SETTING UP ASSIGNABLE OUTPUTS ON A DRUM KIT

By Phil Clendeninn Product Specialist Product Support Group/ Technology Products ©Yamaha Corporation of America Email: pclendeninn@yamaha.com

Drum Kits are the most complex of the Voice architectures in any modern synthesizer. This is fitting because drummers are the most complex of musicians. Think about it, in a piano Voice (a so-called 'normal' Voice) there are a series of related multi-samples. They can all share things like name, and volume and envelopes, and send levels to effects like the reverb. They can share even filter settings, pan position etc. etc. they are a real group.

Now think about a drum kit - each key in a kit is a different instrument, each key is autonomous...each key has its own volume setting, it has its own envelope, its own send level to the effects, its own pan position, its own filter settings, and its own tuning (not necessarily in any sequential increment to its neighbor, etc, etc. a group of individuals, if you will.

Call up your favorite drum kit in Voice mode. There are several ways to quickly recall drum kits.

Fig. 1

You can use the CATEGORY SEARCH function.

• Press CATEGORY SEARCH
• Press the GROUP E button to select Drum/Percussion
• Use the DOWN cursor or INC/YES button to select

You can recall a Drum Kit bank directly:

• Press and hold the DRUM KITS button + PRE5 to select Preset Drum kits from Group A-D
• Press and hold the DRUM KITS button + USER1 to select the User Drum kits From Group A-B
• Press and hold the DRUM KITS button + GM to select the GM Drum kit
• Once the bank is recalled use the GROUP A-D and the Program 1-16 buttons to make a selection.

After you have recalled your favorite Drum Kit let's get to editing…

• Press EDIT - There are two levels of editing: COMMON and KEY. Common parameters are shared by all drums; Key parameters are individual setting per drum
  

Fig. 2 Fig. 3

• Touch Track 1 to select Key Edit parameters
• Touch a key for any drum sound to recall its parameters
• Press F1 OSC
• Press SF2 OUTPUT
  

Fig. 4

Here you can see the routing of each Key to the effects and to the outputs. Depending on the kit you have selected you may find that a drum is going to the SYSTEM Effects (reverb and chorus). Or some drums are assigned to the INSERTION EFFECTS. There can be a Dual Insertion Effect assigned to any Voice. Those effects will be routed in parallel, A to B or B to A - that is, you can route a drum to one algorithm or the other. Within that Effect you can determine what key goes to which of the two processors.

Here are the rules:

• If a drum Key is routed to the INSERT EFFECTS in a VOICE, it is removed from the SYSTEM EFFECTS (Reverb and Chorus). It is either/or, and never both.
• If a drum kit VOICE is placed in a MIX and the INSERT SWITCH is activated for that Part, you will hear that Insertion Effect in your MIX as assigned per drum of that Voice.
• If a drum key has reverb in VOICE mode, you will hear an increase in reverb when you turn up the overall REVERB send for the drum kit Part in a MIX. If a drum key has no reverb in VOICE mode, you will not hear an increase when you turn up the overall REVERB send for the drum Part in a MIX
• If a drum key has chorus in VOICE mode, you will hear an increase in chorus when you turn up the overall CHORUS send for the drum kit Part in a MIX. If a drum has no chorus in VOICE mode you will not hear an increase when you turn up the overall CHORUS send for the drum Part in a MIX.
• If you route a drum KEY to an individual assignable output in VOICE mode, it will be routed to the individual output when that kit is used in a Song/Pattern MIX, if you set the OUTPUT SELECT to "drum".
• A drum KEY that is routed to an INSERT EFFECT in a VOICE will not be available for assignment to an individual output. It will automatically be routed to the L&R output.

The idea is, if you are going to send an individual drum Key to an assignable output you have plans to effect that drum sound in your external device (external mixer, like an 01X, or in your DAW software).

Therefore you would have to modify the drum kit in Voice mode to ensure that the individual drums that you want to affect are all going to the effect you wish to use. Then Store that kit to a User location and use it in your MIX. In other words, the settings you make in Voice mode will be respected when you place that User Drum Kit in your Song or Pattern Mix. This, as we will soon see, also applies to any output assignments you make as well. When you increase the overall Reverb Send on the PART of your MIX that contains the drum kit, you don't necessarily want to send all drums to the reverb.

In nature, the lower the frequency the less a sound reverberates… and it is common practice in mixes to keep the bass drum "dry" (without reverb) so that it maintains its presence and weight in the mix. If you leave the bass drum "dry" in VOICE mode, when that Voice is placed in a MIX and you turn up the overall Reverb send, only drums that have routing to the reverb will be affected…i.e., it respects the routing you created in VOICE mode.

Let's assign an individual drum to an output and see how that works.

