Yamaha PLG150-DX User manual

Motif ES & PLG150-DX
Power User Plus Pack:
DX_Nosebleed
64 DX Board Voices and 64 Motif ES Plug-in Voices using that data
PluginAllBulk file (NOSEBLEE.w2b): Load this file through the FILE Type that matches your PLG150-DX
board. That is, PluginAllBulk1 if your PLG150-DX is in slot 1, PluginAllBulk2 if your PLG150-DX is in slot 2
and so on. These are PLG150-DX BOARD Voices for Board bank 035/000
DX SIMULATOR file (DX_NOSE.dxc): Open with the DX Simulator program. Within the Simulator open “DX
EDIT LIST” view. Provided for those curious to see how the Voices were made.
VOICE EDITOR for MOTIF ES file (Nose_s1.w2e); (Nose_s2.w2e); (Nose_s3.w2e): Open the file for your
Slot (S1, S2 or S3) with the Voice Editor for Motif ES or load it directly to the Motif ES via the VOICE EDITOR
File type. Open this file in the Editor to see how the Motif ES parameters were applied to the Board Voices to
make the PLG User Voices.
If you are new to the board see the PLG150-DX GETTING STARTED GUIDE downloadable from the
Motifator.com website: http://files.keyfax.com/download/PLG150DX_Motif.pdf

PLG150-DX Custom User Voice data
The DX synth engine is based on FM or Frequency
Modulation (yes, the same FM that is used for
radio – albeit that FM synthesis takes place mostly
in the audible frequency band – below 20kHz). To
gain an understanding of FM synthesis you have
to appreciate waveforms and how waveform
shapes are perceived by the human ear and brain.
Analog synthesizers began by electronically
creating ‘geometric’ waveforms, i.e., sine waves,
square waves, pulse waves, sawtooth waves etc.
These mathematically ‘perfect’ wave shapes do
not, by themselves, sound like musical
instruments that we know. But with the help of
filters (to remove some harmonics) and envelopes
to shape the sound, you could program some
crude musical instrument emulations. Describing
sound is always difficult it is always best to hear
the examples. But if you know what a sine wave
looks like (and you could not have gotten through
school in America without studying sine waves in
math class) you know that it is a smooth wavy
line that starts at 0, and at 90 degrees reaches
maximum returns to 0 at 180 degrees, then
reaches the lowest point a 270 degrees before
returning to 0 at 360 degrees and repeating.
Getting that math class headache yet?
Too bad they didn’t relate math to sound – it
might have made class much more interesting and
fun (at least for the future musicians, most of
whom were sound asleep). Well, roughly speaking
a sine wave is devoid of harmonics…er,
harmonics are like the fingerprint of the sound.
Your ear and brain use the harmonics of a sound
to identify it. Harmonics explain how you can tell
one person’s speaking voice from another, how
you can tell a trumpet playing A440 from a
trombone playing A440 – the harmonic content is
different. The instrument sounds with the least
amount of harmonic content sound “flute-like” to
our ears (a whistle has very few harmonics), while
a square wave – odd harmonics only – sounds
very much like a clarinet’s tone.
Pulse waves, the narrower they are the more
nasal they sound – oboe sounds are described as
nasal and so are clavinet sounds. Sawtooth wave
shapes give us a variety of sounds, both brass
and strings.
Selecting a waveform on an analog synth would
get you in the ballpark. And from the rough
descriptions I have given you here you could build
instrument emulations. But FM synthesis, as
introduced by the DX7, back in 1983 provided you
with these things called “operators” that only
output sine waves only. What to do? Many people
stopped right there and never explored the vast
sonic capability that lies within FM synthesis. To
make a long complex story short, the operators
were themselves complete little engines that could
influence the harmonic content of each other. The
output of one operator could be applied to the
input of another to create a more complex wave
shape. Like FM technology in radio broadcast
(where it is in the Megahertz range - far beyond
audible waveforms) there are Modulator and
Carrier. In the DX the frequency modulation takes
place at much lower frequencies (the range of
human hearing – so a crystal set is not necessary
to interpret the waveforms). The germ idea was
born when Dr. John Chowning, CCRMA at Stanford
University, was observing a violinist add vibrato to
a string. The bow (horsehair) is dragged across
the string (cat gut) causing the string to vibrate at
a known frequency. At the same time the
musician is applying a Low Frequency Oscillator
(the left hand) varying the length of the vibrating
string (lengthening and shorting the vibrating
area alters the pitch) – what is called applying
vibrato to the string. This LFO is applied at a rate
of a few oscillations per second, while the bow is
causing the string to oscillate at a much higher
rate (perhaps 440 cycles per second = A440).
