I appreciate the comments, Ron. (MFYD!)

Of course, I'm a huge 76 fan, so I understand about that! I guess I have to dig into the Ensemble feature more, but I heard a couple of amateur demos of it, and in comparison to some of the pro's using it, I guess I just got to say... YMMV!

We had quite a discussion about this idea some months ago (there was a Roland keyboard that had a similar kind of function) and I must say, I'm glad some arrangers (well, just this one, so far!) are starting to use it. It is fairly common in VSTi libraries, and very welcome as an arranger feature (I hope Roland port their version to an arranger soon). For those of us into pop brass sounds, small string ensembles and wind ensembles, this tutti/split system is a boon.

But it still (from what I've heard) takes a player with good voicing skills to make it work nicely. The One Finger Harmony thing might be the best way for most amateurs to use it...

I can't honestly remember the last time I had the urge to play a theater or pipe organ sound on anything, but it's nice if you want it, I suppose. But I do think Yamaha are painting themselves into the NH demographic on the whole, featuring this so heavily! I just can't help thinking about the lost generation of younger players who wouldn't touch those with a barge pole (despite my age, I'm afraid I have to count myself in with them!).

The improved effects are nice, but part of me wonders if some of it boils down to simply more attention paid to hew well they are used. My Roland has a wide variety of amp sims in it, from JC120's to Marshall's and Matchless's, but I'm not a huge fan of how well the factory guys have used them. I imagine, if they were given a spanking new GUI, and simply voiced by experts in guitar emulation (making sure the input is not too loud allows you to use more of the amp's range, for starters), many would be convinced that Roland had made a breakthrough... But all it would be is more attention paid to voicing it well.

But I agree, I can HEAR some improvement in the effects. How much of it is eye candy, how much is better programming, and how much of it is actual hardware I can only guess (pretty GUI's have sold a million average sounding VST plug-ins!), but it's nice Yamaha care...

And that's the icing on the cake, for me... I really get the impression Yamaha CARE. It's hard to think that Roland even KNOW they make arrangers, for all the lack of care and attention they pay to making them sound great out of the box! Thing is, all the tools are in there, but the factory guys aren't in Yamaha's league when it comes to doing all the work for you. Roland, you have to 'roll your own', LOL

Now, get a hold of Yamaha, tell them to add a Chord Sequencer and proper audio looping and syncing, and if I win the lottery, I'll get one in a flash!