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Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Covers the Yamaha MODX6, MODX7 and MODX8 and the MODX+

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ITFlyer United States of America
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by ITFlyer »

YamahaUser wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:04 am Sorry, but not quite. What you've really got is a pair of nominally 10 KΩ pots with the end terminals wired in parallel. The giveaway is the 3.95 KΩ reading at center.


I don't have the time to get my CAD program up, so a description will have to do. Let's presume the pots are ideal, so exactly 10 KΩ. When measuring from one end to the wiper with the pot centered, you're actually measuring half of that pot's resistance (5 KΩ) in parallel with the series connection of the other half plus that of the entire resistance of the other pot (10 KΩ). In other words, 5 KΩ in parallel with 15 KΩ. That calculates to 3.75 KΩ, close enough to the 3.95 KΩ you measured with the real pots.
Aww crap. Of course, as soon as I read this, I thought "yup, he's right." Totally forgot about the parallel pot. :)
YamahaUser wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:04 am Most pots are manufactured with a small amount of lubricant on the resistance track. If that's removed with a "no-residue" contact cleaner, the pot's lifespan can be reduced. You might want to use a control cleaner that includes a small amount of lubricant.
Good point, I'll do that.
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by SysExJohn »

Sadly, I rather suspect that the issue has absolutely nothing to do with the pots, but with the, in effect, analogue to digital convertor.

Yamaha has decided (in its infinite wisdom) that, since 7 bit resolution is good enough for all the other CC's, then it shall be 7 bit for ALL controllers, including pitch bend.

That is, not all these keyboards are faulty, but Yamaha in its pursuit to drive down costs to has decided to do away with 14 bits (or even 10 bits) on its implementation of pitch bend.

Call me cynical if you wish, but why else?

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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by Macke »

ITFlyer wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 2:02 am So not seeing any obvious smoking gun, I figured the only thing left was dirt or dust in the pot itself. I flushed both pots out with a plastic-safe no-residue contact cleaner while working the pots continually. For good measure, I also disconnected the pot/mod connector from the circuit board and cleaned it as well.

I then put the keyboard back together, plugged it all in, and the verdict: it's fixed!!! No more spurious pitch bend MIDI jitter, and the pitch bend range has been restored.

For those who might be curious, I'll post some pictures of the guts of the keyboard that I took while it was open.
I'm glad you managed to solve the issue.

Thank you for also sharing your findings, the actual solution and pictures from the inside of the MODX. It will most likely be useful reference for others facing similar issue in the future. (Y)
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by SysExJohn »

ITFlyer wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 2:02 am So not seeing any obvious smoking gun, I figured the only thing left was dirt or dust in the pot itself. I flushed both pots out with a plastic-safe no-residue contact cleaner while working the pots continually. For good measure, I also disconnected the pot/mod connector from the circuit board and cleaned it as well.

I then put the keyboard back together, plugged it all in, and the verdict: it's fixed!!! No more spurious pitch bend MIDI jitter, and the pitch bend range has been restored.

For those who might be curious, I'll post some pictures of the guts of the keyboard that I took while it was open.
Restored to what, may I ask?
0 to 127?
0 to 1023?
0 to 16,384?

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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by YamahaUser »

SysExJohn wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:39 am Sadly, I rather suspect that the issue has absolutely nothing to do with the pots, but with the, in effect, analogue to digital convertor.
The erratic behavior experienced by ITFlyer certainly seems to have been due to poor contact of the PB pot's wiper to the resistance track. It's not an uncommon problem.

 
Yamaha has decided (in its infinite wisdom) that, since 7 bit resolution is good enough for all the other CC's, then it shall be 7 bit for ALL controllers, including pitch bend.

That is, not all these keyboards are faulty, but Yamaha in its pursuit to drive down costs to has decided to do away with 14 bits (or even 10 bits) on its implementation of pitch bend.

Call me cynical if you wish, but why else?
The issue of 7-bit PB resolution is nothing new. Yamaha Motif owners have complained about the stepping effect of pitch bend for many years. It's not much of a concern when the bending range is just a few semitones, but becomes obvious with more extreme bends. It's somewhat surprising that Yamaha chose to continue the "tradition" on the MODX and Montage.

As to why...
I don't have schematics (yet) for the MODX and Montage to compare with the Motif XF and MOXF models, but I suspect that certain parts of the circuit design of the earlier models were incorporated without change in the current ones. That's probably especially likely for controllers such as PB, MW, and the keyboard. Indeed, not having to redesign things is a cost-cutting measure.

The only other thing I can think of is data density. Pitch Bend generates a lot of MIDI events, and 14-bit resolution of course would create many more of them than 7-bit. Perhaps under certain circumstances there was the potential for MIDI data overload (more likely on the Montage, since it has aftertouch), and Yamaha decided to limit the possibility. (I realize that's not a strong argument, but without design details, that's all I've got.  :-)  )
Last edited by YamahaUser on Sat Feb 15, 2020 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by Macke »

Here are some earlier threads about this issue as well as promised:

viewtopic.php?f=186&t=13690&p=80238#p80238
https://www.yamahasynth.com/ask-a-quest ... -pitchbend
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by SysExJohn »

YamahaUser wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:19 pm The issue of 7-bit PB resolution is nothing new. Yamaha Motif owners have complained about the stepping effect of pitch bend for many years. It's not much of a concern when the bending range is just a few semitones, but becomes obvious with more extreme bends. It's somewhat surprising that Yamaha chose to continue the "tradition" on the MODX and Montage.

