Product Reviews

The Yamaha QY100 is a combined 16-track music sequencer, 547-voice tone module, guitar practice amp and mini studio all packed into a brick-sized box. It can also be run as a MIDI instrument using a Mac-based sequencer like Logic Audio or Cubase.

With its compact design (it measures 12cm x 24cm x 3cm) and ability to run on batteries, the Yamaha QY100 is being sold on its portability to musicians who are often on the move and far away from their main studio set-up.

Anyone who has used sequencing hardware such as a drum machine will at least be familiar with the small monochrome LCD display, layers of hidden menu screens and myriad buttons. These are generally used to program such devices.

The QY100 is packed with seemingly endless features: as well as a basic 16-track sequencer (and additional eight pattern tracks for rhythm), there's a built-in music database of more than 4000 preset phrases and 128 styles (everything from hip-hop to big band). Yamaha has included a library of 547 sounds and 22 drum kits, including two editable drum kits, which live up to the usual high sonic standards of the company's well-regarded synthesiser products.

There are also extensive built-in effects including delays, reverbs, EQs and overdrives which can be customised and applied to individual tracks, as well as whole arrangements, in a similar manner to traditional outboard studio gear.

Plug in and play

Yamaha's QY products have already proved popular as portable mini-compositional devices, and for live work as MIDI playback machines. With the QY100, Yamaha has added an analog pre-amp, which means you can plug in an instrument such as a guitar or a microphone straight into a standard 0.25in jack socket.

The preamp comes with 18 guitar amp presets and five vocal 'PA' effects and settings, all of which are customisable. It's important to note that the QY100 can't record this non-MIDI audio input: there's no analog to digital converter and the enormous storage requirements of audio files would be near impossible to incorporate in such a small package.

However, Yamaha believes this extra feature will prove popular with guitarists who want to practice along with MIDI track backing. The manual also suggests, perhaps a bit optimistically, that the QY100 could be used for 'karaoke'. It can accommodate live vocals and lay effects over the top of your MIDI versions of the 'classics'. Versatility is

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A single stereo mini-jack is the sole audio output, which, while adequate for headphones, is a little fiddly for connecting to an amplifier. You'll also need a mini-jack to twin RCA phonos, twin mono jack plugs for output to a hi-fi system or a PA or guitar amp.

Storage and distribution is catered for by the QY100's SmartMedia slot: cards up to 32Mb can be read and written to via a slot on the side of the device. As these cards can also be read by an increasing number of MIDI keyboards and synthesisers, it's easy to integrate the QY100 with studio set-ups.

But as even the keenest sequencer, drum machine or sampler user will attest, programming any device, especially one as fully featured as the QY100, via a small LCD screen and rows of multi-function keys is headache inducing, confusing and often slow. Tiny screens are fundamentally inadequate for the effective communication of complex arrangements, settings and dynamics. Even with a full-blown, Mac-based sequencing program such as Emagic's Logic Audio, it's often a struggle to adequately display all the information you need on a 22in monitor without continuously flicking through different screen sets. But that's the price of compactness.

Some samplers and sequencers can be operated on a big screen by hooking them up with MIDI to a computer. The QY100 doesn't ship with this sort of ability, although you can connect it to a Mac running a sequencer like Emagic's Logic Audio and run it as a multi-instrument. You can also play the sounds stored in the QY100 through a MIDI keyboard.

However, neither of these approaches really exploits the awesome potential of the QY100. It would be useful to upload a MIDI composition created with the QY100 for refining in a Mac-based sequencer or to download a composition for playback on the QY100.

Yamaha has tried to address this by including a CD-ROM containing a mini application called the QY100 Data Filer. Data Filer requires either OMS or MidiManager (both supplied on the disk) to facilitate the upload of song data created on the QY100 onto your Mac. You'll also need a MIDI interface to connect the QY100 to your Mac's USB port. We didn't find Data Filer particularly easy to use and it took a great deal of effort and patience to upload and download song data between our Mac and the QY100 in the SMF (Standard MIDI File) data format.

Appliance of science

The QY100 is an amazing technical feat, producing results from a small form factor that only a few years ago would seem science fiction-like. But exploiting its full capabilities is not for the faint hearted and spontaneous musical creation isn't easy when you have to navigate the esoteric parameter controls of sub-menus on a small LCD with the instruction manual on your knee. And once you've mastered that you'll have to figure out how to get the best from the Data Filer application. If you apply patience and persistence, however, you'll be well rewarded.

NEEDS: System 7.5 or higher, MIDI interface