Once you've finished watching this, you may be interested in a more 90s gaming perspective video on the Yamaha MU series, expertly done by @speedy dtm: ua-cam.com/video/PF9ul5JFAH0/v-deo.html
This was a great demo on how to make use of an Encarta 99 package. And not even one comment on the period specific Encarta 99 IN THE FREAKING BOX holding it all up? A real knowledge base! :)
@@mr_floydst Hehe! I've never seen one in the box like that, even back in the day working at a computer shop. They always came in plain OEM packs with MS Money, Works etc. Pretty cool you've found a retail edition! :)
@@screamengine I've had this sitting in my shelf for 25 years now. Perhaps because I was taught that throwing away books is a cardinal sin ;-) And Encarta kind of was a book.
@bornach You're not wrong. ;-) I have faith in humanity, though. Our bullshit detectors are ever-evolving, and while everyone was wowed by AI art and content in late 2023, we're already weary of it. For the moment, AI pictures and texts are relatively easy to spot - the same, strangely glossy style of AI art and the somewhat corporate woolsheet sounding style of AI texts have become all-too-familiar, and when a company uses it, I assume they had no money to hire an actual artist or journalist.
I was a product specialist for Yamaha in Australia in the XG era - we imported one MU2000 to check viability in the market, but decided against it. This has been a very enjoyable nostalgic trip for me. Thanks, Floyd. I will definitely have to fire it up again 😎
Thanks for sharing your story! I'd be interested why you decided against it. I guess the era of MIDI boxes was coming to an end, as people had increasingly powerful computers and soundcards?
@@mr_floydst I guess mostly the market felt restricted with GM/GS/XG and their more limited editing capabilities. Yamaha were pushing into the CS-Series (and soon Motif) and the whole DSP Factory was lifting the quality of sound cards (thankfully). (All those sound blasters in PCs and the only recognisable name on the card was Yamaha on the sound chip. Endless calls from customers about installing the card because of that. Aaahhhhh!) It always felt weird to me to have an XG module like the 128 with such hi-tech synthesis like PLG-AN and VL cards installed - a paradox for me, anyway.
@@mr_floydst hey Floyd, I've been doing some cleanup in the studio since we chatted before, and found a bunch of PLG cards from the demo days - PF, DR, PC, VH and something else I haven't figured out yet. Most of mine have 3xx serial numbers, which means they are pre-production units. I'll let you know 😁
It's a great little box. I got mine earlier this year and actually opted for a non-EX version to save some money and upgrade it myself. Was indeed worth the trouble!
Agreed, I decided this one will stay in my collection. It's always nice to have a GM box around. You get to know the sounds and where they are, no need for browsing and editing (and forgetting your musical idea that made you switch on the device in the first place) ;-)
Thanks for showing this. I underestimated the sounds on this magic box. I upgraded my MU128 to the MU2000 a while back, believing i could play its sounds over USB. I could never find the English version of the User guide till now. It turns out the USB is only for MIDI. The MU128 allowed me to play 3 PLG cards, while the MU2000 for some unknown reason will only show one card. And yes, I changed the value of the partassign.
Thanks for watching! Yes, the USB was for MIDI only - you can use that SPDIF port for digital transmission - there are some relatively cheap audio interfaces that actually have that kind of optical input, for example amzn.to/3WRykQy I have no experience yet with those PLG cards because mine _still_ is stuck in customs. :-/ So I hope some of my viewers can help you (if you scroll through the comments, some people stated they have maxed out the slots)
I love the MU2000EX! As well as often showcasing it on my channel, though I am more gaming focused. It is makes MIDI based games from the 90s sound incredible. I also have the PLG150-DR card as well as the 150-VL. Yamaha really delivered with this line, and if i could only have one MIDI module. This would be it.
Thanks for watching! Yes, these boxes were "external soundcards" in the first place, hence all the gunshot, helicopter, rain and storm sounds". Right, let's take a look at your channel, then. :-)
Quite an impressive little box! Another excellent video there Dr. Steinberg. Honestly, I think I much prefer the sounds of the MU-series GM units over the Roland Sound Canvas ones. This one especially, since it came out at the end of the 90s. Some of these patches sound absolutely massive.
@@6581punk Yep. I'm still not finished with my XG editor but slowly getting there ;-) github.com/mrfloydst/webxgmidi Basically, it is a subtractive synth with everything you'd expect from one. (only the sustain phase in the Amp envelope is not editable, strangely) A subtractive synth with 128 voices, that is.
There is a fantastic Classical music demo using the MU2000ex with a PLG150-VL board, which has a lot of effort put into the controller data. Listen to it here ua-cam.com/video/tUgTRdZ37nQ/v-deo.html
People online saying the MU sounds are thin, totally misunderstand how and why Yamaha created those sounds as they did. If every sound was "phatt" it would be a nightmare to sequence with all in one box. Yamaha know what they are doing, they made sounds that dovetail perfectly when mixed together. If you want a massive sound, just use Performance mode and you can get any sound you like! I downloaded a custom set of Performance patches in the late 1990s, which I might upload at some point as its very good.
Thanks! Well, if you're into 90's digital synths and you were one of the kids that browsed the coolest patches on the newest synths after school in your favourite music shop... Then this is a dream come true ;-) It also looks quite stylish with its subtle golden finish.
@mr_floydst I bought a Korg x5 way way back in the 1990s . I loved it and it got damaged . I was looking for a midi file player sometime later and the model you are describing here or one like it was a contender . In the end I bought a Korg Triton and used the floppy disk with a volume of midi files.
I have been working as Yamaha Product Specialist for Yamaha Europe Expert Division between 1992-2002 and worked a lot with all GM/XG/GM2 modules since the very first one - TG100, besides many other instruments. I have kept the MU128 as the best XG module which I could get in Europe. I use it with UX256 MIDI interface with To Host connection which allows me to use 64 MIDI channels + 16 from other instrument connected to MIDI Out, and I have installed two VL and one AN plugin cards. I still have MU128, but after moving to Japan I've got finally MU2000EX a few years ago. I still don't work much with it, I want to try also USB connection if it can use all 64 channels.
@@mr_floydst There are many, just to name some: 54 new presets, 3 new drum sets, 4 sample drum sets, 256 sample presets, new audio FX, new A/D settings, USB, SM card, digital output, sequence player, GM2 compatibility (MU128 after upgrade)... Not everybody knows that TG300B mode is fully compatible with Roland GS, and contains also two banks of old Roland C/M standard (from LA instruments like MT32, D series...).
Thanks! I might design one and release all the files on github. This is a highly competitive market, and I reviewed the Wave Industries Monkey some weeks ago, which propably is the smallest master keyboard possible ua-cam.com/video/V6iA643FbLM/v-deo.html I also tried to talk Mr. Pit Przygodda into decoupling his ingenius controller for the Silhouette Eins synth into a standalone controller and I think he's on it. ;-) (That one is a small screen that has physical encoders on it, so the labels, colours and indicators can be swapped dynamically)
@@mr_floydst How did I miss your vid on the monkey! Thanks. That would work, but of course I would definitely be interested in making whatever you designed too. I keep buying stuff you recommend and loving it, lol.
