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.