Hi there,

I just bought an XS a few weeks ago and I’m madly in love with it. I’m also still in the process of getting to know it however. Anyway, I have a question:
Before the XS I used to play (still do actually) on a psr-2000 (also yamaha). When I used the sustain pedal on that one and released the keys the sound would always gradually fade away, no matter the voice I used. Both piano and strings gradually faded away. On the Motif however, piano gradually fades away, but the strings simply stay. My problem is this: I play in a band and for one of our songs I need the strings to fade away. I know it makes perfect sense for the sound to stay when using a sustain pedal, but I need them to fade away. And without using my hands, because they are doing something else when the strings are supposed to be fading. So does anybody know how to do this?
I’m sure it’s possible, and probably pretty easy, but I’m kinda drowning in all the options available. That’s what you get for having no synth experience whatsoever, huh?

Thanks!

Erikje

You can copy that strings to a USER location and set the decay you like.
It’s a matter of programming.
Look around (in the XS) and you’ll find various voices that are
programmed to decay, to wave or even to increase.
First read the section in the manual about Voice Programming.

;JOOP!

Thanks, I’ll try it when I’m home tonight. But just in case: are you sure there’s no foot pedal solution to this? I’m trying to minize switching between sounds during the song and I can’t have fading strings all the time. That would turn the whole thing in a big fuzzy mess.

Erikje

I don’t know if it is possible because I don’t have the manual with me right now,
but maybe you can set a second footswitch to change the release time of the sound. Otherwise the assignable function buttons could be used to change elements with a different release time, but that would still involve some hand work.

Cheers,
Robin

Okay thanks. I’ll try it :)

A percussion family sound (the piano is a percussion instrument) will always eventually fade to zero even if the sustain pedal is held. Any instrument that is hammered, stuck or plucked (triggered event instruments) behaves this way.

The other family of instruments are those that are self-oscillating… where the player causes the vibration by bowing or blowing… these have no pedals for sustain. Sustain is maintained by the player that is causing the oscillation (either bowing or blowing). So how a self-oscillating family sound behaves in response to a sustain pedal in a synthesizer is a matter of programming fiction, not any reality situation.

This from a previous post and discussion on this topic:

“I want the sustain pedal NOT to catch the fade-out sound. If the fade-out remains into the next played chord it will be catched up again by the sustain pedal.
This leads to a harmonic mess and it is also a problem regarding polyphony.

So, is it any setting for sustain pedal-behavior?”

Edit the AEG so that you can get the response you need.

The Amplitude Envelope Generator (AEG) is programmable. The response of each Element is programmable - the MIDI parameter HOLD 1 (commonly called “sustain") cc064 will hold the sound at “Decay 2 Level” (also called the Sustain Level).  See the attached graphic below....

A pianoforte (being a precussive instrument) will have an envelope that will ultimately fade to nothing; no matter if you hold the sustain pedal down. All percussive instruments stop vibration eventually due to air friction and/or gravity over time. So a piano-type envelope will always have “Decay 2 Level” = 0. How quickly this occurs is a function of the “Decay 2 Time” parameter.

The reason I ask you for specifics (what Voices you are working with ) is because you cannot (on the XS anyway) take just any Voice, layer it with a piano and expect that they both behave the same way to the sustain pedal. Fortunately, the XS is a very programmable synthesizer. You can work with the envelopes of the individual Voices and the individual Elements to get the exact response you require.

Acoustic String ensemble sounds have no particular way to behave to sustain pedal (since in the real world - there is no sustain pedal on the string section of an orchestra) Strings obtain sustain by maintaining bow movement and bow pressure on the strings - they lift the bow the sound very aburptly stops (which is why turning the sustain pedal off for the string or pad layer is a very good suggestion - simply let its AEG RELEASE parameter determine how it disappears). So how it behaves in response to a sustain pedal is not something written in stone… in a synth it a function of how the AEG Times and Levels are programmed.

If you would like to have the string sound eventually disappear while you hold down the sustain pedal (more like a percussive instrument envelope) you can program it to do so (the Decay 2 Level must be 0)… even if you program the Decay 2 Time at a very slow speed - the LEVEL must at some point return to 0 ...this is programmable. The response to the AEG is also scaleable up and down the keyboard to a great degree.

Additionally, the “EG TIME VEL SENS” and its “SEGMENT” parameter can be used to make the programmed envelope velocity sensitive… for example, you can control the “decay” Time based on the velocity with which you play.  So with the “Decay 2 Level” at 0 you can set the strings to decay faster or slower by how hard you play.  You do this by assigning the SEGMENT parameter = “DECAY”. And you can scale this response up and down the keyboard. So if you are getting muddy response because you have the sustain pedal down in the low end you can compensate for this by making the decay faster as you go lower… or the opposite - whatever you need.

Since I do not know specifically what sounds you are dealing with I cannot give you specific AEG settings to try but I think if you spend some time with it you will find you can accomplish what you need.

Another hint would be the “Decay 2 Time” parameter is not linear. So spend time trying different settings - as you increase the Time parameter value the times are not changing linearly - so it is about how it feels when you play.

I cannot imagine (oh, I could, but would rather not) having a pre-determined envelope forced onto a sound (our PSR’s work sort of like that) - I would rather be able to set that envelope for myself. 

Rather than waiting for Yamaha to change the architecture (which may not happen because it ain’t really broke) try and work with the parameters you are given. Even if there were a pre-determined “snap-on” envelope you could apply it still would be derived from the very parameters you have access to right now.

Hope that helps.

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