Great demonstrations! I'm glad I managed to pick one up before the eBay prices got too unreasonable. It gets even more expensive when you start to expand it, mine has the AN, DX and DR expansion cards in it and I'd like to get the VL card someday. I wonder why it was never released outside Japan, it seems to have sold very well over there by how many are still on the used market.
Thanks for watching! I'm still waiting for my PLG card, why on earth are they inspecting it for so long? ;-) The prices on ebay seem to be quite reasonable at the moment - around $250, sometimes less - customs taxes not included, though.
@@specialbinson search for PLG150-AN PLG150-DX and so on. The AN is the sound engine from the Yamaha AN1x, the DX is the FM engine from the DX7, the VL is a virtual acoustic simulation and the DR is just more drumkit samples.
@@specialbinson AN = analog synths you will find the same card PLG-150-AN used in AN200 , the DX = Is FM synth eg DX7 , the same card PLG-150-DX was used in the DX200. The VL - Is a Physical Modeling Card for realistic sound modeling, it has some great Sax sounds but is monophonic, Wind & synths. The same tech is used in MU70m. Great for wind controllers. DR = drum sounds. There was a Piano card and an Effects card too. I've got the AN200 , DX200, VL & DX cards. oh and the MU70m.
@@mr_floydst is it now? I had no idea tbh. I am from 73, went to sae when i was 17. So i had my fair share so to speak. But true in my setup there is not one device with that logo anymore. Ha! You still remember emu soundfonts? I had 32mb ram on my awe32🥷
@@MapleSonics Yep, GM still is kind of relevant for arranger keyboards. If you're a wedding singer, you'll want that high quality MIDI version of "Movie Star", right? ;-) The Roland SC and Yamaha MU boxes could do more than most people perceived, but I can totally see why they ended up in a dead end.
@@mr_floydst Ah right. Arranger keyboards. Since i saw Ben Jordann go at on those, i have a deep respect for these devices. Not useful for my case, but respect for sure! I remember the MU2000, there was a time that i thought that this would be the one module i would need. But i did not have any money🤣.
Thanks for watching! The amp sims on this thing are a mixed bag - they can sound great for certain styles, but they're clearly showing their age. Distortion, with a few exceptions, sounds quite artificial. 80s rythm guitars are spot on.
i know that sometimes theres no beating physical hardware, but you can use an ipad or a smartphone that does midi, 808, 909, anything and everything under the sun, i feel like old midi devices like the sound canvas are cool novalties but we cary around single board all in one computers around with us every day and they are much more capable
Yes, you're right. I have to add that this video wasn't meant as a sales pitch, more as a history lesson/nostalgia vehicle ;-) Which smartphone app would you use instead of for example this box?
I still use an SW1000XG in an old PC that runs Windows XP and Windows 7. XG Midi is way more than just General Midi. Once you get the hang of it you can create amazing sounds. That's because you can manipulate everything. I use different templates to work on some synth ideas. Unfortunately Yamaha put a lid on the whole thing in the early 2000s. That's probably because XG Midi didn't do as well as expected. Not too many people were able to afford an XG device because they were pretty expensive.
Thanks for your feedback! I think I mentioned that a couple of times in the video (and I also wrote an XG editor for browsers that I also mentioned in the video ;-) I agree, I wish GM/XG (or at least the control templates) still were a thing. Most manufacturers kind of stick to these conventions, but you can't rely on it.
i wish companies would sell gear at lower prices. that would make G.A.S guys happy you could try it to see if the concept works for you. everybody who thinks he might have a use case could get one more units would be sold even if some might not even be unboxed.
I'm fully behind that ;-) I'm afraid it won't happen soon. R&D of custom chipsets and software, like in this device, takes a lot of time and knowledge, so even if the material and manufacturing costs are quite low, companies will have to consider the street price thoroughly. For us, there's always ebay, and doing some synth archeology, finding obscure late 90s hardware ;-)
I have a QY-700 sequencer and an Mu-2000EX with PLG DX, SG, VL PLG boards. I also have a Windows 98 machine that runs XGWorks, SOL, PolyVL, and SYXG-100 with an SW1000XG card. I kinda went nuts with the late 90s/early 2000s XG-MIDI stuff.
Sitting down on a christmas morning, exploring thevery first Encarta together with my dad, after several hard years of puberty fighting definitely is one of the memories I have. :-)
That beat was so ubiquitous for decades, and Soul 2 Soul started that trend with "Back 2 Life". It was later picked up by "Enigma" and after that, it was everywhere. The original sample is from a band called "Grand Central Station". My suspicion is that this sample is much more widely used then the "Amen break", but I'm too lazy to prove my point with data ;-)
The MU2000 can use .DLS sounds too (similar to Soundfont but it's was made by the MIDI manufacturer's association). I'd recommend using Yamaha Cardfiler instead of Windows to manage the smartmedia card data. Supposedly Windows support for smartmedia cards is poor and it can sometimes corrupt the file system. Cardfiler accesses the card over the USB port though the MU2000 so windows never touches it. Cardfiler works fine with windows 11 btw.
More information on DLS here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLS_format The only applications I know of for making DLS banks is Awave Studio and Directmusic which was part of DirectX (DirerctX uses DLS as the format for the GS software synthesizer's sound banks). AWave can be used to do some pretty cool things like convert an amiga .MOD's samples into a DLS bank and then iirc it can also convert the tracker data to a MIDI and play it on the MU2000 using the DLS bank you created (MODs that use certain effects may not be accurate) EDIT I played around with that a long long timer ago but I can't remember if I used Awave or something else to convert the tracker data to MIDI.
Sounds good even today. I always wondered what was the general midi rom size, I mean how much memory was needed to make an instrument to support general midi sounds? 🤔
Hi, thanks for watching! The ROM size of early GM boxes was 2 to 4MB. The Kawai Gmega for example only had snippets of sounds that then blended into virtual analog / modeling sounds.
MU2000 have in total over unique 1300 instruments in XG and GX mode combined. As far as I can recall, MU10 has over 600 instruments and 4MB of on board memory. Both are base on Yamaha AWM2 which is A LOT more than just a sampler in terms of tweaking the instrument.
MU50/MU10/DB50XG/SW60XG had 4MB compressed ROM (or 12 MB uncompressed) MU80 - 8MB compressed MU100 and SW1000XG used 20MB compressed ROM MU2000 perhaps uses the same 20MB compressed bank from MU100, but adds more instruments by combining the existing sounds
XG standard itself was the final boss of General MIDI. I still have SW1000XG card, I did countless stuff with it. I have to check if I can somehow run it with my Win11 computer that has no PCI slots :D
You're propably searching for this: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006378040469.html ? XG specification wasn't bad (but it was missing some things, and other things were just too complicated to use, e.g. LFO destinations and control) It would have been nice if they had sticked to it.
