Get a cold drink, folks - this one will take a while to read.

I will "soften" my response to playing the PSR9000, so as not to sound fickle. I have been accused in the past of "falling in love" with every new board I play, so this time I will simply make a few general observations about playing out with the 9000.

FIRST) Man, it's reeeealy heavy. Mostly putting it in and out of the car is the worst. Once it's on a dolly - no biggie. In it's defense, I no longer need to bring the rack bag that houses my harmonizer. Somewhat of an even trade.

SECOND) The overall sound quality is excellent at moderate volumes, but with a PA going...it becomes VERY difficult to hear the keyboard from it's own speakers. This is strange, because I hear my vocal just fine. My guess is that the midrange frequency is toned down to make for a smoother sound, and that takes the sound "out of my face," (one of our pet expressions)

THIRD) Yamaha has thought of everything a player might want to do during a performance, and gives us a way to access it. BRAVO Yamaha! I'm serious - tone changes, volume, controllers, transpositions, you name it - it's easy to get to. By FAR - the easiest operating system of any keyboard on the market. At least in a live situation. I understand that setting up patches make life easy on everything else, but this one works right out of the box. I could literally play the whole night with one patch, and not miss much. As it stands now - I think I will only need to write about 10 or 12 to do everything I need to. The rest will be shortcuts for "million sellers" that I ALWAYS play.
(NYNY, Runaround Sue, Brown Eyed Girl, etc...) I don't think a week has gone by in 30 years that I don't get a request for Brown Eyed Girl. So, I guess it should have a registration all it's own, for fast access.

FOURTH) The simplicity of the patterns is a welcome change to the "cluttered up" sound that seems to keep popping up in many newer boards. I would like to start adding my own "spice" to the arrangements after a while, but for now-they are very useable, and easy to dance to. I still believe that the Korg patterns have a slight edge in the swing genre, but Yamaha has C&W down to a science. R&R has been good for years now - not an issue with any of the major offerings, and latins also seem to be great on lots of boards. As a whole - there is not a single style missing in the factory setup that I need at the moment.

FIFTH) Even with it's heavy weight - after the unit is on the stand - I like how solid, and strong it is. Tonight I played an inauguration for a county judge, and there were lots of speeches. They all used MY mic (YUK) and were speaking from the KB stand. It never seemed to wobble or worry me at all when they leaned on it, or bumped it by mistake. Nice solid, case - price of fame, I guess....is weight. Mass = Weight in this case.

SIXTH) Some sounds that bothered me at first are modifiable and better now after tweaking. Growl sax is one. Jazz Clarinet is another. Both had weird playing characteristics out of the box, but after a few adjustments - they sound wonderful.
SEVENTH) Organs - terrific. Leslie sim - also terrific. very believable jazz organ sound. I'm in heaven with Booker T, Jimmy Smith, Joey D, and all the others!

* * * * General impression * * * * *

The polyphony is still major sucky for a sustain freak, like me but the overall package is pretty complete. If the new PSR2000 is anywhere close to this unit - it will be in my car as a backup, and nursing home unit for sure. Glad I made the trade Don .... are you still happy?

Yes Frank,
As far as industry support and respect - you can't beat Yamaha as a company.

Dave, I'm happy. I do miss all the easy operating features of the 9000, but I like the drums and styles on the PA80. I particularly miss the country styles and guitars on the 9000.
I usually don't keep 'em very long anyway, but for now I'm still excited about learning and setting up the Korg.
DonM

Hi Dave
Would you care to post *exactly* the tweaks you made to the jazz clarinet or growl sax in order to improve it? I would love to try your method on my 740 (if that is possible), but I need specific instructions. I'm not knowledgable in this area, and would like to learn. If it's not too much trouble, post it here, and I could try it out. Thanks.
Tom

