Just my little two pennies worth.

The points made by Artaher in his original posting are very valid. I have both a tyros and a Ketron XD3 and this is my findings and opinion after comparing them side by side.

In general the Yamaha styles are much simpler but this suits me as I both sing and play as much of the songs I do that I can. On the XD I often cancel or lower a voice in the style to leave more room for me.

However, the variety within a style in the Yamaha is poor compared to Ketron and Roland as you can have variations for different types of chord that you play. This makes programming your own patterns very long winded. You dont have to have them different as there is a generic setting that will adjust the major pattern you record for playback with other chords.

In addition, the Ketron also has the "Intelligent Arranger" feature which cuts out certain of the accompanyment instruments when you are playing the right hand melody. For example, many of the Latin styles on the Ketron are really great with lots going on especially in the brass sections but it's too busy to add your voice or solo instrument to play trhe main melody. However, you can set it so that the second you play the right hand the brass (or drums, bass, lower, accomp 1,2 or 3 voices whichever you choose) dies down and mutes.

If you are singing you just choose a soft pad sound for the right voice and play this whenever you want to cut out some of the instruments.

The above results in far more variety when using styles and gives a much less "automatic" feel to your accompanyments.

Having said that, there are many things on the Tyros which I like such as the vocal Harmoniser (Which doesn't distort for me using either my 25 year old EV or my 20 year old Shure 58 mikes). I also like the navigation and the mixer and quite a few of the voices but these are just personal taste.

If Yamaha added the intelligent arranger function and allowed variation of styles for different chord types then I would stop using an external module for its styles and just use the Tyros.

Oh yes, and please Yamaha can I have a semi-weighted 76 note keyboard, fully functioning USB, get rid of the disco lights and top rotor settings in the leslie sims in the Tyros II (just in case you're listening)

Merry Christmas All

KFingers