PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Brush drum kit GM 41 not correct on Yamaha Clavinova

Hi Jan

You may well need to include a system exclusive in your midi file to force the Yamaha keyboard into XG mode this will ensure that the keyboard plays Yamaha XG drum sets.
This is why I originally suggested editing on the Clavinova as this would have put this in at least, as it had been resaved on a Yamaha

You will need to be able to see the midi event list including System Ex and add this on after any others at the beginning of the file.


3. Yamaha XG reset (Understood by all Yamaha XG instruments)
Sys-Ex String: F0 43 10 4C 00 00 7E 00 F7

You must use caps as this is in hex!

If this is all new to you there is a brief explanation of Sys Ex below:

"Sys-Ex" explained clearly
For those of you new to midi data and venturing into editing in sequencer progs for the first time.
I thought a short explanation of System Exclusive (Sys-Ex) may be helpful .
Those of you that already know all this please forgive me for teaching you to suck eggs.

Sys-Ex strings are as their name implies messages to midi devices (including keyboards) that are only understood by a specific
device or manufacturer (/model in some cases)
If your Keyboard doesn’t recognize it as one of its own it will ignore it and not bother to read it. This is essential to stop keyboards
becoming confused by data they don’t know what to do with.
Having just said that ,A few kinds of Sys-Ex strings are understood by almost every instrument or MIDI-device, some of these are:

1. GM Reset (understood by every GM-compatible instrument)
Sys-Ex String: F0 7E 7F 09 01 F7

2. Roland GS Reset (Understood by all Roland GS instruments)
Sys-Ex String: F0 41 10 42 12 40 00 7F 00 41 F7

3. Yamaha XG reset (Understood by all Yamaha XG instruments)
Sys-Ex String: F0 43 10 4C 00 00 7E 00 F7

So what do they mean and how does the device know it’s for say a Yamaha kb.
You will have noticed that messages are in fact in Hexadecimal (don’t Worry)
Most documentation will show in the form (nnH) I will not bother with the H just remember we are talking Hex

ALL Sys-Ex start FO (F null) This means that the following will be in Sys-Ex Format

All Sys-Ex end F7 This means end of Sys-Ex and if checksum is right execute command.

The second pair of numbers are normally the manufactures id See list below For some!
Gm Reset above 7E is universal.

40H Kawai Musical Instruments Mfg.Co.,Ltd
41H Roland Corporation
42H Korg Inc.
43H Yamaha Corporation
44H Casio Computer Co.,Ltd.
46H Kamiya Studio Co.,Ltd.
47H Akai Electric Co.,Ltd.
48H Victor Company Of Japan,Ltd
4BH Fujitsu Ltd
4CH Sony Corporation
4EH Teac Corporation
50H Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.,Ltd.
51H Fostex Corporation
52H Zoom Corporation
54H Matsushita Communication Industrial Co.,Ltd.
55H Suzuki Musical Instruments Mfg.Co.,Ltd.
56H Fuji Sound Corporation Ltd.
57H Acoustic Technical

The third pair of numbers is The model id Not used by all manufacturers

The forth pair is The device id and is used to show which device in your system should receive the message if say you had 2
keyboards from the same manufacture connected via midi.
There is also one special device id 7FH this is often known as a broadcast
It means that every device in your system will receive the message.
This is the end of the part of the message to determine which device the message is for.

The rest of the message
This part contains the 'real' Sys-Ex data. Consists of a variable amount of bytes, depending on the setting you want to change.
The data that is needed here is different for every instrument. You will have to use your manual for this. Look up in the tables
what you want to do and place those bytes here.

Followed By The Checksum
This is also a part of Sys-Ex that not every manufacturer uses. The checksum is used as a control number that the instrument uses
to determine if the message is received correctly. If the received checksum does not correspond with the number the instrument has
calculated Itself, then the message is ignored and nothing changes. This is to prevent unwanted changes. Unfortunately the way the
checksum is calculated is also different for almost every manufacturer.

Ok hope you find some of this useful. But you should be able to tell from the above at least if the Midi file was intended for your
make of keyboard.
Roland Files for the GS set contain amongst other things an all notes off message after each note, sent as midi events cntr this can
cause havoc on some keyboards. So at least you will know what to expect if the second pair of numbers (byte) is41H.

I have not gone into the full technical detail of Hex, as you don’t need to know this to use the above information, and I don’t want
to post info on here that is over the top with technical detail.

The Model ID is not used by all manufacturers. For example Roland uses it in Their Sys-Ex format: Model ID 39H is a D-70,
Model ID 16H is a D-110.
Yamaha do not often use a Model ID in his Sys-Ex format. But it is used for the Clavinova compliance and is 73H
Therefore a sysex starting F0 43 73 will only be read by a Yamaha Clavinova.
Mike Head Rev 06-09