source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 07:32:34 -0800 From: "John H. Chalmers" From: mclaren Subject: Yamaha VL-1M and VL-7 --- The Yamaha VL-7/VL-1M physical modelling synthesizers implement tuning in a weird way. Here's the skinny: You can't edit the 2 user tuning table I01 and I02. Instead, you have to edit them on a TG-77 or SY-77 or on JICalc, then do a sys-ex dump to the VL-7/ VL-1M. Why Yamaha chose to implement microtuning this way is beyond me. It certainly makes it less convenient to retune the instrument. As a plus, user tunings are reportedly stored with the instrument patches and are loaded from the disk automatically. The way Yamaha implements physical modelling on the instrument is also peculiar and worth a metnion. The physical model is fixed: a blown tube. To get a Karplus-Strong plucked string sound (typified by the fretless bass and sitar patches), the physical model's mouthpiece is connected to its output. A kludge--but one that works. A recirculating system is created which, with appropriate losses for acoustic admittance, mimcs the Karplus-Strong algorithm pretty well. To get a vibrating string, the tube is apparently shrunk down to near-zero width. The resulting one-dimensional tube subs for a vibrating string and apparently also allows the user to apply a mouthpiece with "embrouchure" to the vibrating string--something not possible with a standard Hiller-Ruiz vibrating string physical model or the classic Julius Smith waveguide physical model of the string. Rumor has it that Yamaha has a MAX patch available that'll allow users to completely change the internal physical model. Instead of being limited to a blown tube, the user can dunk with internal VL-7 parameters and specify any acoutsical system desired. Apparently, the MAX patch comes with a WARNING -- KNOWLEDGE of PHYSICAL ACOUSTICS IS REQUIRED TO USE THIS EDITOR. Apparently it's easy to specify an acoustic system which *cannot* produce sound output. (Arthur Benade called these things "tacit horns." Nice design, no sound.) Does anyone have any knowledge of this mythical MAX patch? As a xenharmonizing future VL-7 owner, this question is of some interest --mclaren Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 22 Dec 1995 16:51 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id HAA23570; Fri, 22 Dec 1995 07:51:24 -0800 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 07:51:24 -0800 Message-Id: <0099B415E1E82CFE.5467@ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu