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This thread is not a discussion of rotary speaker SOUND, just about control. Don't comment about the rotary speaker sound in this thread please.
I have struggled with this subject for months.
For those of us who have played an old Hammond B3 with a Leslie speaker, there is ordinarily a control often called "Half Moon Switch" for the Leslie. If you are not familiar with this you can easily search online for a photo. Having played the original for many years, I became accustomed to how it works, and many others probably have also found this Leslie speaker control is actually an essential part of how one plays a Hammond/Leslie rig. With it moving the lever to the right puts the Leslie in slow rotation, moving to the center stops the rotation, and moving to the left gets fast rotation. Of course there is a lot of momentum so the changes take time, and it is this period while the speed is changing that is VERY IMPORTANT in recreating how an experienced Hammond/Leslie will use it effectively. When I am doing this operation, it always gets a very positive reaction from listeners.
I can't get accustomed to how the YC has implemented something like this. Yamaha needs to make this more like the original in my opinion.
On the YC you have two buttons for rotary speaker control, and you can assign the pitch lever too, but none of these work like the original. Now using the pitch lever was a pretty good idea for those intrepid Yamaha designers, but the lever has a return spring so you can't leave the switch on the right or left like a half moon switch. There is also a modulation lever without a return spring, but looking at the service manual the two switches are the same part so one could remove the return spring, not really a good idea if you want to use it for pitch bending perhaps. But I don't want to pitch bend the organ very often, and you could simply return the lever to the center manually and one doesn't have to be precise as they implemented a 'dead band' that makes it easier to find the middle. So that would be something I might do.
The BIG problem is that when you push the rotary speed button or flip the pitch bend, you don't know what you are going to get! They just alternate between fast and slow, or if you push stop in between pushes/flips, then it doesn't alternate. Or something like that, honestly I am not certain even though I have investigated extensively. Like the original Half moon, I want SLOW every time I flip the pitch bend to the left, and I want FAST every time I push to the right. I think I could deal with having to push the stop button if the lever worked like that, but it doesn't.
How much does this bother me? I have designed some equipment to fix it, that's how serious I am, cause it needs to work like the original. This is a tiny circuit board that plugs into the MIDI out, with a tiny jumper that goes from a 2.5mm jack on the PCB and into the MIDI in. Another 3.5mm jack is for a TRS cable that goes to a Half Moon Switch. Now you can't put it where the original was, so I plan to put it on the left side instead. I bought all the parts, got some Vintage lever switches, and designed the PCB. Before I order those, I just couldn't believe that Yamaha wouldn't want to fix this themselves. I want SLOW every time I flip the pitch bend to the left, and I want FAST every time I push to the right.
If I am not alone, then I could offer this equipment to others. It's cheaper to make 70 units than to make just 1.
Posted : 22/02/2025 8:20 pm
You may want to contact a service center and have your instrument looked at. You can also use the 'Contact Us' link at the bottom right of this page and contact Yamaha Support directly.
The BIG problem is that when you push the rotary speed button or flip the pitch bend, you don't know what you are going to get! They just alternate between fast and slow, or if you push stop in between pushes/flips, then it doesn't alternate.
As delivered from the factory the Slow and Fast switches don't alternate but simply choose either Slow or Fast as the label indicates. If your instrument isn't doing that then it needs serviced.
The Stop button needs to be held for a second or two for the stop to work properly. If the speed is fast and you merely press and release the stop button without waiting it will start to slow when you push stop but then when you release the stop button it will speed up again toward the prior fast setting.
See p.18 of the owner doc:
STOP] button
For stopping the rotation of the rotary speaker. Pressing
and holding the button for a few seconds immediately
stops the rotary speaker, and resets the position.
Table D on p.61 of the owner doc shows that 'Slow' is a controller value from 0-63 and 'Fast' is a value from 65-127. Notice that 'Stop' only has ONE value: 64. That makes it tricky to use a controller since only the exact value of 64 will actually be a 'stop'.
