Hello. Downloaded sounds (even pre-sets!) have widely varying volume levels, and I like to set the volumes to be roughly at the same level when running through them. Speaking now of 'Single Part' Performances, many of them are made up of a number of 'Elements', and my question is - does altering the volume of the Part change the volume of each element proportionately? I ask because it seems to me occasionally that changing the volume also changes the character of the sound, which I may not want to do at that stage.

Changing the Part Volume in a Single Part Performance does not change the relationship (relative volumes) between Elements. So your ears are playing tricks on you.

Changing the velocity used to trigger a note can change the character of the sound... changing Part Volume simply turns up or turns down the Part (all Elements) together maintaining their relationship.

Not all musical instruments are the same volume - that's a fact. You could probably spend your time better in other endeavors. Here's why I say that.... The loudest instrument in the marching band? It's the piccolo because it cuts through without competition, music is like that. Your perception of what is loudest can be greatly influenced by the other instruments playing at the same time. So trying to set instruments so they are same is some kind of endless, and unnecessary task, because when you combine them your perception can change radically about how loud they should be relative to each other. The song, the tempo, the mood, all come into play.

In audio mixing, the comping keyboard sound and the rhythm guitar, as an example, share a similar role (chordal harmonic accompaniment) Setting them equal in volume might seem to be the thing to do, however, moving them further apart in the stereo field sometimes is a better solution and gives you room (space) for each to function and your perception about how they balance in the mix can change.

In general the Factory data gives you plenty of room to adjust sounds, for the reasons I be tried to explain. If you start adjusting the Element Levels you will be changing the fundamental character of the sound - be careful. If you are adjusting volume as an engineering task, please separate the role of the recording engineer and the musician. Sorry, I used to teach audio engineering so this is a subject near-and-dear: the engineer can turn the overall volume of the instrument up or down when mixing, but should never mess with the musicians instrument. Changing VELOCITY changes or could very likely change the performer's interpretation... as an engineer you have over stepped your bounds.

The ultimate example of Element adjustment is the drawbar organ... each drawbar could be considered an Element - the relative balance of the drawbars makes for an entirely different resulting sound. Although that is how an organ builds tones, adjusting the Elements in another instrument could "break" it from functioning... depending on how the programmer is utilizing the Element structure. That's the musicians job... not something the engineer should be doing because you can "break" the intended performance. (Of course, you maybe both engineer and musician... don't use adjustments to the fundamental instrument just to make it louderwithout realizing you are potentially breaking some of the magic of the Performance)!

If you have ever heard multiple mixes of the same song, you realize that equal volume is subjective, and constantly moving target. It's music!

The Fader 0-127, the Knobs 0-127, the Super Knob 0-127... how it feels to you when adjusting is subjective. The results would be the same if assigned to controlling volume.

Rod - unless I'm mistaking what you wish to achieve, are you wanting to alter the overall level of a performance? You have noticed that different performances have different volume levels. This is correct. You can see the volume set for the performance from:

Home Edit General Volume

For instance the first 4 Preset Piano are 127, 66, 103 and 85

So you can alter the overall volume of a performance up to its maximum of 127 by changing this value.

Hello BM - thanks for clearing up the 'Single Part' question - I sometimes have to drop the volume by 50%, and think maybe that drops some elements too low to be effective? But I now know the effect is proportional across all of them ...

As to the rest I follow your arguments, but at this stage I'm not trying to shape a sound - just lowering the overall volume to a comfortable listening level akin to other sounds. A particular offender in the volume respect is the 'DX7 Collection 1' that I downloaded some time ago, and have just started on serious listening. Most of the patches are excellent - but EXTREMELY LOUD! In the 'Edit' screen they're at 127 invariably, and seem to have been recorded at high volumes in the first place. I simply want to bring them down to a comfortable level with my set-up at normal settings - the Montage master volume is at 50%, the mixer volume at 70%, and the main amplifier at 80%. Luckily I'm a light-fingered (! - missed my vocation?!) player ... so I wondered if I could lower volumes across all the Parts proportionately, perhaps with the Superknob? Speeds things up a lot and is far more accurate than manually setting each one - I want to keep the original balance as nearly as possible at this stage. I appreciate your point about the Engineering side - that was my vocation too, but mechanical, not audio - you used a tuning fork, I used a big hammer (and if that didn't work, get a bigger one).

Hello Phil, and you have read me correctly. What I'm after doing is changing the volume of all the Parts simultaneously and proportionately - not just being lazy, but wanting to retain the original balance of the sound as far as possible. But is seems that many (if not all) of the sounds in the DX7 library were recorded at far higher levels than those in the Montage ...

