Hi all

I am about to embark on buying a new "Arranger keyboard", and I would like some advice as to which one to choose.

First, let me tell you what kind of music I play/Compose.

I like composing background music for current pop music, so styles that are of big band/waltz/rhumba/Ballroom etc would be useless for me (I know most arrangers have them anyway, but less of these the better)

I like Dance Rhythms, and "Spice girls", "S Club 7" (girl/Boy band), "Elton John", "Britney Spears" etc and modern music in general. I also want to compose "film scores", so good strings and pads are a must - very good ones that is, and good "Solo" instruments like Cello, Violin, English horn (cor Anglias) (these are "hard to create" to perfection samples I beleive.)

A good Piano would be useful as well, but not essential, as i have a 88 key weighted digital piano. An onboard sampler would be useful, if only to create the odd effect that is of a unique sound. I hear that the Yamaha 9000 has an onboard sampler, so that would help. but would a Yamaha PSR 9000 do well in all the other divisions? (solo sounds like Violin, Cello etc, and are the strings good?)

I want a keyboard with in-built speakers, and just 61 keys. Any suggestions as to what would be a good buy for my musical tastes? I hear the VA-7 is not user friendly, so I will leave that one. The kn6000 is ok - but I hear the strings/Pads/Solo sounds aren't has good has the Yamaha 9000. If someone can help me, then please do!

PS a good sound/speaker system is essential as i have no external amps/pa etc.)

Nice forum, keep it up!

08

I think the 9000 would work well. It has all the capabilities that you listed, plus many more that would be useful in composing. You can hook a computer keyboard into it for direct data entry and fast navigation. Hard drives are quite inexpensive. Video out might be helpful too.
There are four line outputs, plus easy pc connection. If the styles you need aren't there, there are literally thousands of free ones available, and the 9000 will play them directly from disk.
I'm sure there are other suitable arrangers, but of my recent experience with the Solton and Technics, the 9000 stands out for this type application, in my opinion.
Hope this helps.
DonM

Thank you Don.

I was wondering what the Acoustic piano/Rhodes piano etc was like on the psr 9000 - compared to the KN6000/Solton etc. Sound quality is more important to me than "user-friendlyness" "as such",(I don't play out, I will be using it just for home) as I like to do film scores etc, and backing tracks (as i said)

So then Don! looks like I could be getting a Yamaha. I am assuming there are no bugs etc on the yamaha, and that it is amongst the top line of arranger keyboards - even though it is a year old now.

08

dON'T RULE OUT THE va7!(damn caps lock!)
The polyphony is MUCH better than the PSR9000 and that should be important if you're composing large scores. The sounds are among the very best and the on board speakers sound wonderful. THere is a built in zip drive, so no need for a hard drive, and zip disks are plentiful and cheap. It has a terrific sampler called variphrase that takes sampling to the next level - it also has the new GM2 standard. The direct from disk playback is as good as any and WAY better than the 9000, because you can search for a new file while one is playing. The "gazzinta's & gazzoutta's" are more plentiful on the Yamaha, but if you are using it at home, you may already have some of the mic processing gear you need. Before you buy one - these are the top dogs at the moment:
VA7, PSR9000, Kn6000, X1, PA80 (soon!)and maybe even the MZ2000 (havent'd sen it yet)
Check them ALL out first - don't go on our recommendations alone - we are all very biased. (except for me - I am ALL KNOWing)
...To be honest - all I know for sure is that we all like different things about all of the top brands - it's a really tough choice if you plan to keep it a while. The technology changes at a speed that will give you whiplash. The best advice I can give you is this: Play them all, then buy whatever your budget will allow.......then STOP reading all these posts! It'll make you nuts!
Learn your instrument inside & out and be creative and productive. We all have a little too much time and advice on our hands and we (as a group)seem to go through keyboards like we change socks! THere is plenty of help here if you need us, but make a wise choice first - use your EARS, then read the manual and see if the features will suit you. There is a world of crap floating around out there mixed in with the good stuff. Be careful before you buy anything, because none of them hold their value too long. Hope I didn't discourage you - I love this stuff, but I can afford to change alot because it is my full time income, and I need the best toys all the time.(spoiled!)
From reading your post - I predict that you will like the Korg patterns the best with the VA7 second. Korg has an edge in the "pop" sounding patterns. Yamaha has great meat & potatoes rhythms, X1 has terrific Latins, and everyone seems to like the Technics for Swing/Big Band - although they all do pretty good swing. Over the years I feel that the Korg has the "hippest" Bass parts of all of them - even dating back to the earlier "i" series. Check it out for your self - the new PA80 should be in the states by the Winter NAMM show on Jan18th. I'd definatly wait to see if it fits YOUR bill. (I'm getting one no matter what)

Thanks Dave - you SPOILED LITTLE CAP LOCKER!

