jamman,
there's not such thing as "over orchestrated styles"! i've heard this so many times, and i wonder why... to me it is obvious that those 5/6 tracks of accompaniment, besides drums and bass are not meant to play all at once! it is your choice and entirely up to your preferences what accomp tracks would you use and when.
too me, i don't have enough of them, they are not too many.
if you are talking about the way the styles are designed, here too, having such a great range to choose from would make the point invalid. you just need the right features and time enough to take care of it.

to the subject, i think yamaha should have gone 9000pro format with tyros. maybe they were not sure about the success, but with tyros2 they must have been aware it'll be successful. so, even though i doubt they will take this route with T3, i believe a 76er would do good for yamaha.
features wise i dont really know. i never had a yamaha keyboard.

[This message has been edited by adimatis (edited 02-11-2008).]

The manufacturers know who they are selling their instruments to and kit out the keyboard accordingly. It is no secret that yamaha position the Tyros and psr range at home users. Thats why they have a limited VH , stripped down sampler and minimal voice editing capabilities. Home users typically play guess where ????? At home !!!! They usually play for themselves or friends and family, they dont create their own sounds, styles, or samples so dont have need for gigging pro features. Yamaha styles are not too in your face and seem more subtle and simple (presumably because the home user does not want to have to compete with the keyboard styles)

This is the market where yamaha make their money period. There are very many professional musicians who make a great living from this keyboard and use it for its best potential in pro use. If it isnt up to 'par' (something i do not believe is true) then there are an awful lot of musicians out there who use the instrument daily and have made this instrument sound great regardless.

As far as the styles are concerned, it has been said so many times now that you can simply strip down styles as you see fit. All manufacturers could not have made it easier to aedjust styles in live play, especially in regards to korg instruments. I actually love the style programming in the korg range for the very fact that the style programmers assume you can actually play a keyboard and not simply use 1 finger chords !! The preference for progression from simple to complex style prgramming can all be accomodated in any of the main keyboard manufacturers arsenal of styles. Its up to the user how they work with them.

whilst this is true (yamaha producing home keyboards) features like SA voices are definitely not meant for regular, home player...
it would take lots and lots of time to master the tehnique for playing these sounds at their full potential. what home keyboardist would do that?! and only for home (friends, family) performance?
whoever buys a T2, does it also for those advanced voices... that one must be a little bit more than a home-player.

Hi Adimatis
Come over to the UK Festivals or anywhere in mainland Europe and you will find virtually all Home Players learn and make full use of the SA voices, (After all that’s what they were designed for) and if you’re not sure how to play them, just press the help button and it explains it all to you.
You will also notice that most add pedalboards so as not to have to rely on the style section to do everything for them.
As to the 9000Pro, why would Yamaha continue with what was their biggest disaster in Arranger History.

To US Buyers
Although the US is a large country, to Arranger manufactures it is of little relevance as the percentage of sales are low, (The vast US community seems to have great difficulty accepting arrangers as anything other then toys) and as most of the complaints of keyboards come from the US, then there is little chance of them being taken notice of.
So like I have always said in the past, if you want to change something then lobby the European and Asian markets, as this is where virtually all the decisions on arrangers are made by the manufactures.
Also please remember that manufactures try to satisfy the majority, and very few in the European and Asian markets (The biggest arranger markets in the world) are interested in some of the features that US buyers want.
The above might be painful, but then this is the Real World.

Bill

Chony, I still use my iPod when I need music for breaks. For me the built in MP3 player recorder allows a convenient way of recording. Although I've played keyboard for many years I still need to hear how I'm playing a tune. I've only recently started doing vocals. No better way than listening and trying to correct what needs correcting via the Mp3 player/recorder. The vocal harmonizer I need to enhance a voice that has a long way to go before it's where I'd like it to be.

That's fine chony, that's why were here to listen to other viewpoints.

But there are counterpoints to your arguments. How much equipment do you want to bring to a job? We are talking all-in-one convenience. That's what Arranger Workstations are.

And if you don't perform in public, how many home players like to sing, but don't either sing on key or sing alone and want 2-3 part harmony?

If they do want to sing, they have to purchase a microphone. When was the last time you purchased a microphone without an XLR Jack? Maybe Sam's club or Costco sell Microphones with Hi-Z 1/4 inch jacks, but most decent quality mic's need the XLR jack.

Do you want to record with your arranger? Is it more convenient to record to a WAV file or an MP3 file? How about both? Since WAV's are very large, you can compress them down in size to an MP3. Do you want to adjust the pitch of the MP3 or WAV file playback? How about transposing it?