@@mr_floydst yeah, I have a notebook, so PCIE won't do either :D and I don't think there are drivers for that card anyway. But MU2000 over USB looks intriguing and the sounds from SW1000XG are all there (since the SW was just MU1000 in card form) My biggest gripe was exactly what you describe, a lot of things were difficult to control, especially over sysex. I literally handcrafted sysex messages in DAW, it was tedious but the end results speak for themselves (I have some songs recorded over on my channel).
@@mr_floydst More like playing through many of the presets of this synth. If someone would be interested in buying a MU, they'd want to know how do the basses, guitars, organs, pads etc sound in general but currently there's no comprehensive resource like that anywhere on the internet. There are lots of demo songs available but that's not really the same thing as hearing the presets individually.
Hey, I see you got the RK008 too! Nice! The MU2000 doesn't sound bad. I see them on eBay for around € 225,-. But I think I'll stick with Fluidsynth (on Linux). On eBay the units are sold with a 120 volt adapter. Was yours supplied with a 220 volt one? (But I think you can use any 12v 2A DC adapter. They are widely available. Or even an Ultracell lead battery, like I use for my Hydrasynth.)
I saw it on Superbooth in every other booth and had a very nice chat with Gerrit from Retrokits. Bought the thing online after the show and he kindly provided me with a Retrokits survival package ;-) (I'll show those gadgets on upcoming videos, especially that programmable MIDI cable is quite something)
Any DC input, except not just any! I've got MU128 and when playing its piano, I got a feeling that something is not right. When playing chords, the sound was somehow off. It was missing harmonics or something. Solution: changed the power supply to something that has bigger ampere rating. MU128 (and possibly 2000 too) has two DSP chips as I recall. Surprising things can happen when they overload the power supply :)
These boxes were basically synthesizers using small samples as OSC waves. I have a TG-300 which share many similarities with this and you can basically have up to 16 synths playing at the same time. To bad people do not understand what MIDI and GM really is, nowadays.
Yes, that's not common knowledge. GM had a very bad rep right from the start because people totally misunderstood its intention. It was about making music files exchangable, so you could play back roughly the same music regardless of your setup. This was great for games and small live performers (street buskers, wedding singers...) People only saw the 128 standard GM sounds and got tired quickly. Of course it didn't really help that all but a few GM devices came with 2 line LCDs and 8 buttons. ;-)
@@mr_floydst Yes, exchangability of professionally made multichannel arrangements was the main idea behind GM. Still the full compatibility between GM modules, GM patch banks in synthesizers, arranger keyboards or computer sound cards doesn't exist - sounds were produced by different types of synthesis, in different quality, and lot of parameters were not standardized (like velocity curves...) so songs sound differently in different machines.
1:16 Nah, the MU2000 runs on DC power through a standard 5.5 mm barrel plug. Any AC power adapter that runs at 12 volts and has the minimum 2 amps should work fine even if the adapter is from Europe.
@@mr_floydst I would like to know if it is possible to connect 2 or more keyboards so that each one can be assigned a different sound. Is there a MIDI channel programming for this? Are the jacks on the front for analog input activated by programming or do they already work by default? Does the MIDI input also work by default or does it have to be activated? Can I play rhythms and bass accompaniment like a normal expander? What do you use to modulate the effects? I am referring to the box with the knobs, what brand is it and how is it connected? Many thanks.........
@@specialbinson You can actually connect 2 keyboards to the MIDI in A/B ports simultaneously. But you could also chain them: Keyboard A (channel 1) goes into Keyboard B (channel 2) goes into the MU2000, which will achieve the same thing, you can play two different sounds at once. The audio in ports are always on, but you'll want to set them up to use effects. This is not an arranger. If you want to be accompanied by drums and bass, you'll need an external sequencer. The MU2000 can play back MIDI files though, if you have a Smartmedia card you can load your drum/bass tracks onto those and play them back without external hardware, plug in microphone and guitar and play along. The controllers in the video are "Grid" controllers by intech. You can use any MIDI controller with knobs to do this. I also made a Web App some time ago that lets you control all those parameters with a touch screen. (Please scroll down my video list to find that)
nvm i found i need to use SMF Format 0 , i used XGworks software to convert my midi's , if there easier way to convert all of my midi let me know pelase
They share a common ancestor ;-) The edirol sd-80 came some years later. The idea that a hardware synth should be GM/GS/XG compatible faded away during the 2000s.
GS means Roland General Standard, not GM (= General MIDI). It offers more features than GM. Yamaha here went against MIDI standard and some modules with GS can receive and process Roland SysEx messages.
I once got the MU90 used in the early 2000s and so disliked the sound I immediately got rid of it. A lot of the 90s Romplers have this plastic sound. I even prefer OPL3 FM or YM2149 over these. The only digital synths that still hold up today to me are E-MU UltraProteus, the Ensoniqs and of course Kurzweil K2000/K2500.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Out of curiosity - what do you mean by "plastic sound"? Is it the preset patches? The effects? The selection of onboard samples? (I had the same feelings on the Roland Fantom X6 later that decade, it seemed so bland and uninspiring ;-)
@@mr_floydst Hi, you’re welcome :). it seems to me that many of the 90s synths have some muffling going on, even with rather simple patches like lead synths or strings. Maybe it’s compression, maybe aliasing, I really don’t know. There’s a blog entry from some guy who massively improved the D/A circuit of a Roland RA90 and this sounded really impressive afterwards. To me, here‘s quite some difference between an Ensoniq TS/MR and the MUs, SoundCanvas and even JVs/XVs. The Fantom is different to me but I also found it not very inspiring.
That "Electronic Kit" drum patch is, I think, unparalleled. It's like some sort of gated reverb setup, but it's like someone took the snare sound from Metallica's black album and multiplied it by 10. I had a Yamaha PSR-320 keyboard and it had that kit. The 'room' and 'rock' kits sound entirely unrealistic and strange.
Someone really needs to make an SD card to Smartmedia card adapter for all these old samplers that use smartmedia cards. It can't be that hard because smartmedia cards didn't have any kind of memory controller it was just a flash chip broken out to contacts on the card and none of the devices that used them had any sort of flash memory leveling either so the interface is quite simple. Wouldn't even need a mold or anything you could just use a PCB of the right thickness with the contacts on the PCB and an STM32 chip to handle emulating the flash memory.
These adapters existed and sometimes they pop up on ebay. But there's no open source one (at least that I know of - perhaps my viewers know something?)
@@mr_floydst Those are for converting XD cards to Smartmedia. XD and smartmedia cards are electrically almost the same thing which is why they work, there's is no electronics in them it's literally just an pinout adapter. There are XD to SD card adapters but those require a specific camera that supports that. The electronics to convert the SD card to XD is actually in the camera which seems weird but those specific cameras were designed to use SD cards via an SD card to XD adapter for some reason.
Thanks for watching! I paid 250, but with an additional 50 of customs taxes. My videos are not meant to be sales pitches :-) Great sounding electronic music can be made on a $50 Android phone.