My brother heard the VA-7 demo'd in a shop, and people have about 15 minutes listening to the Variphrase function, then go on to the more "Serious "stuff"(kn6000/yamaha 9000 etc) as my brother put it - who also plays keyboards.

Thing is with the VA-7 - is that you get a load of "backwards" technology sounds to make the 3000+ sounds up (sc88 and a few more etc) Nothing wrong with these sounds, but they are "yesterdays" sounds nevertheless - though not all of them of course.

Since my last post, i have listened to all of the MP3 demo's of the kn6000 - and they are something. I thought the kn6000 was designed for very old music, but there are very modern sounds on it - it appears. Even Rave/Dance/Trance etc!. So my thoughts about technics and the "ballroom" sound, has gone straight out the window.!

I will have an extensive look at the Yamaha and technics before deciding - the kn6000 is a little cheaaper, but the yamaha has a good sampler on it I'm told (can go up to 65 MB!) you could create a film score out of that - couldn't you?. Mind you, havinig 65 MB of sample memory, and where to store them is a different matter.

I will indeed try one out later this week if possible...

08



[This message has been edited by Octave8 (edited 01-03-2001).]

Dave, the 9000 OS has been upgraded to allow searching for the next song while one is playing. And it has a feature called Ultra Quick Start that starts the next immediately. Still no facility for playing multiple songs though.
DonM

Great news - that was a major boo boo in such an expensive piece.

sounds like we write songs the same way lets talk my email is grays4u@hotmail.com

O8 wrote "the yamaha has a good sampler on it I'm told (can go up to 65 MB!) you could create a film score out of that - couldn't you?"

Have you heard anything about the utility of the sampling capabilities on the 9000? It would be fine for special fx, if that is what you want. But I am not sure that it is that useful for supplementing the built-in sounds since there are no programmed samples available for the 9k commercially (that I know of). You can buy .wav files and loop them yourself or sample audio CD or other sources, but you might find yourself spending more time on sound design than on making music. Has anyone made good use of the sampling capability on the PSR9000?

Anyone interested in new voices for PSR9000
sampler should check out www.cd-soft.de they are selling voices using brand new waves, the site can be translated using the "alta-vista" translator, I have'nt tried any of these new voices yet, as the on-board voices manage to satisfy all my music making needs. I play all types of music, classical,
swing, latin, modern pop and compose my own newage music. As well as very authentic traditional instruments, the PSR has lots of beautiful and rich synth pad sounds and very "in your face" synth solo sounds.
The inbuilt styles are not as complex as some of the competition, but more complex styles are available on the net for free. I have a 250mb zip drive on which I have thousands of new styles, they really bring the keyboard to life. The speakers are truly amazing, the best I have heard on any arrangeur. Please be aware that the factory set up state only shows about a tenth of the ability of this keyboard, i've had mine for almost a year, and for me it still has that "wow" factor, I feel PSR9000 is quite underated and misunderstood by some musicians because of it's fairly bland factory preset state and understated but very musical styles. This keyboard will reward the musician who is willing to delve into it's sophisticated features, but don't take it at face value.
My previous keyboard was a KN6000, which I had for three months, I changed because of the better strings, synth pads and speakers on the PSR9000, but that is just my personal opinion, I know some people speak very highly of the KN6000, but please check out all it's voices very carefully, it excells in some areas but totally misses the boat in others, again my opinion, all am saying is check it extremely carefully. Whatever you choose have fun!!!!!.

Paul



[This message has been edited by Paul A Smith (edited 01-04-2001).]

Hey Paul,

As a PSR-9000 owner, I'd be very interested in knowing what changes you've made to yours that give it the "wow" for you. Feel free to discuss it here or email me.

