I would look forward to third party voice paks as well since there is an opportunity to make some money there.

BTW Yamaha has always supported their products with a ton of add ons including many many styles. If you have ever been to their website you will find thousands of purchasable styles. Not the cheezy ones someone makes in their bedroom and sells on Ebay. You hear each one before buying it. They support their arranger products in that regard Far more than any other manufacturer. I don't see this changing with the Voice Packs. They support their Disclaviers with a ton of "software". It's agreat income stream for Yamaha.

From my understanding , Yamaha wants to kick up there IDC features and web use a notch or 2.

So I really think that the T-3 users will be downloading a lot more , especially if they will have good SA-2 voices , and I bet they will !!

Later

Gary 

I've already ordered and downloaded some pro styles and wating for the voice pak.

Will it be easy to add RAM to the Tyros3? And how much is worth it to add?

Without one significant improvement, though, these voice paks are a double edged sword...

Sample load times are STILL the bottleneck that all these sounds are going to have to go through. Unless load times have been SIGNIFICANTLY improved, the glacial load times will discourage many from using these things. No-one wants to wait for ten minutes or more before you can start playing

1GB of RAM is a hell of a lot of room... enough to allow some almost VSTi quality sounds to be used in live performance. But I believe we worked out that to load it fully in the T2 would take well over an HOUR I don't know of many of us with that kind of patience And don't get me started about live use!

So, without clouding the issue with interface speeds (the speed of the HD interface has little to do with the speed of the RAM 'pipeline' - even USB1 speeds would be adequate if they actually delivered at close to their actual speed), does anyone have any REAL WORLD sample load time speeds for the T3?

Unless it is maybe an order of magnitude faster, there will be few that are willing to wait the hour or so while a bunch of these expansion paks load, either leading to few actually selling (leading to few being developed), or more likely, a considerable compromise in their quality, as Yamaha try to make them small enough to load in the time we are willing to wait...

In the meantime, of course, Yamaha continue to ignore the de facto sample standard of Akai import, closing off a HUGE resource of very good quality samples, many of which are designed to be loaded into limited RAM samplers (Akai S-series maxed out at 32MB RAM), hence perfect for the Tyros. But, of course, only their customers would profit from this, not Yamaha themselves. So you won't ever see it

Until those with Tyros's that ARE interested in actually USING the sampler (rather than just talk about it) make your wishes known, this isn't likely to change. Make some noise, guys!

Yes , you can add RAM up to 1 Gig or 512 X 2.

The ram must be installed in pairs:

If you want ;

256 = 128 X 2
512 = 256 X 2
1024 ( 1 Gig ) 512 X 2

Very easy to install , but , must be PC100 or PC133 /168 pin Dimm`s

Best of luck to you,

Gary 

It's interesting to hear that Yamaha is planning on voice paks for Tyros3. I wonder why they never offered them for Tyros2? I have some third party tvn voices which are very good. Yamaha should have been able to compete.............if they wanted too. Maybe the voices on Tyros3 they offer will utilize the SA2 technology?

Yamaha has used IDC since I had my PSR3000. Even since having Tyros2 I never thought they took full advantage of it. It seems there were plenty of offerings when Tyros2 was released, but I remember long blocks of time passing before mose new styles were offered. I think in the future they should promote it more and have at least new stuff every 3 months. They might find more devoted customers that way. Time will tell................ -charley

It's already been noted that the T3 is what the T2 "should have been". The reasoning behind not offering Voice Packs for the T2 is because Yamaha would like every last T2 owner to upgrade to a brand spanking new T3. Plus you will be getting other benefits as well like USB 2.0, Drawbar sliders, SA2, more mega voices, more sweet!, live!, and cool! voices, twice the Organ Flutes, and generally many more voices overall too. Plus a new factory warranty to go along with it.

Yeah.., Yamaha does indeed still rule the high-end arranger world arena. They are going to sell a boat load of T3's and the 50% of arranger players who prefer 76 keys can all go suck on eggs for all they care. >> OR, MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, they will take a "different" approach and humble themselves to that 'other' 50 percent and have a change of heart and change course when designing and producing their next high-end arranger T4 (or whatever they decide to call it) to include, along with their ever popular 61 key offering, a 76 key version for those who prefer 76 keys. >> We who want 76 keys (or better) can ONLY HOPE that they do. To show my resolve I will NOT be buying a T3 unfortunately. Hopefully there are others as committed to the cause and won't relent and give in to Yamaha's otherwise pernicious dealings with a great percentage of their customer base of musician's who require more than 61 keys. Yeah, yeah,.. just buy a Korg, Ketron, or Roland and shut the h*** up, right? Wrong... Keyboard musician's who prefer Yamaha sounds, Styles, and User Interface, and yet want (require) 76 (or better) keys to play on would simply like to be catered to also. Our money is just as good as those who plunk it down for the 61 key T3. Yet Yamaha refuses thus far to acknowledge and or accomodate those of us who do.

Best,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 09-29-2008).]

Perhaps Yamaha have not pursued the IDC as aggressively as they might, because they STILL haven't worked out a usable copy protection scheme for their styles and sound paks...

At least for the ROM styles and sounds, Yamaha get a return on their investment, because you have to buy a Tyros to get them...! But any voice paks and IDC styles released into the 'wild' are immediately prey to those who would 'trade' them around, immediately diminishing their return on the investment, which especially in the case of sample development, can be VERY high...

I still believe that some sort of hardware keyed copy protection needs to be implemented, before rampant sound development will occur. The opportunity for piracy is just too great, at present. Especially now, in the days of broadband, where GB sized files are relatively easily 'forwarded'

Would YOU spend a fortune to develop something that could be handed around for free like candy after the first few purchase it?