Yamaha
TG55
Tone
Generator
| The TG55 is a good old honest sample-playback synthesizer module. I find its sounds to be pretty nice considering its age, and although its architecture is quite fiddly to get around (there are many, too many buttons to push and screens to access to edit the sounds), it is a good investment and would be a nice addition to anybody's setup. The sounds are classic early nineties, with an emphasis on swirly, ambient pads, and a new-age feel to this module, but it's capable of much more. |
Let's listen to the three demo songs in ROM:
| 1 - MoonRock | A very nice ambient soundscape turns into a pop rock tune. |
| 2 - Min.Rice | A happy funky song, very upbeat. |
| 3 - Theater | Check out the jazz improvisations at the end of this song! |
Now let's listen to the preset voices:
Stream the audio examples below
| Voice name with audio examples | Yamaha's comments | My comments |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Piano | Orthodox acoustic piano. | Sampled from a nice, sweet piano, but the loops are obviously too short, although perfectly adequate for 1990's standards. |
| 02 Voyager | Choir with "sizzle." Play long chords. | These kinds of sounds were - oh, so in fashion back then (thank you, D-50 and M1) |
| 03 Pro55Brass | Fat analog brass pad. | Every synthesizer should have a good "Jump" patch on-board. |
| 04 Elektrodes | Mellow electric piano. | What to say... it's a Yamaha. Electric Pianos are one of their forte. |
| 05 Zaratustra | Big orchestra. Brass volume on MW. | If you don't mind the polyphony - reduced to four notes using 4 osc. - , it's a great medieval sounding orchestral patch. I'm guessing the programmer was thinking of the orchestral sound in "Also spracht Zarathustra" for this sound. |
| 06 DawnChorus | Breathy choir. MW fades out breath. | Pretty usable choir. Classical use. |
| 07 GX Dream | A punchy voice reminiscent of the YAMAHA GX1. | This one is a knock-out. Different. The GX1 is that white, huge megasynth that Keith Emerson played in concert. It must be so great to play - and I hope someday to have that privilege (Hans, can I come visit?) |
| 08 GrooveKing | Classic funky, resonant synth voice. | Analog and warm synth sound, good for comping. Reminds of the early analog monosynths of the 70s, like Minimoog and Odyssey, used in a lot of funk. |
| 09 DistGuitar | Heavy guitar. Slow fade to feedback. | The programmer utilized as a base the violin sample for this one. But with the excellent distortion effect, it really sounds almost like a Les Paul through a Marshall stack (well...) |
| 10 ZenAirBell | Percussive bell/gong combination. | Meditative sound.. probably best used for new-age |
| 11 FullString | Light touch for small, heavy for large string section. | This is just a great sound. As you can tell from my example, I think it's perfect for rendering Grieg's Anitra's Lament. Depending on your touch, you'll have to adjust the velocity switch parameters - too fast for me. |
| 12 JazzMan | Split wood bass and trumpet. MW swaps horns. | OK patch. Check out the real-time removal of the mute, courtesy of the modulation wheel. |
| 13 ClassPiano | Classical Grand Piano. | Again, the loops are short, but Chopin wasn't tall either. Or was he? |
| 14 RockPiano | Fat piano. Perfect for chord work. | Hhmm...the polyphony gets eaten alive with those boogie-woogie 10 finger runs. |
| 15 DX E. Piano | Electronic piano. | Gives the DX7 a run for its money. |
| 16 Hard EP | Electric piano with sharp attack and hard tone. | This one is so '70s. I read about all those strange modifications that people used to do to Rhodes pianos, like nail-polish on the ... I guess that's how they got that percussive, glassy sound. |
| 17 Cry Clav | Automatic "wah" clav with resonant attack. | Standard Herbie Hancock/Head Hunters sound - a Clavinet run through a Cry Baby wah wah pedal. |
| 18 Funky Clav | Fat, funky clav. | See above without the Cry Baby. |
| 19 Deep Organ | Rock Organ | Weak Hammond patch with quite a few harmonics pulled out. |
| 20 Warm Organ | Full, rich organ with rotating speaker effect. | This one is better and Jimmy Smith-like. I'm very picky about organ sounds because I compare them to my C3. |
| 21 Trumpet | Solo trumpet. | Pretty realistic! It's not quite the same as the real thing, but in the right context I'm sure it could fool plenty of people. |
| 22 Stab Brass | Thin pop brass section. | '80s style brass trio. |
| 23 Big Band | Big unison horn section. Play in octaves. MW fades to solo trumpet. | Jump, jive and swing. Pity for the bad reverb. |
| 24 Orch Brass | Big classical brass section with pan. | All hail the King. |
| 25 SynthBrass | Powerful synth brass pad. | Another "Jump" patch. |
| 26 Flute | Breathy when played hard. | Nice velocity-switch. Good for classical music and for the solo in "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas and Papas. |
| 27 Saxophone | Solo sax with lots of presence. | More R'n'B than Pink Panther. |
| 28 FolkGuitar | Steel-string acoustic folk guitar. | Guitars are not the TG55 forte. But usable. |
| 29 12 String | Full 12-string guitar. | Sounds like a sitar instead of a 12-string! |
