The

Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

MU-series is a line of

sound module A sound module is an electronic musical instrument without a human-playable interface such as a piano-style musical keyboard. Sound modules have to be operated using an externally connected device, which is often a MIDI controller, of which the ...

s built by Yamaha. All sound modules except MU5 support

Yamaha XG Yamaha XG (EXtended General MIDI) is an extension to the General MIDI standard, created by Yamaha. It is similar in purpose to the Roland GS standard. Features Relative to General MIDI, XG gained popularity by increasing the number of availa ...

. The sound modules were commonly used when computers had slower processors. The computer could send

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

commands to the sound module, acting as an external sound generation device. Later MU sound modules feature A/D inputs that allow direct input from microphones and guitars. The MU-series product line superseded the company's previous TG-series modules, the TG100 and TG300. Although the majority of Yamaha's MU-series modules were meant for the home user, the company also made rack-mount versions of the MU90 and MU100 called the MU90R and MU100R, respectively, for professional use.

Compatibility

MU50 and higher end models typically offer the following compatibility modes: * XG mode, also used for

General MIDI General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Committ ...

* TG300B mode offers compatibility with

Roland GS Roland GS, or just GS, sometimes expanded as General Standard or General Sound, is a MIDI specification. It requires that all GS-compatible equipment must meet a certain set of features and it documents interpretations of some MIDI commands and by ...

. In the MU1000EX and MU2000EX replaced by a licensed GS mode. * C/M mode offers limited compatibility with the

Roland MT-32 The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. It was originally marketed to amateur musicians as a budget external synthesizer with an original list price of $695. However, ...

and the CM-32L. * Yamaha Disk Orchestra Collection mode The unit will automatically switch between XG and TG300B modes as required. C/M mode has to be enabled manually.

List of MU-series sound modules

References

External links

Yamaha Manual Library
- MU10 Related Models (archive) Sound modules MU-series Samplers (musical instrument) {{Sound-tech-stub

Compatibility

List of MU-series sound modules

References

Further reading

External links