I finally got a chance to read the 'in depth' review of the Tyros in the current issue of Keyboard Player Magazine. One feature of the Tyros which really caught my eye is that Yamaha supposedly includes Tyros editing software which allows you to view the Tyros control panel, windows, and Sound Editing functions from your PC desktop computer's screen monitor instead of on the Tyros LCD screen itself. The Tyros interfaces your computer thru USB (USB port included). You can then edit Tyros voices & efx from your PC, thru EZ to view graphic displays of the sound envelopes, as well as vitual knobs & buttons on your computer screen. This certainly beats digging thru multiple sub menus on the Tyros screen. In addition to this, Yamaha's new 'Open Plug-in' Technology (which 'the Pro' brought up in an earlier post), will allow the Tyros 'voice editing' software to be run as a part of Cakewalk Sonar: Way COOL !

The other thing which the Tyros USB interface affords is the ability to transfer Tyros data (songs etc) back/forth to your computer bypassing the need for playing the floppy disk transfer game.

I think this feature alone shows that Tyros offers true ground breaking advancement for arranger keyboardists. Your thoughts?

Wow this board just keeps sounding better and better... I hope this thing performs like Yamaha is claiming.. They would really be shooting themselves in the foot if they released this thing without first calling the "Orkin Man" to exterminate it first...

Squeak

Very cool stuff Scott. The Motif allows editing, in addition to file sharing in a similar manner. For me it is one of the best featuures of the board. Maybe the pendulum is swinging a little for me toward the Tyros.

Scott,
My thoughts
Terry

It is cool, but I don't want to give Yamaha too much credit just yet - they really should develop OPT control panels like the Tyros' for their XG sound set, which would work with a wide number of Yamaha keyboards and be extremely useful. And it would be nice if they would provided OPT panels for their (current or former?) "flagship" arranger: the Yamaha 9000 Pro, which has been neglected in the software area by Yamaha. And all those great Yamaha plug-in control panels for the PLG-series expansion cards still only work with XGWorks... those would be handy as OPT's as well.

Yup, it's great to see Yamaha on the ball with their OPT support of the Tyros, the Motif and a handful of others. Why they can't seem to get it together with at least one decent XG OPT panel is one of my concerns.

Squeak,

Every new keyboard has some bugs. I think my first one had 15 updates. I didn't even know there were any bugs till I sent it in for repair and it came back with a note about a couple of new features that were on the new OS.

But as long as it REALLY has flash OS, at least when updates are available, you don't have to give up your keyboard to get it updated.

Midnite

I'm totally with you midnight.. Yamaha totally screwed up on the OS that was on their EX series synth.. (which is now replaced by the Motif).... People were so pissed off about that keyboards OS.. Then Yamaha turned around and was telling people there was nothing wrong with it and was giving owners a hard time about the upgrades.. The problem was that the OS upgrade was done by chips (and was a pain in the ass to do by the way), and Yamaha didn't want to spend the money in sending the chips... Also didn't the PSR-9000 have quite a few roaches crawling around in the orininal OS too???

Squeak