In my readings (I think in the MODX manual) I have read that a user waveform can be made up of a number of samples.

Correct - There is an object called 'waveform' in the Modx.

If you look at the Data List doc starting on p62 is the list of preset 'waveforms' provided.

You can also create your own user 'waveforms'.

This had me a bit confused as I thought a waveform was a sample of a wave, i.e. a sample and a wave are the same thing.

A Yamaha 'waveform' is a collection of up to 128 'samples' of waves. Each sample is a non-Yamaha 'waveform'. Each of those 128 'samples' is stored in a 'bank' that can have two slots. A mono sample is stored in one slot while a stereo sample uses two slots.

Or does this mean a waveform can be "built up" (on a computer) from a number of distinct samples?

Actually you create a Yamaha 'waveform' from a number of non-Yamaha samples/waveforms.

P109 of the Reference has information on creating/editing user waveforms. That section explains how you can load individual mono or stereo 'samples' (.WAV files) into individual Key Banks.

There is a digram thas shows how each key bank has parameters for specifying things like velocity and note limits.

Not meaning to sound dismissive but I suggest you read through that section and then post any questions you have about the process. The reason is that the diagrams in the manual will help you understand what a Yamaha 'waveform' object is comprised of.

So specifically to your question - a Yamaha 'waveform' object is a collection of (up to 256) traditional 'waveform' samples.

Paul J. Drongowski wrote an EXCELLENT article 'MODX: Creating a new waveform'.
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/modx-creating-a-new-waveform/

In that article he takes you step-by-step and creates a new Yamaha 'waveform' object from a collection of WAV files.

It should answer most of your questions.

Once you've digested that you might be interested to read Bad Mister's explanation of how to load a LONG wavefile consisting of an entire song and get it to play from beginning to end by hitting a trigger key.
https://www.yamahasynth.com/forum/sampling-on-montage-how-do-i-assign-a-sample-to-a-key-for-triggering#reply-8598

That allows you to load a song that you can play along with.

Thanks Andrew - I will check out and delve into your references.

Looking at the relationship of key banks to waveforms, this seems somewhat analogous to the relationship between elements and a part, as I think you can set elements within a part to respond based on note range and velocity as well, although with the element you can apply effects and other controls to the element.

I had been thinking that the "waveform" was the basic building block of the (AWM2) synth universe however I now understand that they are actually made up of even more fundamental building blocks.

A "Yamaha waveform" is a package of samples. "Wave" shouldn't be used, in any form of this kind of descriptive terminology. Nor should form. But this is Yamaha, they truly suck at naming things.

A package of samples can be one sample for all notes and velocities, or have two different dimensions: pitch and velocity, with (from memory) as many as 4 different velocities for each of as many differently pitched samples as you want to prevent stretching.

The Music Production Guide is a fantastic resource, and there were lots of tutorials about this.

All back issues are here for download:
https://www.musicproductionguide.eu/mpghistory/history_en.htm

You want to check isuess 1/19, 2/19, 3/19 and maybe 6/18 and 1/21.

Thanks Dragos!

I have looked at the MPG from time to time but didn't realise you could download the whole set.

Is there an index where you can find what topics are covered in the different issues?

[quotePost id=121315]Is there an index where you can find what topics are covered in the different issues?[/quotePost]
Yes, scroll down and you'll see each and every issue with a summary of the most important articles.
You can download the whole set at the top or individual issues by scrolling down.

[quotePost id=121285]A "Yamaha waveform" is a package of samples. "Wave" shouldn't be used, in any form of this kind of descriptive terminology. Nor should form. But this is Yamaha, they truly suck at naming things.[/quotePost]
A knock on Yamaha for the longest time has been that they are complicated, something they've clearly taken to heart and worked to address in recent years. Sure, part of what made them complicated was often the immense flexibility, but that was made more complicated by some less-than-clear documentation, and I've also always felt that some of it also came from weird terminology, which is especially confusing when they use words that have typically meant something else, reducing clarity, and adding ambiguity or creating unnecessary confusion when a word now means something different from what it has meant in your past experiences. Their repurposing of what the word "waveform" means is one example. Others:

Prior to Yamaha, a "voice" was not a sound (or tone or program, to use what some others call these things), but rather a unit of polyphony. For example, an 8-voice synth meant you could play 8 notes, not that it had only 8 sounds in it.

