Electronic Musician review: Genos

[pjd]

Hi --

I opened the March 2018 print edition of Electronic Musician magazine -- lo and behold -- there is Jerry Kovarsky's Genos review.

While you're at it, check out Jerry's interview and master class with Brian Auger in the December 2017 issue. Great stuff!

Thanks, Jerry!

-- pj

[Marcus]

I read the Electronic Musician magazine Genos review. Yes, a pretty good Genos review. Certainly emphasizes sound quality for the voices, Revo drum kits, DSP and multiple insertion effects.

The review is incorrect to say that,... "the Genos' Voices are not deeply editable. Basic filter cutoff/resonance and amp-envelope offset controls are available along with modulation (increase/decrease) and aftertouch settings, but there is no additional tweaking available onboard and only limited editing capabilities from the computer application Yamaha provides (the most basic types of sound can be edited there)"...

Obviously the reviewer didn't go beyond the basic Voice Edit mode into the Mixer parameters, plus adding a separate insertion effect to each voice edit save. I would say that working with each voice allows fairly deep editing. Anything beyond that, one must work with the Voice Creator within the YEM program to add of rework samples within the 8 elements per voice. As with the Tyros series, only the regular voices and regular drum kits are editable with the YEM. However, multiple insertion effects can be stored to a voice or part through registration saves.

Also the review was a bit misleading that the draw-bar organ the voice is constructed so that there is no gradual ramping up or down from one Leslie speed to another. As this is true for certain rotary speaker DSPs or default assigned to certain organ voices, but there are several alternate selections for Genos rotary speaker DSPs with fast/slow acceleration/de-acceleration curve rates, adjustable, as well as speed adjustments.

I can't even find a keyboard magazine anymore locally. Mostly guitar, bass, drums, dj and electronic gear. Glad we have these forums to help us along.

Marcus

[andyg]

I used to despair when I read some of the magazines' reviews of arrangers. They usually gave it to a synth guy who didn't understand the genre and produced a couple of pages worth of copy.

When I wrote for the late lamented Keyboard Player (UK), I'd spend a day up at Yamaha with the new flagships, then take one home for a week or two. The result would be something like an eight page review, spread over two issues. Covered just about everything, and even then, the Editor would sometimes have to shave bits off to save space!

I haven't read press reviews since then. I make my own mind up!

[pjd]

Hi --

Jerry has a fair bit of experience with arranger keyboards and has worked as a keyboard design consultant, too. He's a pretty solid guy.

One issue with Electronic Musician mag, these days, is available page space. Like print media everywhere, Electronic Musician is under financial pressure. Heck, Keyboard Magazine was folded into EM. Thus, it's not possible to write a novel-length review. Sound On Sound, which has a stronger advertising base, can get away with longer reviews from time to time for major products.

Twas a time when I learned a few (many) usage tips by reading a review. Current page budgets have killed that off.

I agree with Jerry's assessment vis a vis deep voice editing. I'm trying to recreate an MOX/Motif voice ("2 Oboes & Bassoon") with YEM. Bumping up against some walls and may have to tweak the XML in a UVF file just to get access to certain AWM2 parameters (e.g., amplitude level scaling). Splits and layers only can take you so far.

To be fair, most Genos (PSR/Tyros) people aren't interested in this kind of "synth-level editing."

Just a few thoughts -- pj

[soryt]

In Europe there is really only one Keyboard magazine that deals seriously with arranger keyboards and that is the German magazine "Tastenwelt", here they test all arranger keyboards and related matters for the keyboard player.
Of course useful if you can also read German :-) ( i can  )

https://www.tastenwelt.de/lesen/news/tastenwelt-ausgabe-12018/

Soryt 

[jerrythek]

I read the Electronic Musician magazine Genos review. Yes, a pretty good Genos review. Certainly emphasizes sound quality for the voices, Revo drum kits, DSP and multiple insertion effects.

The review is incorrect to say that,... "the Genos' Voices are not deeply editable. Basic filter cutoff/resonance and amp-envelope offset controls are available along with modulation (increase/decrease) and aftertouch settings, but there is no additional tweaking available onboard and only limited editing capabilities from the computer application Yamaha provides (the most basic types of sound can be edited there)"...

Obviously the reviewer didn't go beyond the basic Voice Edit mode into the Mixer parameters, plus adding a separate insertion effect to each voice edit save. I would say that working with each voice allows fairly deep editing. Anything beyond that, one must work with the Voice Creator within the YEM program to add of rework samples within the 8 elements per voice. As with the Tyros series, only the regular voices and regular drum kits are editable with the YEM. However, multiple insertion effects can be stored to a voice or part through registration saves.

Also the review was a bit misleading that the draw-bar organ the voice is constructed so that there is no gradual ramping up or down from one Leslie speed to another. As this is true for certain rotary speaker DSPs or default assigned to certain organ voices, but there are several alternate selections for Genos rotary speaker DSPs with fast/slow acceleration/de-acceleration curve rates, adjustable, as well as speed adjustments.

I can't even find a keyboard magazine anymore locally. Mostly guitar, bass, drums, dj and electronic gear. Glad we have these forums to help us along.

Marcus

Hi Marcus:

Thanks for your comments.

I stand by my observation that there is not much sound editing available on the Genos. I think that is obvious to most people. True envelope control, modulation routings and depths, waveform/multisample selection: I can list so many things that aren't accessible.

And YEM cannot edit many of the most important sound types, most specifically the S.Art types, which compromise some of the most important sounds.

Effect selection and editing can be extensively done, and that's great, but a mixer's EQ and effects structure is not really sound editing, if you mean synth programming. And please re-read the review, I talk about assigning and programming multiple Insert effects on a single Voice/Program... I actually went pretty deep into that area.

My observation about the Rotary speed transition was about ALL of the factory voicing based on the sampled organs. The Leslie speed is "baked into" the sample. The samples have a different sound, and "vibe" than the Organ World does, and it's a shame that those sound can't be effectively married to the very nice Rotary DSP effects. We could make some nice organ sounds running the sampled slow Leslie married to the DSP effect, if only we could.... edit the sounds. But we can't do that ourselves. so we don't have any PCM Organ Voices that don't switch between the slow and fast samples. See?

I wish I had twice the space for the review, I could have covered so much more, elaborated on my ideas further, and shared more reaction to sounds and features. But print magazines are not very thick these days...

Thanks again for the chance to have some dialog.

Jerry

[voodoo]

Jerry,

Thank you very much for your review and for your statement about editing depth.  I am glad that someone speaks out some obvious points. I also wondered why nearly no preset organ sound uses the new rotary dsp effects. And why it is so difficult to use preset samples with own dsp settings, when we cannot configure the function of the mod wheel for many voices. Because they are assigned fix by preset. And no dsp parameter can be assigned to any live control. We even cannot program a cross fade between two layers of a voice. This is really basic for any real synth. (We have to use two parts with two separate voices for this.)

Uli