Kurzweil Music Systems Mark 110, Mark 150, Mark 10 Addendum

Version 2.0 Release Notes

for Kurzweil Mark 150/10 & Young Chang DG 150

This document describes the changes and new features that are part of version 2.0 software for the Kurzweil Mark 150/10 and Young Chang DG 150 digital pianos.

New Piano Sound

The tuning of the Piano sound has been adjusted to be even more accurate. Also, many of our customers have asked for a “warmer” piano sound. This new piano sound is available as the Grand Piano Variation sound. The "bright" piano that was formerly the Grand Piano Variation is available through MIDI as program number 109. A complete list of the new programs available through MIDI is included in this document.

New Song Chain Feature

Your songs can now be played in a “chain.” To do this, press Demo and then Loop (in the recorder section). All songs (1 through 8) that you have recorded or loaded from a ﬁle will now be played, back to back. If the song is a General MIDI (GM) song, it should automatically go into GM mode. If it does not, refer to the “GM ﬁle load” section of these notes to ﬁnd out how to set the song as a GM song. Songs that have been recorded with looped tracks will only play the looped track once. Otherwise the Song Chain would get “stuck” on that song! The chain play can be stopped by pressing any button on the front panel, which puts you back into Demo mode. You can exit Demo mode by pressing the Demo button.

Enhanced Full Keyboard Mode

Full keyboard mode now requires you to play 3 or more notes in order to change chords. If 3 notes are played, the chord will change. Then you can “solo” over that without fear of changing chords. Also, in full keyboard mode, if chord hold is ON, a chordal backing is playing, and you play an “unknown” chord, the backing will not change.

New MIDI Features (overview)

These new features are useful if you are using the Mark 150/10 as a sound engine with an external sequencer, or if you are using the internal recorder to play back Standard MIDI ﬁles (SMF). They are used quite a bit for General MIDI (GM) ﬁles.

The Mark 150/10 now responds to MIDI controller #11, Expression.

Registered parameters for Transposition, Tuning, and Pitch Bend Range are recognized. See the MIDI section or a MIDI speciﬁcation for more detail on this. Note that the Pitch Bend Range parameter only works if the Mark 150/10 is in General MIDI mode.

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Version 2.0 Release Notes for Kurzweil Mark 150/10 & Young Chang DG 150

New Standard MIDI File and General MIDI File Load Features

Standard MIDI ﬁles, including General MIDI ﬁles, have the following enhanced features:

You can now tell if the Mark 150/10 is in General MIDI mode. The last decimal point on the tempo display will be lit if the Mark 150/10 is in GM mode. The GM mode display can be turned on or off automatically by the song (see below), or by using the General MIDI parameter in the MIDI Edit Mode.

The system exclusive message to turn GM on and off is recognized by the recorder. If the ﬁle you loaded has this message, GM mode will automatically be turned on when the sequence is played. If the song you loaded is supposed to be a GM song, but the GM display does not turn on when you play the song, you can set the song to automatically turn on GM mode whenever you select it. If the song is selected when you turn on GM mode with the MIDI edit button (i.e., when you hold the MIDI button then press A#0 - the lowest black key on the keyboard), it will set a special GM parameter in the song itself. You should then save the song back to disk to record this setting. From now on, whenever you select that song, the GM mode will automatically turn on. This is useful for the new Song Chain feature (see below). Whenever any song is deselected (by pressing the same song button as the currently selected song, or by selecting another song), GM mode will turn off.

Tempo Messages

Tempo messages are now recognized by the recorder. If the tempo has been adjusted by the song’s author, it will change during playback by a percentage relative to the currently displayed tempo. For example, consider a song that an author begins at 100 bpm and during the song increases the tempo to 150 bpm (i.e., a 50 percent increase). If you decide to set the speed of the song to 50 bpm it would speed up to 75 bpm (a 50 percent increase) at the tempo change. Note that the tempo display does not change as a result of tempo messages. Tempo messages are only loaded from Type 0 MIDI ﬁles, not from Type 1 MIDI ﬁles.

If you have already loaded the SMF and GM ﬁles, and saved them as Mark 150/10 songs under an earlier version of the software, you should reload the original ﬁles to take advantage of the new GM message and tempo message playback, as these were not stored in the earlier Mark 150/10 songs.

The program remapping for GM has also been enhanced, with new sounds created specially for the GM mode. Furthermore, the drum channel (10) now defaults to program 98 rather than 78. The default reverb is now "bright stage" instead of "stage."

New Yamaha Disk Orchestra and PianoSoft* File Load Features

Tempo messages are now recognized by the recorder. Refer to "Tempo Messages" above.