Just FYI but you can manually set the speed and acceleration rates for both the rotor and horn. A faster acceleration/decelartion rate means that the stop action will occur more quickly.
Before contacting a service center you may want to try doing a factory reset: menu->job->factory reset. See p.23 of the Owners manual.
This post was modified 1 month ago by Toby
Posted : 22/02/2025 10:09 pm
Topic starter
As delivered from the factory the Slow and Fast switches don't alternate but simply choose either Slow or Fast as the label indicates. If your instrument isn't doing that then it needs serviced.
I don't think this is correct. For the record, I am a Yamaha Service Center.
You might be thinking about a different instrument, the YC does not have TWO switches labelled SLOW and FAST, there is just the single button.
Get yourself in front of a YC and try using the pitch bend for rotary speaker control. You will see what I mean.
Posted : 22/02/2025 10:27 pm
Yamaha support responded to our email with this:
Toby,
What you describe is designed behaviour.
To directly control the rotary speed you will need to use a Midi controller and send the appropriate Control Change command as documented in the Owner Manual: CC# 85 value 0-63 for slow, 64 for stop or 65-127 for fast.
Sorry for the confusion about what model instrument you were using but you didn't specify it.
Posted : 23/02/2025 1:32 am
I'm not sure you understand the fundamentals here. That's OK. Contacting Yamaha support isn't the way forward.
Designing a circuit board like this isn't tough for us EE folks with the experience. I pump out a several designs a year much more complex with BGAs, often HDI.
Even though it's a relatively simple design one doesn't do this lightly. A one off or even small number is going to be expensive. There are PCB houses that lesson the blow. I haven't personally used these yet since my designs are all commercial - but generally things can add up. KiCad is something that can level the tools playing field in terms of cost. I use Altium so there's a yearly subscription cost that's not insignificant if you're rolling your own and not otherwise getting compensation for your efforts. And parts can add up although I'm not sure what's behind the curtains here. The enclosure or just repurposed half moon switches may cost a bit. I haven't priced any of this stuff.
What I'm getting at is this isn't a casual decision. It's one made after exploring and being cognizant of the alternatives. Also fueled by passion and experience on both sides of the fence (technical and musician).
So ... Although I'm not in the market primarily because I'm not an organ player. My organ playing doesn't alter the rotary speaker speed. I do own a Hammond CV with a half moon and Leslie. So I know what that's about.
I do think there's a market for a generic half moon MIDI device that can be retro fitted onto any keyboard with the means. This may or may not change the design depending if you have something with intelligence on the PCB or not. I'm guessing with mentions of MIDI there's something there that can firmware accommodate different implementations and work as intended for more than the YC and more than Yamaha.
Best of luck with the project.
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 23/02/2025 2:30 am
Not sure what you mean by 'way forward'.
Contacting Yamaha support isn't the way forward.
Yamaha, the manufacturer, is the ONLY one that can provide definitive answers about the functionality in their instruments. As such they are the best source of information.
Perhaps you missed two of the most salient comments OP made:
I have struggled with this subject for months.
. . .
I can't get accustomed to how the YC has implemented something like this. Yamaha needs to make this more like the original in my opinion.
Those statements are most definitely, IMO, indicative of the need to contact Yamaha support. That can be done using the 'Contact Us' link on most every official web page (including this one) or by submitting to IdeaScale.
Yamaha is the one that implemented it and Yamaha is the one that could 'make this more like the original' if they choose to do so.
I'm going to have to disagree with your statement about 'the way forward'. I've never understood the reluctance many people seem to have to provide feedback directly to the source of the issue.
Perhaps the issue is specific to that particular instrument/class. The M8X doesn't behave in the manner OP describes. That suggests that Yamaha either recognized the issue and addressed it in later models or had intentionally implemented it to work the way it does.