Well, Dr. Chowning’s idea had to do with “what
if”…what if you sped the vibrato, the modulating
frequency, up into the audible frequency range
20-20,000 cycles per second, what would that do
to the overall response of the instrument? What
influence would that have on the tone/timbre of
the sound? That is how FM synthesis was born.1
The answer was a whole new method of creating
timbres was born.
To get into learning about FM synthesis it
is a good method to start out recreating the
geometric wave shapes we spoke of: sine, square,
pulse, sawtooth. Then you can build on these
familiar sounds and branch out. In FM the
‘Carrier’ is the signal that carries the sound you
hear – it is analogous to the bowed violin string –
its oscillation is audible. The ‘Modulator’ is the
signal that is applied to the carrier to modify the
sound – it is analogous to the vibrato applied by
the musician’s left hand. Although you hear its
effect on the sound, you do not hear the
modulator, directly. You hear its influence on the
1By the way he couldn’t find a musician capable of this
so he decided to do it electronically.
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carrier. Therefore when you see a diagram of an
FM algorithm, the carriers are always on the
bottom row and the modulators are stacked above
the carrier. Each carrier is audible directly, while
each modulator influences the timbre of the
operator beneath it. Stacks can become quite
complex, but only those operators on the bottom
of the algorithm chart are audible directly. You
can stack modulator on top of modulator and get
very complex tones – as you will hear from this
set. Operators can even modulate themselves
(called a feedback loop) and since output can be
controlled by velocity and other controllers you
have a degree of control over harmonic content
that samples can’t even dream about. So while
samples offer a very accurate wave shape to
start, your ability to manipulate on an organic
level is nil. FM wave shapes are not as emulative
of instruments to start but the behavior and
degree of control over harmonic content is
unprecedented.
In the algorithm above operators 1, 3, 4 and 5 are
Carriers (meaning you can hear their output)
while operators 2 and 6 are Modulators (means
their output is only heard by its affect on the
Carriers to which they are connected. Without the
Modulators each Carrier would sound only a ‘sine
wave’. Operator 6, above, is the feedback
operator (where the signal can get very complex
as it is fed back on itself – generating complex
sidebands).
When you have a simple 2-operator FM stack,
(like operator’s 2 and 1 above) Modulator/Carrier,
and the coarse tuning ratio of each is 1.00 and
the output of the modulator is about at ¾ output
(about 75), you will generate a fairly perfect
sawtooth waveform, 1:1. If you increase the ratio
of the modulator frequency so that it is 2:1 tuning
ratio to the carrier you will generate a square
wave. Any whole integer ratio 3:1, 4:1, 5:1 or
greater will generate an ever-narrowing pulse
wave. If the ratio is a non-whole integer
relationship, you will generate what would be
described as a ‘bell tone’. That is the
fundamentals of FM – of course, it can get very
much more complex (FM is a real form a
synthesis that can be studied at the college level),
with nested feedback loops and interaction
between operators. Filters were unnecessary in
the original FM synthesizer since you were
constructing the harmonic content more directly.
To really get into FM you need to understand side-
band frequencies and Bessel functions but most
FM synthesis can be carried out on an intuitive
basis once you understand the fundamentals.
If none of this interests you, it is okay. You can
just enjoy the sounds. But without much
exaggeration I can say that most of what is
possible with DX-style FM has yet to be explored.
And there are sounds that nothing but DX-style
FM can do. Notice I didn’t say it could do
everything – but there are sounds that nothing
else on the planet can do. It is estimated that
there are some 10,000 useable FM sounds out
there floating around. Some people insist they can
“sample” it – you can’t. Well, of course, you can,
but what you miss is the interaction of the
modulator and carrier within the sound. Each
operator has its own envelope, its own response
to velocity, etc. – this makes what happens within
the FM voice a ‘living’ thing – it is more organic
than can be captured in a simple sample of a
waveform. Envelopes and output indexes can be
influenced on a continuous basis, which in turn
changes the timbre of the sound as you increase
playing intensity – this is what cannot be
sampled. The tremendous success of the DX7
‘back-in-the-day’ was not based on anything more
than musicians thought that the sound was ‘cool’.
