Controlling a Voyager with a Yamaha WX5

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1

Hi Guys, I’m new to the forum…

I have a Voyager Electric Blue and want to control it with a Yamaha WX5 through MIDI. I connect the MIDI Out of the WX5 to the Moog MIDI In and I am able to trigger the Moog. The issue is that I need to have the velocity and/or the Filter Cutoff respond and change with the change in breath of the WX5.

What is happening now is that the Moog triggers and plays the note that I play on the WX5 with a velocity corresponding to the first breath value that is played on the WX5, and the note continues to be played until I stop blowing into the WX5 at the same initial velocity regardless of me changing the breath pressure. The velocity/volume of the note does not change if I change the pressure of my breath after it has been triggered till I stop blowing into the WX5 and I am not able to figure out how to get around this.

It would sound amazing to use the Moog with the WX5’s expressiveness, using the breath expression to control velocity/expression/Cutoff individually or combined as well so that these values change and affect the sound after the note has been triggered and not just at the moment of trigger until the next note.

Your help is much appreciated!
Cheers. :slight_smile:

2

MIDI velocity only impacts initial level when the note is triggered. That’s why the volume/filter doesn’t change while playing the same note.

You actually want a MIDI CC message not Note Velocity. There is a MIDI CC message for breath controller but it doesn’t appear to be available in the Voyager. If you can configure the breath controller in the WX5 to channel pressure (or mono pressure, or aftertouch), then the Voyager can respond to that.

There’s two different ways to get this to work on the Voyager.

One is using a modulation buss (PEDAL). Configure the SHAPING control to PRESSURE then DESTINATION routed to FILTER or master volume (found in menu system). Set SOURCE to ON/PGM and adjust AMOUNT to taste. Quick and easy.

There is one other modulation buss (MOD WHEEL) available, but you would have to leave the mod wheel up partway and that may not be desirable.

The other option is pot mapping, which requires a little menu diving under EDIT. Pot mapping allows you to assign a MIDI CC message to any continuous control (not switches) on the Voyager. The Voyager offers four independent pot mapping settings per patch. To control volume with MIDI velocity open SRC & DEST Map 1 then set SRC to Velocity Attack, Dest to Master Volume, Direction to Normal, and amount to 25% or 50% or 100%. To control filter with MIDI pressure, open one of the other three maps then set SRC to Pressure, Dest to Filter Cutoff, Direction to Normal, and Amount to 25% or 50% or 100%.

Whereas we only have two modulation busses, we have four different pot mappings. But the amount on pot mappings is limited to off, 25%, 50%, 100% while it is continuously variable on the modulation buss. Pick your poison. I prefer to use pot mapping for velocity control and reserve the modulation buss when I need more variable settings for amount or real-time panel manipulation.

As for velocity control with monophonic playing, it only works if keyboard mode (under EDIT menu) is set to LAST NOTE or 1 KEY ONLY. If it is set to LOWER KEY or HIGHER KEY and you play legato, only the velocity associated with the lowest or highest note is effective. This is not a bug - the Voyager supports chaining for a polyphonic system and in operation this is the way it has to work. This has tripped many Voyager users.

Keep in mind that these are not global settings, and you have to configure this in each patch you want control with your breath controller. This may be easier using the editor, you can download it from the Moog Music website.

3

Hey,

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Please forgive me for sounding amateur as I am just starting to dig into the programming and capabilities of the Voyager.

The WX5 can either transmit the breath data on CC#2, 7 or 11 (only one selectable). I tried all these and found that the Voyager treats CC#2 as MOD1, so one major issue is out of the way. I was using CC#11 for controlling my VL70-M TG but that can be configured to work with CC#2 also. I was however not able to assign the WX5 breath data to PRESSURE

I tried all your suggestions and this is what I have found:

  1. If the PEDAL Modulation buss is used, I set the parameters as
    SOURCE - ON/MOD2
    DESTINATION - FILT.
    SHAPING - same results on FILT ENV/VELOCITY or ON/PGM (I get half the control range if PRESSURE is selected)
    AMOUNT - 255

The filter cutoff changes as I vary the breath pressure on the WX5 but I do not get the full range. I noticed that the range I get starts from the knob value of the Filter Cutoff on the main panel +100, i.e., if the knob is at 50 I get a range of 50-150 (instead of the required 0-255 or 50-255) if I change my breath pressure from minimum to maximum.
This range becomes 50-100 if the SHAPING is set to PRESSURE (cutoff knob position +50)

  1. I would not like to use the MOD WHEEL buss because of the issue you mentioned.

  2. If I use the pot mapping I came to the following settings
    Source - MOD1 (did not respond at all if set to PRESSURE or MOD2)
    Destination - Filter Cutoff

With this I can control the full range of the cutoff (0-255) with the pressure of my breath, however I have come to an issue I did not think of. The range here starts from 0 and goes till either 25%/50% or 100%. If the range starts from 0%, the lower end is too steep and it sounds really bad around there. I cannot change the starting range of the WX5 as I am triggering my VL70-M as well and passing it through the External Audio In of the Voyager for additional layering and filtering.

I guess both methods will have their individual benefits and drawbacks depending on what is to be controlled etc.

I guess the 1st method looks good as I can change the starting point of the controlling range with the Cutoff knob position only that I would require a larger control range.

Trying to control the Master Volume from the PEDAL buss did not work as I could not find that parameter in the PGM Pedal Destination options and could not control any parameter I chose in that setting either.

Looks like we are almost there, just need a little more help…

Thanks again!