The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

Jan,

The questions being asked in this forum -- the frequency of the LFO, MIDI 
SysEx information needed to convert patches between platforms -- are not 
typical end-user questions.  In fact, I know many musicians who would love 
to own an AN1x, but would have no use for this information, feeling that 
approaching the sound in such an analytical way spoils their creative 
process.  That's not to say that the questions aren't valid, but it means 
that the requests are uncommon ones, and one cannot take the approach that 
Yamaha is being "negligent" by not providing the information.  These 
questions are related to decisions and processes used by the developers, 
which are rarely documented in a format for end users.

Outside of the keyboard -- in particular, synth -- world, such questions 
are very rare.  How many musicians are screaming at Fender for not 
publishing the frequency response curves of a Twin Reverb amplifier?  Or at 
Tama, for a lack of mechanical drawings for their cymbal stands?  Most of 
them could care less, as long as the sound and features are there.  Like it 
or not, Yamaha is in the business of creating musical instruments, not 
explaining their inner workings in fine detail.

I think the difference is that Access is a small company with a limited 
product line.  Under that scenario, the person you are talking to in 
"support" might very well be the product's designer.  (I know that was true 
when I dealt with Voce, Inc. on their V3 Hammond organ clone:  the support 
was handled by the founder of the company!)  The goal is usually to keep a 
single product line alive as long as possible, through updates and such, to 
minimize development expense.  As companies grow larger and the product 
lines diversify, this method becomes increasingly hard to manage and keep 
profitable, so the teams usually specialize (hardware, software, support, 
etc.).  By the time you get to a large company like Yamaha, you find that 
the people who designed the product usually move on to other tasks after 
the product goes into production.  This is great, from the view of product 
breadth, not so good from the perspective of individual product 
support.  One of the good points about a small company is the continued 
support for older products.  There are down sides, too:  Voce, Inc. went 
out of business, and while some of their products survived under different 
management, many of their products are "orphans," without support, repair, 
or replacement.

Also recognize that while the AN1x has a strong following among users, 
including this author, it wasn't a "runaway success."  If it was, there 
would probably be an AN2x on the market right now, and eBay would be 
swimming in AN1x's.  Creating, documenting, and releasing information on 
the internal design of a product takes time and money, and diverts the same 
from other projects.  If the product is out of production, with a small or 
moderate user base, throwing additional resources in its direction is a 
difficult business decision to make.

Just my $.02 ...

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions"
www.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group moderator
978.386.7389  voice
978.776.0096  fax
bruce@...

At 03:43 a 03/03/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>Hello
>
>      I agree with you Bruce, write to Yamaha if you have a complaint of you
>own, not to have 400 people write Yamaha because for the "fun" of it, or to
>complain about a thing they are not "expected" to make available.
>
>      You could always discuss if f.ex. an LFO numeric-value-to-Hz table,
>should be made available or not. But you have to agree that if Yamaha, by
>themselves made these things available to their customers, they would have a
>wide range of satisfied customers. Take Access f.ex. they continue to make
>new sound banks, editors and system updates available for download for their
>Virus. I guarantee you that they have a huge number of satisfied customers.
>I own a Kurzweil K2000, and I can still get support on that machine, this is
>not possible at Yamaha. If your synth is a couple of years old, they hardly
>know what you are talking about.
>
>      I think all this also have to do with the fact that, when getting in
>touch with Yamaha, with a problem, you often end up feeling, they have no
>clue to what you are talking about. I mean, they should know, they developed
>the machine.
>
>Jan
>
> > I've read the file "LFO to Hz NOW!!!" and at the risk of sounding
> > like a wet blanket, I'm not sure that sending 400 copies of the
> > letter to Yamaha is going to accomplish the desired result.  As an
> > engineer who has both developed and supported consumer products, as
> > well as a musician who has been using synths since the early 70's,let
> > me provide a different perspective...
> >
> > While an LFO numeric-value-to-Hz table is certainly a useful item, it
> > is not in the category of something that a synthesizer manufacturer
> > is "expected" to provide.
> >
> > Regards,
>
> > Bruce Wahler
> > Design Consultant
> > Ashby Solutions"
> > www.ashbysolutions.com
> > CloneWheel Support Group moderator
> > 978.386.7389  voice
> > 978.776.0096  fax
> > bruce@...
>
>
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