There has been a lot of discussion the past few days regarding "mega", "Natural", and other voices that will be in the TYROS keyboard.
I spoke today with Mr. Mark Anderson, product manager for Yamaha and got some additonal information that should help.
Mark informed me that very shortly more info will be made available by him on the Yamaha website explaining more in detail about TYROS. He stated that in the first sentence, it will say that TYROS is a product developed to be as easy to use and navigate as a Clavinova and as powerful to program as a Motif. In other words, this is a new keyboard and shouldn't be mistaken for a Clavinova or a Motif. There is not the same features as either a typical Clavinova or a Motif, but rather a newly developed product.
Natural voices are not used in TYROS, and again, even though a sound is called "harmonica", the "harmonica" in TYROS can be completely different than the "harmonica" in a PSR2000 although they both have the same name.
I also got information about hard drives for the TYROS today. In the PSR9000 and 9000PRO, only certain hard drives would work and only a maximum of 8GB could be recognized. Yamaha sells a hard drive in the $400.00 price range. For TYROS, Yamaha has tested many different manufactures lap top hard drives and all they've tested work fine. There is also no limitation to the size that the keyboard will read. However, with no sampling option, you won't need to buy really large ones. Now, low cost drives may be used.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

So is Yamaha giving us a cool interactive shockwave demo of the Tyros....(where you get to press all the buttons )kinda like the one Roland gave with their VA7 in 2000.

I saw this post on the yamaha style group

Subject: I've Just Touched A Tyros!!!


Hi Everybody,

Following my disappointment at not being able to get a ticket for the First Public Showing of the tyros a friend of my Mother had a spare ticket and gave it to me. I have just returned from the two and a half hour demonstration and am bursting to reveal all. I had the opportunity after the show of talking to the presenters(and touch the keyboard :-)) ) and was able to get some answers to the questions we've all been asking over the past few weeks .

Well where shall I start? I took some notes so perhaps I should follow the same order as they are written.

The presentation was given by two UK Yamaha demonstrator, James Sargeant and Richard Bower.

Richard started the show with the theme music of Jurassic Park. The sound was so realistic I thought I was at the Cinema watching the film the Voices were so realistic. All the demo was made using the Tyros as it would be from the factory. Midi files etc. were not used only Factory Voices and Factory styles and mainly the OTS settings. A small camera had been mounted at one end of the keyboard so that we could see the hand and finger movements on the large screen. The keyboard screen was also projected on the large screen to show the various activities as appropriate.

The show started with a short film of the UK members who were involved in the development of the Tyros and their visit to the factory. It showed that many of the voices have been recorded at special instrument sampling sessions to get that special realistic sound that the Tyros has.

Altogether there are reported to be 1185 different voices available to use and even then they can be modified with all the various effects that we are familiar with. There are the traditional sounds and contemporary sounds. We were told the keyboard has three times the power of the PSR 9000.

The Mega voices sound so fantastic, and that is not an exaggeration.The Guitars sound so much like the real thing with the fret sounds, Dead string Muted string, Hammer On , Slide and Strum etc. all included. With Touch setting on and hard key hitting the Twang you get from a steel string guitar was there to hear. The fret sound of the Dyno string guitar was so realistic and as for the Flamenco Guitar Unbelievable.

All the Sounds are generated by two new Sound chips and there is a pre-recorded demo for every Voice that is in the normal musical style for that voice that can be played if you want to hear what the voices sounds like whilst selecting a voice.

The strings and the Violin just sing. The French Horn.... well it was if the musician was blowing a real horn everytime a key was played.

The music finder has nearly 1900 songs and these now have real titles. We were told that the UK supplied keyboards would have their own data base appropriate to UK Music and tastes, so presumably other country distributions will get appropriate Databases. The music finder will set the keyboard up with the style, OTS and appropriate Intro's and endings and the songs demonstrated were very near the real recordings that I have heard including the intro's and endings. There is a variety of search facilities available.

The Organ Flutes now have 8 footage settings instead of 7 so now match the Hammonds. They are displayed on screen very clearly along with the vibrato and reverb and can be altered whilst playing a song.(as I noticed during the demo). The organ sounds are so realistic , Tibia's, Klaus Wunderlich sound, Street organ complete with the rattling xylophone and then we benefited from the roar of a Wurlitzer Theatre Organ just like Reginald Dixon playing at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom.

Styles comes next so many new ones. 300 in total. I was told approx 50% are brand new, 40% reworked styles from the CVP209 and psr2000 range and 10% from the PSR9000. All are held in Flash Rom so they could all be replaced with alternatives if you chose to, but having heard them I doubt if many would do so unless they had created some new ones on the Tyros, with all it's new voices.

A Hard drive is an OPTION but the styles can be played straight from the floppy just like the PSR2000 with no delay in loading or from the hard drive.

The styles demonstrated include a Bossa nova with fabulous organ sounds , Organ Dance Band sounds
Pop Organ Sound with a great intro. Kylie Minogue, Beatles, Bebop, Larry Adler's Genevieve, Motor City(mowtown). Shakatak sound - my favourite. All the styles demonstrated had super intros fills and endings and the OTS link like the 2000 is very effective.

There were new Pad files that all sound great with the new voices.

The registration system placed centrally immediately above the keys, has eight settings and now stores the chosen intro and ending. It is possible to set up registrations with different styles and switch immediately on the fly from one to the other and the intro will start and act as a bridge to the next number. Great for medleys. It works so well now because the Keyboards processor is much faster and allows the changes to occur so quickly. I understand that registrations from 8000's 9000's and 9000pro's can be read by the Tyros and used ont he system


Aftertouch enables a much better vibrato effect particularly with electric guitars I was told by one of the demonstrators that it is much more sensitive and responsive which allows the effect to be more pronounced than in previous models.( I've tried on my 9000 since getting home and find I can only just hear the same effect with the aftertouch set to soft).