On a keyboard instrument, "transpose" had always meant to change the pitch, that's what a user would probably expect. Yamaha uses it to mean change the MIDI note number, which yes, usually does change the pitch, but sometimes does something else. They do have a term for just changing the pitch, it's "note shift."

A little more about that one: I'd say the terms are actually reversed from their functions, from a user's point of view, since as it is, it is their "note shift" that creates the musical effect we call "transpose" while what they call transpose is actually shifting the MIDI notes, so each term better describes what the other is doing! From the musician's point of view, the "transpose" function isn't the one that's actually transposing. But the funny thing is, even from an engineering/programming (rather than musician) perspective, "transpose" isn't the right word for what it's doing either, since if you were going to apply the word "transpose" to math/programming, it would mean to reverse two numbers, not to increase/decrease them. They again essentially re-defined a well-known term to mean something other than what it had typically meant before/elsewhere. Anyway, onward...

When you combine multiple sounds into a single recallable patch, most companies name those patches making some reference to what you're doing with the sounds (e.g. combi/combination, multi, setup, or set of some kind), whereas Yamaha has most often called it a "performance," I suppose referring to what you use it for rather than for what it does (after all, the board isn't performing, you are). But you were usually able to "perform" just as well using patches that were not called "performances," or when in modes other than "performance" mode. In fact, on the Motif series, ironically, many people found it was better to perform in Mix (song/pattern) mode, because it was the only way you could seamlessly switch between sounds. (It also supported split/layered combinations of more than 4 voices, and at least on the MO-X, it was the only way to have simultaneous front panel control over the volume of multiple voices during performance, though that in turn required taking your "mix" and bringing it into a "master" which is another whole terminology issue.)

Not only was "performance" mode often not the one you wanted to be in for live performance, it sometimes WAS the mode you wanted to be in for recording, as opposed to being in "song" mode where you might expect you'd want to be for all your compositional work. While I think Yamaha was right in trying to get rid of the confusion of all these modes (part of the Motif->Montage transition), I think part of that confusion in the first place was not just the existence of the modes, but that it was made worse by confusing terminology and documentation. And to some extent, that could simply have been a result of the terminology having been invented by (and the documentation written by) non-native English speakers. Maybe some Yamaha folk took Alice in Wonderland to heart... “When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean." Wow, in English, we can do that? Cool! 🙂

But anyway, when it comes to combining multiple sounds into a single recallable patch, Yamaha has now changed this terminology a bit, using "live set" in the YC/CP/CK, which makes more sense to me than calling them "performances." I mean, after all these years, I've become quite comfortable with the idea of the word "performance" for a sound set, so it hardly seems an issue anymore... but I do remember the feeling of it making no sense to me at first. In my mind, a performance was something I gave. It did not make sense for that word to also mean a stored combination of sounds. They might as well have said, "if you want to store a combination of split and layered sounds, you store it as a hand."

[quotePost id=121283]

In my readings (I think in the MODX manual) I have read that a user waveform can be made up of a number of samples.

Paul J. Drongowski wrote an EXCELLENT article 'MODX: Creating a new waveform'.
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/modx-creating-a-new-waveform/

In that article he takes you step-by-step and creates a new Yamaha 'waveform' object from a collection of WAV files.
[/quotePost]

Thank you!

Yamaha's terminology is a little bit off -- but, so is every other manufacturer. 🙂 When you get right down to it, the word "sample" is abused all the time, everywhere. 😮

From the practical point of view, a player needs to learn the keyboard's terminology. It is what it is. One could say that Yamaha's "waveform" is a "multi-sample." At the end of the day and you're pushing buttons on Montage/MODX, it's "waveform."

Best to everyone -- pj

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