@@mr_floydst Just realised there was encarta box in the picture.. I had my pirated from school and it was used for the school purposes. The time when you had to change text not to look like encarta😅
@@vvvorlds Haha, yes, those were the days ;-) "Hey, a team of experts has made all these efforts to collect all the information a typical high school student should know / could use for his research. Now, we absolutely don't want you to use that in your homework, kkthxbye"
No idea why I watched this, always hated General MIDI! This thing sounds good though, and is really powerful. I was surprised how good some of the pads sounded, I reckon with some editing, stacking a load of layers and a good dose of Supermassive, this could make some absolutely epic ambient stuff.
I don't think that's possible ;-) You can add plugin cards to get some of the sound engines also found in the EX5, though. (My PLG150-AN _still_ is stuck in customs as I write this, I wonder what they're doing with it, creating some fire beats perhaps?)
@@mr_floydst They run on identical tone generators, like most Yamahas from 1997 till about 2002 (MU modules, samplers, synths, workstations). Just need software translated, pretty much. Easiest way would be PC software emulation of SWP30, or FPGA recreation, or port the software and run on original, like I mentioned (maybe AI can help - run on different MPUs). Should be basically possible...
I didn't open up both to check, but the EX5 has more RAM / Sample RAM, and additional DSPs for those AN, VL and FDSP engines, plus more audio and controller inputs/outputs (plus all those knobs and buttons). So while the core might be the same and it might be possible to run parts of the EX5's firmware, one would definitely need the source code of the OS to swap it. (Plus, I think investing the hours into creating a proper EX5 VST plugin would be the way to go, I think ;-)
@@mr_floydst Official documents disclose more, and more precisely, than merely opening. But EX5/7's downfall is overworking itself with too many tradeoffs and Yamaha's typical emphasis on technicality over usability. Clearly you didn't check, or you'd see there aren't any additional DSP for EX series (of course, sample/fx/firmware RAM/ROM capacities are different, not to mention hardware UI and I/O.) But the core for same synthesis is there. Already in process of being emulated for MAME.
the issue? the result or the wav file sounded Nintendo? does not matter if you plugged the best equipment w Midi into it, it will recall using Yamaha equiv data and churned out banal sound and not so the best imho??
Hi, thanks for watching! Hey, my videos are not meant to be sales pitches. I try to show things I find interesting and try to show them in an interesting way. I didn't claim that this is a box that belongs into any professional music studio; but it could be a thing to have fun with. That's all. That being said, I thought my demo at the end of the video didn't sound _that_ bad, right? The basses are quite powerful and the filter sweeps are as well.
Great demo, but will we ever see a day when A.I. takes over midi? I struggle with midi and would love to just tell a computer what I am trying to do with midi and it would handle all the routing
I'm pretty sure we'll get there soon (somebody has to actually go and create that software, the tech is there). But I guess you'll just end up with different frustrations as AI is not really precise.
Well, uhm. I hope this is a humorous post. ;-) If not, I'll happily take part in the inevitable discussion - any user interaction here will help this video getting more exposure. That being said, a "white train" is a train carrying nuclear weapons. It's also a single by british synth pop group Bananarama (which is referring above mentioned weapon-carrying trains in its lyrics, cold war and everything)
I'm not the biggest or most important "UA-camr" in the world. I'm just a hobbyist musician, I don't do gigs and I don't work in a studio. And so far, of the big companies, no one reached out to me to give a a high end synth / workstation to play around with. So cheap but interesting gear it is. ;-)
The cinch outputs are noisy and scream "consumer level". These boxes were created as external sound cards for gaming enthusiasts in the first place and this specific box has "Karaoke!" written all over it. :-) Professional musos might want to use the Digital output, but in 2024, just use a DAW and some free VSTs.
Once you've finished watching this, you may be interested in a more 90s gaming perspective video on the Yamaha MU series, expertly done by @speedy dtm: ua-cam.com/video/PF9ul5JFAH0/v-deo.html
This was a great demo on how to make use of an Encarta 99 package. And not even one comment on the period specific Encarta 99 IN THE FREAKING BOX holding it all up? A real knowledge base! :)
It was a visual gimmick for you to spot, and you did! :-)
@@mr_floydst Hehe! I've never seen one in the box like that, even back in the day working at a computer shop. They always came in plain OEM packs with MS Money, Works etc. Pretty cool you've found a retail edition! :)
@@screamengine I've had this sitting in my shelf for 25 years now. Perhaps because I was taught that throwing away books is a cardinal sin ;-) And Encarta kind of was a book.
@@mr_floydstThe value of those old encylopedias will only increase with age. They haven't yet been contaminated with AI generated slop!
@bornach You're not wrong. ;-)
I have faith in humanity, though. Our bullshit detectors are ever-evolving, and while everyone was wowed by AI art and content in late 2023, we're already weary of it. For the moment, AI pictures and texts are relatively easy to spot - the same, strangely glossy style of AI art and the somewhat corporate woolsheet sounding style of AI texts have become all-too-familiar, and when a company uses it, I assume they had no money to hire an actual artist or journalist.
I was a product specialist for Yamaha in Australia in the XG era - we imported one MU2000 to check viability in the market, but decided against it. This has been a very enjoyable nostalgic trip for me. Thanks, Floyd. I will definitely have to fire it up again 😎
Thanks for sharing your story! I'd be interested why you decided against it. I guess the era of MIDI boxes was coming to an end, as people had increasingly powerful computers and soundcards?
@@mr_floydst I guess mostly the market felt restricted with GM/GS/XG and their more limited editing capabilities. Yamaha were pushing into the CS-Series (and soon Motif) and the whole DSP Factory was lifting the quality of sound cards (thankfully). (All those sound blasters in PCs and the only recognisable name on the card was Yamaha on the sound chip. Endless calls from customers about installing the card because of that. Aaahhhhh!) It always felt weird to me to have an XG module like the 128 with such hi-tech synthesis like PLG-AN and VL cards installed - a paradox for me, anyway.
@@mr_floydst hey Floyd, I've been doing some cleanup in the studio since we chatted before, and found a bunch of PLG cards from the demo days - PF, DR, PC, VH and something else I haven't figured out yet. Most of mine have 3xx serial numbers, which means they are pre-production units. I'll let you know 😁
Congrats! You're by far my favourite UA-cam music making & diy gear channel! Please keep going with more MIDI gear content, love it!
Thank you very much! I have some more programming & midi stuff videos coming up :)
Such a thick, complex and warm sound!
Thanks! I like it, too.
It's a great little box. I got mine earlier this year and actually opted for a non-EX version to save some money and upgrade it myself. Was indeed worth the trouble!
Agreed, I decided this one will stay in my collection. It's always nice to have a GM box around. You get to know the sounds and where they are, no need for browsing and editing (and forgetting your musical idea that made you switch on the device in the first place) ;-)
Encarta 98 as a stand is golden :)
This is brilliant.... it's pretty much a 90s / 00s workstation+class sound in a smaller box ... expertly demoed... 👍👍
Thank you very much!
