nimbu Overview

nimbu

Core, Extended and Professional

Auto Accompaniment as Backing Band

What is often overlooked is the fact that you can accompany yourself relatively well with chords on a single instrument such as a guitar. However, the situation in a backing band is different. A backing band consists of several musicians, who of course do not only play chord tones, but also the tensions. Basically, you can't play a backing band with just chords. That's why nimbu is the arranger which is based on chord scales. nimbu assigns the correct chord scales with a minimum of 7 tones to the chords you play. The additional tensions of the chord scales shape the authentic sound of your accompaniment.

3 Editions that build on each other

nimbu Core
For all those who want to open up a new dimension of musical professionalism with auto accompaniment by playing all available tones with the chords of their left hand. For those who love realistic, authentic accompaniments and create their own accompaniments from MIDI files and keyboard styles, of which there are thousands on the Internet. For those who want to edit their accompaniments themselves. Even, while nimbu is playing.
The core is the nimbu Realtime Engine, which translates chords into chord scales and therefore transposes 7 tones. And which makes all this possible by being played directly on the keyboard like an arranger.

nimbu Extended
For all those who need even more editing and performance features. For those who do not play with a touch screen, but prefer an instrument with real switches and controls. For musicians who perform on stage with a compact instrument such as a master keyboard. For advanced users who additionally develop new arrangements from their own nimbu sessions and import specific sections and instruments from other sessions. Or for musicians who record their played accompaniment and export it with the recorded melody as MIDI file. For those who in addition analyse the harmony of individual accompanying instruments.

nimbu Professional
For those who export their own YAMAHA® styles and play them on their YAMAHA® keyboard. Or for musicians and songwriters who develop and perform their own music based on chord scales.
This edition additionally offers the so-called compose mode. Here the accompaniment is built up from a sequence of sections, which mostly consist of a few bars. Basic rhythms and melodic lines of individual (parent) sections or instruments are impressed (inherited) on other (child) sections, whereby transposition takes place in real time. Due to the extremely compact structure of the music, ideas and improvisations are spontaneously implemented. Once the development is completed, nimbu dissolves sequence, loops and inheritances to form an independent accompaniment.

Features	Core	Ext	Pro	Specification / Description


nimbu Session	✓	✓	✓	nimbu file with 24 sections each containing 11 nimbu instruments and 16 nimbu tracks for storing the real-time accompaniment(s) on disk
Section	✓	✓	✓	250 bars with 10,000 events per track and instrument (6.48 million events/session), each section has 3 additional One Touch registers for instrument setup
Marker (SongPositions)	✓	✓	✓	per section 21 markers: Intro A-D, Main A-D, FillIn A-D, Bridge A-D, Ending A-D, Break, NoMarker, Functions: Auto FillIn and Drum FillIn. With direct jump from one accompaniment to a marker of another accompaniment in real-time.
Time Signatures	✓	✓	✓	6/4, 5/4, 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, and 9/8. With each bar a change of time signature (even within one marker section) is possible!
Chord Types in the Key of C	✓	✓	✓	Cm add2, C add2, Csus2, Cmb5, Cm , Cm6, Cm7, Cmj7, Cm add9, Cb5, C, C#5, C6, C7, Cj7, C add9, C sus4, C7sus4, Cdim7, Cm7b5, C7#5, Cj7#5, Cj7b5
Chord Scales	✓	✓	✓	ionic (major), natural minor, lydian, augmented lydian, mixolydian, dorian, locrain, phrygian, melodic minor, harmonic minor, whole tone, halfwholetone, augmented
Note lengths	✓	✓	✓	1/64 and 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 also as dotted note, variable in 1/8 or continuously with mouse
Temporal resolution	✓	✓	✓	1/768


Accompanying Mode	✓	✓	✓	The tracks and sections run synchronously, each of the 24 sections contains an accompaniment with its own instrument setup and markers, 12 of which are directly accessed in real time while playing. Setting of automatic follow-up accompaniments.
Composing Mode			✓	The tracks run synchronously to the sequence of sections into which the accompaniment is divided, Setting the sequence definition, inheritance of basic rhythms
Sequence			✓	Comprehensive sequence definition with rearranging of the accompaniment in real time. 16 sequence parts with a maximum of 8 sections each, loops of the sequence parts, return loops to other sequence parts, jump to other sequence parts.
Transfer to accompany mode			✓	Transfer of a newly created accompaniment with dissolution of the sequence as well as the inheritance into one section with simultaneous switching to accompany mode.


Realtime Chord Recognition	✓	✓	✓	3 and 4 voice chords, 3 voice simplifications of 4 voice chords, both including inversions Single Finger I for major and minor chords each with seventh chords plus 2 freely selectable chord types per section Single Finger II Single Finger II similar to YAMAHA® keyboards Single-Finger III like II but with additional 3-voice simplifications of 4-voice chords Smart Chords similar to Roland® und CASIO® keyboards Accordion for playing with MIDI accordion Slash chords for bass inversion and direct bass control Power chords [1+5] and octave interval [1+8] for direct control of accompaniment
Realtime Transposing	✓	✓	✓	scale-related in scale steps S1-7(functional), with inversion modes Um and Uc: S1-7Um, S1-7Uc chord-related, scale steps of tension tones become scale steps of chord tones High Key setting In addition and primarily for YAMAHA® keyboard styles: S1-7Ug, S0(bypass), S1(parallel), S1+3(third), S1+3+5(fifth)
Improvisation Levels	✓	✓	✓	chord-related (automatic accompaniment), scale-related (improvisation), title-related (title) - spontaneously switchable while playing


Editing	✓	✓	✓	Editing of all scale step events of the accompaniment and of the note events of the tracks in real-time while nimbu is playing and lyrics and control events including markers, chords, program changes, time signatures etc. with undo/redo function. Setup of the entire instrumentation including the One Touch registrations separately for each section of a session.
Session Collections	✓	✓	✓	Individual setup of session collection panels with 10 groups of 20 sessions each, via which the sessions can also be activated remotely. Each session has its own sound setup. When sessions are called via this panel, nimbu automatically switches to performance mode.
Playlists	✓	✓	✓	Individual setup of playlists, which can also be called up remotely.


