Ok guys, b4 you get too excited . . . I'm first to admit that I myself wasn't lucky enough to make it to the official Yamaha Tyros2 premiere presentation held in London today (10/1), but an arr keyboard buddy of mine, and SZ member: 'thewolf' (who recently owned a PSR3000) did. In fact he flew all the way from Finland just to make it to the event.

Upon his return back to his London hotel room, he called me (via Skype), to share his impresssions, and answer questions I had previously requested to find out about Tyros2. First of all, not only did he attend the Tyros2 Premiere Presentation (that evening), but earlier in the day, was fortunate to be able to actually sit down to explore and play a Tyros2 in their showroom, not for one, but SEVERAL hours!

Here are just a few of the things he shared with me. The first thing he said was that he was immediately blown away by the awesome realism of Yamaha's new 'Super Articulation Voices' and how easily they were to play, and so intuitively, on the new Tyros2 keyboard. He told me he was left speechless from that incredible sound experience.

As a comparison, he played a Tyros1, saying the sound improvement difference between Tyros1 voices and Tyros2 S.A voices was incredibly phenomenal, and felt that this improvement alone more than well worth an upgrade from Tyros1 to Tyros2.

He also reported that the Tyros2 keyboard action felt 'very responsive', and even though the keys are lightweight compared to fully weighted piano keys, they have considerably more weight, and more importantly, better 'touch response' than Tyros1. He pointed out that the Tyros2 keys gave him the feeling of being 'connected' to the acoustic instrument he was playing on the keyboard, and that 'somehow magically', appropriate acoustic instrument sounds (string pops, valve clicks, pops, sound variations. etc) came in automatically, at just the right moments, inspiring his playing further. He felt the keyboard action response along with the new S.A voices raised both his perceived keyboard playing ability, and dramatically increased the realism of the the acoustic instrument he was playing (on the keyboard). He told me that he felt that the impressive playable S.A voices ALONE were enough to make it worth getting the Tyros2.

He too had heard the the web Tyros2 MP3 demos, and told me that they don't do justice to how terrific they actually sound when played & heard LIVE.

Ok, here are a few other things my friend was able to test & confirm for me about Tyros2:

1. MusicFinder now returns you to whatever record (song) you had last called up, even after going into other menus, or exiting to the MAIN LCD screen.

2. Yamaha UK confirmed to him that Tyros1 (TRS-MS01's + sub) speakers will work & play fine on Tyros2, as both Tyros2 speakers (TRS-MS02 + sub) and Tyros1 speakers (TRS-MS01 + sub) utilize the SAME speaker input connecters & Tyros speaker output sockets. The ONLY incompatibility is that the Tyros1 TRS-MS01 satellite speaker 'mounting brackets' are incompatible and subsequently won't mount to the back of Tyros2.

3. Microphone input on Tyros2 is the same as Tyros1: 1/4"

4. Cosmetically: Tyros2 looks very cool, with a more compact sleek appearance and 'more up to date' look than Tyros1. Tyros1 sitting side by side, now looks a bit old fashioned in comparison.

Ok, hopefully arranger keyboard buddy: Heike, will now step forward to provide a followup to my posting here, and confirm, deny, or 'add to' what I've relayed so far.

Heike, you're defintely 'da Wolf' man here. Thanks again for sharing.

Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 10-01-2005).]

Scott,

Thanks for keeping us uptodate on the Tyros2 and narrating that first hand experience of ‘TheWolf’. Lucky guy!

I had two quick questions.

1. Can the Tyros2 read in a Standard MIDI File and reassign all the GM, GS, XG voices to its own set of superior internal voices at the click of a button like the Yamaha Clavinova CVP-307? This makes a world of difference in the rendering of MIDI files that you find on the net.

2. Can the Tyros2 play back a MIDI sequence while assigning a few of its MIDI channels to external mode while at the same time being able to punch in the appropriate bank number as well as program number to control voice allocation on an external sound module? Both MSB and LSB values must be able to be set and transmitted across each external MIDI channel.

Even better if you could set the Volume and Pan parameters too!

Tapas

Thanks Scottyee for sharing this awesome information! The Super Articulation Voices in the Tyros 2 seem to draw much attention and get nice feedback. When I listened to those Tyros 2 demo samples I was the most impressed with those super articulation voices. I instantly wanted to hear more... I hope there are more sound samples posted of these sounds soon because I'm very interested in for instance super articulation of the acoustic piano sound.

I have a question. Heike, what was your impression of the acoustic pianos? Any big improvements from the Tyros 1? The acoustic piano section of the Tyros 1 is very limited, I hope there are much more samples of this important element in the Tyros 2.

Is the Tyros I Vocalizer Improved?

Thank you so much Scott for this nice report on the T2 !

I'm looking forward to read more... and more ... and more

Scott:
Dito to Roels msg.
I'm not familiar with ty 1's outputs, and wondering if there's going to be 1/4" L and R main outs, and seperate plug-ins for the sat speakers and sub, on tyII. close up monitor's are a must for me, really going to miss the psr9000, onboards! But I guess the yamaha speaker system will be comparible and just used for monitors, and I can still use the main outs for primary amplification? any thoughts about this from you or (anyone) would be appreciated.