Amazing, it has got small flexing pixel dude there!
You can create your own animations with SysEx even!
4 Way EP sounds AMAZING. God I love that sound.
Thanks! In case you'll play it in real life some day: I changed it slightly to have a very subtle pitch lfo witch fades in after 1 or 2 seconds.
Thanks for showing this. I underestimated the sounds on this magic box. I upgraded my MU128 to the MU2000 a while back, believing i could play its sounds over USB. I could never find the English version of the User guide till now. It turns out the USB is only for MIDI. The MU128 allowed me to play 3 PLG cards, while the MU2000 for some unknown reason will only show one card. And yes, I changed the value of the partassign.
Thanks for watching! Yes, the USB was for MIDI only - you can use that SPDIF port for digital transmission - there are some relatively cheap audio interfaces that actually have that kind of optical input, for example amzn.to/3WRykQy
I have no experience yet with those PLG cards because mine _still_ is stuck in customs. :-/ So I hope some of my viewers can help you (if you scroll through the comments, some people stated they have maxed out the slots)
Sir where did you find the english version on the MU2000, I have been lokking for it for a couple of years.
@@adisamtima1960 I explained that in this video right at the start :o)
Love the demo at end!
Thank you very much!
A couple of years back bought a MU500, just for the sounds and Yamaha FX. I edit it with XGedit. Love the MU boxes.
Thanks for watching! Yes, the XG boxes can do way more than one would think at first.
I love the MU2000EX! As well as often showcasing it on my channel, though I am more gaming focused. It is makes MIDI based games from the 90s sound incredible. I also have the PLG150-DR card as well as the 150-VL. Yamaha really delivered with this line, and if i could only have one MIDI module. This would be it.
Thanks for watching! Yes, these boxes were "external soundcards" in the first place, hence all the gunshot, helicopter, rain and storm sounds".
Right, let's take a look at your channel, then. :-)
Nice little box
Thanks for watching - yes, indeed!
Quite an impressive little box! Another excellent video there Dr. Steinberg.
Honestly, I think I much prefer the sounds of the MU-series GM units over the Roland Sound Canvas ones. This one especially, since it came out at the end of the 90s. Some of these patches sound absolutely massive.
Agreed! Roland often sounds "matter-of-fact", for a lack of better words.
The XG specification was a lot more powerful. They added resonant filters and way more FX units, 3 slots I think.
@@6581punk Yep. I'm still not finished with my XG editor but slowly getting there ;-) github.com/mrfloydst/webxgmidi Basically, it is a subtractive synth with everything you'd expect from one. (only the sustain phase in the Amp envelope is not editable, strangely)
A subtractive synth with 128 voices, that is.
There is a fantastic Classical music demo using the MU2000ex with a PLG150-VL board, which has a lot of effort put into the controller data. Listen to it here ua-cam.com/video/tUgTRdZ37nQ/v-deo.html
People online saying the MU sounds are thin, totally misunderstand how and why Yamaha created those sounds as they did. If every sound was "phatt" it would be a nightmare to sequence with all in one box. Yamaha know what they are doing, they made sounds that dovetail perfectly when mixed together. If you want a massive sound, just use Performance mode and you can get any sound you like! I downloaded a custom set of Performance patches in the late 1990s, which I might upload at some point as its very good.
Great video on an odd piece of kit. Makes me want one.
Greetings from Ireland 🇮🇪.
Thanks! Well, if you're into 90's digital synths and you were one of the kids that browsed the coolest patches on the newest synths after school in your favourite music shop... Then this is a dream come true ;-) It also looks quite stylish with its subtle golden finish.
@mr_floydst I bought a Korg x5 way way back in the 1990s . I loved it and it got damaged .
I was looking for a midi file player sometime later and the model you are describing here or one like it was a contender .
In the end I bought a Korg Triton and used the floppy disk with a volume of midi files.
I have been working as Yamaha Product Specialist for Yamaha Europe Expert Division between 1992-2002 and worked a lot with all GM/XG/GM2 modules since the very first one - TG100, besides many other instruments. I have kept the MU128 as the best XG module which I could get in Europe. I use it with UX256 MIDI interface with To Host connection which allows me to use 64 MIDI channels + 16 from other instrument connected to MIDI Out, and I have installed two VL and one AN plugin cards. I still have MU128, but after moving to Japan I've got finally MU2000EX a few years ago. I still don't work much with it, I want to try also USB connection if it can use all 64 channels.
If I remember correctly, the differences between the MU128 and the 2000 are not too big, or am I mistaken? Got to look it up...
@@mr_floydst There are many, just to name some: 54 new presets, 3 new drum sets, 4 sample drum sets, 256 sample presets, new audio FX, new A/D settings, USB, SM card, digital output, sequence player, GM2 compatibility (MU128 after upgrade)... Not everybody knows that TG300B mode is fully compatible with Roland GS, and contains also two banks of old Roland C/M standard (from LA instruments like MT32, D series...).
sounds very good.
I agree!
Great vid. Makes me want one now. Also looking forward to seeing you make an ultra portable, pocketable midi controller one day.
Thanks! I might design one and release all the files on github. This is a highly competitive market, and I reviewed the Wave Industries Monkey some weeks ago, which propably is the smallest master keyboard possible ua-cam.com/video/V6iA643FbLM/v-deo.html
I also tried to talk Mr. Pit Przygodda into decoupling his ingenius controller for the Silhouette Eins synth into a standalone controller and I think he's on it. ;-) (That one is a small screen that has physical encoders on it, so the labels, colours and indicators can be swapped dynamically)
@@mr_floydst How did I miss your vid on the monkey! Thanks. That would work, but of course I would definitely be interested in making whatever you designed too. I keep buying stuff you recommend and loving it, lol.
Quite nice sounds
I agree! (I'll do another video once that expansion card is released from customs)
Great demonstrations! I'm glad I managed to pick one up before the eBay prices got too unreasonable. It gets even more expensive when you start to expand it, mine has the AN, DX and DR expansion cards in it and I'd like to get the VL card someday. I wonder why it was never released outside Japan, it seems to have sold very well over there by how many are still on the used market.
Thanks for watching! I'm still waiting for my PLG card, why on earth are they inspecting it for so long? ;-)
The prices on ebay seem to be quite reasonable at the moment - around $250, sometimes less - customs taxes not included, though.
Hello, could you tell me please the functions of the AN, DX, DR and VL cards? Thank you.
@@specialbinson search for PLG150-AN PLG150-DX and so on. The AN is the sound engine from the Yamaha AN1x, the DX is the FM engine from the DX7, the VL is a virtual acoustic simulation and the DR is just more drumkit samples.
@@specialbinson AN = analog synths you will find the same card PLG-150-AN used in AN200 , the DX = Is FM synth eg DX7 , the same card PLG-150-DX was used in the DX200. The VL - Is a Physical Modeling Card for realistic sound modeling, it has some great Sax sounds but is monophonic, Wind & synths. The same tech is used in MU70m. Great for wind controllers. DR = drum sounds. There was a Piano card and an Effects card too. I've got the AN200 , DX200, VL & DX cards. oh and the MU70m.
