YAMAHA R&D
are then auditioned and the best recorded version of each note is selected to be processed ready for building a Voice.
Voice technologies At this stage we have all of the samples to make a Voice but that is only part of the story. Our keyboards have many different Voice technologies like ‘Sweet!’, ‘Live!’, ‘Cool!’, ‘Natural’, ‘MegaVoice’, ‘Super Articulation’ and ‘Super Articulation 2’, which manage how the samples are used in a Voice. Each Voice technology has a unique specification which determines how the final voice is produced when you play it on the keyboard. Over the years we have seen many advancements in Yamaha’s Voice technology and I will explain three of them: MegaVoice, Super Articulation and Super Articulation 2. Before that, I should briefly explain how samples are traditionally used in keyboard Voices.
In traditional sampling, each note
was recorded for an extremely short period of time, mainly because of memory restrictions, which meant that each sample had to be looped. Looping means finding a start and end point within each sampled note that can be repeatedly looped, according to how long you hold down a key on the keyboard. Finally, each sampled, processed and looped note is mapped to the associated key on a keyboard. When the key is pressed, the mapped sample is played back. This method of playing back sampled sounds was hugely realistic compared to analogue equivalents, but the keyboard player had less control over the actual playability of the sampled sound.
Towards realism
Creating realistic sounding styles and Midi files also used up lots of Midi channels. For example, to make a realistic guitar part you need many different playing styles, all of which were separate Voices and so they each used an individual Midi channel in songs and Styles. This problem is solved by ‘MegaVoice’ technology, first introduced in Tyros 1. The development teams’ challenge was to find a way to inject incredible realism into accompaniment styles and standard Midi file songs without restricting Midi controllability and without using up all the available Midi channels. Traditional sampling and reproduction methods removed the subtle sonic nuances that make the
original instrument sound real. MegaVoice technology includes not only the traditional samples of the original instrument but also various playing techniques and performance sounds – such as open and mute string sounds, dead notes, finger slides, harmonics and fret noises for example. These make an individual Voice sound less like a keyboard and more like a real instrument.
Each sampled performance sound
and playing technique used to generate a MegaVoice’s sound is compressed to a small velocity range. That means the particular performance sound or technique that will be used in accompaniment styles and songs can be determined by the velocity of the note. Note velocities outside that range will call on a different sample. Because a MegaVoice contains so many different playing styles tightly packed across the entire velocity range, it could not be effectively played live from the keyboard itself, but only by the Midi programmers who create songs and styles.
The next challenge was to bring
MegaVoice authenticity to voices played live on the keyboard, without requiring any special playing techniques. The answer was found in ‘Super Articulation’ technology, introduced in Tyros2.
When a key is pressed, most digital
keyboards play back a sample, which is always the same whether the key is pressed individually or played as part of a musical phrase. Super Articulation technology uses all the elements contained within a MegaVoice as its sound source. When you play, in-built software registers not only the keys you press but how and when you press them. In a split second it triggers the correct MegaVoice elements to recreate unique performance characteristics of
Above: The R & D team responsible for Yamaha’s portable keyboard voices. Left to right: Martin Harris, Simon Inkley, Hirokazu Kito and Tom Schroer
real instruments. Context dictates when to allocate a phrased sax sound over a tongued one, or a guitar finger-slide over a note played with a plectrum. The third Voice Technology I wanted
to talk about is our latest and most advanced, ‘Super Articulation 2’, a technology that breaks down the sampled articulations of an instrument’s performance into their component waveforms. Each sampled note is split into three parts: the head, body and tail. If we imagine when a trumpet player plays a note, milliseconds before the actual note is established you hear breath and other sounds from the instrument. We call this small portion of the sample the head. The body is the portion from when the note is fully established to when the trumpet player releases the established note. The tail is from where the established note is released, until the sound finally disappears. We record the trumpet player
playing each note many times, providing lots of heads, bodies and tails for each and every note. Super Articulation 2 re-synthesises these three components in varying combinations to create realistic instrument articulations during a keyboard performance. The technology provides the keyboardist with extremely natural legato and staccato expression, whilst providing control over sampled vibrato, pitch bend and glissando. These types of performance effects are automatically added by the technology, according to the musical phrasing being played on the keyboard, so ‘Super Articulation 2’ technology is always watching what you play and then, in realtime, playing back the most appropriate samples to make your keyboard performance sound as authentic to the original instrument as possible.
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