My new Roland Sonic Cell PRO has Drums in league with the Motif line and it was 800 bucks, tax included. My point is that it wouldn't take Yamaha tons of money either to put a few outstanding Drum kits and other cutting edge features such as USB 2.0 etc., like those found in my econmically priced Sonic Cell PRO - into the T2 successor. In other words, Yamaha's excuse about it costing too much (which they have tended to use when it comes to adding professional sounds and other features into their keyboards, Motifs included) should be no excuse at all. So if a Yamaha rep happens to give you that excuse it will unfortunately be an erroneous one. The Reps have to oblige the higher ups and say what they want them to say or they run the risk of getting canned. Which on the one hand is not such a bad option when the company you work for is being less than forthright with the public. Whichever company that may be that is. I'm not pointing fingers, just pointing out some things.

I mean c'mon. A Tyros2 costs more than a fully loaded Motif XS"8" already. The T2 successor shouldn't have to cost an arm and a leg "on top" of it already costing more than the TOTL 88 note Workstation Motif XS should it? I didn't think so. And if it does it will be a travesty in my opinion. And needless to say I will pass on getting one. >> That you can count on.

Mike

Yamaha is more than capable of outstanding drum sounds:
http://www.yamahasynth.com/demos/plg150dr/dr_solo.mp3

You know if it's time for you to graduate from the PSR,you could always pick up a MO 6 and *tweak* the drums to your taste.

I can't agree more. Wouldn't it be fantastic if our personal preferences were included in all the styles out of the box. Not so..in any arranger. For live play I almost always have to add juice to the bass and drums. But, once added...no complaints.
Eddie

Double Ditto to what both 'travlin'easy' Gary Diamond & 'btweengigs' Eddie Shoemaker said.

Scott

I never said they weren't. I too think the Motif XS drums are some of the best on the planet. The debate is about Yamaha putting excellent drum kits on their top-of-the-line Arrangers. They're doing better as evidenced by the Tyros/2. But I think they can do better. And I think most people would agree with that sentiment. Especially at the price Yamaha is charging for their high end arrangers.

And unfortunately that PLG-150 expansion card from the drum demo you posted can't be installed into a Tyros2. You could put the PLG-150 into a PSR-9000PRO to supplement the 9000PRO's drum sounds but doing so would cost around $250.00 a pop.

Best,
Mike

Mike was checking out your demo tunes on your website nice stuff....was the T2 vocalizer used on Dont Be Cruel if so which mode?
http://keybplayer.tripod.com/Dont_Be_Cruel.mp3

Thanks for stopping by my web site Donny.

In the song "Don't Be Cruel" I am using the Tyros vocalizer. I don't own a T2. The EQ settings were slight Low EQ, less than detent Mid EQ, and an extra amount of High EQ. I can't give you the exact settings because I change them around and that song was recorded about 3 years ago. The basic rule of thumb for setting the T1 vocalizer is sparse amounts of Low EQ, around half amount of the Mid EQ or thereabouts, and more than half and upwards of three quarters (or more) amount of High EQ. At least that's what the manual is basically advocating anyway. Your mileage may vary of course depending on volume level settings of the Mic control knobs on the Tyros, the Microphone you use, the process used to record the song i.e. quality Mic and other type cables vs. cheap cables, sound entering the Mic other than your voice which needs to be kept at a minimum otherwise the vocalizer will be more prone to distortion, etc., etc.

A lot of the above precautions and settings would be a lot less important in the scheme of things if Yamaha had given the Tyros/2 a more robust VH to begin with. As it stands now, all we can do is hope and pray that Yamaha will bring that objective to fruition in the T3. The objective being a top notch Vocalizer that stands head and shoulders above the competition. And not impossible to achieve in my opinion either, but with Yamaha's lackadaisical attitude thus far in the VH competition wars, they will indeed have a lot of catching up to do, and with little time to accomplish it. In theory it could be as little as four months before Yamaha shows up at Winter NAMM 2008 with the new T2 successor. More likely though is that we won't see a T3 until Summer NAMM 2008 (in July) or in the worse case scenario not until Musikmesse in February of 2009. Although if Yamaha waits until 2009 they risk losing massive amounts of the arranger keyboard market share because of the technology that is changing so quickly in the area of keyboard feature implementation. In other words, the other companies may leave them in the dust to play major catch-up.

If Yamaha does indeed wait until Musikmesse 2009 for their T2 successor it better have Firewire 800 and/or USB "3.0" instead of USB 2.0. And it MUST have MORE than 128 note polyphony. No if's, and's, or but's about it.

Best,
Mike

One thing to watch out for (and probably a good reason Yamaha haven't updated their harmonizer for a long while) is that Yamaha Corp. don't make a standalone harmonizer...

They don't have a pro product in the field to drive along technology and allow some trickle down to the arranger division. Korg license TC Helicon technology, one of the industry leaders in pitch shift technology, Roland have their own pitch shift technology used in the VP series, but Yamaha don't really have anything standalone like that.

They ought to have a try to license Eventide stuff... some of the best vocal pitch shifting I've heard. Or, even better, license the Auto-Tune algorithms, nowadays, the industry standard for pitch correction (which, to be honest, many of us need a lot more than fake harmonies!) and some good auto harmony software.

OTOH, you could just play with good singers...

Mike thanx for the reply.....I enjoyed many of the songs on your website also.....
You make alot of sense about Yamaha catching up soon or being relegated to the back of the class in the arranger wars...

I guess we'll see what turns up.

stay well

D

Yamaha arrangers (including T2 and S900) are HOME keyboards, Donny, and as such they are VERY successful....more than any other brand, for that matter.

Even though they are designed for amateurs and hobbyists, it just so happens that many pros use 'em to great effect.

Back of the class?

Not a chance, my dear fellow; certainly not in the HOME market.

Ian