Dual voice messes up when I save to SMF format on my keyboard!

Posted on Dec 31, 2006 02:29 am
syndrift
Member Since: Dec 31, 2006

I've been working on a new song on my Yamaha DGX-520, and it has a dual voice tone for the beginning of the song: piano and string ensemble. When I play it, it sounds great and doesn't get all jumbled up when I use the sustain pedal. But when I save it to SMF format, which is the only format it will save to, the strings are all somehow lengthened and they all get jumbled and don't fade out.

I really need help with this because I spent a lot of money to be able to write directly to to a playable music file.

Any suggestions would be great...but please don't tell me I have to turn off the dual voice...that would really discourage me, lol cause I need it.

Thanks

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zekthedeadcow
Eat Spam before it eats YOU!!!
Member
Since: May 11, 2002

Dec 31, 2006 02:32 pm

SMF stands for "standard midi format" so it is proably not able to recognise certian features of the keyboard...which means you'll have to call yamaha.

Noize2u
Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Dec 31, 2006 02:59 pm

Welcome to HRC.

What may be happening is you may be storing in type 0 or type 2 format. Type 0 will actually take all information and compile it into one single track. Although it does retain channel information and the like it can sometimes jumble things up as you are experiancing since not all keyboards or midi players can handle it. Type 2 is for multiple songs in one single file, kind of like a playlist.

What you want to use is type 1 which will save all data including pedal and sysex into separate tracks. This is the type that most portable keyboards will handle without messing up.

syndrift
Member
Since: Dec 31, 2006

Dec 31, 2006 07:27 pm

Thanks, that makes sense but I couldn't find anything in the keyboard manual about how to save to a different type. I have seen type converter programs, but I wouldn't think that since the keyboard already saved it to type 0 that converting it after the fact would do anything.

I dunno, I'll have to mess around and see if I can find some way to fix the problem, but if anyone knows or has an idea for a better solution, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks again.

Noize2u
Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Jan 01, 2007 02:54 pm

I see that it has its own file format as well. Have you tried saving to that and playing it back?

Also, is it messing the files up while you are trying to playback and record another track? I scanned through the manual and could not find anything that stated it could not save files using dual voices. And the section on dual voice does not warn of any problems either using them to record.

The type 0 should work just fine as it is a native format for the keyboard. If it wasn't going to work they would not allow its use on that instrument.

I would possibly suggest if you can't resolve it that you contact yamaha customer support.

And I know its not what you want to hear but I would give a shot to turning the dual voice off and seeing if the sustain pedal record and functions proper with it off.