Unlocking the Yamaha E70

[dr funk]

Aha, the aftertouch/touch vibrato discussion makes a comeback! It is possible to have a poly aftertouch sensor made, but the question is: what to do with its output?

http://www.organforum.com/forums/sho...l=1#post170154

I'm very curious to see how the latest developments here on the thread work out!

Frank

[Guest]

Yep,you have to have some sort of decoder that was able to follow the Yamaha digital code as to where that particular key/note got routed - not all 'that' difficult, then you could route the analog signal accordingly - BUT you have to have a way to scan each sensor and feed it's analog value accordingly. 8-channel CMOS mux's are not too bad, you'd have 8 of them for 64 channels/keys and the arduino/PIC (or two?) to do the scanning/decoding/feeding. The main cost is the force sensor or some equivalent device plus-plus...

You would probably be better off creating the necessary MIDI/USB interface that would accept a qualifying keyboard with Polyphonic aftertouch and even velocity....

Otherwise, a global after-touch would be much more realistic - even adapting the current 'mechanism' to create a proper signal that could feed the necessary channels... or something like a pedal or breath controller, eternal ribbon or whatever... Frankly, I'm curious if anyone would be game enough! ; )

P.S. Nice to know a founding list member is still passing through these parts... ; )

[fededvm]

Frank,

Appreciate if you could sell my your manuals or a copy of them.I have electronic background, and would like to fix a E30 model.

Best Regards,

- Federico.

[Guest]

Check post #318 for a link to some related materials... (PASS Troubleshooting etc.)

Frank,

Appreciate if you could sell my your manuals or a copy of them.I have electronic background, and would like to fix a E30 model.

Best Regards,

- Federico.

[FlametopFred]

This continues to be so awesome.

[mseven]

Hey!

I agree and would only think global aftertouch, polyphonic is way beyond...

I've been riveted to commercial development for months, and have only just considered rewarding myself with attention to the e50 mods.

Its also been great to get practice on the soldering, assembly etc.

Some week soon I'll stack up some boards and get the slide pots soldered in. The arduino boards go right on top- the Mega has enough pins- to modulate all thirteen variables.

Unless there's something I'm missing

[Guest]

Great if you're able to continue, you seemed pretty close a number of months ago.

My last comment about the vibrato 'ribbon' of the top manual was not quite accurate, you can use it with however many notes - as long as you wiggle all your fingers in sync. Otherwise, it's a tug of war of sorts if you have one hand or finger holding a key down on it whilst attempting to move the others.

So are you using your own PIC implementation or are you using the ones you'd mentioned a while back done by another fellow (super modulation board?)

As far as destinations for modulation, you can inject it into the ribbon based modulation circuit by replacing the lamp with an LED etc. I get the impression that it's not meant for very fast modulation, but you can test that out. Otherwise, there's the VCF cutoff, resonance, VCA level - these you can modulate at audio rates as Rob pointed out years ago...you just have to have the right voltage range compatible with the VCF and VCA signals and configuration.

If you want to 'beef-up' the synth/orchestra oscillators, adding PWM would not be difficult... it's just a comparator that 'compares' two voltage sources; first being the oscillator and the second being a 'reference', typically a PWM slider or modulation source or a combination of both. Once you have one voltage exceeding the other, the comparator output switches.... this gives an 'on-off' cycling waveform with duty cycle (ratio of on vs. off time) dependent on the interaction of the two input voltages. The output of the comparators are 'mixed' into the VCF inputs using basic capacitor/resistor. Once you vary (modulate) the PWM reference, you get a very nice varying sync'd oscillator style sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybUggNytxyA

An LM339 (quad comparator) and some support passives - along with your modulation source or a slider is pretty much all you need to handle 4 notes. So in all, you would need 3 or 4 chips to do the whole organ. Keep in mind, the e-70 has 'dual' oscillators, but you would only need to work with one source unless you want to go all out and do both 'oscillators' - might be a bit much though.

Here's a video that shows the circuit and explains the theory of operation of the PWM comparator... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zep3ikgHutU The only thing is to ensure the comparator circuit has hysterisis (typically a couple of extra resistors) - this provides a 'dead band' between the compare high vs. compare low, otherwise it oscillates around the switch point when the on vs. off levels are too close.

