2016-12-01 16:49:14

Hi all,

I have two questions about my keyboard yamaha PSR-3000.

About the first one, I don't know if this is possible. I'd like to connect my keyboard with the PC and if I push a key on the keyboard it should be heard over the PC with the currently selected soundfont. I have a 8-bit soundfont on the PC so if I would push a key on the keyboard it should sound with the 8-bit sound.

Then, the second question. I'd like to user the keyboard to play midis that are played from my PC. I already installed the right driver for it and connected the keyboard with the PC and the keyboard is shown on the list for the midi synthesizers but if I start a midi after selecting it the midi doesn't play. I'm using winamp for playing midis.

could someone help me with these problems?

Greetings,
Janagirl!

2016-12-01 21:20:15

Just about every keyboard has a multitimbral or midi mode which is set apart from the keyboard itself, so while you probably have it plugged in properly and you've installed the driver and your PC is discovering it, it may just be that you haven't yet chanced upon that mode, usually triggered by simply hitting a button.  Sadly, I cannot tell you what that button is or where it is for that particular keyboard.  Hopefully someone else has it and will fill in the gaps where that's concerned, but I imagine that once this mode is active and, provided that your keyboard has built-in speakers or is connected to an audio device, then all should work well.  A bit of surface research suggests you're in good hands either way though, since this keyboard seems to be modeled after the Tyros which I've never heard anything bad about.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2016-12-03 06:32:26

janagirl wrote:

I'd like to user the keyboard to play midis that are played from my PC. I already installed the right driver for it and connected the keyboard with the PC and the keyboard is shown on the list for the midi synthesizers but if I start a midi after selecting it the midi doesn't play. I'm using winamp for playing midis.

Nocturnus wrote:

Just about every keyboard has a multitimbral or midi mode which is set apart from the keyboard itself. I cannot tell you where it is for that particular keyboard.  Hopefully someone else has it and will fill in the gaps where that's concerned, but I imagine that once this mode is active and, provided that your keyboard has built-in speakers or is connected to an audio device, then all should work well.  A bit of surface research suggests you're in good hands either way though, since this keyboard seems to be modeled after the Tyros which I've never heard anything bad about.

While I do not own this specific keyboard, I have owned about half a dozen psr keyboards and have not encountered any that are not in a multitimbral mode by default. Assuming the keyboard is communicating with the PC, all you likely have to do is turn it on and start playback. I do recommend sending an XG reset message before starting playback. An XG reset will make the reverb and chorus types and insertion effect setup go from their startup defaults to classic XG defaults which will make most things sound more like the composer would've intended. The Winamp midi plug-in can do the XG reset automatically for you when starting a new track. To set this up, go to the Winamp midi plug-in settings, in the device tab where you select your midi device, tab a few times and you'll see a reset between tracks setting. This should be set to Yamaha XG for your keyboard.

janagirl wrote:

I don't know if this is possible. I'd like to connect my keyboard with the PC and if I push a key on the keyboard it should be heard over the PC with the currently selected soundfont. I have a 8-bit soundfont on the PC so if I would push a key on the keyboard it should sound with the 8-bit sound.

This is very possible, and unless I am very mistaken, you should already be able to do this if your keyboard and PC are communicating properly, and your sequencer is configured to listen on the right midi ports.
Without knowing any other info I would assume that your keyboard and PC are not communicating properly. This would explain both of your troubles. There are a number of things which could be causing this, but in order to narrow it down I would need to know a few things:
1. The type of cable going from your keyboard to the computer. Does it have a USB connector on both ends or does one end split off into two separate connectors?
2. What driver you have tried to use.
I may also need to know what sequencer you're using, but I think this is more a driver communication issue that the sequencer has nothing to do with at this point.