@@chrisliddiard725 Thank you very much for the explanation...... :)
Oh wow. General Midi. I did not hear these words for decades.
It's still relevant, but not in the "Synthtube" space. ;-)
@@mr_floydst is it now? I had no idea tbh. I am from 73, went to sae when i was 17. So i had my fair share so to speak. But true in my setup there is not one device with that logo anymore. Ha! You still remember emu soundfonts? I had 32mb ram on my awe32🥷
@@MapleSonics Yep, GM still is kind of relevant for arranger keyboards. If you're a wedding singer, you'll want that high quality MIDI version of "Movie Star", right? ;-)
The Roland SC and Yamaha MU boxes could do more than most people perceived, but I can totally see why they ended up in a dead end.
@@mr_floydst Ah right. Arranger keyboards. Since i saw Ben Jordann go at on those, i have a deep respect for these devices. Not useful for my case, but respect for sure! I remember the MU2000, there was a time that i thought that this would be the one module i would need. But i did not have any money🤣.
Finally some one using the mu effects with a guitar.
Thanks for watching! The amp sims on this thing are a mixed bag - they can sound great for certain styles, but they're clearly showing their age. Distortion, with a few exceptions, sounds quite artificial. 80s rythm guitars are spot on.
i know that sometimes theres no beating physical hardware, but you can use an ipad or a smartphone that does midi, 808, 909, anything and everything under the sun, i feel like old midi devices like the sound canvas are cool novalties but we cary around single board all in one computers around with us every day and they are much more capable
Yes, you're right. I have to add that this video wasn't meant as a sales pitch, more as a history lesson/nostalgia vehicle ;-)
Which smartphone app would you use instead of for example this box?
I still use an SW1000XG in an old PC that runs Windows XP and Windows 7. XG Midi is way more than just General Midi.
Once you get the hang of it you can create amazing sounds. That's because you can manipulate everything.
I use different templates to work on some synth ideas. Unfortunately Yamaha put a lid on the whole thing in the early 2000s.
That's probably because XG Midi didn't do as well as expected. Not too many people were able to afford an XG device
because they were pretty expensive.
Thanks for your feedback! I think I mentioned that a couple of times in the video (and I also wrote an XG editor for browsers that I also mentioned in the video ;-)
I agree, I wish GM/XG (or at least the control templates) still were a thing. Most manufacturers kind of stick to these conventions, but you can't rely on it.
i wish companies would sell gear at lower prices.
that would make G.A.S guys happy
you could try it to see if the concept works for you.
everybody who thinks he might have a use case could get one
more units would be sold
even if some might not even be unboxed.
I'm fully behind that ;-)
I'm afraid it won't happen soon. R&D of custom chipsets and software, like in this device, takes a lot of time and knowledge, so even if the material and manufacturing costs are quite low, companies will have to consider the street price thoroughly.
For us, there's always ebay, and doing some synth archeology, finding obscure late 90s hardware ;-)
I have a QY-700 sequencer and an Mu-2000EX with PLG DX, SG, VL PLG boards. I also have a Windows 98 machine that runs XGWorks, SOL, PolyVL, and SYXG-100 with an SW1000XG card. I kinda went nuts with the late 90s/early 2000s XG-MIDI stuff.
(I can totally understand that, for some reason, end-of-90s tech is somewhat prevalent in my setup. Why is that?)
Encarta is a nice touch :)
Sitting down on a christmas morning, exploring thevery first Encarta together with my dad, after several hard years of puberty fighting definitely is one of the memories I have. :-)
14:00 soul to soul “keep on movin”
That beat was so ubiquitous for decades, and Soul 2 Soul started that trend with "Back 2 Life". It was later picked up by "Enigma" and after that, it was everywhere. The original sample is from a band called "Grand Central Station". My suspicion is that this sample is much more widely used then the "Amen break", but I'm too lazy to prove my point with data ;-)
The MU2000 can use .DLS sounds too (similar to Soundfont but it's was made by the MIDI manufacturer's association). I'd recommend using Yamaha Cardfiler instead of Windows to manage the smartmedia card data. Supposedly Windows support for smartmedia cards is poor and it can sometimes corrupt the file system. Cardfiler accesses the card over the USB port though the MU2000 so windows never touches it. Cardfiler works fine with windows 11 btw.
Hi, thanks a lot for pointing that out! Got to investigate. ;-)
More information on DLS here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLS_format The only applications I know of for making DLS banks is Awave Studio and Directmusic which was part of DirectX (DirerctX uses DLS as the format for the GS software synthesizer's sound banks). AWave can be used to do some pretty cool things like convert an amiga .MOD's samples into a DLS bank and then iirc it can also convert the tracker data to a MIDI and play it on the MU2000 using the DLS bank you created (MODs that use certain effects may not be accurate) EDIT I played around with that a long long timer ago but I can't remember if I used Awave or something else to convert the tracker data to MIDI.
Much more nostalgic than a VST.
Thanks for watching - you're right! :-)
What are you using for vocal pitch correction at 19:53 ?
For most of my UA-cam videos, I'm using a "vocaloid" plugin, EMVoice. emvoiceapp.com/
This is a nice piece of kit for the price.
Yes indeed! (Roland Integra is one of the few spiritual descendants today)
I want this guy to be narrating my life 👍
Ehm, ok. I guess AI will be able to do that very soon. ;-)
Sounds good even today.
I always wondered what was the general midi rom size, I mean how much memory was needed to make an instrument to support general midi sounds? 🤔
Hi, thanks for watching! The ROM size of early GM boxes was 2 to 4MB. The Kawai Gmega for example only had snippets of sounds that then blended into virtual analog / modeling sounds.
@@mr_floydst
Wow amazing! Thanks for the info 👍
MU2000 have in total over unique 1300 instruments in XG and GX mode combined. As far as I can recall, MU10 has over 600 instruments and 4MB of on board memory. Both are base on Yamaha AWM2 which is A LOT more than just a sampler in terms of tweaking the instrument.
MU50/MU10/DB50XG/SW60XG had 4MB compressed ROM (or 12 MB uncompressed)
MU80 - 8MB compressed
MU100 and SW1000XG used 20MB compressed ROM
MU2000 perhaps uses the same 20MB compressed bank from MU100, but adds more instruments by combining the existing sounds
For general MIDI there are lots of different ROMs starting from 0.5MB and the most "standard" Sound Canvas bank is only 3.5MB.
Neat. I want one now. Not that I need it :) Optical out to a nice DAC might sound good. What was the knobby box you were using ?
Hi, thanks for watching. As stated at 17:56 ;-), this is a "Grid" controller by a company named intech. Link is in the video's description.
I used this a lot for work, I only stopped because I wanted to do things in the box with my collaborators
Interesting! Which kind of work was that?
