Mick's Ddeck (2007)

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Mick Reeves reports about his Ddeck:

The manual for the D-Deck is available on line. www.yamaha.co.jp/manual .This will give a lot of information.

On page 266 is the specification. It says AWM2. This means each voice has two recorded sounds in its make-up.

In fact four sounds are available for each voice, though they are not always used. (AWM4).

In the voice edit it is possible to change the voice in each of the four boxes, and so mix voices together. This is how many of the voices are made in the voice presets.

Another feature in the voice edit is to limit what range of pitch a voice will sound over. This can be set so that a voice will sound over the top octave of the keyboard, for example. So it is possible to assign voices to various parts of the keyboards to give the effect of multi keyboards.

These special voices must be saved to the 16 available USER voices, which are saved with each set of 16 user registrations. So you can have a different set of user voices with each registration set! The same thing can be done on the EL900 organ, but on a PC not from the organ controls.

You can also assign drum sounds to any keys you like, again these are saved with registrations.

D-Deck has the drawbar organ facility from the Stagea.

The D-Deck does not have the VA voices which are on both Stagea and EL900.

I think the voices are very similar on these three instruments, being made in the same way.

D-deck lacks the control from sideways movement on the keys, available on EL900 and Stagea, but it does have a second pedal for pitch control and you can set voices to have pitch change from aftertouch.

I have still lots to learn about the D-Deck.

Attached photo shown with Tyros above, playable from the DD by midi cable. You can see how crowded my space is.

I saved money by using my Tyros stand, which will work with a small modification.

Mick