PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums PowerTracks Pro Audio Yamaha S08 and E-Mu Virtuoso 2000 users – new patch maps posted

(FYI, I put an identical post to this one in the RealBand forum)

Hello –

My name is Dave. Although I’ve spent some time in the past using Band-in-a-Box and PowerTracks Pro, I’m new to the forum.

FYI, I recently created three PowerTracks Pro Audio/RealBand patch maps for the Yamaha S08 synthesizer and E-Mu Virtuoso tone generator, which PG Music has posted on this website (see Support/Patch Maps). Here’s information about them –

PG Music already had a patch map posted for the Yamaha S08, with two voice lists based on the MU-80 tone generator. While I appreciate that, the one I created has eight voice lists –

1. Normal Preset Voices
2. Normal User Voices
3. Multi Lists
4. XG Voices
5. GM2 Voices
6. XG Drums
7. GM2 Drums
8. Sound FX

My patch map is based on the voice lists found on pages 2 through 12 of the S08 Data List manual, not the MU-80. All of the voices in the S08 Data List manual are present within these eight lists - I’ve found having that many lists makes it easier to be able to use all of the voices of the S08.

Before now, PG Music didn’t have patch maps posted for any E-Mu gear, so I sent in two I wrote for the Virtuoso 2000. The first patch map, “E-Mu Virtuoso 2000 – Orch 1 and Orch 2 Banks”, covers all the voices for the Orchestra I and Orchestra II ROM chips that ship with the unit (three and two banks each, respectively).

The second patch map, “E-Mu Virtuoso 2000 – Composer, Orch 1 and Orch 2 Banks”, is the one I use, since I also have a Composer ROM chip in mine. This adds eight more voice lists to the previous file. E-Mu offered four-bank and eight-bank versions of the Composer chip – this one is definitely for the eight-bank version.

I found online that the eight-bank Composer ROM chip also shipped with the Proteus 1000, 2000 and 2500 tone generators – theoretically, the eight Composer voice lists I put in this patch map should work in all three of those units as well. The only reason I can think of that might make this not true would be if the MSB and/or LSB numbers of a Composer chip would change if the chip is inside a Proteus 1000, 2000 or 2500, instead of a Virtuoso 2000 (i.e.: if those numbers are stored on the motherboard, instead of the ROM chip). If any users of the Proteus 1000, 2000 or 2500 would confirm that these eight Composer voice lists will work for their units too, will you please let me know? I’ll create another patch map especially for those three units, and send it to PG Music to post.

These aren’t the only patch maps I’ve submitted to PG Music that are posted on this website - back in 2015, I sent in patch maps for the Roland SoundCanvas SC-88VL and Kurzweil Micro Ensemble tone generators, plus the Alesis SR18 drum machine. I realize that patch maps for any of these pieces of MIDI gear might be found on other music software websites and adapted for use with PowerTracks Pro Audio and RealBand, such as patch maps for Cakewalk. But, since I only use PG Music and Passport Music software, I created my own. If anyone else benefits from using any of the six patch maps I created, then the time I spent creating them (which was a lot of hours) just became even more worthwhile.

Thank you for your time, and enjoy the music you’re creating –

Dave,

Welcome to the forum. Thank you for taking time to share your instrument patch matches with fellow PG Music users.

I hope you will often visit the forum and share your thoughts with us.

Thank you for the contribution Dave, it's great to have patch maps like these to help keep old synths alive and useful!