Yamaha acknowledged the latter although that acknowledgement doesn't imply there was anything to address.
Posted : 23/02/2025 3:10 am
The functionality doesn't exist (and isn't a bug) because it wasn't a design goal of the YC. They can choose to control the rotary speaker however they want and it doesn't have to satisfy the purists. They could have forced the drawbars to work only like Montage classic where you push them forward to increase the volume of a "pipe". And if they did this, it wouldn't be a bug either but it'd be the same kind of deviation from how a Hammond works.
At any rate - the "right" avenue for taking this forward is to try to push it through Ideascale as well as planting the seeds here. Support is there for problems and this, as they correctly say, isn't a problem. They're not there to design future products whereas the R&D is and monitor Ideascale.
PJ understands the problem - that's part of my premise. He doesn't need help in that area. There's no gap of understanding here. Something which support would otherwise be a great resource. They're also "OK" for venting to and maybe something will, if you're lucky, make it past the support team to the right team. However, that's taking the long way. Ideascale gives you more direct access to the teams responsible with designing the missing functionality. And the timescales involved here one can roll their own solution much faster than Yamaha can unless there's something already in the queue.
This post was modified 1 month ago by Jason
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 23/02/2025 3:30 am
Topic starter
What you describe is designed behaviour.
To directly control the rotary speed you will need to use a Midi controller and send the appropriate Control Change command as documented in the Owner Manual:
I didn't see that one coming. The Yamaha designers intended the speed to be changed but not to offer the musician the choice of which speed? How did they make this choice? I wrote to this forum after I had already designed this thing, thinking it seems really like an error in judgement rather than a conscious design choice, so instead of having to build something Yamaha could implement the choice for musicians to have it like the original: left flip of pitch bend is always slow and right is always fast. I can see applying my decades of 'Leslie skills' to include using a separate stop button, so by removing the return spring I would be in hog heaven playing my YC rotary speaker control. I just couldn't wrap my head around having to build this thing when the OS software fix seem pretty simple.
I hate to admit that after 40 years of a cordial relationships (Jim Smerdel, Athan Billias) I have never heard of Ideascale.
For the tech savy, I use the DipTrace software now days. It is free, and it has a powerful autorouter that is helpful, but I always manually finish my boards. In the software there is a menu item - "Order Boards" - and going in there and changing the number of pieces, I see that the price is kind of fixed at $200 until you exceed 69 pieces ($2.90 each). The rest of the parts: uC ($1), buffer (26 cents), regulator (28 cents), jacks (67 cents and 79 cents), jumper cable ($5), you can see the cost is minimal.
There are several intrepid makers selling Half Moon switch product on eBay and Reverb. These are for instruments that have a jack for it (Nord, Crumar). In my design (I only got this far because, as I said, I just can't operate the YC rotary switch as it comes and have it make musical sense to me) half of the uC pins are not needed (8 pins) so there is the possibility to use them for setting preferences like MIDI channel without having to send some SysEx. I found some vintage lever switches for $10 that have the vintage Half Moon switch feel.
The functionality doesn't exist (and isn't a bug) because it wasn't a design goal of the YC. They can choose to control the rotary speaker however they want and it doesn't have to satisfy the purists.
Wow - what a thing to say.
Posted : 23/02/2025 7:03 pm
Topic starter
What you describe is designed behaviour.
To directly control the rotary speed you will need to use a Midi controller and send the appropriate Control Change command as documented in the Owner Manual:
I didn't see that one coming. The Yamaha designers intended the speed to be changed but not to offer the musician the choice of which speed? How did they make this choice? I wrote to this forum after I had already designed this thing, thinking it seems really like an error in judgement rather than a conscious design choice, so instead of having to build something Yamaha could implement the choice for musicians to have it like the original: left flip of pitch bend is always slow and right is always fast. I can see applying my decades of 'Leslie skills' to include using a separate stop button, so by removing the return spring I would be in hog heaven playing my YC rotary speaker control. I just couldn't wrap my head around having to build this thing when the OS software fix seem pretty simple.
