Roel,
I'm glad the T2 is working for you and makes you happy. I think that's the most important thing is to be happy with the gear you buy. If it works for you then it shouldn't matter what the makers name is

Hell I'm still shocked I found joy in playing a Casio WK-3500 (I'll be buying the new 3700 shortly), along with a few other items.

Regards,
Squeak

Hallo Roel,
you're wrong! Since your devastating jugdement on G-70 a year ago you bought TWO
keyboards. Why? Can one furthermore believe what you say (write)? I use a G-70 (and a Tyros 1 too) and don't see (hear) a reason to change. That's all.
Greetings,
Hanspeter

squek_D I have a Ketron SD1 and Roland G1000. If the styles were better in the SD1 than the Tyros 2 do you think I would waste my money buying one - NOPE
Ketron styles are amazing and have a nice low end to them (plenty of punch) but some times there is just something lacking with them that is hard to pin point.
With all keyboards they have plus points and down sides. For me the Tyros 2 styles won me over because having listened to loads, I could think of songs to play to them immediately, same with the G1000. With the Ketron it's not always easy to think of a song to play to some of the styles and many of them I would simply not use in a live situation. It's each to their own.
Nice styles and demos Scott by the way, I can't wait to get it. Great speaking to you as well, speak soon m8.

[This message has been edited by Craig_UK (edited 10-28-2005).]

We all really are different. I cant stand the styles of the sd1.too rough for my taste. G70 styles too lame. Tyros styles are my cup of tea. All u yamaha fans be proud of the fact that yamaha increased the nunber of sweet live and cool voices from 27 to a whopping 120 from tyros1 to tyros 2. This alone is worth the upgrade

To tell you the truth, I wish we could all attend a Arranger Convention so that we all could try one anothers keyboards and setups. I am so curious about the boards I have not played.

Yep Al, that might be pretty cool. Might be the only way I'd ever get to actually try an SD1, PA1x, or G70 without having to buy one (.. or even a T2 for that matter, since our local store carries them and the 3k but doesn't display them.

The highest end arranger they currently have on display is a PSR1500. If the keys are the same as the ones on the 3k, then I probably don't care anyway. Still feels a bit soft for me. Heck, I don't even see the wk series boards on display there anymore.

I agree that Yamaha styles sound well.. like Yamaha styles. Even in my AJ2005 software arranger, which has very different sounds than any Yamaha boards. Whether that's good or bad is a personal preference. As for me, they are fine for live play, but I wouldn't want to compose any original tunes with them.

AJ

Hi Roel,

Thanx a zillion for the demos. It gives people like us far away in India to get a good preview into the sounds of the T2. While you are at it, could you also post some of the dance styles. It would be really helpful to see what changes have been made to the styles as there seem to be no new dance styles but the same ones reworked.

Thanks and best regards

SUNNY

Hi all, I thought i would post an opinion on this.

I don't know what it is, but have we become more fussy? Or do we expect our machines to do so much more, sound so much better!?

After hearing the demo's of the T2, i thought it sounded amazing, i would be more than happy to own it! However, i'm in love with my PA1X, and would never change it - not because of anything other than im really happy with it, it does every i want it to do and sounds exactly the way i want it to.

Even after hearing the G70, i thought this keyboard sounded fantastic as well. I would be absolutely more than happy to own any of the 3 main keyboards of today, and to be honest, for the sheer quality of sounds and the cleverly arranged styles in "all" those 3 boards, i would be perfectly happy - they really all do sound amazingly life like imo.

It really would then come to personal choice, due to the particulars such as it's interface, OP system, key feel etc... that i can understand to prefer one over the other. But to judge them against how they sound, im not so sure, its hard to choose between them when all 3 sound amazing to me.

I think gone are the days when a keyboard has so many flaws, or that you could find many with them, they are really that good nowadays.

The last Yamaha i owned was a PSR8000, and since then i stayed away from them, only because i wanted to expand from Yamaha and try different machines - and i have had most of the best keyboards.

From a personal point of view, the issues i had with Yamaha that made me change i think have now been addressed, and i would gladly go back to Yamaha with the Tyros2 if i was in the position of changing. My complaint was that their styles were too samey (especially across the whole PSR series) and that, for example, were a little too basic for my liking.

To me, a perfect style would be a style that's so cleverly arranged that when you play something along with it, be it your own song or a well known song, that it's not so obvious you are playing a keyboard, especially if the bar count of a style increases over 7 or 8 like a lot of Korg & Ketron's do, making sound very realistic and with great variations within one variation itself - Yamaha i felt lacked this and a loop of a style was over too quickly back to the beginning, making a song sound very flat and too boring/samey. This i felt was the biggest flaw in Yamaha, but i think from the Tyros onwards it has been addressed, perhaps not perfectly, but still enough for me to warrant a purchase. This is why i love the styles of the PA series so much, the variation of arrangement in each style is just so clever and very different - even within just 1 style itself. Take for example, Half Time Ballad, gosh, the change over from slow to fast from variation 2 to 3 is amazing, i love playing "Coming Around Again" by Carly Simon using this style, and i blow people away with it - the song comes alive, it's like you have selected another style altogether with so little effort!. I am hoping that the Tyros2 has these types of styles as well.

The other thing that turned me away from Yamaha was it's drum kits - especially Latin and Dance, they were awful and sounded "kiddie-fied" in the PSR8000, the same kits that was used in the lesser PSR models... This was unnaceptable really. Yamaha should learn to distinguish which are pro machines and which are not - and seperate the 2 in different categories, and i think they are doing that now finally.

But anyway, good luck to all of those who have bougth a T2, i think it's an amazing piece of kit!

Danny

I agree with a lot of what Danny says - There is a lot of convergence nowadays of many features including quality sounds in the top end arrangers. Most of us could use any one of them on our gigs although the availability of some of the functions does vary a little between makes.

He raises a good point about not wanting all songs to sound the same and patterns repeating over longer than four bars along with useable variations of a style help out here.

One of the things that I like use on my XD3 is the Intelligent and dynamic arranger functions - Dynamic just alters the volumes of different accomp voices which differs from voice to voice depending on how you set it up.

But the thing that I like best is the IR (intelligent arranger)part. This feature mutes whichever part or parts of the accomp you first choose when you play the right hand part. It doesnt just stop abruptly but fades. This is great when using big band or latin styles as these can be quite busy with many parts playing in the accomp but when you solo it cuts out (for example) any brass sounds (or whatever you have selected) you have in the accomp. This way you have more controllable variation over the accomp.

Does anyone know if this feature is unique to Ketron or have I missed it on other arrangers?

Regards - Keith

Hi Danny & Keith

Well said.

As I said before you can't go wrong with either of the top models right now.

But it is interesting to note that even though "ALL" the keyboards got so much better in sounds, styles and interface we seem to be more critical then ever.... ?!?!

Eric