As to why...
I don't have schematics (yet) for the MODX and Montage to compare with the Motif XF and MOXF models, but I suspect that certain parts of the circuit design of the earlier models were incorporated without change in the current ones. That's probably especially likely for controllers such as PB, MW, and the keyboard. Indeed, not having to redesign things is a cost-cutting measure.

The only other thing I can think of is data density. Pitch Bend generates a lot of MIDI events, and 14-bit resolution of course would create many more of them than 7-bit. Perhaps under certain circumstances there was the potential for MIDI data overload (more likely on the Montage, since it has aftertouch), and Yamaha decided to limit the possibility. (I realize that's not a strong argument, but without design details, that's all I've got.  :-)  )
Pitch change is the one thing that the human ear is most sensitive to. Massively more so than e.g. volume.

This is why, when the MIDI 1 standards were being devised, Pitch Bend was given its very own message type, rather than being bundled in with all the other 32 CC's, with LSB and MSB transmitted separately. It needs more than 7 bits to sound smooth, even when used with the standard 2 semitone up/down range.

To relegate it to just 7 bits is stingy in the extreme by whatever company implements it, just to save a few pence in manufacturing costs.
Shame on you Yamaha!
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by ITFlyer »

So I was curious, and did a bit of research to see just what my various synths are sending for pitch bend data. I ran a MIDI monitor on each. Here's the results I found for resolution of pitch bend data.

ASM Hydrasynth: 14 bits. Both MSB and LSB populated.

Roland System-8: 8 bits. LSB alternates between 0 and 64, so going up I see MSB 64 LSB 0, then MSB 64 LSB 64, then MSB 65 LSB 0, MSB 65 LSB 64, MSB 66 LSB 0, and so on. The most significant bit of the LSB is the 8th bit (as you would expect)

Yamaha Reface CS: 8 bits. Identical to the Roland System-8

Yamaha MODX: 7 bits. But very odd behavior. With pitchbend from all the way down to center, LSB is zero, and MSB is the value being sent (from 0-64). Once it goes above 64, it also starts sending LSB data, with the formula apparently LSB = (MSB-64) * 2 - so the LSB increments at twice the rate as the MSB starting when it goes above 64, and continues until both MSB and LSB get to 127. It still is only 7 bit resolution however, despite this wacky behavior. I'm guessing they use this to make sure that at full deflection either way, you get either 0 or 16383 (otherwise the upper value would be limited to 2^14-127 instead of 2^14-1).

I'm very surprised that the MODX (and Montage) are limited to only 7 bit pitch bend data, whereas even the diminutive Reface sends at least 8 bit data, effectively doubling the pitch bend resolution of the MODX.
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by dkjroot »

Sorry, I know this is an old-ish thread but it seems better than starting a new one. I have this same problem with my (nearly new) MODX7. The voices go out of tune unless I disable the pitchbender by setting both min and max to zero. When I choose auto select in places where you can assign controls it instantly selects the pitch wheel so it’s obviously receiving changes from it all the time. Seems like it needs calibrating or there isn’t enough of a dead zone. I don’t think I had this before I upgraded the firmware but I’m not sure and it could be a coincidence. I’d rather not open up the keyboard, or send it back as I got it mail order and sending it back would be a huge fuss. Did anyone find a calibration option in the engineering menu?
Thanks:)
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by ITFlyer »

dkjroot wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:28 pm Sorry, I know this is an old-ish thread but it seems better than starting a new one. I have this same problem with my (nearly new) MODX7. The voices go out of tune unless I disable the pitchbender by setting both min and max to zero. When I choose auto select in places where you can assign controls it instantly selects the pitch wheel so it’s obviously receiving changes from it all the time. Seems like it needs calibrating or there isn’t enough of a dead zone. I don’t think I had this before I upgraded the firmware but I’m not sure and it could be a coincidence. I’d rather not open up the keyboard, or send it back as I got it mail order and sending it back would be a huge fuss. Did anyone find a calibration option in the engineering menu?
Thanks:)
No, there is no calibration routine mentioned in the service manual. I believe it is hard-coded to use the pots it has, and expects them to be reporting the correct values. I suspect your pitch bend potentiometer may need to be cleaned the same way mine did.
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by dkjroot »

Thanks. I’m sure Anderson’s will arrange for a repair if I can figure out how to package it up! I didn’t keep the box, it was too big.
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by dkjroot »

I finally built up the courage to take the case off and give my pots a clean and I’m pleased to report it seems to have solved the problem :). I didn’t like having to do it, and I’m not sure how many times you could do it before the screws started to chew up the plastic they screw into, but it’s worked so I guess I’m happy with the keyboard again. The acid test was the auto-assign on control edit, it’s no longer auto-selecting the pitch bend wheel all the time, so is fixed. I’ll keep it covered and hope it doesn’t get dirty again! Thanks for this thread, it’s saved my modx from the scrap heap!
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Re: Any way to calibrate the pitch bend wheel?

Unread post by parametric »

dkjroot wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:21 pm I’m not sure how many times you could do it before the screws started to chew up the plastic they screw into,
Yes. Its a pain that this is the way things are with newer boards (and pretty much anything else these days)

Nice and cheap to manufacture (for them), but a worry for you (The User).

It is best to disassemble and re-assemble, with hand screwdrivers - not powered.

When putting it back together, it is especially good is to "start" the screws with your fingers back into the original threads in the plastic

- Then tighten until it doesn't want to turn further. No more. Don't over-tighten . . . .

This way, you should preserve those threads for many removals - if necessary . . . . :idea:

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