Just got another call from Yamaha. It seems the upgrade requires a high-tech tool to install the chip. Nobody here has it. The unit has to be sent to Yamaha in California for upgrade.
They offered to pay all costs and rush it through for me. I would still be looking at a couple of weeks, if nothing went wrong.
I will probably not get the upgrade done, since it really doesn't address anything I use anyway. (The vocal harmonizer settings).
DonM

Seems like the whole PSR2000 upgrade thing has turned into one BIG can of worms. I'm staying with my current PSR2000 OS, as I've even grown to like some of its' quirky bugs, particularly the ability to freeze 'just the left voice'. So far the PSR2000 has been holding up well and satisfying my performance gig requirements (ultra lightweight & portable with terrific sounds) and keeping both me and my audiences happy. - Scott

------------------
http://scottyee.com

Sounds like "Yamaha" needs that special "wire-stretching" tool~~~~!!
And they can`t find, and if they could they would know-how to use it~~~~!!!
So back to the drawing board , for "Yamaha" ~~~~

Really! Who's going to have their keyboard shipped to California just so they can have their Speedymouse?

This whole OS thing has been kind of a bummer.

Oh well, it's a sign of good will that their willing to pay for shipping and stuff. But they probably know well that no one wants to part with their keyboard for that long to fix a few bugs.

In the end, I'm like Scott Yee. I'm happy with what I am getting with my keyboard. It hasn't given me a problem in almost seven months after over 70 gigs. You accept the limitations and move on.

Larry

Larry, great to hear that the 2000 has been holding up for you too. The PSR2000 may not be the perfect board, and I also don't think there is a single perfect KB out there at any price. But when I think about 'how little' the 2000 cost me, it really has paid itself back MANY MANY times over in just the saved setup & transportation time alone. I'm still considering a 2nd PSR2000 (with the updated OS) as a second backup board, but also wonder if it might be better to use this money towards the NEXT big thing: Technics KN7000 or Solton XD9 etc . . . Haven't decided yet. Hey, tomorrow's another day, yeah? - Scott

I agree Larry, if the limitations are bearable and important things like the registration memories work properly for you. As for myself and others who had serious registration issues, probably including Mario after a situation he described on another thread, it isn't that simple. My board was rather unreliable if not almost useless for live play because of the quirks in the registration memories. I don't wanna revisit the whole scenario again because my 2000 is long gone now, but for a quick rehash, at times the registrations would give me exactly what I saved and at others the discrepancies would be serious enough that they would have rendered me unable to perform a song properly without changing a lot of parameters on the fly. Some of the mixer and voices settings were all wrong. Just for good measure, I had a PSR1000 on loan for a short time and I loaded or created the same registrations and they all worked right every time, so I confirmed in my own mind that the 2000 problem was real and not because I was doing something wrong.

Bugs are bugs, and I guess sometimes they occur in a few of even the most stable of these machines. I can accept that it happens, but Yamaha made a mess of this from the start by not keeping their word concerning the ability to upgrade the OS in the board. The OS thing was one of the selling points for me, and one of several reasons why I got rid of both the 740 and the MZ2000. No hope for any kind of upgrade or follow up products for them.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 04-30-2002).]

Larry, I WOULD send it to be repaired if the Vocal Harmony problems were fixed, but they are not. Yamaha says it was designed that way! Sure it was.
DonM

I just wonder if, for a suitable charge, the upgrade could involve re-fitting flash rom in place of the mask rom?

I agree entirely. I haven't noticed that any of the "bugs" are hampering me for what I use the PSR2000 for and I do like the ability to freeze the left hand voice with the style. I certainly don't want to chance sending it out someplace and then not having it for weeks (months?) while a new chip is put in. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" I bought this because of the value for the money. I am not a professional performer, so I believe the PSR2000 will be just fine for my uses for quite some time.

This was exactly what I have been telling people over at the PSR Groups. From what Don says it may be that the chips HAVE been soldered directly to the board, rather than inserted into sockets, which cost a few cents. If that is the case it is not easy to remove and replace these chips. UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE THIS DONE I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND GETTING THE OS UPDATE! Even if Yamaha paid for the update repair AND shipping I wouldn't do it. You will not have your PSR for quite a long time. The PSR may get damaged in the 2x shipping (This happened to me and was a real pain, even though Yamaha took care of it without cost to me). FOLKS IT SIMPLY AINT WORTH IT AND IF IT AINT BROKE DON'T FIX IT!

Maybe Yamaha should ship over a few new systems boards to swap out at this end and then fix the old ones at their leisure "back at base" to put the fixed boards back into new PSR2000? Unless theres been a board change this shouldn't affect the new machines. Machines out of commission for a period of weeks rather than days is not a viable option for most people.

Don,

Bummer! I'll bet that the integrated circuits are surface mounted and soldered in. I spent ten years in the repair business and I wouldn't dream of trying to replace a surface mounter soldered in chip. It would be a disaster. There is a downside to socketed chips that I haven't heard mentioned. They are not as reliable as soldered in.

They should send you a replacement board with the new chips installed. Your dealer could swap this out in less than an hour and you would be on your way. If Yamaha had envisioned the 2000 for professional use maybe they would have done that.

Tom

BTW - I'm insulted that you think summer in Michigan only goes from July 3 to July 4. It is only the first of May and it is 50 degrees already. I'll bet by June it might be 60. We only have two seasons here: winter and construction.

Dear DonM, Bob Gelman and others members,

My PSR 2000 is Main Program 1.10. However it has the main problems DonM claim, solved. So, though I have the possibility to get the upgrade to Main Program 1.20, I am in doubt if I need to make it, as I don´t know any bug 1.20 solve compared with 1.10.
Again I ask the favor to 1.20 owners if they can help to answer to this doubt.

I have seen the main printed circuit board of the 2000.
It is designed to have EPROM and FLASH ROM (both). This is, it could be mounted with EPROMs or FLASH ROMs as there are in in the printed circuit board the places for the two alternatives.
However as all we know, Yamaha decided to mount SMD (Surface Mounted Device) EPROMs. Now the desoldering/soldering problems appear.

I don't know if there is sockets to SMD EPROMs as Bob Gelman suggest, though I guess there is not.

Carlos Rodrigues

Macallock,

Agreed. That is the way Yamaha should have handled it to begin with. New versions of the KB began showing up in Europe while I still owned mine and it sat in the repair shop for weeks. Yamaha should have either sent one of these to my dealer or sent the internal parts ( entire board if necesssary )to the repair center instead of making me wait for many weeks for a chip that never came. All I wanted as a 2000 that worked the way it was supposed to. I didn't care if it was mine with an updated chip or flash upgrade, or a new one. In subscribing to the "if it ain't broke don't fix it ' theory, my 2000 had other minor quirks, but had it not had the major registration memory problems it did, I would not have sent it out for repair in the first place and chances are I'd still have it. I had already been burned once before when my 740 had a broken pitch wheel. Eleven weeks at the repair center. I feel for Mario. At least in my case, the registration memories failed miserably BEFORE I brought my 2000 to a show, as opposed to during a live performance as was the case with his 2000.


AJ