Hi everybody, hi Marek

I have posted this review in another thread as a reply but I hope its of use as a new post:

Last weekend I checked out both, the PSR 9000 and the X1 at home through my own active speaker system at home (Remember it´s just songcomposing I want to use them for, not live performance): I have reported before in this forum, but here some more:
The X1 has more drumkit variation than the PSR 9000 (not only numberwise but also concerning the different sound, eg "progressive, techno" etc.), but the stereo sampled kits (Standard and Funk) of the PSR 9000 rock! They have much more punch than the kits in the X1. I guess thats why thhe Yamaha uses them in many of its styles. The rest of the PSR-kits are okay and do not sound as interesting as the ones in the X1. Sadly enough I believe the X1 has no stereo drum samples and you can hear that. I was a little disappointed with the tom sounds of the X1 too: Very thin, no punch at all!

The styles of the X1 are definitely more interesting than what the PSR has to offer. And when you go through different sections like 8-beat, 16-beat you will again hear more variety and surprise within this section. And even if the PSR 9000 has very good guitars: The X1 makes better use of its guitar riffs and strums. This is before you listen to the fills. And there was my biggest concern after I heard all the rave in this forum: Many fills of the X1 are completely overdone with tomstrikes and some of them loose this certain live-character the main A, B, C, D are known for. I would send a drummer home if he did fills like that! Sometimes you can hear the quantizing (can you say so?), sometimes you believe, the rhytm is not quite on time (software version 3.0) But this part is exactly where the PSR 9000 impressed me: Even if there are no sampled grooves used, it has very, very good drum fills and breaks. And it has a lot more of them than in the X1. That means: You use fill 2 between e.g. two main Bs. When you use in the same style fill 2 again between - lets say - two main Ds, you will have a DIFFERENT fill! And that adds much to the quality of a song.

The sounds: I only compared the new voices (live, sweet, cool) of the Yamaha, not the XG-sounds. Both of them have their certain strengths, the PSR 9000 shines with a lot more variety, the X1 is in some parts more natural sounding. The piano in my opinion is definitely better in the X1. I was expecting a much better keyboard in the PSR 9000. I can´t understand why they dare to offer this sound in that pricerange! I found as well the brass section of the X1 more natural sounding. Overall the Yamaha has definitely more punch!

Grooves: The X1 offers more than thirty grooves, sampled drumloops that means, from Tambourine to congapatterns etc. They are mixed to the styles to make them more natural sounding. I listended to them without the styles around them: latin stuff is musically well done, but they all lack sound quality. They sound like lofi samples, not crisp at all (shurely small datafiles because they adapt to the tempo of the styles immediately, but still: the sound is poor!)

Oh well: Now I´m really stuck: The more versatile X1 with its interesting styles against the Yamaha with compact sound and much better and more fills. One thing that speaks for the X1 is the chance to load new drums, grooves and styles via Ram Card ( Will they ever offer stereo sampled drums?).

Question 1: The PSR 9000 would be of much more use to me if it had more drum kits (13 is very limited!), the ability of saving user drum kits and voice edit for single drum sounds like tuning a snare etc. Will this be added with the new systemsoftware in april?

Question 2: Has anybody heard PSR 9000 styles on the X1 - how do they sound? The fills should be a lot better than the ones in the X1, but may be the poor tomsounds of the X1 would not equal that?

(Danny, before I took the 9000 and the X1 home, I had another go for the Korg I30, because some people are raving about it. They have done a good job with the styles, but to me they are to much song than style and thats not good for composing I think. Besides: I was more than disappointed with the sounds, the brass section was completely inacceptable to me, but I guess its just another keyboard generation of ´97.)

Okay, these are just my opinions, but this is what this forum is about.
Comments and help very welcome

Marek, I try to explain what I meant by the many more fills in the PSR 9000 that exceed the number of fills in the X1:

First of all: The X1 and the PSR 9000 both have 3 fills and 1 break. But there is a difference:
With the X1, play a certain style, change the variations A,B,C,D, and use the fills/break between: Fill A will allways be the same, fill B as well and so fill C and the break. Quite normal so far.
But its not like that with the PSR: Changing variations within a style and using the fills between reveals that some fills are not always the same within one style. Fill B for example (the one with the circle on it, which is used to combine the same variations) has different versions: Using it between Variations A gives you different results than using it between two variations D. And this is musically speaking logical, when this fill is supposed to laed back to the same variation where you came from. This is something the X1 does not offer!