Thanks,
Stevizard

Yes, Paul, I'd like to hear suggestions too. The 8000 from the factory had a more "dynamic" sound than the 9000. It seems to have something to do with part levels in the styles, and perhaps e.q. I wish it were easier to adjust individual style part levels "on the fly". Maybe I'm missing something?
DonM

My suggestions are:-

1). Make use of the Hi/Lo eq settings on the accompainment part, increasing the hi/lo
together gives a much richer sound.

2). Leave the overall eq set as preset one,
I have found extreme setting can cause the keyboard to sound unaturaly harsh.

3). Experiment with the part volumes in the accompainment section, they seem to be factory set in a fairly neutral state, sometimes fairly intricate embelishments can be lost because the part volume is too low.

4). On certain styles I have found selecting "ambience" in the dsp section gives a live and expanded sound, I use this with bigband styles mostly.

5). Most voices can be enhanced by increasing the reverb, obviously this is dependant on the room acoustics, the "classical or sweet flute" sound beautiful with a little more reverb.

6). Grand Piano - the original setting is slightly short on sustain and overbright for my liking, try altering the release setting, and turn the eq high setting to zero on the appropriate part.

7). Don't overlook the XG voices, I found I prefer the shakuhachi on XG voice section as opposed to the panel voice, their are lots of other XG voices that are also quite suprising.

8). I recently went to a WERSI concert, I was very impressed with an organ string type sound they were using, for a similar sound on the 9000 select rockinorg(from drawbar presets), sweet heaven and insomnia, try this and experiment with the drawbar reverb octave settings etc, the sound I managed to get is "big".(the superior polyphony of the PSR9000 means you can produce this type of sound with no dropouts).

9). Make use of the pads to embelish the accompainment, setting a pad to repeat can really fill things out, the DJ set pads are extremely good for modern dance music or Jean Michel Jarre etc. The Limbo dance pads really show off the "live" drums, don't forget the pads can be mixed, try playing the limbo dance pad 2, select the XG pad shakuhachi and use the pitch bend wheel for realism.

10). Obtain more styles and store them on a ZIP drive for instant access via the "disk direct function". I like a lot of the "1000 PSR9000" styles contained in the "PSR STYLES VAULT" also the yamaha italy styles are very good, some of them really eploit the DSP section. For newage type styles try www.svpworld.com, I have purchased all four of the available disks, they are quite a change from the regimented internal styles,
they have a real human quality about them, they are ideal for composing as they give you a good framework to work around.

11). The main thing with the 9000 is not to get in a rut with the "Music Database" I find it is a good starting point for seeing what can mixed with what, but you will get the best results by exploring different DSP settings, voice editing and volume balances.
I think I'm right in saying that the 9000 has the most comprehensive DSP's of any of the arrangers, therefore I don't think it's surprising that the factory presets probably only exploit a fraction of what can be obtained, maybe if release date was delayed by a year the factory presets would have been better.

In my opinion the only better arranger at the moment is the 9000pro, I do have itchy feet about upgrading, but I also have this niggerling defiance that I don't want to line Yamaha's pockets with more of my hard earned cash (certainly not after only a year with the 9000).

I'm not a pro or even semi pro, I just love playing music for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment???? of family and friends, the 9000
just gives me a lot of inspiration because I know it has a lot of potential and what is most important a good set of quality voices, a keyboard can have all the flashy styles you like, but without a wide selection a quality voices it is really just an expensive toy.
I hope I have gone someway to explaining why I still think the 9000 has the "wow" factor
(for me anyway), because "wow" is what I usually say when I discover a new combination of sounds/effects.
Sorry about any "tie pin" errors but this screed with rushed out on the fly with no preparation whatsoever.

Paul.

Octave8,

I would not rule out the X1 either. It has some great styles and voices. Listen to them all then make your decision. If you are anywhere near George Kaye give him a visit.

Tom

P.S. Don, you are missing something, your X1.

Tom, like I miss having the chicken pox!
I love the PSR9000. I have spent the day doing a little "tweaking" and it sounds great.
Also I know it will work when I turn it on.
DonM

Play nice boys.........

Uncle Dave, you have to remember that Tom has a permanent tougue in his cheek. If you think we use the needle here, you should see my private mail!
Paul, thanks so much for taking the time to give us your ideas. I have arrived at many of the same conclusions, particularly on e.q.ing the individual style parts. I wish I had more "quality time" with my keyboard, but it is seldom at home. I suppose the only way to save the style changes is by registration, or by creating a new style. At least I don't see another way.
This aspect was first brought to my attention when I loaded a setup from my old PSR8000. The styles I had saved sounded better than the ones on the 9000, and it was because I had adjusted volume levels, effects and e.q. and saved to reg.
Exchanges of ideas like this are what we should concentrate on more, rather than arguing about which keyboard is best. (anyway we know it's the 9000.)
DonM

MOst important:
PLAY THEM ALL BEFORE YOU BUY!!!