Most DX7 owners never programmed an FM Voice
– the least pressed button in the world was the
EDIT button on a DX7. It was way too complicated
– but a good lesson was learned here –
complexity comes in a paltry second to SOUND
when musician’s make up their mind they like
something. (Well, duh, most sax players don’t
have a clue about how a saxophone makes sound
and would be hard pressed to discuss Bernoulli’s
principle and the Graham Non-linear curve, and
just what is hysteresis and the fricative value and
what does it have to do with saxophone tone?)
However, if you want to get involved with
programming and tweaking FM – you will find
your results their own reward. There is an
excellent tutorial on-line at the Yamaha Digital
Music World site – with a number of lessons
taking you through the world of sine waves and
operators – and the first ‘synthesizers’.
Visit the FM Tone Generator Seminar at:
http://www.digitalmusicworld.com/html/hardw
are/SynthsTutorial.asp
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The VOICES
Many of the sounds here are the full 16-note poly
and some of the sounds are reduced to just 4-
notes of polyphony, and some are mono.
Depending on how you want to use the timbre
you can change this. Listed below are the names
of the Voices and the 4-note poly voices are
identified. These take advantage of the UNISON
POLY function (this parameter double-folds the
sound for a thicker timbre). The UNISON POLY
parameter was added to the FM structure when
the DX7IIFD and the TX802 hit the market in late
1986. These parameters were not available on the
original 1983 first generation of programmable 6-
operator FM synths: DX7, DX5, DX1, TX7, TX816.
If polyphony is an issue for you, navigate to the
DX Simulator’s “EDIT LIST” view - there you will
find the UNISON Switch. Set this to OFF and you
will have 16 note polyphony on the sound. For
those of you wanting more polyphony for the FM
sounds, you can add a second or third PLG150-DX
board to your host and activate the POLY EXPAND
function found in the Motif ES’s UTILITY mode/ F6
PLUG/ SF1 Status. The UNISON POLY mode is
about timbre – many of the sounds are musical
effects and polyphony is not such a big issue.
Because of how musical sounds and ‘stuff’2are
generated in the DX engine, the programmers
would use a 2-operator stack (minimum) to
generate a complex tone. This is why an item like
the TX-Rack became so popular at over $4,000 –
it could be expanded to house eight DX7 modules
called TF1s – that’s eight 6-operator engines. The
TX816 original Voices sets, (and Yamaha only did
one or two official Voice sets), had great detail.
There was a Rhodes sound that had 24 different
sound components, including the knock of the
hammer, the tine, the tone bar, the ‘fling’ of the
felt, etc. It was a real shame – but most recording
studios owned TX816s and no one ever did any
programming beyond stacking a sound eight
times (which really only made it louder). Then
they would compound their lunacy by detuning
each module up or down a tuning increment – this
‘bad’ programming accounted for most of the DX
Rhodes sounds you hear on records from the ‘80’s
– poorly utilized and was mainly responsible for
the misconception that you had to layer sounds
because FM was thin. Not necessarily so! What
was done in the original TX816 programs was the
additional TF1 modules were used for details
2“Stuff” is a word that was adopted by the early
programmers of FM to describe a noise or artifact that
accompanies the creation of a musical tone. It’s the
acoustic noise inside a Clavinet as the hammer releases,
it’s the quill falling back on a harpsichord, it’s the finger
noise on the acoustic guitar string, etc.
(knocks, and noises…i.e., the “stuff”). Oh well. So
many were sold that it was inevitable that it would
be misunderstood.
If you add a second or third DX board and
you turn the POLY EXPAND parameter to ON, the
boards will combine and follow the board Voice
selected by the lowest numbered slot. For
example you place a DX board in slots 1 and 2,
you will now have 32 notes of polyphony and you
will use the PLG1 Voice mode button to select
Voices. POLY EXPAND is just what it says – it
allows you to expand the polyphony. If you want
to layer sounds to get more complexity you would
leave each 16-note engine as a separate synth
and program them separately.
These sounds were derived from the
Yamaha LoopFactory DX200 and were
reprogrammed for use in the Motif ES.