| 30 MuteGuitar | Muted electric guitar. | Cool sound with nice velo-switch. Good for that Bob Marley's "Could you be loved" intro |
| 31 SingleCoil | Single-coil electric guitar pickup. | Wannabe Strat, but the samples are too short. |
| 32 Pick Bass | Punchy picked bass. | See above. |
| 33 Thumb Bass | Play hard for slap bass sound. | Badly programmed velocity switch - the slap sound is thinner than the picked one. |
| 34 SynBadBass | Funky synth bass. | In my example I start with Michael Jackson's "Bad" and then program a super-quantized sequence. |
| 35 VCO Bass | Fat analog bass. | Nice if a little "liquid" analog bass. |
| 36 Violin | Solo violin with after-touch vibrato. | Well programmed and perfect for classical music. |
| 37 ChamberStr | Small violin section. | Great small ensemble. |
| 38 VCF String | Analog synth strings. Brightness on MW. | Standard analog strings. Notice how good the TG55 filters are. |
| 39 Nova Quire | Choir with a unique attack. | Eerie choir sound - with vibrato and hard attack. |
| 40 Vibraphone | Traditional vibrophone with tremolo on MW. | Great for jazz and pop. |
| 41 Takerimba | Bamboo marimba. Brightness on MW. | Cool tuned marimba patch. Perfect for 50's tiki-lounge music. |
| 42 Glocken | Glockenspiel. Brightness on MW. | Can be both a Glockenspiel and a music box. |
| 43 DigiBell | Spacious synth bell. | Psychedelic digital bell-synth with a subliminal pitch-shift. |
| 44 Oriental | Oriental orchestra. Light touch for string section only. | The ultimate for scoring Kung-Fu movies. |
| 45 VCO Lead | Analog sawtooth lead voice. | Awesome for fusion and jazz-rock styles. |
| 46 Spirit VCF | Analog synth with big, slow filter sweep. | Useful for those 70's progressive intros and ambiences. |
| 47 OZ Lead | Soft synth lead. | Sounds like cotton candy! |
| 48 Get Lucky | Fat square-wave synth sound with detune on MW. | So-so rendition of the ELP classic sound, but without portamento its use is limited. |
| 49 Gamma Band | Oriental percussion ensemble. MW fades in metal drums and bells. | The Emperor will see you now. Why Gamma? |
| 50 Metal Reed | Harmonica or accordion with after-touch pitch bend. | Nails Stevie Wonder's signature sound, a cowboy camp... or even an European polka. |
| 51 Modomatic | Choir with big MW filter sweep. | Aah, I'm a sucker for those "Lore/Universe" ambient sounds! |
| 52 DataStream | Best with long notes. | Sounds like robots washing clothes in a futuristic river. |
| 53 Mystichoir | Play long chords for shifting notes. | Impressive cinematic/futuristic choral patch. Note the filter opening and closing. |
| 54 St.Michael | Choir with bells on release. | Great for scoring a quiet moment in a Schwarzenegger movie. |
| 55 Scatter | Voice on staccato notes, filtered synth on long tones. | Strange sound, sounds like an early sampler. |
| 56 Triton | Best with long chords. | No relation to Korg's best-selling synth (this came a lot earlier), but perhaps it does remind of the son of Poseidon in a moment of meditation, trident included. |
| 57 Amazon | Wide touch range. | The Amazons are taking over. |
| 58 SatinGlass | Metallic, spacious synth voice. | This is PERFECT as a synth-pad for many genres - smooth-jazz to start. |
| 59 BrassChime | Filtered brass with chimes. | Reminds of Keith Emerson, but more refined and regal. |
| 60 Piano Mist | Piano bell. MW fades to staccato filtered voice. | Good for pop ballads. |
| 61 Xanadu | Solo multi-tuned flute. | Xanadu was an idyllic place in Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge -This more than idyllic is a weirdo. Clever programming, maybe useful for ethnic fusion solos. |
| 62 WdBass Duo | Split wood bass and piano. | Standard 60's Oscar Peterson Trio sound. |
| 63 Drum Set 1 | Drum set including bass and sound effects. | Percussion galore, including ga, sleigh-bell, bass, maracas, bottle etc. |
| 64 Drum Set 2 | Drum set including bass and sound effects. | More samples of the same kind as above. |
The TG55 can be expanded thanks to pretty nifty data and waveform cards. The ones I have are:
- S5502 Drums 1
- S5504 Brass Section
- S5531 Syn Wave 1
- S5551 Rock&Pop
Click here to go to the SY/TG55 sound card sets page
More Yamaha TG55 pictures: (click on thumbnails to enlarge)
Specs:
Main Features: (from the manual)
- Second-generation 16-bit AWM2 (Advanced Wave Memory) technology for superior sound.
- Versatile 1, 2, or 4-element voice architecture and complex envelope generators for extensive sample layering capability.
- Sophisticated dynamic filter system offers unlimited real-time timbre variation.
- 74 waveform samples in ROM.
- 64 preset voices in ROM
- 64-voice internal RAM memory.
- External waveform and voice card slots.
- Multi-timbre capability with 16 memory locations for multi-timbre setups.
- Drum voices allow 61 different drum and other waveforms to be assigned to different keys.
- Velocity switching for expressive power.
- Extensive voice editing functions.
- 34 high-quality programmable digital effects built in.
- Pannable stereo output.
| Year of release: | 1990 |
| Polyphony: | 16 voices |
| Sound generation method: | AWM2 (2nd-generation 16-bit Advanced Wave Memory) |
| MIDI: | In, Out, Thru |
| Sound expansion capabilities: | Yes, with Voice and Wave data cards |