All people here have diffent ideas and ways of playing. For one sure thing: you cannot buy the Korg i30, since it has no speakers on board and no sampler. So it ends.
But I wanted to let you know that it is the ONLY arranger (thats why it is called professional) where you can delete ALL factory styles and put in whatever you want. If you hate DIXIE/JAZZ/TANGO ??
Delete them from the memory !!

Really really superb thing. All the other brands are much much worse for customizing to your own wishes. Most of the times there are like 20 buttons for styles categorizes to world, latin, rock etc and in the end one button for USER styles. But so it should be for the home-based keyboards.

So whatever you do, the i30 will not be what you need, but do not forget to TRY THEM ALL OUT before buying ok?

Ilija

Ilija,
The Farfisa G7 is completly customizable too. You can configure it exactly as you want. It is another "professional" arranger....among many.

Up here in the very sophisticated and well educated north we call it our tongue not tougue. If I could get my tongue out of my cheek maybe I could sing better. That would explain why nobody can understand me.

I heard the Roland G600 this weekend. Not bad at all, it looks like a great keyboard. I also heard the Variphrase VR something or other. Very interesting. Although the dealer didn't know how to demo the Variphrase model very well, I would think that as a live player, to take advantage of the Variphrase feature, you would have to have all your ducks in a row before you left for the gig. The dealer was listing the Variphrase model at 5995.00. The list on the G600 was 3295.00. I used to do the service work for this dealer. Their prices were always way out of line.

This salesman had never heard of Solton.

I downloaded the Solton SD-1 MP3's from the www.ketronclub.it website. The Bluesy tune sounds awesome. If the MP3 was any indication of how it will sound, watch out.

The competition is heating up with new models from Roland, Solton, Korg and the Yammie 9000pro, life is good.

Tom

Uncle Dave, sorry about the Eagles. Now maybe you'll have time for your picture and some MP3s. If it's any consolation it is much worse being a Lions fan.

Hi Tom
In case you're not being very tongue in cheek - the Roland G600 is a baby brother of the G800, which has been replaced by the G1000. It was discontinued a couple of years ago. At that time, most of the dealers who had it were selling it out at about $700. It was a pretty nice keyboard and that was a very good deal.
Tom

Hey Tom,
Thanx for the pity party, but as an Eagles fan - we're thrilled that the season went into January at all! The Giants were clearly the better team all around and I think they have a shot to smash the Vik's next week too.
Donny posted a pic for me weeks ago - I'm not up on HTML and the like. I can hardly type, so these conversations take a lot out of me.(being as LONG winded as I AM!)
I have never been very big on serious recordings of myself. Whenever I need to send a demo to a client, I make it special for their needs and never save the resuts. The few tracks I do have on the shelf are pretty old and tired, so......wait till the PA80 gets here and I'll see what that brings. Maybe I'll record a few nights in a row just to evaluate it, without editing at all. That way i can just set the recorder and forget it.
January is a refreshing even-keel pace once again so I am rewiring my studio to accomodate a few new additions that have found their way into the room since I set up the VA7 for recording. I better get back to work - there are wires EVERYWHERE!
(Thank goodness for patchbays!)After it's done - I'll post a few pics of the studio for everyone - it's a cool little set-up with a digital 8track HD recorder, Roland Digital drum kit, VA7/JV1010 & Hey Tom,
Thanx for the pity party, but as an Eagles fan - we're thrilled that the season went into January at all! The Giants were clearly the better team all around and I think they have a shot to smash the Vik's next week too.
Donny posted a pic for me weeks ago - I'm not up on HTML and the like. I can hardly type, so these conversations take a lot out of me.(being as LONG winded as I AM!)
I have never been very big on serious recordings of myself. Whenever I need to send a demo to a client, I make it special for their needs and never save the resuts. The few tracks I do have on the shelf are pretty old and tired, so......wait till the PA80 gets here and I'll see what that brings. Maybe I'll record a few nights in a row just to evaluate it, without editing at all. That way i can just set the recorder and forget it.
January is a refreshing even-keel pace once again so I am rewiring my studio to accomodate a few new additions that have found their way into the room since I set up the VA7 for recording. I better get back to work - there are wires EVERYWHERE!
(Thank goodness for patchbays!)After it's done - I'll post a few pics of the studio for everyone - it's a cool little set-up with a digital 8track HD recorder, Roland Digital drum kit, VA7/JV1010 & B4(Native Instruments)- and just the right ammount of outboard effects to keep me on my toes. I can master to CD/MD/Cass all at once too.I have two PC's in the room with Cakewalk Pro9 - but I prefer to sequence on the VA7 when I need to. I usually just multi-track it, as most of my clientele consists of solo demos and jingles.
Enough babbling - I need to finish cleaning up this mess of spagetti!!!!!!

