The Mu100 - What It Is And What It Can Do; What It Is; About General Midi - Yamaha MU100 Owner's Manual

The MU100 — What It Is and What It Can Do

What It Is...

The MU100 is a full-featured and easy-to-use tone generator, that provides an
unprecedented wealth of Voices and expressive sonic control. It features full
General MIDI Level 1 compatibility with 128 General MIDI Voices and 9 drum
Voices. It also provides new XG compatibility, with a huge total of 1267 Voices
and 46 drum Voices.
The MU100 has 64-note polyphony and is 32-Part multi-timbral. In other
words, the MU100 has 32 different Parts, each with its own Voice, so that up to
32 different Voices can be sounded simultaneously. Since the MU100 features
dual MIDI input ports (A and B), 16 Parts can be played from one MIDI port and
the remaining 16 from the other port.
Additional A/D Parts let you connect up to two external signals — such as a
microphone, electric guitar or CD player — and mix them with the MU100's
Voices through stereo input jack.
The MU100 also has a TO HOST terminal for easy interfacing with a com-
puter, allowing you to play the Voices using your favorite music software. This
is where the advanced multi-timbral capabilities come in, letting you playing
sophisticated arrangements using up to 32 different Voices at the same time.
Although Voices cannot be directly edited, the various Part controls and Edit
mode give you tools for transforming or customizing the sound of the Voices.
What's more, the MU100 has a built-in multi-effect processor, with six indepen-
dent digital effect "units" for enhancing the sound.
The MU100 also features a special Performance mode, in which four Parts
are played simultaneously over a single MIDI channel. Connected to a MIDI
keyboard, this effectively gives you four tone generators in one. The MU100
gives you 100 factory-programmed Preset Performances plus 100 Internal Per-
formance locations for storing your own original Performances.

About General MIDI

General MIDI is a new addition to the worldwide MIDI standard. MIDI, as
you know, stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and makes it
possible for various electronic musical instruments and other devices to "com-
municate" with each other. For example, by connecting a sequencer to the
MU100's MIDI IN terminal, you could play back a song on the sequencer
using the Voices of the MU100.
So, where does General MIDI fit in all of this? One of the most important
features of General MIDI is in the standardization of Voices. This means that a
song recorded in the General MIDI format can be played back on any General
MIDI compatible tone generator and sound just as the composer intended. For
The MU100 — What It Is and What It Can Do
The MU100 — What It Is and What It Can Do
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