Low volume after EXPANDing a chord track

[pjd]

Hi --

I'm actively investigating a "mystery" and thought I would post the situation here. If anyone has encountered this situation before, I'm all ears.

In a nutshell, I'm step entering chords into the chord track of Genos Song Creator (MIDI Multi Recording). This is a great way to sketch out a song starting from a lead sheet, sheet music, etc.

No problems entering chords, previewing the result, etc. in Song Creator. I touch (tap) "Expand" and then save the MIDI file to USB.

When I play the MIDI song back, however, the volume is low -- waaaay low. Checking the mixer, the overall SONG level is 100, the individual part levels all look reasonable. In fact, I checked the part levels against the channel volume (CC#7) for each part in the style (GospelSisters.Txxx.prs) and the part levels are correct.

I loaded the MIDI file into Sonar and noticed one potential problem and pattern. Each track (part) has an expression (CC#11) event at the beginning and the expression levels are small -- 40 or less. This observation suggests that the CC#11 expression levels are turning down the volume (effectively) for each part.

I've got more experiments to try. 1. I'm going to edit the MIDI file and set all of the expression levels higher (like 100 or 120). 2. I'm going to take the same MIDI chord track file and expand it on the PSR-S950 to see if I get the same result.

Has anyone encountered this situation? I'd like to tell Genos, "Stop doing that!"  where "that" means inserting the CC#11 events and turning down the part volume (if that is indeed the root cause).

Thanks for your comments and ideas!

-- pj

[pjd]

I can confirm that increasing the CC#11 values raises individual part volumes to "normal" level. This is not a complete fix because one of tracks has many CC#11 expression events and they all seem unusually low (40 or less).

I'll check out S950 chord track expansion tomorrow.

-- pj

[Wim NL]

Did you have set the style level to 100.
Have you connect a epression pedal.
Can you use also user styles?  in Genos i can not.

[jwyvern]

Could it be connected with the overall song volume being set too low (which presumably works by applying a constant expression value to each channel).
John

[pjd]

Did you have set the style level to 100.
Have you connect a epression pedal.
Can you use also user styles?  in Genos i can not.

Hi Wim and John --

All of the mixer values look reasonable with style volume and song volume levels at 100. I'm kind of baffled, actually, that EXPAND is putting expression events at the beginning of every track, in some case, before the channel volume (CC#7). I'm going to try expansion on the S950 this morning.

Yep, I've got an expression pedal and it is max'ed out.

I haven't tried a USER style. Just want to get expansion to work correctly with a preset style! 

Thanks for making suggestions -- pj

[pjd]

Hi --

I just loaded the MIDI song with the unexpanded chord track onto S950. I expanded the chord track and saved the expanded MIDI song.

Looking at the expanded MIDI song, the S950 does not insert MIDI CC#11 expression events at the beginning of every part (channels 9 to 16).

One further observation. Part 14 is an organ track (voice: CurvedBars on both Genos and S950). The part uses CC#11 events to continuously modulate the organ volume softer and louder. (Gospel players do this a lot.)

The Part 14 CC#11 values produced by Genos are all much lower than the CC#11 events produced by S950. Genos values are in the 23 to 30 range. S950 values are in the 75 to 95 range.

I looked at the organ track in the GospelSisters.T552.prs file. The expression values as programmed by Yamaha are consistent with the values generated by S950. So, Genos is doing something quite different with expression CC#11 when it expands a chord track.

OK, I think I'm ready to send this to Yamaha for an explanation.

Further ideas and comments would be really helpful. For this particular project, I might finish off the chord track on Genos and then expand on S950. Or, I'll modify the CC#11 events in a DAW.

All the best -- pj

P.S. The S950 file plays just fine (i.e., no volume issues) on Genos -- without the Revo Drums, unfortunately.

[pjd]

Hi Wim and John --

I was demonstrating a MIDI song to some folks and noticed that the expression pedal affected the entire song playback volume, not just the "active channel" as I presumed. That made the light go off in my head.

Thanks for your help!

I did a couple of quick experiments today. Even though I swore -- swore! -- that the expression pedal was MAX'ed, I now doubt if that was the case. I tried a few EXPANDs. If the expression pedal is truly MAX'ed (or reset), no initial MIDI expression events after expansion. If the expression pedal is backed off even a little bit, there are initial MIDI expression events in the expanded style channels. And it ratchets down the subsequent expression events (CC#11) in the organ track.

I would not (and did not) expect the expression pedal to affect style expansion......... but it does!

Thanks, again -- pj

[Joe H]

..,. I did a couple of quick experiments today. Even though I swore -- swore! -- that the expression pedal was MAX'ed,... 

Maybe next time you should just unplug the Expression pedal.

      

Joe H

[pjd]

Hi Joe --

All kidding aside, that's the most practical (and safe) approach. I may just do that since I don't EXPAND a backing track too often.

It got me wondering about the usage model, i.e., why Yamaha included this feature (or bug.  ) EXPAND doesn't expand and play the parts in real-time, so you can't exactly ride the pedal and adjust the volume of the backing on-the-fly (e.g., crescendo).

Hey, hey, take care -- pj

[Joe H]

pj,

My Yamaha expression pedal has a soft-stop at about 90% from the toe end.  I think that is for setting the CC11 about at 100 so when you push the pedal all the way it will send CC127... creating a crescendo. (maybe)

      

Joe H

[EileenL]

You can turn off the style part for pedal and also remember that the 970 dose not have after touch. Are you using touch on the style part because this can also be turned off. All these things are maybe making the difference in volume.