TomTomSF,

I was not being tongue and cheek. The dealer had a G500 a G600 and the VR7. They said the G500 was discontinued. They also said that currently there is nothing between the G600 and the VR7. Because I used to work for them "my price" on the G600 was 2395.00. Great deal!

Tom

Paul,

Thanks for taking the time to post your PSR-9000 setup suggestions. I'm anxious to try them out! I'll be hitting the keyboard this evening (barring any unexpected interruptions) and will definitely be tweaking the bazookas out of it. Will let you know how it goes.

I have a couple of hundred styles on my PSR's hard drive instead of a zip disk. Any chance you could email a few samples of some the newage styles you got from svp? If I like the samples, then I'll purchase the disks, too.

Thanks you Paul.

Hey Uncle Dave - You suggested the Samson EX20 and EX30 as being some decent speakers. Well, I bought two EX20's and were you ever right! They're absolutely rocking! Great bass response. Brass, flutes, guitar, piano, and organ voices all sound like fresh, responsive and LIVELY. The EX20's have a high threshold, and produce tons of volume without distortion.

There is absolutely ZERO NOISE in my system no matter how loud I crank it. The Mackie SRM450s maybe better but I'm thrilled with the EX20's (and spent only half the price of the Mackies). My Carvin C800 mixer adds a lot of high quality effects, has lots of headroom, and again no noise. Thanks for your suggestion - it works for me.

Regards to all,
Steve

Steve,

Hope you are enjoying "tweaking" your 9000 and discovering more about it's capabilities.

You can download sample styles from www.svpworld.com as well as listen to midi files and mp3's. All current styles are made using the PSR 740 but they still work very well on the 9000, you could even revoice some of the styles to take adventage of the superior voicing the 9000 has. I have heard that the owner of the website, Dr Simon Williams may be purchasing the 9000 or 9000pro in the future, so he will be writing 9000 specific styles, quite an exciting propect given the already quality psr 740 styles he has produced.

Paul.

HI Paul and other psr-9000 users
I have been following the german psr-9000 forum for a while and can say that everybody gives two thumbs up for Peter Schips cd-soft stuff. He and his company make new sounds and styles for the psr-9000 as well as the psr-8000. He posts replies on that forum on a regular basis. Very knowledgeable and very nice. There is some free stuff to download and try. He makes new stuff all the time and listens to requests. You can e-mail him to ask any questions. He also sends his software to other countries.
I haven't heard it myself, since I want to wait till I get a new keyboard.
Good luck
Eric

[This message has been edited by Eric, B (edited 01-10-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Eric, B (edited 01-10-2001).]

That's great Steve! I had a bit of confusion before buying the Mackies myself, but I already have a pair of JBL eon10's for the light duty stuff, so I went to the next siz up for the extra power and sound coverage. I really liked the EX20's and if I ever sell the JBL's - I'll get a set of the Samsons. For now - I'm thrilled with the 450's - so we're ALL happy!

Paul,

You got it, I'm tweaking my brains out! Just wish I had more time to do it. I work a regular 40-hour per week job, have a string of rental properties, and buy houses rehab them and sell them from March through September. Time is my most precious commodity. My time at the keyboard is quality time but its not nearly as much as I'd like. I really need to spend about two full weeks doing nothing else but the keyboard just to begin utilizing all of the tweakable things about the PSR9000.

NOTICE: Like NEW PSR9000 for sale for $2100 (buyer pays shipping).

I'm planning on getting the 9000PRO shortly.

regards,
Steve