First I'm pissed at Yamaha, because I can't moan about the upgrade price on this one for me, because it was well worth it.

So far I have installed the hard drive from my T1 and it went in fine without a hitch. All the styles I had are there and work fine. I attached a separate h/d to the "to device" port and that too works perfectly after I reformatted to Fat32 from NTSF. I installed the drivers and software on my Sony laptop and it works fine. I also transferred the scat voices to it by using a flash drive in the front USB port and it too worked as expected.

As for the board itself:

The key feel is much improved and feels like a real synth now. Just as on the T1 the entire board is user friendly and I only glanced at the manual to make sure about putting the h/d in.

Anything I have wanted to do on it so far is straight forward and easy to figure out just by looking at the on screen options.

I hope to try the h/d recording today and see how it works. The tune I posted I did on the quick record section of the board, which is midi.

Many of the voices and styles are familiar from the T1 but many new in each category have been added as well. Many new multi pads too with some cool riffs and is what I used in the demo recording for backing. I built a set for it.

I like the new screen better myself. Also the buttons overall have a more positive better built feel to them especially around the screen.

The music finder database still has cryptic names for songs, but since I really do not use it anyway, it doesn't matter.

As for the sounds themselves. First I attached a second foot pedal for the SA voices. What a cool feature. On the SA saxes for example if I push the foot pedal, I get a breath sound. With the guitar I get a tap on the guitar sound board, cool feature.

The SA voices really are nothing short of spectacular. The saxes, guitars and strings using SA are just outstanding. Their playability too is great.

Though the styles as most styles are to me may be a bit busy with the overuse of strings and pads, it seems to me they have toned this down a bit on the T2. I gave that all some thought and would prefer they build styles with it all in there, because I can always shut off the channels I don't want to hear which is much easier than trying to add them.

The intros and endings I think have been improved and are dynamic.

So for my money the Tyros 2 gets a 2 jam ons and is well worth the price of admission.

jam on,

Terry


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jam on,
Terry
http://www.musicchops.com/forums/

Terry.....Very informitave review....did you find the screen the same as the T1 or has it changed in your opinion and has the harmonica voice improved....Thank you for your time....
Tony Rome

Tony thanks for the response. I actually like the new screen better. It's cleaner in appearance and less saturated colors.

Having not tried the harmonicas, I had to go and try. They are the same as the T1 with the sweet being the best of the lot, but not improved over the T1.

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jam on,
Terry
http://www.musicchops.com/forums/

cool review. U should save the tyros 1 multipads as well. That will give u maximum variety. Those SA sounds are really something special

Thanks, good thought I should have thought of that before I sold mine, oh well there's tons of new ones and allot of the old ones as well.



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jam on,
Terry
http://www.musicchops.com/forums/

Thanks for the review Terry, including the information that your T1 HD works in the T2 as it should - I presume it is only the styles that work as the voice or registrations probably dont.

Thanks again - Keith

KFingers, not having a Tyros 1 I was unsure if custom voices off the net would work in the Tyros 2 but they do and they sound great.
I've tweaked a few using the editor but nothing serious. I know some styles using the OTS also work well. It's all good stuff, even the 9000 pro styles converted sound good.