I'm going to have to alter my (homemade) L 7 stand bracket to move the laptop out of the way of the R sat speaker, and make a shelf underneath the kybd suspended from the bracket to keep the sub off the floor out of the way of all the junk I have on the floor. but sure looking forward to a new TyII after using the 9000 for 4 years......Cheers.......Pose

I'm ready to make the change, just waiting for them to come out, and hear more about them and what the price is going to end up being.......Pose

Hi VoiceOfSpace: First of all, a great big welcome to the Synthzone Arranger Keyboard forum.



Unfortunately, the T2 acoustic pianos don't include super articulation. In fact, I was told that the acoustic 'grand piano' voice is actually the same one used in T1. I agree that the Tyros acoustic grand not nearly as impressive sounding as the real thing, especially when playing it exposed in a solo piano setting, yet find it quite pleasing when played with auto-accompaniment, even in a sparse, bass & drums accomp setup. Considering the Tyros only includes 61 keys anyway, the Tyros was not really designed for solo piano style work, so perhaps I've been forgiving.

My hope is that Yamaha might eventually make a Super Articulation style Acoustic Piano Voice available to Tyros2 owners, and downloded into the keyboard via the Tyros2 Internet feature.

VoiceOfSpace: Because your user profile includes no background information about yourself, can you at least tell us where you live (Country-Region), and what (arranger?) keyboards you play? Thanks.

Scott

Hi Pose. T2's outputs are the SAME as T1, of which include 1/4" MAIN OUTS 1/2 (L/R) plus dedicated 1/4" outputs for the sattellite speakers & subwoofer. In fact, as I stated in another thread, the T1 TRS-M01's will work on T2. The ONLY limitation is that the T1 satellite speaker 'mounting brackets' are incompatible with T2. - Scott

I have just been to a Tyros 2 Demonstration in Bolton.

It was not possible to get some time alone with the beast, but I was able to run my fingers over the keyboard and I would describe the action as nicely weighted, sprung keys. There was a Tyros 1 in the showroom and those keys felt very light in comparison. Both felt rather better than my PSR3000, but thats not a shock to anyone!

I thought the sound was superb, coming through the official speakers.

And I must agree that the Super Articulation feature is a knockout, and very playable. The demonstrator played me some Sax and Guitar lines and the realism attained without any obvious effort was amazing.

I have always felt if my 3k was stolen, I would replace it with another 3k because I couldn't justify the extra expense of a Tyros 1 for the improvements gained. The Tyros 2 is a different matter; the Super Articulation voices alone are a tangible leap forward that could well justify the extra expense.

Tapas: The PSR's from 1000 up have all got an automatic midi voice re-allocation capability, it's one of the song settings, so the Tyros (1 or 2) must surely have the same facility. This is not a "magic bullet" solution; there are still issues of relative voice levels to deal with. I've used Michael Bedesam's "MidiPlayer" utility to do the remap / remix function with great success. Regarding the "play midi to external" you can certainly (again on all the higher-level PSRs so hopefully on the Tyros) you can route song-playback midi channels to external midi channels; however I don't know if you could mute these tracks on the host keyboard. I'm pretty sure that the track data "sent out" will include all the usual information including patch/bank/volume/pan data.

Hope this helps!

[This message has been edited by MacAllcock (edited 10-02-2005).]

I wonder if the TRS-MS02 speakers have a higher wattage rating than the MS01's do. The MS01's 20Wx2 with a 40W Sub just didn't cut the mustard from what many people have said. If Yammie doubled the wattage of both the Satellites and Sub it would sure add another incentive to get a T2 and of course make it better suited for Lounge or other small venues.

Oh btw, the User Flash Memory on the Tyros2 is only 3.2Mb compared to the Tyros' 3.3Mb. Why did they take a step backward on such an essential feature? Memory prices are much cheaper today and it doesn't make sense to me why Yamaha didn't put in a much larger User Memory. Say 20 Mb's or more. It would always come in handy.

Another beef is the Sequencer. From the looks of things the note capacity for song recording is similar to the Tyros at 300kb maximum?? Which is around 35,000 notes if I'm not mistaken. The note capacity in my opinion should be similar to regular Workstations such as the Roland FantomX's at 260,000 notes! The Motif ES has a 226,000 note capactiy on its Sequencer. Why is Yamaha so stingy when it comes to their Arrangers, especially their 'high-end' ones?

If Yamaha wants more Professionals to purchase their high end Arrangers they need to put in more professional features to accommodate them. And they need to quit marketing their Flagship Arrangers as keyboards for the Home Hobbyist for goodness sakes. Display them in the Professional Keyboard area of Music Stores. Home Hobbyists will surely walk the few additional feet to check out the showroom displaying Keyboards for Professionals don't you think? It will change the 'image' of the product from a toy to BOY!!! what an amazing product! And it's right here in the PRO keyboard area! YO! Salesman, I'll take it.

I've got other complaints (which many of you know by now ) but I'll withhold from speaking them at this time. I don't want your smiles to turn into frowns. The Tyros2 is a 'big' leap ahead as far as 'sounds' go. But features are what professionals are looking for not just sounds. You provide both and you have an instant winner. You provide only one in the equation and you've essentially missed the boat and your total sales would not be nearly as abundant. Which I'm sure Yammie realizes, right??

Best regards,
Mike