I could go on and on, but please keep in mind, that the Tyros 2 sells for $3495.00! That's is a lot of money for a home player to spend on a hobby. He or she should have everything they need to perform for that kind of money without purchasing additional equipment. The base tyros 2 doesn't even come with a hard disk for crying out loud!!






------------------
Al Giordano
http://www.arrangerworld.com


Tyros 2, Yamaha P-250, Korg Triton Extreme 76, Roland VK8-M, DW Collectors Series Drums, Roland SPD-S.

that means that styles are either too busy to sing over.Yes I know I can mute them,etc but it'll not always work.But that's not the point.


For Eg.take the latin rock style- Taken from Santana's smooth -It'll only work with that song.not others.(too much brass with signature licks and busy fills).

Simpler style/bass lines will work with most songs - is the way to go.You can still have gtr strums,EP comps, but the style has to be free enough to play or sing over.(most problems are in Vari 3 and 4 which are alittle over done.)

IMO most of these SA sounds are not what they are cracked up to be, especially when you can't play them correctly in the right scenarios,....I feel they are more gimmicky then usuable for MY needs as a Vocalist first I need good stock backing sounds...vs a instrumentalist player... ....& in the real world Pro Gigging trenches aren't a big deal for practical use but do act as a great selling point for the home user.



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 02-12-2008).]

My arranger, right or wrong...

There IS no 'par' when talking about an entire arranger. NONE OF THEM ARE PERFECT. Every last one of them has something no other arranger has, and every last one of them has something that pretty much ALL the others do better.

What matters are YOUR particular needs, and then how quickly a manufacturer moves to correct shortcomings in certain parts of the OS or hardware. Some are quicker than others. Some go multiple generations with exactly the same flaw unfixed. Some throw perfectly good ideas away, to make room for other new features of dubious value. Some do virtually nothing except make online content easier to purchase.

I am pretty sure that everyone who ponied up for a T2 is still pretty happy about it's capabilities. Primarily because it's few, well documented shortcomings (or 'sub-par' features, if you will) never impacted their buying decision in the first place. No-one bought the T2 for it's sampler - it's closed nature would have deflected them to Korg in the first place. No-one bought the T2 although they thought the styles were too busy. They got a Roland or Ketron. Those that bought it thought the styles were great (and still do).

Take a look around... What has been released since the T2 that challenges it at the things it is best at? The SA voices, the integration between style play and SMF playback. The Mega voices and styles that use them... Nothing. There's a trickle down product (the S900) that steals a few SA voices, but the main T2 feature set is still intact.

VH issues... Look, Yamaha don't like technology from other sources. They don't make any good commercial VH products, so they can't fold them into the T2 OS. The only people that DO make good VH products are in direct competition with Yamaha. TC already have a deal with Korg. You can be SURE that's an exclusive deal.

But overall, I see next to nothing added to the OS of more recent arrangers that has anything to do with playing an arranger. Korg's guitar mode, perhaps, and that's it. Where are the new features? Gone to karaoke, every one...

Dueling MP3's, anyone? The HOME user, if they want to do karaoke, get a nice inexpensive karaoke player, not a $4500 arranger. This is only for pro's, who want to fool the audience they are NOT doing karaoke. Home users don't care...

I believe that all the TOTL arrangers are on a very level playing field. No one is dominant, no one is a complete dog. The only reason T2 users are getting defensive is that no-one has bought one lately and started gushing about it. And at $4500, that's not surprising, when an S900 can get surprisingly close to it's capabilities, and a third the price. The main things the T2 has the S900 does not are flawed (especially the sampler), so more and more make their comments about this smaller, lighter, cheaper keyboard (pun intended!). But most of their gushing could just as equally apply to the T2. Yamaha simply made the error (if you want to look at it that way) of making the trickle-down S900 BEFORE they raised the T-series bar a lot higher. Once that gets made, back to the trumpeting from IT'S owners....

My arranger, right or wrong....

I couldnt disagree with you more DNJ and i know we are just trading opinions here. when someone knows how to use the SA voices properly the realism achieved is nothing short of scary !! If yamaha made a true workstation arranger i would have bought the T2 like a shot. The saxes and concert guitars are that good i have seen real saxophonist and guitarist at church get very very annoyed because they insisted that the sounds coming from a T2 could not be replicated live ....until they came to a demo with me and watched James sergent ( a well know UK yammy demonstartor) show what it could do.

There are lots of critiscms about what yammaha lack in their arrangers but make no mistake the SA voices were and still are head and shoulders above any of the competition and this technology is (for me) the only true innovation in the keyboard world for 5 years or more.