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PLG Daughterboards
Yamaha's PLG expansion boards slot extra synthesis engines into XG hardware. PXR recognises six of them: the PLG100-DX, PLG150-VL and PLG100-SG each get a dedicated window that monitors what the board is doing in real time, plus a bank loader for the DX board, while the PLG150-PF, PLG150-AN and PLG150-DR are recognised by their voices. These are specialist tools, very much for owners of that hardware.
Open the monitors from Effects → PLG Boards.
How the monitors behave#
Each monitor mirrors what its board is doing as a file plays: the panels fill in from the setup messages the file sends, and the live readouts (the note being played, pitch bend, breath, vibrato, sung phonemes, and so on) update many times a second while the window is open. A panel stays dim until the file has actually touched it, so a dim panel simply means "nothing has changed this yet".
Each board listens on a particular MIDI channel (the "part"), shown in the window's System panel.
PLG-DX (FM synth)#
The PLG-DX recreates the classic Yamaha DX7 / DX7II six-operator FM sound, the one behind so many 1980s records. The window shows the active voice and how its FM engine is wired up.
- Header: the active voice name and its FM algorithm number (the topology that wires the six operators together).
- Algorithm diagram: a picture of that algorithm, showing which operators are carriers (the ones you hear) and which are modulators (the ones that shape the carriers).
- Operator levels: the output level of each of the six operators, so you can see the balance of carriers and modulators.
- Operator envelopes: for User Bank voices and the factory Preset 2 (which come from the bundled DX7 ROM 1 set), each operator's attack/decay/sustain/release shape is drawn and animates as notes play. Other banks cannot show this, because the board never reports their contents back.
- Tone shaping: feedback amount, pitch-bend range, and portamento (glide) settings.
- AC4 controller: which controller (modulation, breath, foot, and so on) is assigned to change which parameter, and by how much.
- System: which MIDI channel each installed board responds to, and whether it is set to receive DX voice data.
- Keyboard: a live keyboard that lights up with the notes the board is playing.
PLG-VL (Virtual Acoustic)#
The PLG-VL models real wind and reed instruments using physical modelling. It plays one note at a time and responds expressively to breath, which is part of its charm. The window has a good many panels:
- Voice: the active voice name, its category, and which preset and bank it came from.
- Now Playing: the live note, a pitch-bend needle, a breath-pressure bar labelled with the breath source in use, and the current vibrato wave.
- Breath / Wind: the breath Mode (breath controller, velocity, or touch), the Source (which controller carries the breath), the WX Lip embouchure setting, and dials for the breath response curve, velocity depth and offset, and the touch envelope.
- Breath Response: a graph of how breath pressure maps to loudness, with a live dot riding the curve as you (or the file) blow harder or softer.
- EG (envelope): a silhouette of the note's attack, decay, and release, with dials that nudge each stage relative to the voice's own default shape.
- Vibrato / Filter: the vibrato wave, with dials for vibrato rate, depth, and delay, plus filter cutoff and resonance.
- Voice Controllers: a reference table of the controllers this voice can respond to (pressure, embouchure, tonguing, growl, and so on).
- Mod Wheel and Aftertouch: how those controls are set to affect pitch, filter, and loudness.
- System: the board's part (channel), volume, and transpose.
- Playing Range: a keyboard strip shading the voice's recommended range, with a live note marker that turns red if a note falls outside it (the models can misbehave out of range).
- Voice Setup: per-voice level, assignment, and portamento.
PLG-SG (Singing Articulation)#
The PLG-SG sings, producing vocal sounds from phonemes and lyric data, and like the VL it plays one note at a time. The window shows:
- Voice: the singing voice name and category (adult man, young woman, children, and so on), with its preset and bank.
- Phoneme Defaults: the phoneme to sing when no lyric is supplied, and how long to hold it.
- Now Singing: a live readout with a pitch-bend needle, an intensity bar (from velocity and expression), the vibrato wave, and a mini keyboard band that highlights the sung note.
- Lyric tape: a rolling tape of the syllables as they are sung, each shown in romaji over kana, sized by how long it lasts, with markers for breaths, consonant clusters, and the end of singing. The newest syllable is on the right and brightens while its note sounds.
- Formant: a profile graph of the voice's formant filters (the resonances that make a vowel sound like a vowel), showing how each one is shifted from its default and the voiced and unvoiced levels.
- Vibrato / LFO: the vibrato wave plus pitch, amplitude, and filter modulation depths.
- Articulation: the singing-technique controls, including the voiced/unvoiced balance, pitch transition time, co-articulation, consonant strength, and phoneme morphing.
- System: the board's part (channel), volume, output level, transpose, and fine tuning.
PLG-PF, PLG-AN and PLG-DR#
Three more boards are recognised by their voices rather than by a monitor window of their own. When a file selects one of their banks, PXR names the instrument the way the hardware does instead of falling back to a generic XG voice, and the channel wears that board's badge in the visualiser and the Part Inspector.
- PLG150-PF (Piano): Yamaha's AWM2 piano board. 135 voices, on bank MSB 80 (PF-XG) and MSB 96.
- PLG150-AN (Analog Physical Modeling): the virtual analogue board, the one for classic synth leads, basses and pads. 431 voices, across its native Preset 1 and Preset 2 banks (MSB 36) and the AN-XG voice map (MSB 84).
- PLG150-DR and PLG150-PC (Drums and Percussion): 160 kits on bank MSB 79, being 80 drum kits and 80 percussion kits.
So a file written for a Motif, an S90 or an MU with one of these boards fitted reads properly in PXR: you see Grand Piano 1 or a named AN lead rather than a bank number and a guess.
Two of them go further than the name:
- The DR and PC kits open in the XG Drum Kit window, all 160 of them, with every pad naming the instrument it actually plays. These files often put the kit on an ordinary channel rather than channel 10, and the window's part buttons will offer it wherever it is.
- The PF's polyphony cost shows in the Part Inspector as NOTES/KEY. Some PF voices layer several notes on a single key, so a part holding eight notes can be using thirty-two of the board's voices.
Note
These three have no monitor window, because there is nothing continuous to watch. The DX, VL and SG boards stream expressive data as they play (operator levels, breath, sung phonemes), which is what those windows exist to show. The PF, AN and DR boards mostly answer a program change and play, so the useful information is the voice name, and that appears wherever a voice name appears.
PLG-DX Bank Loader#
Available now from the MIDI menu, the PLG-DX Bank Loader takes a DX7 voice cartridge and sends it straight to the board, no editing required:
- Open a DX7
.syxbank, or load the bundled DX7-II ROM 1 set. - Preview the 64 voice names, and see each voice's six operator cards and FM algorithm diagram.
- Send the bank into the board's user bank, with confirmation on the hardware.
Tip
You can also drop a .syx bank straight onto the window, no need to go through Open.
Note
Sending voices to the board requires the receiving device to be set to accept DX SysEx. The boards themselves only receive voice data; they cannot send it back, so any captured voices must come from a real DX synth or software.
Related pages#
- GS & XG Effect Monitors for the main XG effects.
- SysEx Console to watch the raw messages.