Some thoughts on using the HARMONY / ECHO.

[Hugh Tyros 4]

Some thoughts on using the HARMONY / ECHO

I always knew that the HARMONY / ECHO would add extra notes in to the melody you were playing, but hadn't realised the significance of this until I heard the below.

Listen to this piece, where you can hear harmony playing, even though the melody line is being played with single notes.

DEMO of using HARMONY / ECHO

Now .. I found that so interesting!  Harmony with the melody.  And the harmony is 'over the top' of the melody.  The piano accordionist in the Scottish Country Dance Band I was in used to do that all the time .. put the harmony 'over the top' of the melody.  Made the harmony really stand out.

This effect has been achieved by using the HARMONY / ECHO button on the keyboard.  This picks up notes you are playing in your left hand and 'adds them' into the melody you are playing with your right hand .. with the right hand Voice you have chosen.  You have several choices about the way the keyboard does this, one of them being COUNTRY DUET.  Ideally you should be playing a single note melody line to get the best effect.



The DUET options just add one extra note into the mix.  Listening closely, STANDARD DUET adds that extra note below the melody, and COUNTRY DUET adds in that extra note above the melody.  The VOLUME of that extra note is determined by the VOLUME setting on this screen .. in this case, 72.  The VOLUME of the MELODY LINE is determined by the Volume setting for R1 .. in this case 54.  So you can get the 'balance' between the melody and the 'harmony' as you want to hear it.

Edit (by Hugh): Images and MUSIC are now LINKED to a new 'cloud' storage.

[Hugh Tyros 4]

In the example above, the HARMONY / ECHO is assigned to the Voice being used to play the melody .. a GUITAR .. in RIGHT1.  So by choosing the COUNTRY DUET option you get an extra Guitar note added in to the mix.  This is why you heard two notes playing the melody in harmony even though the melody was actually being played with single notes.  And because COUNTRY DUET had been chosen, those extra notes were added 'over the top' of the melody.

Now take another scenario.  A VOICE set in RIGHT1 to play the melody .. but not any harmony.  And another VOICE in RIGHT2 which would play the melody and some harmony,  But read on, as our Yamaha keyboards don't always play the melody with the voice in RIGHT2!  If you take a look at the HARMONY / ECHO options, there are several .. and they all do something different to the way they add extra notes into the mix.  And the other column to look at is the one headed ASSIGN.  The AUTO, R1, R2 and R3 can be selected to tell the keyboard which voice(s) to apply the harmony/echo to.   But what about the one called MULTI?  What does that do? 

I have come across a topic on this by Neville Sharman, and he says:

MULTI tells R2 to play a subtle counter melody in harmony.

I said above that the keyboard doesn't always play the melody with the voice in R2.  I can now add that when you choose MULTI in ASSIGN, that is when the keyboard doesn't play the melody.  It plays a subtle counter melody in harmony.

All this is worth investigating as it is not easy to explain in words what these HARMONY / ECHO and ASSIGN choices actually do.  So I have done a DEMO so you can hear what the keyboard is doing to the melody.

I have set up my DEMO with an English Waltz; Warm Grand (Piano) in RIGHT1 and Boys Choir Ooh in RIGHT2 (RIGHT3 has a voice allocated but is not being used in this DEMO).



I have played a short melody twice so you can hear what each of the choices below sounds like.  There are seven different ones .. so you will be hearing the same bit of melody 14 times .. by which time you will be fed up with hearing it!  But this is a DEMO, and the best way to hear what the keyboard is doing is to compare like with like.

I am playing exactly the same chords and single melody notes all the way through the DEMO.  The differences in harmony that you hear is what the keyboard is doing with my choices.

Below are the choices I have made for the HARMONY / ECHO and the ASSIGN.

1.  The first bit of melody you hear (played twice) has no Harmony/Echo on, so you just hear the melody played with the Piano and Boys Choir as single notes in unison (ie. no harmony applied).

Scroll down to see the other six choices I have made, taking particular note of which HARMONY / ECHO is selected, and which ASSIGN.
The MP3 to listen to so you can hear how different they sound is underneath.

2. 


3. 


4. 


5. 


6. 


7. 


Click the below to listen to the DEMO.

DEMO of the seven choices above, each of which add a different harmony mix to the melody

Hugh

PS.  I have a Tyros 4, but you can do this with any Yamaha keyboard.

