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Ok, so basically you're looking for an appliance to unify all of your separate media players? Well, Yamaha along with a bunch of companies have been producing receivers capable of this for quite some time. I personally use this one and it works great. I have an XBox, two DVD-players, digital TV-receiver, CD-player and a PS2.

I guess my point is; this boxen is nothing new under the sun... Really.

Yes there is.

Although it's purpose it to sing a song, you could use it for dialog.
However, there would be a tremendous amount of work to figure out the proper pitch and rhythm of the dialog. Also, there are only two "vocalists" supported, a male and a female.
If one were to go through all this trouble, the results would most likely be a lot better than the automated solutions that sound like bad 60's robots. {Windows}-U anyone?

Yamaha motorcycle

Yamaha waverunner

Yamaha guitar

Yamaha golf clubs

Yamaha piano

We think they are one of the WORLD LEADERS IN DESIGN and are continually amazed at the quality and reliability and pleasure that we get out of their products. No, SERIOUSLY GUYS, they're shit is top-notch.

American companies should EMULATED these guys, these SUPERIOR Japanese designers and engineers. We should continue to STRIVE to be like them and put out great products year after year.

Here's a GREAT link that I KNOW you guys'll enjoy to the Yamaha design site. Most of the text is in Japanese but it's translatable quite easily: http://www.yamaha.co.jp/design/

Seriously though guys, check that site out, you'll definitely enjoy it and be impressed. Check out our journal too.

You won't find a driver for that hardware, since it uses a special inteface and special software that is closed source. Yamaha has no interest in writing that software for Linux.

mLan is an Open initiative from Yamaha which is aimed at replacing MIDI by allowing Audio and MIDI data isosynchronous transfer over a Firewire link.

There are many schemes available but the whole thing is widely open to allow coders to bring mLan to their environment.

It only costs if you want to develop HW mLan devices.

I know a lot of those examples sound like garbage, but did anyone listen to the "Male vocal solo"?

Listen [mp3]

It is at times disturbingly beautiful.

(It gets bad nearer the end, but I think they did that on purpose because it's a conspiracy)

Listen to this one. The Amazing Grace and the middle sample from the press release site are ok, but the one I linked to is rather amazing.

Hear a sample of 'Amazing Grace' sung through the Vodaloid.

--J.

There's an English press release here on the Japaneese Yamaha site with some clips available. They're in some weird format that requires a special player. The player is Windows only and is in Japanese. Still easily installable...just click where you think 'Next' should be. Here's a direct link to the player:

Player

The samples are very good and worth the trouble if you're interested in this. While not perfect it is better that I was expecting and I could see how it could be passable for a real person in certain situations.. Here are some direct links to the samples:

Kimi no uwasa / Male lead vocal (Japanese song)
Sarasara yukigeshiki / Chorus (Japanese)
Amazing Grace / English example

There's an English press release here on the Japaneese Yamaha site with some clips available. They're in some weird format that requires a special player. The player is Windows only and is in Japanese. Still easily installable...just click where you think 'Next' should be. Here's a direct link to the player:

Player

The samples are very good and worth the trouble if you're interested in this. While not perfect it is better that I was expecting and I could see how it could be passable for a real person in certain situations.. Here are some direct links to the samples:

Kimi no uwasa / Male lead vocal (Japanese song)
Sarasara yukigeshiki / Chorus (Japanese)
Amazing Grace / English example

There's an English press release here on the Japaneese Yamaha site with some clips available. They're in some weird format that requires a special player. The player is Windows only and is in Japanese. Still easily installable...just click where you think 'Next' should be. Here's a direct link to the player:

Player

The samples are very good and worth the trouble if you're interested in this. While not perfect it is better that I was expecting and I could see how it could be passable for a real person in certain situations.. Here are some direct links to the samples:

Kimi no uwasa / Male lead vocal (Japanese song)
Sarasara yukigeshiki / Chorus (Japanese)
Amazing Grace / English example

MIDI + sampling over firewire has been around since 97, it's called mLAN and it was introduced by Yamaha. This would just be a phycial transport change from normal firewire cabling to UWB. For more info on mLAN see the mLAN alliance website Here

I think Reeves Gabrels has stopped using the Vibrator since he got the Sustainer, but if he gets back into Modern Farming, anything might happen. Weird story about Reeves: he became a friend of David Bowie's since his wife worked for Bowie as a P.A., and only later said "oh, by the way, I play guitar..."

Why are people making sweeping judgements such as "all japanese guitars are knockoffs"? Would you say the same about their cars? Ibanez has already been mentioned, and Yamaha made original instruments such as the SG-series in the 70's, and my current objet-de-lust, the John Myung Signature bass. Yum...

If I'm understanding the Gibson thing right, the neat part is not that you can have digital output straight from your guitar; it's that you can replace analog snakes with ethernet cables between the stage and the FOH mixer. I suppose that's cool... but OTOH sound guys know how to troubleshoot and repair analog problems; knowing what to do with yer ethernet is hosed is a different story.

But hey, if they can simply replace MIDI that'd be a pleasant step forward (though Yamaha's mLAN hasn't managed to do it yet).

Sorry that's http://mobile.yamaha.co.jp/ which links to http://myc.thetamusic.com/framesets/myc.html. It's a Java sheetmusic composer for 16 voice midi; most of the phones now have sophisticated midi engines and instrument libraries in them now.

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/tech/1394mLAN/mlan.html-- detailed mLAN specs.

Or perhaps maybe see if there are some DSP cards that would work with the VST plugins your using. I think farming it out in real time is not something thats going to happen for a while. I mean, the latency will definately be a problem....

Harmony Central had an article (old, but still interesting), about a DSP card. And here is some info on a yamaha DSP Farm.

I think going that route would be better....
--

If major speed is on your mind, Yamaha just announced some 16x writers. In conjunction with Oak Technology, Yamaha is bringing out a 16x/16x/40x CD-R/RW and just came out with (in Japan and parts of Europe) a 16x/10x/40x CD-R/RW.

"Yamaha first to market with 16X CD-RW drive designed around Oak's controller that reduces CD burn time to under 5 minutes"
16X Write
16X ReWrite
40X Read / Audio Ripping

Yamaha's CRW2100:
16X Write
10X ReWrite
40X Read / Audio Ripping

These drives use an 8MB Memory Buffer for their high speed and to avoid buffer under-run. I can't find any indication if they use either Sanyo's or Ricoh's error prevention technology. I don't think they do.

An interesting article on Plextor's newest drive talks about a newer form of BURN-proof and also JustLink hints that 24x write drives may be down the road.

--

If you are Sending Midi over a single cable... (Like when I send all 16 channels to my synth)
You can run into a problem with bandwidth. Yamaha has come up with a specification for sending both MIDI and audio (and video and other stuff) over IEEE-1394 called MLAN
This will aleivate both bandwith (as it can grow as firewire grows) and wireing up complex situations, as it will allow software patchbays..

-Steve

According to an anouncement for the QY700(in Japanese), Yamaha had a MIDI sequencer the size of a VHS cassette tape which was designed to write and play music since December of 1990. I would also assume that this is a smaller version of something else that existed...

When compared to MP3 players, the following is similar:

1. Small and portable.
2. It can play music stored in RAM.
3. Music files can be transferred (downloaded) to it.

1. RIO can only playback.
2. QY series uses MIDI files, RIO uses MP3 files.