You can also add Ring Modulation as a global effect on any of the upper/lower/bass manuals...a bit more advanced, but at slower cycles, it also can work as a dynamic tremolo/panning circuit vs. the built in leslie which is more of a complex doppler effect.

Hey!

I agree and would only think global aftertouch, polyphonic is way beyond...

I've been riveted to commercial development for months, and have only just considered rewarding myself with attention to the e50 mods.

Its also been great to get practice on the soldering, assembly etc.

Some week soon I'll stack up some boards and get the slide pots soldered in. The arduino boards go right on top- the Mega has enough pins- to modulate all thirteen variables.

Unless there's something I'm missing

[dustinjoel]

Hi Guys,

Longtime lurker here, and owner of both a E50 and E70.

Has anyone else seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYKJQJmHfRE


Modern midification of a D85 with a midi to parallel converter from a company called J-Omega. I'd have to confirm with both schematics, but I'm thinking the key encoder section will be very similar if not identical to the E70 series. Obviously there are more ideal solutions than clicking mechanical relays, but that should be a minor change. With midi, all the hardware knob mods, and keyman2's latest PWM suggestions, I am getting ready to gear up for all of these mods and two polyphonic monsters!


I have really enjoyed watching this thread with great anticipation!

[Guest]

Thanks for the link - great to see someone took the time to do this conversion and demo it - equally keen to see MSEVEN completing his mods... so close!

The only variable between the E70 and D85 might be the number of contacts on each key(?) but it's all digital, so pretty much the same idea. For some reason, most of the 'organ' interface products out there do not cater to the Yamaha Key Scanning layout(?) - that would eliminate the need to use one relay per key vs. just 12 for the octave notes and one relay for each group of octave keys (4 in the case of the d-85).

There's more ideas as far as augmenting the synth aspect... in case I didn't mention it, feeding noise into each analog filter and having a S&H feed to the filter cut-off would definitely take it beyond the standard palette of organ sounds... syncing it to the tempo of the built in analog drum machine would be a blast.....and B.T.W. Much as the standard musical arrangements sound great, it would be nice if someone could do a demo showing off the E70 as a 'synth' vs. traditional organ? I guess many of the pieces by FlameTopFred are verging on synth style, but I'm thinking more like Tangerine Dream/Vangelis with multitracked bass/sequencer lines etc. - if that's not being too blasphemous for the traditional organ crowd?

Hi Guys,

Longtime lurker here, and owner of both a E50 and E70.

Has anyone else seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYKJQJmHfRE


Modern midification of a D85 with a midi to parallel converter from a company called J-Omega. I'd have to confirm with both schematics, but I'm thinking the key encoder section will be very similar if not identical to the E70 series. Obviously there are more ideal solutions than clicking mechanical relays, but that should be a minor change. With midi, all the hardware knob mods, and keyman2's latest PWM suggestions, I am getting ready to gear up for all of these mods and two polyphonic monsters!


I have really enjoyed watching this thread with great anticipation!

[Guest]

Hey Mseven, any progress on your mods - last we heard, you were the front-runner.

[Guest]

Another PASS Electone Organ

Another interesting bit of info related to the PASS series.... though the D85 has the solo/monophonic analog synth section, it is digitally controlled by the electronics vs. having preset resistors etc. However.... the D-80 solo synth is totally analog, right down to the keyscanner, envelope generators etc. Plus it has those preset resistors that can be replaced with controls - it's basically a CS-10 monosynth, check out the related service manuals. ; )

http://www.yamaha.owner-manuals.com/...al-YAMAHA.html

http://www.owner-manuals.com/D80-ser...al-YAMAHA.html

[Joey_Gleet]

I have an E-70 in good condition for sale in Kansas City . See classifieds.

[Guest]

[Guest]

From what I understand, the process Marc used to strip down a full Yamaha CSY-2AE organ was that he just kept extracting the circuits that weren't part of what he wanted (testing along the way) and then a few cuts here and there, Et Voila! ps. the box on top is the breakout box for the E70 analog synth parameters, below it is the upper CSY-2AE analog synth and upper manual with presets etc. and the rest is the venerable E70....

Special 'shout-out' to Flametop who was brave enough to come up with the notion and make the first attempt. ; )

.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17648[/ATTACH]

[FlametopFred]

A w e s o m e ! ! ! !

Can't wait to see some video. I need to go on holiday just to play that amazing instrument!


There is no reason Yamaha could not make these now!

Would not that be sweet? Indeed. ha!