I hate to admit that after 40 years of a cordial relationships (Jim Smerdel, Athan Billias) I have never heard of Ideascale.
For the tech savy, I use the DipTrace software now days. It is free, and it has a powerful autorouter that is helpful, but I always manually finish my boards. In the software there is a menu item - "Order Boards" - and going in there and changing the number of pieces, I see that the price is kind of fixed at $200 until you exceed 69 pieces ($2.90 each). The rest of the parts: uC ($1), buffer (26 cents), regulator (28 cents), jacks (67 cents and 79 cents), jumper cable ($5), you can see the cost is minimal.
There are several intrepid makers selling Half Moon switch product on eBay and Reverb. These are for instruments that have a jack for it (Nord, Crumar). In my design (I only got this far because, as I said, I just can't operate the YC rotary switch as it comes and have it make musical sense to me) half of the uC pins are not needed (8 pins) so there is the possibility to use them for setting preferences like MIDI channel without having to send some SysEx. I found some vintage lever switches for $10 that have the vintage Half Moon switch feel.
The functionality doesn't exist (and isn't a bug) because it wasn't a design goal of the YC. They can choose to control the rotary speaker however they want and it doesn't have to satisfy the purists.
Wow - what a thing to say.
Posted : 23/02/2025 7:06 pm
Topic starter
What you describe is designed behaviour.
To directly control the rotary speed you will need to use a Midi controller and send the appropriate Control Change command as documented in the Owner Manual:
I didn't see that one coming. The Yamaha designers intended the speed to be changed but not to offer the musician the choice of which speed? How did they make this choice? I wrote to this forum after I had already designed this thing, thinking it seems really like an error in judgement rather than a conscious design choice, so instead of having to build something Yamaha could implement the choice for musicians to have it like the original: left flip of pitch bend is always slow and right is always fast. I can see applying my decades of 'Leslie skills' to include using a separate stop button, so by removing the return spring I would be in hog heaven playing my YC rotary speaker control. I just couldn't wrap my head around having to build this thing when the OS software fix seem pretty simple.
I hate to admit that after 40 years of a cordial relationships (Jim Smerdel, Athan Billias) I have never heard of Ideascale.
For the tech savy, I use the DipTrace software now days. It is free, and it has a powerful autorouter that is helpful, but I always manually finish my boards. In the software there is a menu item - "Order Boards" - and going in there and changing the number of pieces, I see that the price is kind of fixed at $200 until you exceed 69 pieces ($2.90 each). The rest of the parts: uC ($1), buffer (26 cents), regulator (28 cents), jacks (67 cents and 79 cents), jumper cable ($5), you can see the cost is minimal.
There are several intrepid makers selling Half Moon switch product on eBay and Reverb. These are for instruments that have a jack for it (Nord, Crumar). In my design (I only got this far because, as I said, I just can't operate the YC rotary switch as it comes and have it make musical sense to me) half of the uC pins are not needed (8 pins) so there is the possibility to use them for setting preferences like MIDI channel without having to send some SysEx. I found some vintage lever switches for $10 that have the vintage Half Moon switch feel.
The functionality doesn't exist (and isn't a bug) because it wasn't a design goal of the YC. They can choose to control the rotary speaker however they want and it doesn't have to satisfy the purists.
Wow - what a thing to say.
Posted : 23/02/2025 7:10 pm
As far as I know there has never been much, if any, visibility into the WHY of Yamaha's decisions.
The Yamaha designers intended the speed to be changed but not to offer the musician the choice of which speed? How did they make this choice?
Good question! And why use a single value of 64 to represent 'stop' for the rotary speed? That pretty much guarantees that no human could use a pedal/controller to get that one value.
Over the years Yamaha, and other manufacturers, have been transistioning away from switches/knobs having locked-in/dedicated functions to software functionality/switches to provide more flexibility and control.
