Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Hi all,

How has everyone been?  I've been really busy with the holidays and
haven't had time to play outside the acoustic realm much, but I've read
back through a weeks worth of e-mails now.  I've got to give it up to
Andy--your tips are exactly what I've been trying to figure out since I
bought the DTXpress.  It seems Yamaha should put you on the pay roll.
Yamaha told me personally that it's IMPOSSIBLE to get the DTXpress to
voice 2 different kits at the same time!  I knew that was wrong because
certain kits WILL play over others without manipulating any settings
(i.e. Latin perc. over GM jazz) while some won't.  What it sounds like,
though, is that to get the job done you are utilizing a function that the
DTXpress wasn't designed for?  That is, you are fooling it into thinking
you are using dual zone pads?  I'm probably way off because I haven't
tried it yet, but if this is right the DTXpress may have just gone up in
market value!  We should watch out!  Anyway, if this is correct, then
theoretically the DTXpress could voice tons of sounds simultaneously if
we utilize the cross fade, pan, rim to pad, multiple tracks, etc...  It's
just a matter of time.  Andy, you the man!  This discussion group is
fantastic.  My owners manual keeps growing as I add printed out e-mails
to the back of it.

Take care,
Aaron.

P.S.  Poor college student seeks info--is anyone using 'MIDI
Orchestrator' for their external sequencer software?  If so, have you
been able to make the DTXpress the master metronome as opposed to
vice-versa?  How?  I'm not sure the software supports this feature.

On Sun, 2 Jan 2000 08:44:20 -0000 Sanctum@... (Hubble, Andrew
John) writes:
> 
> Good points Giles, but "hall1" weird...  I thought it may change the 
> voice reverb setting, but no it does nothing at all does it.
> 
> Just looks like another bug.
> 
> I gotta say the fact that midi channels revert to Piano at the drop 
> of a hat drives me crazy.  It's made worse of course by the fact 
> that both the song and the kit (voice menu) have midi channel 
> control options, and so they constantly override each other!!
> This is the weird thing about the DTXpress, there are at least a 
> couple of instances I can think of where duplicate functions are in 
> different menus.
> 	1) Midi channel control, but the voice menu and the song 
> menu contain different midi channel options!!
> 	2) Utilities menu and Voice menu.  There are options in the 
> utilities menu to alter the voices of a specific kit!  Why??
> 
> Back to Pad songs - Why do pad songs only play track 1 of a song 
> you've recorded yourself?  I recorded a cool two track backing beat 
> and set it to a pad song, low and behold, out comes only track 1.  
> Out of interest, the kit on track 1 was on channel 11 and the kit on 
> track 2 on channel 9, when you playback the song, there are your 
> tracks.  Use a pad song and you find that what was on channel 11 is 
> now on channel 7 and what was on channel 9 has dissapeared!  Maybe 
> it's because I'm using diferent channels, I haven't gone back and 
> re-tested it yet, it may be that the pad song can only playback one 
> channel, a channel 4 lower than the orriginal recording.  Has that 
> got anything to do with what you've been seeing in the loops I 
> wonder Giles?  Maybe the loops are set-up with a number of midi 
> channels, but they then didn't use all of them, but never deleted 
> the obsolete ones.  
> 	Is there a way to link pad songs, or drum loops to the time 
> signature and tempo of the main song?  It would be good to be able 
> to hit a pad song loop and know it was going to come in first beat 
> of the next bar and be in time with everything else.
> 
> Here's an interesting one I don't remember reading in the manual -
> 	Ever thought that sitting holding the "+" button to go from 
> 1 to 127 takes a while?  Well if whilst holding the "+" button you 
> also press "-", then you begin to move in increments of 10 rather 
> than increments of 1.  You have to let go of the "+" button to stop, 
> then press "+" again to start moving in increments of 1 again.
> Only problem with this is that, since you are holding down the "+" 
> key, you go into "fast scroll" so its hard to just move 10 or 20 
> increments exactly.  Still its faster than waiting for the machine 
> to count from 1 to 127, and its a real fast way to get back to the 
> space at the start of the alphabet when naming kits and songs and 
> stuff.
> 
> This message list is so much better than those two manuals.  I'm 
> sooooo glad its here, thanks to Chris for that one I think.
> Anyway, I'll get arround to posting some of my kits up here at some 
> point, but with a first gig two weeks away, and only half the set 
> prepared, things are a little panicy right now, so until next 
> time....
> 
> Keep fiddling with those knobs guys!!