I'm going to paste here an email response from a Yamaha representative to some of my questions. The fantastic news is that the PSR 2000 will be able to play styles directly from a floppy like the PSR 9000. At least that's how I understand it.
Here's the email:
Hi Larry,
1. How much style memory will the PSR 2000 have?
Total capacity ( including user song/user style/regist memory/user voices etc.) is 580Kbyte, and the number of files is "MAX800". It depends on the "capacity of each file". It works just like a computer.
2. If the flash memory is full, and I want to load a new style from a
floppy disk, do I have to delete files from the flash memory before I can load
the new one, or can I replace a style like with the PSR 740?
You have to delete style, but if it has the same name you can overwrite it. (It is the same as a computer) and the PSR-2000 has "Disk Direct Style Play", so you don't need to load from disk to internal flash memory. If you've ever tried this on the 9000, you'll know that this function works very well.
3. Will there be a GROOVE feature?
Yes. And you can also save "result of GROOVE" as a style like the PSR-9000.
To anticipate further questions, here is a letter I sent recently to 2 other user groups:
The PSR-1000 & PSR-2000 use a new kind of system. They have internal memory that works like a hard drive. The PSR-1000 has about 260KB and the PSR-2000 has about 580KB. In contrast, a 2DD floppy disk is 720KB and a 2HD is 1440KB. The interesting thing about this internal memory is that you can organize your information as you would on a hard drive with files and
subdirectories (up to 4 levels deep). When you store data to these locations, all file types of the PSR-2000/1000 are stored together (Voice, Style, Song, Registration etc.). The maximum number of files and folders which can be stored is 800 on a PSR-2000 and 400 on a PSR-1000. You can move, copy and delete, just like you would in a computer.
It should be noted that all of this information is coming from a preliminary manual for these keyboards and may change when production starts. Between now and then, numbers can go in either direction (higher or lower).
Saying all of that - many of your questions relate to how many styles or registrations or user sounds etc. can be stored. There is not a limit (that I am aware of) in terms of numbers (except the 800 file limit), but in terms of memory. For example: If you were to use a large part of the memory for storing user sounds, you would have less area for storing everything else. I do know that most edits (like registration and voice) take up very little memory space. If you do start to fill up the area on the PSR-1000/2000, you can offload some of your lesser-used data to floppy disk.
With all of this in mind, I'll try to answer your questions more accurately:
How many user styles can be stored in the PSR2000 / 1000 keyboards (i.e. loaded from disk)?
Each page on the keyboard shows 10 locations (like a 9000). Once you fill the 10 locations, the keyboard starts another page of 10 locations. You are limited by the memory of the keyboard (see above).
How flexible is the flash memory, i.e. can the factory styles be changed too?
You can change the factory styles - also called preset styles - and re-save them into user locations or onto a floppy disk.
How many custom voices can be created? Are these based solely on the AWM samples?
The custom voices are based solely on the samples inside of the keyboard. These are known as presets. They can be edited and saved to a user location or to floppy disk. You can also edit and save your own Music Finder (called Music Database on PSR-9000 and 9000 Pro) data. There are 400 Music Finder songs in the 1000 and 500 in the 2000. It's a great way to try out the keyboard - the Music Finder completely sets up the keyboard by song name including style, tempo and appropriate sound(s) in the right and left hand. I'm becoming a big fan of this feature, which is now found from the PSR-350 up. All you have to do is select a song and everything is done for you.
Does the sequencer offer direct to memory recording, and if so what's the capacity?
Yes is does. Again, the capacity would be limited by how much data you have stored in your user area. I can tell you this. At summer NAMM, I loaded in many different MIDI files (my own, Tune 1000, Yamaha XG etc.) and no song was too big for the keyboard to hold in its memory - including overnight with the keyboard shut off. It's a wonderful feature.
How many cool and sweet voices featured on the PSR2000 and 1000?
The PSR-1000 has 3 Sweet! voices and 1 Cool! Voice
The PSR-2000 has 8 Sweet! voices, 2 Cool! Voices and 3 Live! Voices
In closing, the PSR-1000 and 2000 have step editing capability, like the 9000 series.
You can dynamically control the level of the accompaniment by how softly or strongly you play the keys in the Auto Accompaniment section of the keyboard.
You access the 3 intros/endings from the main screen (you press the button next to 'E' and then select Count In, 4bar1 or 4bar2 for Intros and Fill&Hit, 3bar or 4bar for Endings).
A couple of cool features that are on the 1000 and 2000 are:
Dedicated Right-hand voice octave change buttons
Auto-fill on/off (sometimes when changing sections, say from B to C, you don't want the auto-fill)
OTS Link: One Touch Setting Link. The OTS will now change automatically if this button is on. When you change the style from, say A to B, the One Touch Setting (when turned on) will advance as well to the sound that matches that section - in this case the 'B' section.
The score feature on the PSR-2000 is very user-friendly. You can increase the size of the notes, one or two staves (for piano sheet type music), note name (the name of the note is in the screen to the left of the note head), and the lyric information can be displayed under the upper staff. All features can be toggled on or off, and of course, the pages advance by themselves as the song plays. You can also just have the keyboard in lyric mode (like the 740 - except with a big screen).
That's about all for now. Thank you for your continued interest in Yamaha Portable Keyboard Products.