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2016-12-03 12:39:19

Hi Raygrote,
could you tell where exactly to find this reset in winamp? I don't even find something that has to do with midi in winamp.
About your questions:
1. I tried different cables already. First, I had one that has an USB for the PC. The other end of the cables Looks different to an USB. Then, I ordered a USB to midi cable. There is again one USB for the PC and on the other end there are two connectors for midi in and midi out.
2. The Driver I tried is called:
USB-MIDI Driver V3.1.4 for Win 64-bit (Win7 SP1 / Win8 / Win8.1 / Win10)
which I downloaded directly from the yamaha page.

Hope that helps.

Greetings,
Janagirl!

2016-12-03 19:00:20

In Winamp, go to the dialog where you set the midi plug-in device to your keyboard. ON that page you should see an "additional reset between tracks" setting, which should be set to XG.
As for your driver issue, it puzzles me that your driver isn't working with just a USB cable. The only thing I can think of is that your keyboard perhaps isn't set up to accept a USB midi connection. Perhaps it's worth calling Yamaha support to find out what could be going on. I had the same issue with my PSR-S700 back when I first got it. A few months ago I got rid of the S700 and went with the S970, which surprisingly works much better. I have no clue why. With the S700, I had to use a midi interface with oldstyle midi in/out connectors. Maybe that will be the best bet for you until you get the USB connection sorted.
I'm not sure if the driver you've already installed will work with your midi interface or not. You could try it. Just remember that when using the midi in and out ports, that both plugs need to be firmly plugged in and in the right places. Most keyboards in fact have three midi ports, which are in, out, and through. For our purposes we don't want to touch midi through. The midi out connector should go into the midi in port of the keyboard, and vice versa.
You could do what I normally do and keep trying one connector in different ports until it works. It is possible to only have one port plugged in and use just that half of the chain. I normally try to get midi in working, that is, to get the keyboard to accept incoming data from the PC. I play a loop on the computer and keep switching plugs around until the keyboard starts receiving the midi data and playing it. Then I know I have that half of it right, so it's not hard to get the other half working.
That's all the advice I can give you at this point. I do think that contacting Yamaha support might lead to getting the USB midi driver working. IF you have other questions, let us know.

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2016-12-03 19:45:51

Oh goodness!  My bad for the confusion and mixup and what have you.  I haven't seen a PSR anything since o3 or there abouts which did not have USB capability anyway; I gave it and the DGX500 up as a joke and started working with a Korg x50 for awhile.  Last year my wife got me a Roland FA 06 which has become my everything piece, no extra midi ports required and it doubles as an audio interface on top of everything else it does.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2016-12-04 01:07:57

Hmm, my Problem is that I even don't find the Point where I could set the midi device in winamp. I found a few plugins for Input and Output but I didn't saw anything that has to do with midi.

Greetings,
Janagirl!

2016-12-06 23:14:42

Janagirl, I am confused. In your first post, you say

janagirl wrote:

The keyboard is shown on the list for the midi synthesizers but if I start a midi after selecting it the midi doesn't play. I'm using winamp for playing midis.

Then in your last post:

janagirl wrote:

Hmm, my Problem is that I even don't find the Point where I could set the midi device in winamp. I found a few plugins for Input and Output but I didn't saw anything that has to do with midi.

In your first post when you say your keyboard is in the list of synthesizers, what list are you referring to? I initially thought you were talking about the device list in Winamp's midi plug-in, but I am apparently incorrect.

No worries Nocturnus. Had I not had PSR boards, I would've probably said the same thing as you. I myself own an FA06 which indeed has a very nice driver. The later Yamaha USb drivers also are pretty similar in my experience, though the PSR-S970, which is the board I use most often, sadly can't act as an asio device or a sound card, which is something I always liked about the FA.