XG standard itself was the final boss of General MIDI. I still have SW1000XG card, I did countless stuff with it. I have to check if I can somehow run it with my Win11 computer that has no PCI slots :D
You're propably searching for this: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006378040469.html ?
XG specification wasn't bad (but it was missing some things, and other things were just too complicated to use, e.g. LFO destinations and control)
It would have been nice if they had sticked to it.
@@mr_floydst yeah, I have a notebook, so PCIE won't do either :D and I don't think there are drivers for that card anyway.
But MU2000 over USB looks intriguing and the sounds from SW1000XG are all there (since the SW was just MU1000 in card form)
My biggest gripe was exactly what you describe, a lot of things were difficult to control, especially over sysex. I literally handcrafted sysex messages in DAW, it was tedious but the end results speak for themselves (I have some songs recorded over on my channel).
There are no extensive youtube videos of the basic XG presets of any Yamaha MU modules. It would be an interesting video.
You mean a simple "list" of all those standard sounds?
@@mr_floydst More like playing through many of the presets of this synth. If someone would be interested in buying a MU, they'd want to know how do the basses, guitars, organs, pads etc sound in general but currently there's no comprehensive resource like that anywhere on the internet. There are lots of demo songs available but that's not really the same thing as hearing the presets individually.
Hey, I see you got the RK008 too! Nice!
The MU2000 doesn't sound bad. I see them on eBay for around € 225,-. But I think I'll stick with Fluidsynth (on Linux).
On eBay the units are sold with a 120 volt adapter. Was yours supplied with a 220 volt one? (But I think you can use any 12v 2A DC adapter. They are widely available. Or even an Ultracell lead battery, like I use for my Hydrasynth.)
Ah, RK008, you mention it in the end. 🤭
You're right! Should have mentioned that - the PSU is 100V. You can use one of those cheap wall warts instead.
I saw it on Superbooth in every other booth and had a very nice chat with Gerrit from Retrokits. Bought the thing online after the show and he kindly provided me with a Retrokits survival package ;-) (I'll show those gadgets on upcoming videos, especially that programmable MIDI cable is quite something)
Any DC input, except not just any! I've got MU128 and when playing its piano, I got a feeling that something is not right. When playing chords, the sound was somehow off. It was missing harmonics or something.
Solution: changed the power supply to something that has bigger ampere rating.
MU128 (and possibly 2000 too) has two DSP chips as I recall. Surprising things can happen when they overload the power supply :)
These boxes were basically synthesizers using small samples as OSC waves. I have a TG-300 which share many similarities with this and you can basically have up to 16 synths playing at the same time. To bad people do not understand what MIDI and GM really is, nowadays.
Yes, that's not common knowledge. GM had a very bad rep right from the start because people totally misunderstood its intention. It was about making music files exchangable, so you could play back roughly the same music regardless of your setup. This was great for games and small live performers (street buskers, wedding singers...)
People only saw the 128 standard GM sounds and got tired quickly.
Of course it didn't really help that all but a few GM devices came with 2 line LCDs and 8 buttons. ;-)
@@mr_floydst Yes, exchangability of professionally made multichannel arrangements was the main idea behind GM. Still the full compatibility between GM modules, GM patch banks in synthesizers, arranger keyboards or computer sound cards doesn't exist - sounds were produced by different types of synthesis, in different quality, and lot of parameters were not standardized (like velocity curves...) so songs sound differently in different machines.
1:16 Nah, the MU2000 runs on DC power through a standard 5.5 mm barrel plug. Any AC power adapter that runs at 12 volts and has the minimum 2 amps should work fine even if the adapter is from Europe.
Yes, you're right!
Any plans to make a sample pack for this unit?
Do you mean a sample pack made from the 1400 patches on this box, or a sample pack that one can use on this box? (My answers are NO!, maybe). ;-)
Hello, can you give any help about the programming of this unit please? Many thanks.
Maybe? What's your problem? ;-)
@@mr_floydst I would like to know if it is possible to connect 2 or more keyboards so that each one can be assigned a different sound. Is there a MIDI channel programming for this?
Are the jacks on the front for analog input activated by programming or do they already work by default? Does the MIDI input also work by default or does it have to be activated?
Can I play rhythms and bass accompaniment like a normal expander?
What do you use to modulate the effects? I am referring to the box with the knobs, what brand is it and how is it connected?
Many thanks.........
@@specialbinson You can actually connect 2 keyboards to the MIDI in A/B ports simultaneously. But you could also chain them: Keyboard A (channel 1) goes into Keyboard B (channel 2) goes into the MU2000, which will achieve the same thing, you can play two different sounds at once.
The audio in ports are always on, but you'll want to set them up to use effects.
This is not an arranger. If you want to be accompanied by drums and bass, you'll need an external sequencer.
The MU2000 can play back MIDI files though, if you have a Smartmedia card you can load your drum/bass tracks onto those and play them back without external hardware, plug in microphone and guitar and play along.
The controllers in the video are "Grid" controllers by intech. You can use any MIDI controller with knobs to do this. I also made a Web App some time ago that lets you control all those parameters with a touch screen. (Please scroll down my video list to find that)
@@mr_floydst I thank you very much!!!!
Very nice song.
Thank you very much! (Most people didn't even watch that far ;-) )
can i use smart card to play midi files ? i tried that but always show me (Can't Load File Unsupported Fmt! )
nvm i found i need to use SMF Format 0 , i used XGworks software to convert my midi's , if there easier way to convert all of my midi let me know pelase
Kinda reminds me of the edirol sd-80 module.
They share a common ancestor ;-) The edirol sd-80 came some years later. The idea that a hardware synth should be GM/GS/XG compatible faded away during the 2000s.
GS means Roland General Standard, not GM (= General MIDI). It offers more features than GM. Yamaha here went against MIDI standard and some modules with GS can receive and process Roland SysEx messages.
Thanks for clarifying!
phaser and delay needed for equinoxe 1
Thanks for pointing that out, this just came to mind when I played that patch. ;-)
I once got the MU90 used in the early 2000s and so disliked the sound I immediately got rid of it. A lot of the 90s Romplers have this plastic sound. I even prefer OPL3 FM or YM2149 over these. The only digital synths that still hold up today to me are E-MU UltraProteus, the Ensoniqs and of course Kurzweil K2000/K2500.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Out of curiosity - what do you mean by "plastic sound"? Is it the preset patches? The effects? The selection of onboard samples?
(I had the same feelings on the Roland Fantom X6 later that decade, it seemed so bland and uninspiring ;-)
@@mr_floydst Hi, you’re welcome :). it seems to me that many of the 90s synths have some muffling going on, even with rather simple patches like lead synths or strings. Maybe it’s compression, maybe aliasing, I really don’t know. There’s a blog entry from some guy who massively improved the D/A circuit of a Roland RA90 and this sounded really impressive afterwards. To me, here‘s quite some difference between an Ensoniq TS/MR and the MUs, SoundCanvas and even JVs/XVs. The Fantom is different to me but I also found it not very inspiring.
