Thanks AJ! Could you focus on "individual" sounds within the kits? I want to hear the toms, bass drums, bongos, and snares by themselves. I would like to hear the dynamics within those samples triggered by the "user" rather than done within a style.

No worries on the electronic kits I learned a long time ago not to expect anything good in that department from Yamaha's arrangers. Still blows my mind Yammie will share the voices from the arranger line with the Motif, but won't go the other way. It would be nice to hear some of the Motif drums on a Tyros.

Here is a short sample:
http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/ContentDetail/ModelSeriesDetail/0,,CNTID%253D62119%2526CTID%253D205500,00.html#

Click on media clips and listen to #52

Eric

Eric,
I've already listened to all the demos provided in that link Demo #52 actually brings up another question. It's an A/B comparison. The second half is the T2's kit. Is that particualr kit the best of the "acoustic" kits on the T2? I still noticed that the toms were dry. That's why I want to hear these samples by themselves.

You'd be surprised how much of a difference a kit sampled in the way Roland's are will enhance a style or drum track. The thing is.., the sound from a kit shouldn't be so "PURE". There "should" be snare buzz when hitting the toms, and bass drum. Having ghost notes makes doing rolls on fills much easier. Velocity switching on the drums makes it much simpler as well. Maybe Yamaha just assumes that given it's an arranger many owners aren't going to really fiddle with the kits or be so picky considering the unit has styles.

A good example is my Zoom MRT3 drum machine. Although a very nice drum machine (which is even sampled above CD quality), the sounds are so freaking PURE that it will at times sound "too clean". That's why the Boss drum machines are so popular. They use these types of kits on the their drum machines and they're present in the Roland keyboard line. Now the E-80 is supposed to have V-drum sounds. WOW! Anyone ever play a V-kit??? They're simply mind blowing.

Call me too picky, but with all the technology out there being used by keyboard makers today, I can't for the life of me understand why Yamaha doesn't use this on their preset drum kits. Especially on a keyboard that costs over three grand... IMO they can pack all the SA, Mega, Sweet, Cool, and Live voices they want into the unit, but I'll say till the day I die "If you want a style to stand out then the core of the style (being drums/bass) must be strong". A weak kit will take the life out of any style.

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 03-17-2007).]

There are V-Drums in the G70 and E80, and a couple of V-Kits (although labeled as 'New Pop') in the E50/60.

I too think it is wonderful to have drum samples in an arranger that have been picked by drummers, NOT keyboard players....! I don't think any arranger maker uses drummers to voice keyboard sounds, why is it they use mostly keyboard players to voice the internal drum kits!

When the V-Kits first started appearing in arrangers, I remember a bunch of arranger players going 'I can't believe that you can't get rid of the sampled ambience and bleed in the V-Kits', which always made me think 'My God, when was the last time any of these bozos actually played with a real drummer...?!'

That's what makes these things so realistic, a tiny bit of 'room' in the sample. You can still add more DSP reverb to make them bigger, but just like a real kit (impossible to record it well without getting the sound of the drum room in the overheads a little bit) there is ALWAYS some 'space' around the sound.

Unless I've GOT to sound 80's, I never use anything other than the V-Drums, and my sound has never been so realistic....

Couldn't agree more Diki!!!!! That's why I love Roland's Roland nailed it with the V-Drums, and one of the smartest things they have ever done was carry that over to their other products.

You're dead on about the lack of drummers being used to program the drum tracks too. Maybe that's why Yammies styles are so over quantized (gonna take a hit for that one I bet)..

I'll give a suggestion to anyone here wishing to create their own drum tracks. Your biggest friend "can" be the quantize, but it can also be your "worst" enemy! Quantize should be applied at the strength of 100% when doing music such as dance and techno, and other forms of electronica, but when you're doing classic and traditional styles "DO NOT" set your quantize strength to 100%.... Doing so makes the track sound too mechanical. A grid strength of 100% makes it sound like a robot is sitting at the kit

Anywho look forward to AJ's posting. I've been wanting to hear the T2's kits by themselves and broken down.

Seems nobody wants to post Tyros2 drums.

Hmmmm... Well, if anybody is interested, here is the lowly Tyros Drums.

Tyros Drums and More

Best,

Mike

PS: Playing them through a quality external sound system is recommended.

Sorry, keyboardplayer....... That's the worst style or SMF I ever heard. Absolutely ZERO dynamics on any of the drums!

Perhaps the drums sound better with a better style or SMF, but this example only goes to demonstrate squeak's point.... Talk about over-quantitized robot drums!

I would fire immediately any drummer that played like that.....! I think that more of us should get out and play with real people a bit more than we do, and maybe we'll stop being content with machines that sound like that......

And that SMF/style would sound just as bad on any other arranger, including Rolands... If the style has no internal dynamics, there's no point in having multi-velocity drum samples. Am I correct in thinking that was a T1? I've heard those before, and they sounded MUCH better than that example......

keyboardplayer,
Thanks for posting that. It's almost midnight here. I'll post my examples tomorrow morning. I'm going to show what I mean about samples that include "natural effects". I'll show how one snare drum will trigger a very nice "pop" once the velocity curve is nailed. I'll also show how the bongos switch as well.. Hell I'm almost certain one of my bongos has 3 velocity curves. I'll also show how the toms not only sound authentic with the "snare buzz", but I'll even demonstate how realistic the toms sound when you trigger the velocity curve within those. The bass drums are the same way. Geez now that I think about it.., take the Rock Kit on my Roland for example. That kit alone has 7 different bass drums, and 6 or 7 snare drums, plus a ghost note for rolls.

I'll post my examples in the morning.. Again thanks for posting your demo. Hopefully more T2 owners will post.

Squeak

Squeak,
I sent you an email with an attachment of drum samples.
I didn't realize it was 9 MB until after I sent it. Hope it don't jam up your hotmail. I used your SJ addy in your post.
Bebop

I'll tell you one thing that bugs me about the V-Kit drums, though, squeak. Although they have a really nice rim-shot at the top of the dynamics (about 120 and up, I think), you can't get that rim-shot at any other velocity, nor assign it to a note # by itself, so it can be a bear to use with drum pads, which have separate rim and skin triggers....

Oh well, nothing's perfect.....