On the Montage M models there is extensive ability to use rotary speaker parameters as controller destinations.
I wrote to this forum after I had already designed this thing, thinking it seems really like an error in judgement rather than a conscious design choice
My experience with Yamaha is that their design decisions do seem to be intentional - but in some cases they just didn't examine the alternative implementations to take other use cases into account.
so instead of having to build something Yamaha could implement the choice for musicians to have it like the original: left flip of pitch bend is always slow and right is always fast.
IMO using pitch bend isn't a good choice since there is just so much history for its traditional use which pretty much requires an auto-return to center position. Controllers with fixed travel limits (sliders, pedals, knobs with hard travel limits) have their issues and the non-motorized sliders are a prime example. Moving a slider to set a value means that when you use a different controller to change the value the physical slider position no longer matches the new 'soft' value. Then when you nudge the slider there is a sudden jump from the 'soft' value to the value represented by the slider's physical position.
The more modern use of 'rotary encoders' gets around that problem. a physical position doesn't necessarily represent any given value - you can twirl the knob forever but the upper and lower limits, and overall range of values, are controlled by software. So you can use the same knob to control almost anything even if they have totally different ranges of values.
Then throw in the automated variable controllers (LFOs, Motion Sequences) and there is no constant connection to any physical switch/knob/controller at all.
I hate to admit that after 40 years of a cordial relationships (Jim Smerdel, Athan Billias) I have never heard of Ideascale.
https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/c/yamahasynth
Use the 'Home' selection at the top to select any specific campaign like 'YC'. If you do a search for 'Rotary' you will find several prior ideas submitted concerning the operation of the Leslie stuff. It can only help to UP-vote ideas you support and link them to any ideas you submit.
Yamaha only rarely provides any comments or feedback but they do review the submissions once a week. Sometimes you will see them change stage from 'Ideate' (original submission) to 'Assessment' (under consideration).
The 'Contact Us' link at the bottom of most pages, including this one, can be used to send an email directly to Yamaha Support. They won't always respond either but we have had good success when a specific test case is included that makes it easy for a Yamaha reviewer to actually reproduce the issue.
You can expect no response at all to 'why' questions, complaints/whining or suggestions for changes.
Just FYI - our prior comments weren't in any way intended to take away from the worth of the effort you are making to address a problem. We are just trying to provide a fuller context for anyone else that may read the thread.
Sometimes the support that can be provided is rather limited to 1) this is how it works, 2) don't know why they did it this way but 3) here are some alternatives to minimize the issues involved.
Posted : 23/02/2025 8:28 pm
I'm a fellow keyboard player. My wish is that these organ simulations would resemble the control surface as faithful to the instruments they emulate as possible. That's me as a user/consumer. So I understand the request and agree with the wish here.
When I say "they don't have to" and "it's not a bug" I'm inferring the position Yamaha holds. And it's valid, in a sense, to deliver some less-than-faithful implementations where it benefits cost or reliability or whatever they were aiming for. It's difficult to find the perfect instrument. At any rate, most of that was directed counter to the notion that customer support is the place to get traction. To them it's not a bug and they're right (for their sphere of influence). The design functions according to plan however off the mark that plan may be for some.
"Purists" is not a dig. I'm glad they at least managed to get 9 drawbars on this thing (YC). Would have been nice for the Montage to have an extra slider for the organs and maybe mode'd to something else when not used as a drawbar. Back to the YC: Might be cool to be able to turn off the rotary motor where the pitch starts to sag too. And partial key where only some but not all of the drawbars are engaged. There's lots of missing features.
The R&D team reviews ideas on yamahasynth.ideascale.com on a weekly basis. So if there's anything you'd like to see Yamaha do with design (current or future) then lay it on them there. They do appreciate a nuts-and-bolts breakdown like you've so eloquently voiced here.
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 24/02/2025 2:45 am
