Originally posted by Bill in Dayton:
Scott Yee (I think) uses the full keyboard mode like I do and has done it longer. Hopefully Scotty will check in with some feedback of his own.
Good topic. On the Tyros (and Yamaha arrangers), I've found 'full keyboard' mode playing to be a mixed bag of both advantages & disadvantages. The advantage of course is that your able to trigger chords with either or combination of hands. In addition to the ability to play in a more traditional solo acoustic piano style, if you set the chord recognition to full keyboard mode, yet keep the split point at F#2, you can play bass lines with my left hand and trigger auto accomp from the chords I played in the right hand (right of split point). The bass auto accomp part obviously needs (in this situation) to be muted if you choose to play manual bass lines with your left hand.
I remember experiencing problems playing in full keyboard on my Tyros in the distant past, where when playing a RH solo melody 'within an octave above' the highest note of the LH chord played, would negatively alter the chord recognition, and cause the auto-accomp bass line to sound inaproppriate, repeating on bass notes unexpectantly. Thankfully (recent OS update?), this seems to be a lot less noticeable now.
For example in full keyboard mode, select a style & variation which includes a walking bass line. I suggest "Acoustic Jazz", variation "C". Play a LH 1st inversion C7 chord: E1-G2-Bb1-C2. Now play the following notes contained in a descending C Dorian Scale with your right hand: C3-Bb2-A2-G2-F2-E2-D2-C2. As you will observe, for all descending RH notes played, the chord recognition remains C7 except for G2 & E2. These result in a chord recongition of C7/E, of which triggers the bass auto accompaniment to play a continously repeating on Bass E note instead of walking bass. I would prefer that chord recognition to REMAIN consistant with the other notes and recognized as a C7 to preserve the walking bass line feel of the style variation. Though I of course appreciate the full keyboard mode ability to recognize chords in either or combination of both hands, playing in split mode eliminates the full keyboard mode problem outlined above, allowing me to play chord tensions upper structure alterations with the right hand without affecting the fundamental chord recognition.
I agree with the comments made by Jill (btw Jill: a big welcome to the Synthzone forum to you). Great to finally see more woman arranger players here contributing to the forum. Interestingly enough, I'm actually using a combination of split & full keyboard mode. Though I now set the Tyros to 'Full Keyboard" chord recognition mode, I also keep the split point (S) & Left (L) set to F#2. What this does is allows the RIGHT voice (G2) to have the same octave pitch as the LEFT Voice (G1) extending the right hand notes down within the left hand comping chords played providing a better more authentic (to my ears) sounding two-handed chord comping.
I didn't mean to bore you with so many details, but since you asked.
Scott