Maximum Polyphony - Yamaha S90 Owner's Manual

Effect Plug-in Board
• Vocal Harmony Plug-in Board (PLG100-VH)
With this board installed, you can add harmonies to selected parts using four types of effects.
Backing chorus parts for your vocals can be created automatically from chords that have been prepared and stored as MIDI
data. You can also use the S90 like a vocoder by connecting and using a microphone while playing the keyboard.
Multi-Part Plug-in Board
Multi-Part Plug-in Boards let you expand the voice polyphony of the S90 by giving you a full 16 independent instrumental parts.
By using this type of board to play back sequencer tracks, you can reserve the maximum polyphony of the S90 for your
keyboard performance.
• XG Plug-in Board (PLG100-XG)
This Plug-in Board is a 16-part XG sound generator. You can play back XG/GM song files using the rich variety of sounds and
effects on this board.
About MODULAR SYNTHESIS PLUG-IN SYSTEM
The Yamaha Modular Synthesis Plug-in System offers powerful expansion and upgrade capabilities for Modular Synthesis-Plug-in-
compatible synthesizers, tone generators and sound cards. This enables you to easily and effectively take advantage of the latest
and most sophisticated synthesizer and effects technology, allowing you to keep pace with the rapid and multi-faceted advances in
modern music production.

Maximum Polyphony

The maximum sonic polyphony is 64 for AWM2, plus the polyphony of the Plug-in Board(s) (if installed). The
actual note polyphony will vary depending on the type of tone generator unit used, the number of Elements in the
Voice, and the note polyphony of the Plug-in Boards.
In the case of AWM2 Voices, the polyphony figure of 62 is divided by the number of Elements in the Voice.
Part Structure of the Tone Generator Block
The S90 plays its sounds (with the Tone Generator block) in response to MIDI data, received from the Controller
block or Sequencer block. MIDI data is assigned to one of sixteen channels, and the S90 is capable of simultaneously
playing sixteen separate parts, via the sixteen MIDI channels. However, we can overcome the sixteen-channel limit
by using separate MIDI "ports," each supporting sixteen channels. The multiple sound sources of the S90 (internal
tone generator and Plug-in Boards) take advantage of the three MIDI ports included on the instrument.
As shown in the above illustration, up to 48 parts can be used in the modes (excepting the Voice mode).
However, the number of parts that are actually used is a maximum of 34 in the Sequence Play mode, as we'll see later
in some examples.
n See page 29 for details about the modes.
n The USB cable supports up to eight separate MIDI ports. The S90's Tone Generator block supports three separate ports as
illustrated above, and the S90's MIDI Thru function supports eight separate MIDI ports.
n The MIDI cable and IEEE cable (when the mLAN8E has been installed) cannot handle independent MIDI port data.
22
Overview of the S90
Tone Generator block
Part for Voice mode
Port 2
Port 1
part 1 part 17
part 2 part 18
part 30
part 14
part 15 part 31
part 16 part 32
Port 3
These parts are used in
part 33
modes other than the
part 34
Voice mode.
part 46
part 47
part 48