We were only given a very small taste of the score on screen facility with a bouncing ball to show were the song is in a midi. This can be set such that you may play along with the midi song and the song will pause until you play the correct note. It was suggested that this was suitable for beginners, particularly the younger members of the family. Hence making it an all round family instrument.

The screen resolution is impressive, and can be set at a variety of angles to suit the player,. The control buttons A to J are located on the sides of screen's panel and the bottom buttons 1 to 8 are on the main keyboard body below the screen and have a very positive feel to them. The music stand is separate, to the rear of the screen and is of transparent acrylic like material. All the important buttons have green lights behind which change to orange/red when they are in use. i.e. the chosen intro the variation, the OTS, the registration( if a registration button in a bank has nothing stored to it then it will not be lit). The start button flashes in time with the tempo. All the illuminated buttons have their number or name printed on them(on the underside to avoid wear) in black so that they can be easily read in a darkened environment-ideal for gigs. The intro and ending buttons are all just above the keys to the left side of the keyboard and make for quick easy access.

I have made a note of the controls layout and will send a sketch to you later in the week.

The song player is similar to that on the PSR2000 for those who have seen one and we were told that the keyboard can be set to automatically revoice the song with the new voices of the tyros and that it will play GM, XG, DOC and SMF files.

Finally I particularly asked the question - Conection to other Devices via the USB. Only a PC can be connected to the sytem and using drivers supplied the PC and the keyboard can exchange files. All other storage equipment could only be connected via the PC. So Sorry Bob, your keyring fob will need to be at least a Laptop PC.

Overall I was very impressed with the Keyboard particularly the sound - we had the chance to hear one set up with the speaker sytem as opposed to the one used in the demonstration which was linked into a good Yamaha amplification system. Chappells the music shop that hosted the show have an allocation of 10 Tyros arriving at the beginning of October. By the end of the evening 8 were already spoken for. Price 2,600 UK pounds (that's approx 3900US$) complete with the speaker system ( 2 small, above keyboard mounted speakers and the bass woofer that sits on the floor with a built in amplifier system.) or 2395 without.

Well I think I've calmed down enough now to go to bed and it is well past my bed time. I think the dog is tired of listening to the sound of the PC keyboard so I'll say goodnight. I hope the report helps, and I may have forgotten something. If any one else in the group gets the oppotunity of attending a showing I can thoughly recommend it just to hear the quality of the sound.

Start saving the pennies folks,

Regards Alan



.

Can either of the two posters comment on the piano sound in the Tyros. It is clear that the piano is NOT the same as the Clavinova (i.e. it is not the NATURAL! voice with 3 types of samples for each zone). But is the piano in the Tyros anything special? How much memory is allocated to it?

I am thinking of either the Tyros or the PF1000. The PF1000 has the Clavinova piano sounds, but, from the spec, it has the older Yamaha styles that are more bland, while the Tyros has the newer, souped up styles. Any comments on the comparison of the two would be helpful.

Thanks

Sam Safran


There has been a lot of discussion the past few days regarding "mega", "Natural", and other voices that will be in the TYROS keyboard.
I spoke today with Mr. Mark Anderson, product manager for Yamaha and got some additonal information that should help.
Mark informed me that very shortly more info will be made available by him on the Yamaha website explaining more in detail about TYROS. He stated that in the first sentence, it will say that TYROS is a product developed to be as easy to use and navigate as a Clavinova and as powerful to program as a Motif. In other words, this is a new keyboard and shouldn't be mistaken for a Clavinova or a Motif. There is not the same features as either a typical Clavinova or a Motif, but rather a newly developed product.
Natural voices are not used in TYROS, and again, even though a sound is called "harmonica", the "harmonica" in TYROS can be completely different than the "harmonica" in a PSR2000 although they both have the same name.
I also got information about hard drives for the TYROS today. In the PSR9000 and 9000PRO, only certain hard drives would work and only a maximum of 8GB could be recognized. Yamaha sells a hard drive in the $400.00 price range. For TYROS, Yamaha has tested many different manufactures lap top hard drives and all they've tested work fine. There is also no limitation to the size that the keyboard will read. However, with no sampling option, you won't need to buy really large ones. Now, low cost drives may be used.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California[/QUOTE]

Sam,
I have the PF1000 in my store and I wouldn't describe the styles in this model as the bland styles. There are session styles in this model like the CVP207 and CVP209 models. Just not quite as many. Before the session styles, I would have called the Yamaha styles rather bland in the 9000 series, but not so for the PF1000. As for the Piano sound in Tyros, I believe Yamaha told me that the Piano sounds are from the Motif and the new S90 series from their pro keyboards, but I'm not positive on this one. I will have to check.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, california

The Japanese designer told me the operating system of tyros is based on cvp209. It certainly is the same display and looked pretty similar going through the menus.

Alan,
Great review, thanks for providing such an in depth look at it.
thansk,
Terry

Infos & pictures about the Tyros at Synthplanet...

http://www.synthplanet.com/product.lasso?pr=020317
http://www.synthplanet.com/news.lasso?id=1039

[This message has been edited by matias (edited 09-10-2002).]

Guys, I dont believe this, can someone confirm this if its true,, that the Tyros, being a $3000 keyboard, will not, I repeat, WILL NOT, have digital output? What?
I cant believe this, please tell me its not true...It cant be true, a keyboard with killer sounds like this and have to record it to the studio via noisy analog cables? What?
If so, then, Yamaha, you have dissapointed me..big time...im Sad if its true...

best,

no mention of digital audio or midi through the usb in the spec - I wondered myself if this was true.