@@mr_floydst Google „Roland Sound Canvas engine RA-90 arranger HQ sound revealed after 25 years of product introduction“
wow, interesting! thanks for that info.
That "Electronic Kit" drum patch is, I think, unparalleled. It's like some sort of gated reverb setup, but it's like someone took the snare sound from Metallica's black album and multiplied it by 10. I had a Yamaha PSR-320 keyboard and it had that kit. The 'room' and 'rock' kits sound entirely unrealistic and strange.
Thanks for your insight! I'm not a drum expert at all so I learned something here. :)
Someone really needs to make an SD card to Smartmedia card adapter for all these old samplers that use smartmedia cards. It can't be that hard because smartmedia cards didn't have any kind of memory controller it was just a flash chip broken out to contacts on the card and none of the devices that used them had any sort of flash memory leveling either so the interface is quite simple. Wouldn't even need a mold or anything you could just use a PCB of the right thickness with the contacts on the PCB and an STM32 chip to handle emulating the flash memory.
These adapters existed and sometimes they pop up on ebay. But there's no open source one (at least that I know of - perhaps my viewers know something?)
@@mr_floydst Those are for converting XD cards to Smartmedia. XD and smartmedia cards are electrically almost the same thing which is why they work, there's is no electronics in them it's literally just an pinout adapter. There are XD to SD card adapters but those require a specific camera that supports that. The electronics to convert the SD card to XD is actually in the camera which seems weird but those specific cameras were designed to use SD cards via an SD card to XD adapter for some reason.
350€? Im good with the m1 and triton vsts. Btw, I think the presets are good and are like sampling.
Thanks for watching! I paid 250, but with an additional 50 of customs taxes.
My videos are not meant to be sales pitches :-) Great sounding electronic music can be made on a $50 Android phone.
@@mr_floydst Just realised there was encarta box in the picture..
I had my pirated from school and it was used for the school purposes. The time when you had to change text not to look like encarta😅
@@vvvorlds Haha, yes, those were the days ;-)
"Hey, a team of experts has made all these efforts to collect all the information a typical high school student should know / could use for his research. Now, we absolutely don't want you to use that in your homework, kkthxbye"
No idea why I watched this, always hated General MIDI! This thing sounds good though, and is really powerful. I was surprised how good some of the pads sounded, I reckon with some editing, stacking a load of layers and a good dose of Supermassive, this could make some absolutely epic ambient stuff.
Thanks for watching! I guess that's what "performance mode" is for on this box.
12:53 Steinbergian rhapsody 😅
Oh mammamia! :-)
Port EX5 firmware to this? ;)
I don't think that's possible ;-) You can add plugin cards to get some of the sound engines also found in the EX5, though. (My PLG150-AN _still_ is stuck in customs as I write this, I wonder what they're doing with it, creating some fire beats perhaps?)
@@mr_floydst They run on identical tone generators, like most Yamahas from 1997 till about 2002 (MU modules, samplers, synths, workstations). Just need software translated, pretty much. Easiest way would be PC software emulation of SWP30, or FPGA recreation, or port the software and run on original, like I mentioned (maybe AI can help - run on different MPUs). Should be basically possible...
I didn't open up both to check, but the EX5 has more RAM / Sample RAM, and additional DSPs for those AN, VL and FDSP engines, plus more audio and controller inputs/outputs (plus all those knobs and buttons). So while the core might be the same and it might be possible to run parts of the EX5's firmware, one would definitely need the source code of the OS to swap it.
(Plus, I think investing the hours into creating a proper EX5 VST plugin would be the way to go, I think ;-)
@@mr_floydst Official documents disclose more, and more precisely, than merely opening. But EX5/7's downfall is overworking itself with too many tradeoffs and Yamaha's typical emphasis on technicality over usability. Clearly you didn't check, or you'd see there aren't any additional DSP for EX series (of course, sample/fx/firmware RAM/ROM capacities are different, not to mention hardware UI and I/O.) But the core for same synthesis is there. Already in process of being emulated for MAME.
@@ShallRemainUnknown Yep, I didn't check ;-)
There's lots for sale.
Yes indeed! They were quite popular back in the day.
4:02 COPYRIGHT STRIKE!
In that case, I'll be waiting for the strike to be lifted... right here.
(I'll show myself the door, thank you)
:)
@@mr_floydst Haha!
Car stereo form factor.
Yes, kind of! (It's a big too big to fit it in a car)
He done tried to make a-okay this module is unique. Stop reading this comment and watch
Thanks for watching!
I'm afraid you've made me reach for my wallet 😍🤩🤩🤩
Oh no! I did the influencer thing! :-( :-)
the issue? the result or the wav file sounded Nintendo?
does not matter if you plugged the best equipment w Midi into it, it will recall using Yamaha equiv data and churned out banal sound and not so the best imho??
Hi, thanks for watching! Hey, my videos are not meant to be sales pitches. I try to show things I find interesting and try to show them in an interesting way. I didn't claim that this is a box that belongs into any professional music studio; but it could be a thing to have fun with. That's all.
That being said, I thought my demo at the end of the video didn't sound _that_ bad, right? The basses are quite powerful and the filter sweeps are as well.
Great demo, but will we ever see a day when A.I. takes over midi? I struggle with midi and would love to just tell a computer what I am trying to do with midi and it would handle all the routing
I'm pretty sure we'll get there soon (somebody has to actually go and create that software, the tech is there). But I guess you'll just end up with different frustrations as AI is not really precise.
LC display sounds... wrong. LCD screen is fine.
I wish I could summon the other viewers who pointed out that _that_ sounds wrong for an epic tech grammar battle ;-)
(Thanks for watching!)
The sound of the display... It was CRT. Pun intended! But no offense.
Not LCD screen, just LCD, or Liquid Crystal Display if you like.
0:01 racist patch !!!
Well, uhm. I hope this is a humorous post. ;-)
If not, I'll happily take part in the inevitable discussion - any user interaction here will help this video getting more exposure.
That being said, a "white train" is a train carrying nuclear weapons.
It's also a single by british synth pop group Bananarama (which is referring above mentioned weapon-carrying trains in its lyrics, cold war and everything)
@@mr_floydst i didnt know that ...i thought it was a train only for white people 😔
lmao..reminds me of Officer self hatred from Don't be a menace - I hate black keys on da piano! 🧐
maybe maybe it time to get real and buy new equipment like the all in one workstation from Yanni and Sony engineers or equivalence?
I'm not the biggest or most important "UA-camr" in the world. I'm just a hobbyist musician, I don't do gigs and I don't work in a studio. And so far, of the big companies, no one reached out to me to give a a high end synth / workstation to play around with. So cheap but interesting gear it is. ;-)
It is a nice and complete box, but it sounds far from pro.
The cinch outputs are noisy and scream "consumer level". These boxes were created as external sound cards for gaming enthusiasts in the first place and this specific box has "Karaoke!" written all over it. :-)
Professional musos might want to use the Digital output, but in 2024, just use a DAW and some free VSTs.