Yes, those DX7 patches are all set to 127 while most performances on the montage are much much lower. I also would like to lower them all so they don´t blast when changing from another performance, but the work! This is where it would be nice if one could overwrite patches in a library or have 2 user spaces, one for user performances and one for editing libraries that aren´t supposed to mix with other performances! The way things are now, all the patches with the sound lowered will end up in the user space and create chaos. So to avoid them mixing with your user performances you have to delete the entire user file first, import all the DX7 patches to user to lower them, export them to a library again, erase the old library with the loud sounds, reimport the new library.... Clear the user, reimport your user file....
Much too complicated, I think.

@Gabi...

Yes, those DX7 patches are all set to 127 while most performances on the montage are much much lower. I also would like to lower them all so they don´t blast when changing from another performance, but the work! This is where it would be nice if one could overwrite patches in a library or have 2 user spaces, one for user performances and one for editing libraries that aren´t supposed to mix with other performances! The way things are now, all the patches with the sound lowered will end up in the user space and create chaos.

Only if you continue to fight the features. Once you understand the difference between ROM and RAM, you will stop asking "if one could overwrite patches in a Library..." You can't... if we only didn't have gravity we could all fly!!! 🙂 and then realize that you can lower the volume and even out the Performances you decide to use by doing so in your User "LIVE SET".

Say you want to use a Performance that you feel is too loud (some programmers, unfortunately, think that big volume is what it is all about), instead of taking the "IF ONLY" defeatist/pessimistic -the glass is half empty view of the world... try placing the Performance in a User "LIVE SET" (Hold [SHIFT] + [LIVE SET]) and touch a box, to Register the Performance to a space in your User Live Set, you can then apply a Volume OFFSET, turning the Performance volume down to match your own selections of Programs.

This without having to take the defeatist attitude. Without having to Import the Library data to User RAM, without having to reprogram the actual data, without having to rewrite and reinstall the Library.

Yes, in your LIVE SETs you can quickly and quite easily STORE a Volume Offset for each of the programs you wish to use! 🙂
This is the positive, the "glass is only half full", easy, and therefore, smarter way to solve the issue. 🙂
Enjoy! Try in life to look for the bright side!

Bad Mister is´t not only about the performances I want to use but also about the performances that are available. It´s no fun to scroll thru different libraries for a sound a have some blast at double volume and having to turn the volume up and down all the time when auditioning sounds. Sometimes it´s so loud it hurts the ears - beware with headphones!!! So, if one wants to got thru the work of adapting the sound volume of ALL the DX7 sounds once and for all, (which are all too loud, also those imported from the old DX7) then one has to do it in one go in the user space. And for as long as that endeavour takes, the user patches will not be available, or mixed with the DX7 performances. Not the most ideal situation, glass half empty, but ok, what can we do.
Well, one could put the user peformances in a library for the time being, but eventually one gets confused about what´s where and what should go where.

Oh, my!

Sounds you find on the Internet may indeed be of curious quality control. To avoid hurting your ears, perhaps you should wait for professionally programmed Montage Libraries. Leave the leading edge explorations for those willing to deal with the hassles of preparation.

Bad Mister, I am not talking about something I found on the internet but only about all the sounds I converted from my old DX7 with the official online converter. And I didn´t start this thread either. I have no intention of going thru the task of lowering all those converted sounds anyway cos it´s too much hassle, for reasons described. I was merely responding here. But if you have a simple method of separating overworked presets from sounds created from scratch by the user without going thru what I´ve described on a daily basis, then, well, let us know. Maybe some people like to keep their own work separate from the rest of it (like enhanced presets and lowered dx7 sounds). I have not found a way to do this yet. Except proably by saving them with montage connect into different folders. Which seems to be the best method, to me.

Hello BM Phil and Gabi - got side-tracked on another project and then unable to get on the Montage for a couple of days, but I've not given up on this ... my question ref: multi-part Performances being volume controlled by the Superknob got lost somewhere, but I've since been baffled by the techno speak in associated articles (Mastering Montage series) which somehow peter out in a wealth of things it can do - but not how to actually do them. This is quite normal for technical treatises, but I've picked up a clue in an earlier thread which I will follow - it sounds promising! My only concern right now is controlling the volumes of Performance Parts 1 - 8 using the Superknob to do the lot at once, with particular reference to the 'DX7 Collection 1' Library (which I have transferred into a User Bank for the purpose) to bring their volumes into line with those of the Montage (in the main). Simple on the surface - hopefully less complex than indicated so far!

Maybe delay things a bit until OS 1.50 is installed - some useful stuff there ...

My only concern right now is controlling the volumes of Performance Parts 1 - 8 using the Superknob to do the lot at once, with particular reference to the 'DX7 Collection 1' Library (which I have transferred into a User Bank for the purpose) to bring their volumes into line with those of the Montage (in the main). Simple on the surface - hopefully less complex than indicated so far!

"...controlling the volumes of Performance Parts 1-8..." can easily be done using an FC7 pedal plugged into Foot Controller 1 jack. No programming necessary. Perhaps I'm missing why you want to program each Part's volume to be controlled "at once" via the Super Knob. It typically is used for things that don't have a dedicated controller.