While in KEY level editing, touch the key you are interested in routing to an individual output. Out of the box the Motif ES comes with the main L&R output (System outputs) and two assignable outputs "asL" & "asR" (assignable Left and assignable Right). These, you will see, can be routed to as a stereo pair or as individual separate outputs. If you assign a Part or Key to "asL" it will only appear in the Assignable Left output jack. When you assign a drum Key to the pair ("asL&asR"), you can use the PAN parameter to position the drum between those two outputs.

If you add the optional output expander, AIEB2 (Audio Input/Output Expansion Board) you will have an additional six analog ¼" outputs (as1-as6). These can be routed to as individuals or in odd/even pairs (as1&2, as3&4, as5&6), as necessary.

If you add the optional output expander mLAN16E (the multi-channel Music Local Area Network expansion) you will have 16 audio output channels in the digital domain (24-bit and up to a 96k sample rate). The sixteen audio output channels are divided like this: there are 14 individual outputs plus the stereo L&R all down the single Firewire cable to your computer or to your mLAN-equipped digital mixer. In a similar manner to the analog assignable outputs, the digital mLAN outputs can be paired in logical odd/even sets: as1&2, as3&4, as5&6, as7&8, as9&10, as11&12, and as13&14. Or they can be used as individuals (as1, as2, as3, as4, as5, as6, as7, as8, as9, as10, as11, as12, as13, and as14) or any necessary combination of individuals and paired sets. There are 14 because two of the audio channels must be reserved for the main stereo mix via this digital bus. Any signal assigned to the default L&R will be bused on the fifteenth and sixteenth channel ("L&R").

• Press F1 OSC
• Press SF2 OUTPUT
• Cursor down to the OUTSEL (Output Select) parameter
  

Fig. 5

• Use the Data Wheel or the [INC/YES]/[DEC/NO] buttons to view the options. In the screen shown above, the drum on C1 (kick drum) is assigned to "as1". You see in this Hip Hop1 kit that it has ChoSend (Chorus Send) set at 127. This is one of the two System effects. All effects will be stripped off (not heard) if the drum KEY is rerouted to the assignable output. However, if a KEY is assigned to either INS A or INS B you will hear the Insertion Effect applied in the main stereo mix.
• Touch another key to make another assignment.
  

Fig. 6

In the screen shot above note C#1 is selected and is a sidestick sound. It is routed to "as2". You can make any assignments that you need, but here what I am doing is making individual assignments according to how I want to mix. In other words, I might put all my kick drums to assignable 1, all my snare sounds to assignable 2, all my hihats to assignable 3, crash cymbals to assignable 4, tom-toms to assignable 5&6, and so on. You do not need each drum on its own output, necessarily.

Think about the drums you are actually going to use and how you want to implement them in your final mix and assign them accordingly. Look for things that can work in logical pairs. For example, if you are going to use 6 toms, you don't necessarily need 6 individual output channels (that's silly), …assign them all to a stereo odd/even pair and use your PAN parameter to position them, as appropriate. Remember you will probably be able to EQ and effect them as a group. Look for natural pairings whenever possible.

With the mLAN16E you have the ability to transfer data to your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software/hardware on individual audio tracks and you have 14 such outputs, per pass. Assignments can be made simply while transferring audio data ("dumping down") from the Motif ES workstation to your DAW. Cool…we've been waiting for our gear to be able to do this kind of thing for a long, long time. Technology is finally catching up to musical desires!

Now let's see what happens if I assign this sidestick sound (C#1) to the InsEffOut (Insert Effect Output).

Fig. 7
Fig. 8

The screen on the left shows the Key C#1 routed to insA. The screen on the right (COMMON/ F6 EFFECT/ SF1 CONNECT) shows what is going on in the Drum Voice on the Effect connection screen. Notice that the "Key:Out" is C#1 - you simply touch the key to recall it's routing - it is applied to Insert Effect A, which is set to a Tempo Delay 1 setting. The Insert Effects can be in parallel (as shown on the right) or they can be routed "insA" -> "insB" or "insB" -> "insA". Shown below is where you would position the cursor to affect the routing between the Insertion Effects:

Fig. 9

When the sidestick (C#1) is assigned to the Tempo Delay (figure 7 above), notice that the OutputSel (Output Select) parameter becomes unavailable - it appears in parenthesis. The Key will be fixed to the stereo output L&R).

Continue to edit drums and make assignments in this fashion.

• STORE your newly edited kit in one of the 32 USER DRUM bank locations. This will be bank 63/40.

• Press SONG or PATTERN
• Press MIXING
• Press F2 VOICE to view the MIX:
  

• Press EDIT. Once again there are two levels of editing in the Sequencer modes: COMMON and PART
• Press Track 1 to select PART edit parameters.
• Press F2 OUTPUT
• Press SF3 SELECT. Here is where you can assign PARTS of a MIX to individual outputs. And we know that drummers are different …and there is a special parameter here that only appears when a drum kit is assigned to a PART. In this particular instance we don't want to send the entire drum kit to an individual output, we simply want the Motif ES to respect the assignments that we took the time edit back in VOICE mode.

• STORE your MIX.