Since playing the 9k professionally since January almost every day I can tell you this. Out of the box the 9k is not a great keyboard but.... with a minimum 100 hours of really getting into it's features one by one and understanding what this keyboard can do it approaches greatness for sure as an arranger keyboard. You have to really see what Yamaha has tried to do overall with this offering and I'll tell you for the money it can't be beat compared to many other units. Without going into detail too much I will say that in my experience so far you need to import some styles to make up for the stock ones that you cannot use. Free up the Flash ROM section by deleting all non-essential styles. Start to listen to every styles variation graduation 1,2,3,4, and determine if they will work for you. If not get into the recording section and take the unwanted variation and change the by rerecording parts to make it work for you. This can easily be done on the 9k. The HD is a pleasure to use also. Load your sequences into the unit, after tweaking them to your liking in the keyboard incorporate them into a Panel setting, this way when your on stage you just bring up that panel # and the 9k automatically gives you all setups R1, R2, R3. L. voices to play along if you wish. Navigation is so easy on the 9k also. The placement of the Buttons makes playing live a pleasure for sure. That's the reason I just bought another 9k for backup and studio work. Vocalizer and EFX are outstanding. Incorporating the 4 recordable (looped) Multi Pads into the style mix is essential for making those empty styles come alive in real time. Using the OTS feature can give you many ideas on sounds and effect to put into your mix also. The weight is no big deal 10 pound more or less is not going to change anything for big boys like us :>) compared to yeas ago carrying a 147 Leslie Tone Cabinet and huge Amps all over the place :>) As Dave said the 9k has great onboard speakers, but on stage they sought of blend into the mix against the stage amps volume which I like for my style of playing. I don't like that "in your face sound" it isolates me from my audience. I like a more general sound all around the room, but that's my way of performing. There are so many more things we can discuss on the 9k. I'm happy I took the time to learn this great unit. Don't try to access a unit in the store or out of the box, give it a good long tryout thru a PA system to make your final evaluation, and don't be afraid to dig into the manual and really get into the Features big time! So far it's Thumbs Up! For the 9k for me!

Donny NJ

TomTom,
I don't mean to avoid your question, but I've been randomly making "on the fly" adjustments and I can't pin point exactly what I've done except for - keyboard velocity, effects sends, EQ levels etc. A good way to get the best effects settings is to start with an OTS setting - then write it into a registration.
The growl sax was not sustaining the way a real sax would. (I'm a wind player, and somewhat fussy) There was an unnatural decay in the original setting. It might have been the effects - maybe it was gated or something like that. If I find any "sure fire" methods or workarounds, I'll post them too, but for now - you have to make the adjustments that suit YOUR own ears. Donny loved the growl sax in his - I needed a different sound for me. It was more in the playability than the tone, itself.
Chocolate & Vanilla, for sure!

Dave,

I had no problem with the growl sax with the way I play it in alot of R&B songs. But some of the Brass sounds needed a little adjustment, delay/rev etc.I find that to achieve a realistic brass stab you need to incorporate a combination of 3 sounds R1,R2,R3,(Brasssection, Sweet Trumpet, Brass Combo). Be sure to evealuate your octave settings depending on what key your song is in also. Using the OTS setups as a foundation for sounds is highly recomended also versus a straight sound out of the sound library, especialy for (Cool E Guitar) on country tunes and Mandolin. Using the "Harmony" feature will give you many great efx. You can also isolate the "Harmony setting to only one instrument in the Reg also so that only that one uses the harmony.Another tip is to go into the MAIN (5 band) H-EQ section where you have 4 user settings and setup user #2 eg: ( 0, -1, +2, +3, 0, ) this will eliminate all the Muddled sound and give you a much clearer sound especially in the 400hz range for pianos etc. To explain this better play an arrangement with the default user EQ #1, while the keyboard is playing switch to your new custom user #2 EQ setup and listen to the difference! Next I have found that if you go into every registration and boost the ACCMP. high EQ to 105 it will definitly brighten the Accmp. mix especially the drums giving it a great "Live Sound". These are some of the things I talked about in my first post regarding "out of the box" reviews versus doing a little work in making your unit come alive and sounding great. I would guess that you can employ most of these technics to any keyboard to achieve a somewhat better sounding unit, try it you'll see !!

Good Luck

Donny NJ



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 06-30-2001).]

I'm trying it today, dude!

Hi Donny,
Great review of the 9k Pro. Couldn't agree more with your evaluation.
Like you, I also deleted all the styles I didn't need, and loaded some other excellent styles. I also tweeked the accomp.
For me the electric guitars are more important, since I used to be a guitar player. In the accomp section I usually turn the high & low EQ of, lets say the 60's guitar, to 120 and then the harmonic content between 76 and 86. That really brings it alive.
Dave, I also like your review sinceI also use the Growl Sax quite often I would also be interrested in how you made it sound more real. Thanks.
Greetings
Eric

I just thought of something that I might have done - I turn OFF the aftertouch, because I seem to trigger it too easily with my left hand alot. I am not used to aftertouch, and I have a hard touch of my own, so the two do not always comliment each other. I may learn to utilize the effect if it becomes more important to me later, but for now - I leave it off. That takes OUT the vibrato that a lot of sounds don't need. I really haven't done much editing at all - just a few little "nudges" here & there.