Finding VOICES to play the melody

[Hugh-AR]

When looking for a VOICE to play the melody of a song I sometimes struggle to find something I really, really like. Den (dentyr) says that I should play about with voices and create my own sounds. But I can't do that as I don't really know what I am aiming for. I like to LISTEN to sounds, and every so often come across something I really like. Hence my excitement on hearing a piece Den had played where he had used a voice (or voices) that I hadn't heard before on my Tyros 4. This is the piece .. Good Old Summer Time.

Click the below to listen, then click the back-arrow at the top to get back to this page.
Good Ol Summer Time played by Den.
(Listen to the MELODY voicing.)

This is the comment I made on this piece:

Liked the two voices you had to start with. They were both panned to centre and one voice (strings?) was playing a fraction behind the other. What a great sound that made! What voices did you use there? Then the next voice you chose had an equally wonderful sound. A continuous voice with a bit of attack on it when each note was played. What was your choice there? And finally you had an accordion .. no ordinary accordion .. a 'soft' accordion. My my! What a gorgeous piece to listen to!

Knowing that Den has a Tyros 4 (and I too have a Tyros 4), I added this comment:

Now .. can I guess?
You played this on your PSR SX-700

But Den assured me that he had played this on his Tyros 4, and said he would send me his REGISTRATION and the MIDIFILE recording he had done so I could check it out. These two files you can download by clicking on these Attachments below:

Good Ol Summer.T143.RGT

Good ol Summer Time.MID

The below is an analysis of the VOICES Den has set up to play this piece.

I have downloaded Den's REGISTRATION and MIDI files onto a Memory Stick, inserted this into the USB Port of my Tyros 4, pressed button J by REGIST, tabbed across to USB at the top and chose Good Ol Summer.RGT to load it into the REGISTRATION MEMORY. Pressing REGISTRATION MEMORY 1 this is what I see on my screen.



Den's 'sound' at the start of his piece was created using RIGHT1 and RIGHT2.

RIGHT1 is Nice Sax. Not a PRESET Voice, but one Den has created and put into USER. So for this REGISTRATION to sound right I will need the Nice Sax. It can be downloaded from the below, put on the Memory Stick and added (COPIED) from USB to USER.

Nice Sax.S230.swv

Once I have downloaded this VOICE and put it into USER the keyboard picks it up. Looking over to the right of my Tyros 4, USER is now lit up in the VOICE section.



Now ...

A look at RIGHT2.
SlowStrings.



So the other VOICE he used was SlowStrings.
Press the button next to that (button G) to see where this comes from.
I have put red arrows on all the relevant information.
PRESET (at the top, so it's a PRESET voice); the NAME of the voice (SlowStrings); the VOICE SECTION it comes from (Strings); and the PAGE NUMBER (P1).



Looking over to the VOICE section on the right, I have a STRINGS .. but it is not lit up! In fact, none of the sections are lit up!



Pressing the STRINGS button in the VOICE section I get this.



I have 7 pages of STRINGS ...



.. have looked through all 7 pages and I do not have SlowStrings.

So where are they? The plot thickens!

Continued in my next post ...

[Hugh-AR]

Den has pointed out to me that on my Tyros 4 I will often have two voices with the same name .. but they are not the same in how they sound or how they work. They are different types of voice, and often one is more 'basic' and comes from an earlier keyboard. Yamaha have included these 'older' voices in our Tyros 4 keyboards, but have put them grouped together in a different place. To find where they are, go to a VOICE group (eg. STRINGS) and press the button corresponding to the UP arrow showing at the bottom of the screen.



You will then get this screen.



No! Don't press any of the VOICE groups showing on this page (eg. Strings) as these are the same as the ones you already have!

Press the button corresponding to Page 2 (P2), and you see the folders containing these 'older' VOICES.
Legacy, GM&XG, and GM2.



To see what is in any of these, press the button corresponding to the folder you want.
In my case I will look at what is in Legacy. The below is what I see.

The Categories showing look very much the same as what I had before, but note that these have Legacy at the bottom and not VOICE. The voices listed in this Legacy selection are not the same as the VOICE section we had previoously. I have marked the Strings category with a red arrow as this is what I want to look at.



But first, pressing Page 2 (P2) you get the remaining ones.



If you press the button corresponding to the UP arrow on either Page 1 or Page 2 you will get back to the previous page showing Legacy, GM&XG, and GM2.

Going back to Page 1, if you press the button next to Strings you get this ...



These, clearly are not my 'default' STRINGS but the ones Den had used to get his SlowStrings for his R2 Voice. Just 3 Pages of STRINGS in this selection.

Yamaha give you INFO on how their voices sound and how they can be used.
Yes, press the button at the bottom corresponding to INFO and you get this:



Press the EXIT button a couple of times to get back to the MAIN screen.

If finding these Legacy Voices was not easy to understand from the above, watch this YouTube Video below by the Tyros Tipsters for their explanation on how to find them.



I believe that these 'older' voices can be accessed from Tyros 3 and upwards. If this is not correct please let me know.

Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

This topic has been re-written and added to.

More to come!

Hugh

[Brian007]

Hi Hugh,

This is something I too struggle with .. finding a suitable voice for the piece I am trying to play , not always easy


All the Best, Brian007

[Hugh-AR]

Brian,

The problem as I see it is that we are turning songs 'sung' by someone into instrumentals. The overall 'sound' of the original piece is determined by the singer (although the backing behind the singer has a lot to do with it too). And so we have to find 'instrumental' voices that sound good for the piece in their own right.

One example that comes to mind. Ed Sheeran singing Perfect.

Ed Sheeran - Perfect (Official Music Video)

When the advert appears, click the X in the top right hand corner of the rectangle to remove it.

And this is what Ron has done with it as an 'instrumental'. For starters, he has chosen three different 'voices' to play the melody .. ending up with some 'full strings'.

Click the below to listen; then click the back arrow at the top to get back to this page.
Ron playing PERFECT by Ed Sheeran

Hugh

[Brian007]

Hi Hugh,

Life would be so much easier if I could sing ? well may be for me but not the poor people listening to me singing

All the best, Brian007

[NativeAngels]

It kind of depends on what instruments you have available in your band. A lot of styles can be way too busy, By muting tracks or re balancing a style you can take one of the instruments in your band to use as your lead sound.