I thought your Roland vs Yamaha observations were interesting. I actually had an opposite experience. I was, and still am, a Yamaha fanboy and for a long time I refused to get a Roland keyboard. They seemed to have a very dry stiff sound, to me it was almost like thin reinforced cardboard. Maybe that's because the sounds are used so much, maybe it's because many sounds are 20 years old and people still use them, but the latter is also true with Korg and I don't have quite as strong an impression of those sounds, so I don't really know what it is for sure. But when I heard the FA, I thought it deserved a proper chance, since I'd never owned a Roland product, just tried them and heard demos. When I played with the FA, I found many sounds to be similar to what I said above, but some of them, particularly the newer content, sounded fresher and more alive to me. My dislike for Roland sounds is probably a minority though, as I only know one other person who shares my opinion. I know probably a dozen now who adore the FA and I can definitely see why. Even though I don't like the sounds as much, I would never get rid of mine, as the synth action and many of the sounds are nice for gigging, which I've been doing more and more lately, despite my childhood oppositions to doing live performance.
Even the entry level PSR keyboards, while not being quite as attractive as the FA in terms of features, do have a sound I like, as Yamaha have done away with a lot of older generation sounds, particularly in the pop and some orchestral groups. I got the S970 because it is Yamaha's flagship PSR, so it's about as close to a Tyros as you can get. It's pricy though, I paid $2000 for it which is iirc twice the price of the FA, but I had money saved and I figured I needed to get something modern that would hold me for a few years at least. The s970 basically has the foundations of all the Tyros keyboards put together, even pulling a few resources from the new-ish Tyros 5. You don't get the more advanced patches or bleeding edge features, but you do get the essence, imho, of what makes the Tyros have its sonic character which I've always been attached to.

What makes the FA perhaps better than a PSR of a similar price point is that Roland gives you quite a fair selection of famous old sounds, and some new ones too, and to my limited knowledge they've been ported right over. I doubt I could listen to an identical set of sounds on the FA or JV or Integra, for example, and tell you which was used, because so long as the used patches are the same, they don't sound different between the synths. If you are a Roland fanboy, and even if you're not, this is a plus.

This is not the case with Yamaha. Even though they are based off each other, I can tell you pretty quickly if something is made with a PSR-S versus a Tyros, because the PSR-S has downgraded many sounds. Acoustic drum kits are a dead giveaway as they have been converted to mono. Newer brass and string ensembles have also gotten this treatment. Yamaha even acknowledges this to an extent. On the Tyros boards, some sounds have a "Live!" tag signifying that they are made specifically to emphasize natural stereo ambience. On budget keyboards, the patches that have been downgraded are conveniently relabeled as something else, often times just "regular" or something similar. To my delight, the s970 and s770 both have finally done away with this, and all voices that should be live are kept that way, although downgrading is certainly still done on cheaper boards. I don't mind that nearly as much, as I'm happy that nice versions of sounds that could only be found on Tyros are being filtered through to the mid range boards now.

Oddly, I am not a fan of the Motif, even though it's still Yamaha. I have a MO XF, and while I still use it, it sounds too big and thick for me, often having this pointy production sound if I can afford to put it that way. Because it's not based on XG specs and does a lot of things its own way, I have to do a lot more work to get the sound I want with an external sequencer like QWS. I often have to mess with Sysex to set things up in a way I like because the sound has too much focus to my taste. The PSR is much better about this, as any tweaks I make are just to enhance the defaults which I find as an excellent starting point. The FA also does this to an extent, though I like sequencing with it more in some ways as its sounds have a different character, one which lends itself well to its default setup. Still, to get the sound I'd want out of it, I'd still need to modify a lot of stuff, and modifying things is painful because Roland sysex messages are arduous to work with if you're like me and have only started getting into sysex editing. In the end, it depends on what kind of sound you're looking to achieve and what feature sets are most important to you, and I get the impression I am often the odd one out when it comes to these topics. It should go without saying that what I've said above is only my opinion, and I deeply respect those who enjoy the FA or other Roland products. I'm not trying to criticize in any way.