Volumes all at once is the realm of the expression pedal, by default, no programming necessary..

But what you need to do is EDIT each Part so that one of its AssignKnobs is set to be the Volume control. As you know each Part has its own eight Knobs.
Say you set Part 1 so it's AssignKnob 1 is assigned to Part Volume.
Then you would move to the Common/Audio level of editing, where you would link this assignment to the Super Knob, by setting "Part 1 Assign 1" in the Control Assign matrix.
Rinse and repeat for each of the Performance Parts 1-8

Hello BM - Ha! My original question was for a way to simultaneously control the volume of all Parts used in a multi-Part Performance so that all the volumes used would be turned down proportionately and therefore retain the character of that Performance. The Superknob was my first thought, but you've just provided another more direct way ... I use an FC7 now to operate the Superknob ... however, I looked again at the 'DX7 Collection 1' and found that 138 of the 152 Performances are single Part anyway - and of the remaining 14 multi-Part ones, Montage only comes up with 2 - an entire page of 12 has gone walkabout! I am in the middle of reducing the volumes of those 138 single Part Performances now, just using Fader 1, with good results. Being ex: Library, they're all in the 'All' Category, so once I have them balanced I'll add them to the various other Categories on the way to producing new Libraries - although I have a question there - there are 16 named Categories, but only 8 Libraries available, so it is impossible to devote a Library to each Category. I will need to merge two Categories into each Library. Perfectly possible - but do you think Yamaha may address this at some future update? Instead of 8 x 640 Libraries, have 16 x 320 - or expand the memory. It wouldn't surprise me if there were a hidden away facility somewhere in Montage to do that ...

My thoughts the "volume normalization" (for hundreds of patches at a time) discussion:

The DX7 and follow-ons during that era had limited memory and therefore the software (lots of 3rd party, including public domain) wrapped around DX7 focused on modifying one patch at a time.

Fast forward - and there are thousands of patches you could fit a large portion of on your Montage. Since this is a relatively "new thing" - there is less 3rd party support for this type of feature. Maybe it exists - maybe not.

To me ... and where I'm going with the above setup ... is that it seems that batch editing volume levels of all of your DX-series SYX files would be a great thing to do offline - and maybe not best suited within the keyboard as appears to be requested by some users. The SYX format is pretty well documented and there is existing source on multiple platforms for public domain software which modifies/understands the SYX format. This presents a great opportunity for someone to spend a few weekends to push out a utility to "normalize" the volumes of any one or collection of SYX files. This would be a step prior to importing to the converter - which I would say should not muck with any settings to try itself to normalize anything.

This may not help you today - but software has a way of eventually appearing (take the Montage-targeted waveform editor which maybe will release with the new firmware announce - maybe not). Hopefully the Montage can reignite the programming community that supported the DX7 (and follow-ons) or inspire a new generation to build such a community.

These days - some kind of SDK would be one way to kickstart the movement - but really, there's enough already "in the wild" to use. I'm not sure if a formal SDK is necessary except to place kindling under the fire.

Hello Jason - see what you mean, just wonder if there's enough interest to spark such a movement. Only Gabi and I seem interested in dealing with this sort of thing - which sort of surprises me - the DX7 was a ground-breaker, like the Oberheim or Moog or Jupiter 8. But I expected the Montage to have a 'batch' facility tucked away, rather like a photo-editor, as it's such a Pandora's Box of a synth ... it's a long slog doing the job one by one, but at least not boring! Those little red lights on the faders are very handy ... it's working out at about 30% reduction across the board, with the odd one at 40% - was everybody deaf in the 80s?

Even if there were a batch utility - the interface is not really great for sorting through hundreds of performances to pick maybe 400 out of 550 you want to choose. There's no swipe/pinch/drag/flick which would otherwise perhaps make multi-selection easier. With an offline computer - it would be much easier to "arrange" which SYX files you would want to pre-process with some volume normalization and go about doing that before conversion.

The comment about DX7 files being louder and somehow that meaning anything in the context of the past:

You are comparing SYX files which were designed for - in the case of the DX7 (not DX7II) volume settings from 0-99 (Montage and DX7II and others are 0-127). You that was also different hardware - so the response was different. All of those sounds made sense, in terms of volume, on the legacy platform. Those sounds would match the presets which the machine ships with. So they would be calibrated to match the volume level of the shipping patches.

Today, with Montage, I would suppose the overall concept was to provide more "breathing room" (headroom) to increase the volume. So the average performance on Montage is set less "hot" than the DX7's performances. You compensate for this in the DX7 by lowering the gain of your monitors (if needed) or increasing the gain on the Montage (if needed). This makes the DX7 patches less "portable" in terms of volume to go from one concept of average volume to another.

Likewise - if the DX7 could import Montage performances (which it cannot - no FM-X conversion from Montage to DX7) - then the Montage FM-X performances converted over to DX7 would likely be too quiet.