Edit (by Hugh): Images and music DEMOS are now LINKED to a new 'cloud' storage.

[Hugh Tyros 4]

Here's another DEMO showing how HARMONY / ECHO can be used to create some interesting harmonies.

Abide With Me (DEMO)

The REGISTRATION for playing this is as below.



STYLE     .. String Adagio. Tempo 75, Volume 100.
This is used as a "FreePlay" Style as there is no Rhythm PART (despite it showing ON).  But CHORD 2 was turned OFF as there was a Harp part in there that didn't blend in at all with the rest of the Style.

RIGHT 1 .. Notre Dame (organ). Volume 110.
RIGHT 2 .. Boys Choir Ooh. Volume 95.
LEFT       .. Soft Choir Ooh. Volume 70.

HARMONY / ECHO .. ON.  TYPE .. COUNTRY TRIO.  ASSIGN .. MULTI. 



This (short) piece has been played with single notes for the melody.  The main melody is picked up by R1 (Notre Dame) and the harmony you hear is a combination of the LEFT Voice (Soft Choir Ooh) and R2 (Boys Choir Ooh with MULTI applied).  The STYLE is added into the mix from the CHORDS I am playing with my left hand.

Click the below to listen.
Abide With Me with Harmony/Echo ON

Hugh

Edit (by Hugh): Images and MUSIC are now LINKED to a new 'cloud' storage.  Text has not been edited.

[wersianer]

Hello Hugh,

I'd like to try your suggestion, but I can't find the StringAdagio style on mine. Can you kindly post it here? Thanks in advance.

[Hugh Tyros 4]

Hi wersianer,

The StringAdagio STYLE is a PRESET Style in my Tyros 4 .. on Page 2 in Movie & Show.



Looking at the Yamaha Tutorial site (not the Forum) I have clicked on the word STYLES at the top, then clicked on Yamaha (on the left) and finally on Tyros 4 in the list.  They say that StringAdagio is one of the new STYLES introduced on the Tyros 4 .. so I don't know what keyboards it will work on other than the Tyros 4.

Click this LINK to see the list of STYLES on the Tyros 4.

https://www.psrtutorial.com/sty/yamaha/Tyros4/tyros_4.html

I have been able to COPY the StringAdagio STYLE from my Tyros 4, but I have read the "Posting Guidelines" for this forum and don't reckon I am allowed to pass this Style on to you.  Maybe a Moderator can let me know if a Yamaha Style from a keyboard can be passed on or not.

Hugh

Edit (by Hugh): Images are now LINKED to a new 'cloud' storage.  Text has not been edited.

[wersianer]

Hello Hugh,

I found it thanks to your hint about where the style was found. Thanks also for the suggestions on experimenting with the Harmony/Echo settings. So I've learned a lot again, especially now that I'm intensively involved in playing classical pieces...thank you Hugh for the added joy of making music.

[Stuart L]

Thank you Hugh for this insight into using Harmony.
I've never really understood how best to use the Harmony options and because the standard harmonies
deepen the sound they have to be used carefully.
So to find you can play a harmony above the main note is a real find.
Kind regards
Stuart L

[overover]

... I have been able to COPY the StringAdagio STYLE from my Tyros 4, but I have read the "Posting Guidelines" for this forum and don't reckon I am allowed to pass this Style on to you.  Maybe a Moderator can let me know if a Yamaha Style from a keyboard can be passed on or not.

Hugh

Hi Hugh,

If required, you can upload styles (preferably zipped) to a file hosting service such as box.com, dropbox.com, etc. and then post the relevant download link here in the forum.

In the present case, however, this is not necessary at all, because the Tyros4 Preset Styles can simply be downloaded from the Style page already mentioned: Just click on the desired category, e.g. on "MOVIE&SHOW" to download all styles in this category as a zip file.
>>> https://www.psrtutorial.com/sty/yamaha/Tyros4/tyros_4.html


Best regards,
Chris

[Hugh Tyros 4]

Thanks Chris.  Although I had hovered my mouse over the words StringAdagio in the hope of downloading that one Style .. and didn't get the 'hand' telling me it was downloadable .. it didn't occur to me that if I hovered my mouse over the words MOVIE&SHOW I would have got a downloadable LINK.  You learn something new every day!