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2016-12-07 00:55:24

@raygrote,
Actually, your story and mine as far as keyboards go are fairly similar.  My psr was a 340 if I remember correctly and a key broke; lacking the wisdom of Solemon I uh, went and purchased another keyboard because why not, and it was newer, and maybe it'll sound better, and I was only 14 at the time and had the money to burn, and I think you get the point.  All my life though, I've been a Yamaha dude, Yamaha mixers, Yamaha speakers, Yamaha guitars, PV mics because I need something that isn't Yamaha so as not to be accused of being promotional or something.  I got the DGX500 which was overpriced as far as I'm concerned, and then I kind of gave it up for the Yamaha brand save the motifs, which is where you and I do differ a bit.  I like the concepts, the sounds, the extras; I want  an xf8 if I can ever get my hands on it.  what I cannot justify again, however, is the price.  It might bring me and my ears a ton of joy, but it's far too bulky.  You can't easily carry it around, which means you can't easily gig with it.
the FA, as you have noted above, is multipurposed, though I haven't figured out even half of it yet being new to the product and being unsure of where to begin with it.  I mentioned the Korg x50, but it's main purpose is performance synth, and given that Korg aren't exactly known for having comprehensive layouts, which is something I do miss immensely about Yamaha keyboards, I sold it for cheap when I got the FA.  Thus far, I've figured out how to access every onboard sound... I think.  I've figured out that I like the sampler's concepts, but it does seem a bit frustrating.  Beyond that, I'm still in the dark about the FA though.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2016-12-08 07:53:59

Yeah, I can definitely see where you're coming from on the XF. I have the XF6, and while it is light, the FA06 is lighter as you may know. I think the difference is about 3 or 4 pounds, which for a 61-key keyboard is fairly significant. Unfortunately my PSR-S970 is heavier than both keyboards, mainly because of its built-in speakers which I really don't have a significant use for. I don't remember exact weights and am too lazy to look them up, but the PSR is not my favorite for gigging. Its sounds need a bit of coaxing to get the best out of them in a mix, and I find they work better in sequences than they do for solo. Though for gigging I imagine they'd be just fine as well when you have a band over you.

I do wish the FA could import sample sets like the Juno series, so that you could make your own instruments. I would certainly use that, though I don't know how accessible that would be. The XF can do that, but I don't have flash memory for it yet and I would also need to purchase the XF editor to create the sounds. Not sure who makes the editor, but it is pretty accessible last I checked. Using custom samples on the XF may happen some day. The PSR can also do it now, and it comes with I think 512 MB of memory. However its expantion manager, made by Yamaha, is as inaccessible as is possible to get. That bums me out considerably.

Like you, I haven't really delved into the innards of any of my keyboards. Thus, I have a very superficial understanding of how to use most of their features. For a while I was trying to get to grips with the FA and XF tone editor screens, as I dabble quite a bit in sound and patch design, but just lost interest after a while. It would potentially be doable with a ton of patience and a sharp memory, but would also be tough no matter how you look at it. And because I'm not a hardware power user by trade, there are only really a few things that I would want to learn how to do with the keyboard. I am a strong proponent of making things as hastle free as possible for my own primary purposes, and if that takes an arm and a leg of frustration to set up, then I am more prone to give up, or to just limit myself to what the product will feseably let me accomplish, which is never a good feeling. I'm trying to break that pattern of forcing everything into my system so much, but it's obviously not easy, and frustrates me more than it inspires. Right now I spend most of my time sequencing as that is where I am most comfortable, and that work is done in software as I cannot stand hardware sequencers and a myriad of screens.

It's funny you mentioned the Korg X50. I don't have much experience with Korg, other than an X5D I think it was that I used in a music tech class in high school. It was old then, it's almost antique now, as it came out in the early 90s. But it has a very special place in my heart, as it's the cutting edge 90s sound that was so popular in its time. One of these days I'll try to get ahold of one on Ebay or something. A friend of mine who has a similar synth but in module form says the layout is simple, at least for the things we'd want to do. I can't comment on the X50 but from what I've heard from various groups, Korg has pretty much been hit or miss when it comes to OS and design choices.

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