MIDI Import	✓	✓	✓	MIDI file format 0 and 1, loading of MIDI tracks into nimbu tracks
YAMAHA® Style Import	✓	✓	✓	Import of YAMAHA® Keyboard Styles (SFF 1 and SFF 2) into open and editable nimbu sessions
Computation of Harmony	✓	✓	✓	Automatic computation of the chord progression in MIDI Files
Song-related Accompaniments	✓	✓	✓	Automatic computation of song-related accompaniments from MIDI files, from which song-related styles are created once the markers are set (MIDI File to Style).
Harmony Monitor		✓	✓	Analysis of the harmony progression of individual tracks imported from MIDI files
Import from Sessions		✓	✓	Import sections and instruments regardless of mode from other session files to create new arrangements and accompaniments


Performance Mode	✓	✓	✓	Suppresses everything that could interfere playing live or on stage. In this mode nimbu can be completely remote controlled.
Remote Control	✓	✓	✓	More than 100 switches and controllers are available. The control itself can be done via individual keyboard keys, touch screen, tablet system or via MIDI master keyboard, MIDI pad and general MIDI controllers. The latter by freely assigning MIDI Control Change, MIDI Program Change or MIDI NoteOn and NoteOff messages as well as special SysEx messages of Yamaha® arranger keyboards, routing of pitch bends to the sound module
MCU / HUI Interface for Masterkeyboards		✓	✓	Additional MIDI IN interface for the MCU and HUI (Mackie Control Universal, Human User Interface) protocols known from DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) to take full advantage of modern master keyboards for remote control of nimbu.
MIDI OUT for LEDs and Displays		✓	✓	Additional MIDI OUT interface to send status information to backlight LEDs of buttons and pads and the names of selected session and session collection to LCD displays. Via this interface, nimbu sends status information with generic MIDI messages to master keyboards, for example, so that in combination with the HUI/MCU interface on stage it is possible to play only with a master keyboard, i.e. without touch screen, monitor etc.


YAMAHA® Style Export			✓	Saving nimbu accompaniments as YAMAHA® Style in SFF 1 format to play them on YAMAHA® arranger keyboards.
Style settings per Instrument			✓	Marker: all, Intro and Endings, Mains and Fill Ins Style Part: Rythm, SubRythm, Bass, Chord 1, Chord 2, Pad, Phrase 1, Phrase 2 NTR: Root Fixed, Root Trans NTT: Bypass, Melody, Bass, Chord, Melodic Minor, Harmonic Minor HighKey and Original Scale. More is not necessary, because the accompaniment is musically complete in nimbu and processed there.
Recalculation of Time Signature			✓	As YAMAHA® styles only play one time signature, this function is used to convert bar ranges with a different time signature to the time signature of the style. This is done by recalculating all event times and lengths as well as the tempo of the affected bars.
Style Export Concept			✓	Since in nimbu the accompaniments are already separated from the chords of the harmony and the chord tones are distinguished by color from the tension tones, the result is a concept that allows YAMAHA® Styles to be created quickly.


Recording from Keyboard	✓	✓	✓	Recording of the keyboard play into individual tracks. Display of the notes played in real time. Also under the notes to be played.
Recording of the accompaniment		✓	✓	Recording of the entire accompaniment in respective tracks
MIDI Export		✓	✓	Storing of selected nimbu tracks in MIDI File Format 1


Sound	✓	✓	✓	2 integrated real-time synthesizers or sound modules including sound library, compatible with WDM KS, ASIO®, Direct Sound, WASAPI
Sound Libraries	✓	✓	✓	Freely selectable SOUNDFONT® libraries
DSPs	✓	✓	✓	2 integrated software DSPs (Digital Sound Processors) for Reverb and Chorus per sound module
MIDI Expander, virtual (VST®) Instruments	✓	✓	✓	2 MIDI OUT interfaces for separate control of MIDI hardware and software sound modules and virtual (VST®) instruments. Automatic transfer of settings from Cubase® parser files or YAMAHA® Voice Lists.

nimbu - because accompaniments play tension tones. Here is our offer.

"YAMAHA" is Registered Trademark of YAMAHA CORPORATION, Hamamatsu Shizuoka, JP
"SOUNDFONT" is Registered Trademark of E-MU Systems, Inc., 95067-0015, Scotts Valley, US
"VST is Registered Trademarks of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 20097, Hamburg, DE
"Cubase" is Registered Trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 20097, Hamburg, DE
"Roland" is Registered Trademark of Roland Corp., Hamamatsu Shizuoka, JP
"CASIO CDP " is Registered Trademark of Casio Keisanki K. K., Tokio, JP

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