Back to this topic.  I have a friend who has a PSR-SX700 and was most impressed to see that the screen on his keyboard actually tells you where those harmony notes are put into the mix.

Standard Trio



Country Trio



As you will see from my screenshots above, the Tyros 4 just has an arrow towards the right showing the number of notes that are added in to the mix, but no indication of where they go.

And in case any of you are wondering where I got the Notre Dame organ voice from for Abide With Me, it's one of the Organ voices from GM&XG.

Also, I played this piece in F and had the UPPER OCTAVE on -1 so the first note of my melody was A4.  No real need to do that.  If you have the UPPER OCTAVE on the default of 0 you would play your first note as A3.  The harmony playing is the same either way.

Hugh

Edit (by Hugh): Images are now LINKED to a new 'cloud' storage.  Text has not been edited.

[Hugh Tyros 4]

Ar Hyd y Nos (All Through the Night)

Another DEMO from me showing how HARMONY / ECHO can be used to good effect.

Below is how I've set up my REGISTRATION.



Notes:
1.  I am playing this in C .. but decided the overall sound was a bit 'shrill', so put the TRANSPOSE down four notches.  So although I am playing it in C, you are listening to it in Ab.
2.  The STYLE I am using is called Ethereal 2.  I had considered using Ethereal Voices, which I have on my Tyros 4 in PRESET, MOVIE & SHOW .. but that has no Bass!  Ethereal 2 does .. a strong bass.  I have upped this to 127 (Maximum).
3.  FreePlay Styles have a 'measure' of 32 bars before they repeat.  As I am never going to need to make use of a 'repeat' I have put the TEMPO down to the lowest available .. which is 5.  At this speed I will have finished playing my song long before the Style ever reaches it's 'repeat'. 
4.  RIGHT 1.  I have previously used the Notre Dame organ, but decided this time I would create my own 'organ' sound.  So have set the Organ Drawbars as below .. and have set a footswitch to change the Rotary Speakers from SLOW to FAST (and back) in places I wanted it to do that.



5.  I am not using RIGHT 3 or MULTIPADS in this DEMO.

6.  I am using four REGISTRATION MEMORY slots and have chosen the HARMONY / ECHO  TYPE and set the ASSIGN as follows.

REG MEMORY 1.  Only the Organ Voice in RIGHT 1 is being used (no LEFT VOICE or RIGHT 2).  By having the ASSIGN on R1 the organ is playing multiple notes when in reality I am playing a single note melody line.





REG MEMORY 2.  LEFT, RIGHT 1 and RIGHT 2 are all being used here.





REG MEMORY 3.  LEFT, RIGHT 1 and RIGHT 2 are all being used here.





REG MEMORY 4.  LEFT, RIGHT 1 and RIGHT 2 are all being used here.





Click this LINK below to listen to the DEMO. 
All Through The Night DEMO using the HARMONY / ECHO button.

Edit (by Hugh): Images and MUSIC are now LINKED to a new 'cloud' storage.  Text has not been edited.

[Hugh Tyros 4]

Earlier in my topic I had mentioned Neville Sharman .. sadly no longer with us.  He used to put explanations up on the yamahapkowners website, and one he did was on how to set up the Harmony / Echo from the OTS.  The below is a LINK to his script on this.  He also played a DEMO piece to show how his ideas worked out in practice.  Click on the LINK in the document to listen to his DEMO.

https://app.box.com/s/yde6zlytm4euiqbc6c4f445v3ai5fnwj

Edit (by Hugh): The above link takes you to BOX where you can read Neville's document.

[DrakeM]

I play mostly country tunes and have used the "Pedal Steel Guitar" voice a lot with my styles using the "Country Duet"and always with the harmony on.

Another thing that effects the sound for the "Pedal Steel Guitar" is found on the .. MIXING CONSOLE (Panel)

I have a DSP2~4 with a DST* setting of 127 that really makes the best overall sound for the "Pedal Steel Guitar".
The style also has the REVERB:HALL2 set up
and the CHORUS:CHORUS2 set up

I have no idea how to manually put this set up into every country style I make that uses the "Pedal Steel Guitar".
So I begin using of this particular style each time I am creating a new style that I will be using the "Pedal Steel Guitar" voice in the OTS.

Drake

[DaveD]

I also use the pedal steel guitar but am a novice with my Genos. Could someone please help me find these settings on the mixer in my Genos ?

Thanks,
Dave