Now the piano sound of the X1 and the PSR 9000: I heard them thoroughly (?) and compared them side by side through the same speakersystem (not the onboard speakers) - I must say to my ears the X1-piano sounded far superior: Not so sharp and thin, a bit like a mellow piano, but very realistic. On the other hand: The E-Piano sounds were better on the PSR.

Within this week I will decide which keyboard to buy. The price is the same here. But as You can see, its a very difficult decision. I haven´t made my mind up yet. Unfortunately both keyboards have no means to expand the number of drum kits (with new samples, not user kits), solton hotline told me today. I thought that should have been possible with the Ram Card.

Sorry for the long posting!
Best regards to all

Heinrich

Hi Heinrich,

short remark to the Fill-Ins: the PSR 9000 has 4 (four!!) Fill-Ins and 1 Break - you described a nice feature what I appreciate in the PSR 9000: if you hit "Fill-In Self" (with the circle) you get various Fill-Ins depending on the current variation (you get Fill-In A - Fill-In D). If you hit "Fill-In Down" or "Fill-In Up" the same Fill-Ins (A-D) are used but in another order (user manual, on the page 23 is the explanation).

Concerning the piano sound, yesterday I again played the X1 for two hours and I take it back, what I wrote in the previous posting. On the other hand I like the PSR 9000's piano better (I like sharp piano better than a mellow). There are many good pianos, I would not say, that the mellow one is more realistic.

Yesterday I also noticed, that the Endings on the X1 are very nice and mostly orchestral and long, but in 75% of the songs they did not suit to the end of the songs I played. The PSR 9000 the endings often are 1-2 measurements long and they exactly correspond to my expectations of the end of a song.

Your question 1: I am not sure, but I know, that the voices and drum kits are in ROM. They cannot be updated by software. You can only load samples (drum samples) into 32 user voices.

Regards

Marek

Is it just me, or does the location of the fill buttons on the X1 bother anybody else?
Sure, you can assign them to the footpedal, but then you have to look at the pedal to see which fill you're hitting. That is almost the only reason my X1 is for sale. I like to hit the fill buttons with the left hand while using chord hold.
Don

Hi - I see a lot in your posting - about the fact that in one place the Yamaha saound better - in another place the X1 sounds better - you know the whole idea is take a keyboard - and play music that people like

An audience does not dissect the qualitative and quantitative measurements of each nuance - down to the last micron - If it sounds good - it is good.

These keyboards are not bands inside a plastic case - they are musical instruments - having different virtues - perhaps you expect too much.

I hev two different keyboards - which I use interchangable for different purposes - One a Technics - the other an X1 - Last time I used the X1 - I had several hundred cheering people asking for more - and I only used a limited number of styles.

By the way have you tried picking up the PSR 9000?

Jerry

Hi Heinrich

Whichever keyboard you decide on, you should check out the prices at Musicians-gear.com. It's in your home country, Germany. I had my PSR9000 delivered from them last week (1 week after I ordered) and I saved 40% compared to the normal price in Denmark.


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PO

Thanks indeed for all your comments. This forum is a great thing!

Marek, again thank You for your explanation. With the piano sound: I nust admit, I played the PSR 9000 with a split keyboard in the accompaniment mode and did not hear the lower keys. Now I did. Sounds good (but maybe thats splitting hairs).
I learnt that with the new PSR 9000 software (2. quartal 2000) you can edit single voices of a drum kit, tune them and so on, then save them as a user voice. There will be a full edit page. Besides: One drawbar more for the organ and one more voice for the vocalizer...

Jerry, as I wrote in my posting, I am NOT a live performer, I only try to compose songs and want to use a versatile tool for that. This has definitely other requirements though an arranger keyboard might not be build for that in the first place. Thats way I put so much stress on the sounds. Weight of the keyboard does not matter. It will stay at home :-) You´re using a Technics as well? Sorry, I can´t afford a second keyboard.

Per, very good hint, your URL. The prices in Denmark are incredibly high. bit I´ll stick with my local dealer. It will cost me 300 Marks more, but he gave me the chance to check out both keyboards, so its only fair to buy it from him.

Regards

Heinrich