2010-04-08 by George F. Litterst
Good morning, everyone.
The Disklavier has a split personality: It is a piano and a tone generator. Accordingly, no matter whether you are playing a file from floppy disk, USB flash drive (on a newer Disklavier), internal memory, or external MIDI, there is the issue of telling the piano which tracks are the piano tracks.
When playing the file from floppy, USB flash drive, or internal memory, the Disklavier looks for a special Yamaha "sequencer-specific meta event" in the MIDI file itself and uses that message to determine which one or two tracks should be played by the piano itself. All other tracks are played by the tone generator. If that special MIDI message does not exist in the file, the piano makes a decision based on a default setting in the piano.
To edit that default setting on a Mark III or Mark IIXG (or a Disklavier with a DSR1):
--Press Function
--Move the cursor to MIDI Setup and press Enter
--With the cursor on PianoPart, press Enter
--Press the Right Arrow button 2 times to get to the next page
--On the next page, make settings for Import File L= and R=
The settings that you make for L(eft) and R(ight) determine which channel(s) of MIDI data will be played by the piano itself and are therefore cancelable by the L and R buttons during playback.
A great choice to make is to set L to Prg(all). With that setting, the Disklavier will look at all of the data in the file and play all of the notes that appear to be assigned to a "piano group" voice. In most cases, this will be your best choice. (In a few rare cases, you may find that the piano also plays a track that has an epiano or harpsichord voice).
In the case of your file with the string parts, if those parts have a MIDI program number correctly assigned to them indicating that they should be played with a string voice, the piano will correctly play those notes with the tone generator.
Regards,
PianoBench
On Apr 7, 2010, at 3:45 AM, bty449552 wrote:
I have a U1 disklavier mk III with a floppy disk drive. I am finding all sort of applications for it. I have now found some midi files for piano trios. I have downloaded them hoping that the disklavier can play the piano part, leaving myself to play the cello part and my daughter to play the violin part.
However whilst listening to midi file through headphones and therefore through the synthesiser, I can hear all 3 parts, with the violin being played by the piano, if switch to playback through the piano I can only get the violin part played.
Can anyone help me with how I can choose through just the disklavier menu system to have the piano part played back through the piano? Or do I have to edit the file using a software package?
I now see that I will have to possibly covert the file to a different type before I can even start to re-assign he tracks to different instruments and control the overall volume. Can anyone give me a blow by blow checklist please?