The program remapping for Disk Orchestra ﬁles has also been enhanced, with new sounds created specially for the Disk Orchestra ﬁle translation. The default reverb is now "bright stage" instead of "stage."

If you have already loaded the Disk Orchestra ﬁles, and saved them as Mark 150/10 songs under an earlier version of the software, you should reload the original ﬁles to take advantage of the new voice remapping and tempo message playback, as these were not stored in the earlier Mark 150/10 songs.

*PianoSoft is a trademark of Yamaha Corporation.

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Version 2.0 Release Notes for Kurzweil Mark 150/10 & Young Chang DG 150

MIDI Enhancements

Much of the power and ﬂexibility of the Mark 150/10 and DG 150 are due to their implementation of the MIDI speciﬁcation. Version 2 software further increases the instruments’ MIDI capabilities, as described in the following sections.

New MIDI Edit Features

The following keys have been added or changed in the MIDI Edit section.

A0 (Lowest A on the 88 note keyboard). This key will tell you the current version of Mark 150/ 10 software that has been installed in your instrument.

A#0 (Lowest A# on the 88 note keyboard). This is the GM mode on/off key. Its behavior has been changed slightly. If a song is selected when GM mode is turned on, GM mode will be stored in the song. To erase this, simply turn off GM mode while the song is still selected. Any time that a song is un-selected or a new song is selected, GM mode will be turned off.

MIDI Enhancements

B0 (Lowest B on the 88 note keyboard). The key will tell you, in kilobytes, how much memory is left in the Mark 150/10 for loading of songs and styles. When the Mark 150/10 has been reset and has no songs or styles loaded, the number is 108 kilobytes.

C7. This key lets you dump songs, styles, or panel memories via MIDI system exclusive messages. When you press C7 while in MIDI mode, the available song, style, and panel memory buttons will blink. When you press the button representing the item you want, the others will stop blinking and the dump will take place. This is an advanced MIDI feature for users with external sequencers. These users can store songs into their sequencers as system exclusive messages, and later dump them back into the Mark 150/10 for playback using the Mark 150/10’s recorder. Most people do not need this feature, since the Mark 150/10 can also transfer songs to an external sequencer by playing them (using the Transmit Sequencer Data parameter), or by saving them to ﬂoppy disk.

D#7. This key is used for setting the Ignore All Notes Off parameter. In the manual, it says that setting this parameter to Off may cause problems with the auto accompaniment section of the Mark 150/10. This behavior has been changed, and auto accompaniment will now work correctly with the parameter set to either ON or OFF.

New MIDI Features (detail)

1. Local Control On/Off -- Controller #122. The MIDI implementation chart in the manual says that this was implemented in Version 1.0, when in fact it was not. This has been corrected.

2. Expression Control -- Controller #11. This has been added for better General MIDI support, but it works in all modes.

3. All Sound Off -- Controller #120. This is a relatively new addition to the MIDI spec. It functions the same as All Notes Off (Controller #123).

4. MIDI Song Select -- System Common Message $F3. Valid song numbers are 0 through 7, which would select Mark 10 sequences 1 through 8. Other numbers are ignored. This only responds if external sync is turned on.

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Version 2.0 Release Notes for Kurzweil Mark 150/10 & Young Chang DG 150

MIDI Enhancements

5. Registered Parameters -- Registered Parameters 0 (Pitch Bend Range), 1 (Fine Tuning) and 2 (Coarse Tuning, which is called Receive Transpose on the Mark 10) are now supported. Pitch Bend Range is only supported when the Mark 150/10 is in GM mode. This means that the following controllers are now supported:

5.1 Data Entry MSB -- Controller #6

Data Entry LSB -- Controller #38

5.2 Data increment -- Controller #96

Data decrement -- Controller #97

5.3 Registered parameter number LSB -- Controller #100

Registered parameter number MSB -- Controller #101

6. Inquiry Message -- The standard System Exclusive inquiry message is now supported. This is a non-real time message, in addition to the General MIDI On/Off message, which was already supported. Sending the following message: $F0 $7E $00 $06 $01 $F7, will return the following message: $F0 $7E $00 $06 $02 $07 $10 $00 $0A $00 $ss $ss $ss $ss $F7, which is described below:

$F0 $7E $00 Universal System Exclusive Non-real time header

$06 General Information (sub-ID #1)

$02 Device id message (sub-ID #2)

$07 Manufacturer’s System Exclusive Code (Kurzweil is $07)

$10 $00 Device family code (14 bits, LSB ﬁrst, Mark Series is $10)

$0A $00 Device family member code (14 bits, LSB ﬁrst, Mark 150/10 is $0A)

$ss $ss $ss $ss Software revision level. (0 2 0 0 is Version 2.00)

$F7 End of exclusive message (EOX)

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