The LOAD:
As is the way with the Yamaha synth engine plug-
in boards you have two files. One is the custom
PLG150-DX Board Voices that will load into the
board’s own user RAM bank (035/000), and the
second is the Motif ES level Plugin Voices that I
created to show off these sounds. Remember the
DX7 had no effects processor of its own (they
didn’t exist back in that day, circa 1983-88), so
the Motif ES level PLUG-IN VOICES use the
custom DX board data as the waveform but frame
them with the powerful functions and effect
processing of the Motif ES. Truly the best of both
worlds – I have provided both the “PluginAllBulk”
for the three possible slots (.w2b/.w3b) – load
through the type for your board’s slot; an
additional file that can be opened in the DX
Simulator for those interested in exploring
deeper into FM programming (.dxc). This contains
the same data but allows you to see the edit
parameters – provided strictly for those that want
to learn more about FM synthesis. Plus, of course,
the Motif ES level Voice data in a VOICE EDITOR
For MOTIF ES file (.w7e/.w8e) provided.
• Copy the .w2b/w3b bulk files to a
SmartMedia card and if you are not
running the VOICE EDTIOR, copy the
.w7e/w8e files to the card as well;
Parameters you should know about:
Note Shift:
If you wish to note shift any of the PLUG-IN
Voices, you will find the NOTE SHIFT parameter
for a PLG150 sound by:
Press EDIT
Press Track 1 to select Element Edit
Press F1 OSC
Press SF5 OTHER
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Overall Velocity Curve:
Because of the dynamic response of FM to velocity
and the potential for overly bright sounds on
extreme velocity, you may wish to tailor the
velocity curve of the PLG150-DX to mimic the
original DX7. To do this navigate to the PLUG-IN
board parameters:
Press UTILITY
Press F6 PLUG
Press the SF “NATIVE” button that corresponds to
the slot you have the PLG150-DX installed. Set
the VelCurve to DX7.
Bank Select: From Voice mode press the PLG
button that contains your PLG150-DX board, then
use the F2 Bank option to select among the
banks. If you have loaded the data properly you
should see data in the Board bank (035/000) and
in the PLG_USR bank. The first sound in both
cases will be “Cp: Nosebleed”. The 035/000 Board
bank will be without the host’s effects applied. The
Voice in the PLG_USR bank will have effects.
Poly/Mono Mode: You can change any of the
sounds to mono mode either at the Element level
(in the DX Simulator) or from the Plug-in Voice
level. To do this at the Plug-in Voice level:
-Press EDIT
-Press COMMON to select overall parameters
-Press F1 General
-Press SF2 PlyMode (polyphony mode)
BOARD VOICES
Select Bank 035/000 to hear the raw PLG150-DX
Board Voice Elements (without effects).
PLUG-IN VOICES
Select the PLGxUSR bank to hear the completed
Plugin Voices (where ‘x’ is the slot of your
PLG150-DX) with effects.
Nosebleed Voice Bank
1 Nosebleed: Algorithm 5 –
A favorite for sounds with complex attacks and
very different sustains. This algorithm more than
any other was a favorite for the classic electric
piano sound of the original DX7. Each two-
operator stack was responsible for a different part
of the sound. Operators 1, 3 and 5 are sounding
(carriers) and 2, 4 and 6 are modifiers
(modulators). Here the complex tuning of a bell
tone is emulated. This hard mallet sound is very
characteristic of the FM – as one early reviewer of
the DX7 said… it is very easy to make bell sounds
with FM…well yes, any relationship other than
whole integer ratios between operators will render
a bell tone (that is physics). Note the tuning of
the operators: 0.825, 4.11, 2.80, 4.00, 2.00 and
3.48. On the Motif ES parameter side, the
INSERTION EFFECTS are the AUTO PAN and
AMBIENCE. (Hint: to view the Motif ES level
programming, press the INFORMATION button
from the main Voice screen. Bypass the
INSERTION EFFECT to hear the basic FM tone.
2 KlingKlang: Algorithm 7 –
The name says it all here. This is another big bell
tone with a fixed frequency component at
operator 4, which contributes the knock or thump
of the klanger at 371.5Hz.
3 Swimming: Algorithm 26 –
Musical Effect: Operators 1, 2 and 3 make up the
cool bass tone, while 4, 5 and 6 are the piercing
effect. This is one of those sounds you can use as
a bass (if played with a good amount of velocity)
or a sound effect (when played lightly).
4 Ethnectric: Algorithm 14
Two stacks 1-2, and the complex 3, 4, 5, 6 with
Op4 modulated by both 5 and 6. This has a
distinctive wooden tone with mallet. Bypass the
Motif ES Effects to hear just the FM sound. The
arpeggio and the Tempo Delays are added at the
Motif ES level.
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