instrument.
Especially at today's prices.

Pianoman.

[Lee Batchelor]

Agreed, Pianoman.

Every PSR and Tyros has had a decent promo video prior to or around the release time, as long as the internet has been up and running. Why not Genos? I detest this amateurish approach Yamaha has made with the Genos. I have no doubt it's a winner, but how do I know??? Of course, the final yardstick will be a three hour "get to know the Genos" in my local music store. Still, a general overview would be nice. So far, there has been tid-bits of info but no decent video that really tells us something useful about the Genos. Almost seems like Yamaha has hired a new marketing lead person who is incompetent.

I too must wait until at least January (probably February) for Yamaha Canada to attend the NAMM show, before we see a Genos in Canada - at least that's the official word from the crapola department at Yamaha keyboards. Of course, said people in that department already have there's. To h*** with us paying customers seems to be the attitude. I find that time schedule hard to swallow when I see a bunch of Genos keyboards sitting in Asia somewhere in a classroom doing nothing  .

[DonM]

I just listened.  The new Genos sounds great out of the box.  As expected, the sounds are top notch.  Some of the drums are finally sounding like drums!  Pianos excellent.
Also excellent playing by the poster!
I would certainly give a couple of thousand for a Genos! 

[EileenL]

Hi Don,
  Wish we could get them here for a couple of thousand. I would buy two.

[Mjm]

@Mark:

Of course, if you do not care about how real instruments actually sound, you can do what you want, but it is still best to have an accurate hear and at least some command of harmony if you want the overall effect to be pleasant. For instance, a combination of piano and strings has been usual in New Age and church music for some time now and it can sound very nice. But to play electronic music as such, IMHO an arranger should not be the instrument of choice, because its sound palette might be too limited, it would be best to work with a synth or a worstation, or on a powerful computer with VSTs.

Best regards,

Vinciane.
[/quote]

Hi Vinciane,

It's not that I don't care about having an authentic instrument sound, I think that sounds great! My point was that I also like some of the "non authentic" sounds too. So I like them both. Maybe I'm too easily pleased! Lol

Best regards,

Mark

[travlin-easy]

Eileen, if Don were able to get one for a couple thousand dollars, he would already have one sitting in his home studio, or at least on order.

All the best,

Gary