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#254596 06/23/14 06:31 PM
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Hi,

I need to be able to take my BiaB songs in midi form on a jump drive to go to jam nights in clubs in town. These midi songs work great in BiaB, but when I get to these Yamaha keyboards, the channel 10 drums turn into notes on a grand piano, something about Yamaha not following global GM standards but, using Yamaha's own XG song format.

Can anyone tell me how to change a Yamaha keyboard to GM and out of their XG proprietary form?

Thank you.

Last edited by Carl914; 06/23/14 06:32 PM.
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Carl, google/bing "how to change a Yamaha keyboard to GM and out of their XG proprietary form" (no quotes) and you will find your answer. You didn't mention what model of Yamaha you had but if you google/bing that it may be more precise.

PS - an after thought, Some of the older models of Yamaha keyboards the drums were on channel 16. Have your tried changing the drum channel from 10 to 16 to see if that works?


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Open up one of your MIDI files in your MIDI editor. Look to see which channel the drum tracks is on. Should be channel 10. If the drums are on channel 16, change the channel to 10. Save and test. If it works, do the same to all the other files.


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Well, the main issue with Yamaha's newest keyboards, in this case a MOX6 (I think!) is that Yamaha's new XG voice assignment fools with Channel 10, which is supposed to be drums these days. If you play a GM file in a current Yamaha, the XG system makes the drums play a grand piano, which makes for a really ugly sounding tune.

With all the folks I have talked to and written to this past month, I have almost come to the conclusion that midi is now officially old school, its technology that no one under 50 cares about anymore. I sure do, but I started in the early 80s and have continued to use it ever sense, but not in the same way. Once upon a time I had a rack full of synth modules all run by an Atari computer. Now that is old school.

In conclusion, the answer to the problem has been found. And to give credit where credit is due, Yamaha came up with the answer, a permeate answer to replacing XG with GM. Problem solved. (A side note: The answer was not in the manual and it took Yamaha three revisions over the past couple of weeks to find what worked.) So, fear not, buy all the Yamaha synths you want. You can have GM on it if you need it.

Thank you everyone for your input on this odd-ball question.

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Originally Posted By: Carl914


With all the folks I have talked to and written to this past month, I have almost come to the conclusion that midi is now officially old school, its technology that no one under 50 cares about anymore. I sure do, but I started in the early 80s and have continued to use it ever sense, but not in the same way. Once upon a time I had a rack full of synth modules all run by an Atari computer. Now that is old school.



There is no freaking way that MIDI is old school. Look at all of the new MIDI products that are out or are coming out. Native Instruments products (Kontakt, FM8 etc), Sampletank 3, Various MIDI controllers, drum pads, synths and softsynths for a few examples.

A lot of people base MIDI on those inexpensive GM chips and VSTis. I do believe GM MIDI is on the down side but very few companies outside of PGMusic base their products on GM MIDI.

Not to start a war but good MIDI sound sources, a good MIDI controller, a working knowledge of MIDI and a good musician can and do produce tracks that equal or surpass RealTracks and especially RealDrums. Please no hate mail, I use RealTracks also, and this is not an either or situation. Use whatever tool is best for you.

I also started with an Atari and a small rack of synths (all that I still have). I laugh when you say "old school" as a number of companies are producing "old school" sounds for new VSTis. Things like Melotrons, Moogs, old video game sounds like SID, 8-bit sampler sounds, as well as many of hardware synths like TX81Z, Juno 6 etc. "Old school" is now "New school" just in a different format!


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I totally agree with what you are saying about the analog sounds. When I hear my old tunes, I start kicking myself for not keeping my Mini Moog and Oberheim. Not all my old synths do I miss, but the classic sounds, you bet.

I guess what I was referring to was the lack of knowledge the retail and factory "experts" have when it comes to midi. I think I know more than they do about midi and I am a guitar player. It appears that they just don't need it and don't use it. If you have unlimited audio tracks in your digital music software, maybe its not needed.

I know I am too vested in midi to walk away from it at this stage in my life. I will still use it almost every day.

(Want to buy my old Atari rig? It comes with a COLOR monitor!)

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