If you decide to buy a new keyboard novadays, what will be your shoice? Which keyboard do you buy?

yamaha tyros3, korg pa2xproi korg pa800 or waiting a new one?

It deppends on what kind of music you are using it for and what is your experience and habits.

This question will definitly start a mine is better then yours Pissing contest beyond belief.....I suggest you do a good search here on SZ because all your answers will be revealed there for sure..

Good luck in your choice.

Donny is right, but for the money, I'd say the PA800.

i want to learn your choices and reasons please?

We buy what we buy because they work out to be best at what we want them to do.. and as we all do different things, there is absolutely no consensus at all

We have no idea what YOU want to do with an arranger, and thus all we can do is recommend what WE use, in the vain hope that perhaps you do exactly the same thing too.

The odds of this being true are astronomically against it, though.

So why don't you tell us what YOU want to do, what type of music you play, what experience you have, skill level, what other keyboards you have used, etc., etc... you know - help us to help YOU (thank you, Jerry McGuire! )

i think the best answer is donny's, the previous experience tells us so.

aramis, why don't you search around, you'll find tons of information, all available, on all topics. after that, or before, try to make sure what you're looking for exactly. otherwise no chance to get a clear result, right?

if you ask as statistics, i tell you my pov: roland e-60, for good price vs. features. because it's a little g70, at half the price.

If "I" was buying a new keyboard, I think it most likely be the Ketron Audya. Its a new technology (wav based styles), ketron has always had great sounds, plus it will have the midjay features.

If wayting for a new one.....

The Audya should be around soon, but thats about it....No words on anything competitive from Roland.

There are a few more options tough currently available. Wersi and Lionstracs come to my mind. But they are not exactly widespread solutions.

I think its very personall

Yamaha.....IDC Style support and a ton of users and websites to get them, Acoustic sounds,

I refuse a new keyboard simply because all latest releasements are OS upgrades and nothing else is (IMHO) anything flagship about them.Remember when 64 was the norm for poly,then the 9000 came out and voila,it was 126!!now thats worth purchasing!!

Now i found out after playing countless hours what is important to me:

1. MORE poly (256-ish)
2. On the fly recording!!by this i mean one button being pressed and THEN i am recording my SESSION in my choice of either MP3 format OR MIDI!!
Having to go into a stupid "song recording" mode always & very consistantly throws off my ENTIRE spirit of playing and is never how it was while i was just freelancing my session!this is crucial towards my next "upgrade".

3.Separate DSP's for ALL style parts,ie:Bass-flanger,pad-hall,PHR1-distortion and so forth.

4.See all those X's in the back of any manual in any PSR/Tyros keyboard?THOSE have to contain MUCH more 0's! Yamaha is completely & intentionally holding back on improvements here!

5. I feel those new T3 sliders should have little clicks built in to them exatly like how the "Data wheel" moves.

If these are in the next T4/or ? THEN shall i deem $4000 actually a upgrade.These little poopsey upgrades as of late are pretty much a joke for me.I mean Yam isn't even touching poly!a lowly 128 still??huh!

You can take this truth to the bank:

Thus far ALL psr/Tyros are like young adults
in keyboard land!I am still waiting for an 'Adult' releasement..what is so bloody hard about
COMBINING THE WORLD AND FEATURES OF ARRANGERS WITH SYNTHS!!??..there's a most definate upgrade!To me all these keyboards are just a hairs breath from being sold at wallmart & i'm sure will be laughed at heartly in 10-12years as your friends say
"phht $4 grand for THAT"?

[This message has been edited by mr9000 (edited 11-30-2008).]

I'm going to stick with the Yamaha PSR-S900...perfect for my needs, and not too expensive, either.

With just the S900 and my laptop, I can make a CD or MP3 recordings to share with my friends.

Mid-range arrangers like the S900, and Roland E-60 offer so much that for many of us, there is no need to get a TOTL arranger.

Ian

I can't for the life of me ever remember when I needed more than 128 notes polyphony...

For Pete's sake! Has ANYBODY ever heard a 128 note arranger dropping out?

If you need more than 128 notes for any arrangement, and that would be one humongous overkill layered up mess , you would be FAR better served with two different manufacturer's 128 voice keyboards... Twice the samples is better than twice the polyphony on the SAME samples, IMO

For Pete's sake! Has ANYBODY ever heard a 128 note arranger dropping out?
--------------------------------------------
Yes a most resounding yes!The problem is youngminds that cannot cope with a future keyboard that Should have 4plus right hand voices and 2 or 3 left hand voices!That would be an adults toy!
With my 9000 i am ALWAYS in the area of 103-126!!So for the sake of Pete it is not such a hard to fathom upgrade.Some of us take full advantage of the ACMP Diki,heck most of my styles have the ACMP pushing onto the 60's for poly alone!With right and left voices sucking up hungrily what is remaining.

9000 is well known to have polyphony and CPU issues. It isn't always equal if you have a fixed polyphony. My Kurzweil has only 48, but handles denser passages much better than most other's 64. The 9000 had issues with the CPU that made denser passages drop out. It was more a CPU problem than polyphony.

I play pretty layered up on the G70, with denser styles I have NEVER heard a dropout.

Also consider that most TOTL WS's, used by top pros on TV and major tours, have only 128 voices (or less). Somehow, it doesn't stop them from using them and sounding GREAT...

Not that it makes THAT much difference, but the PSR-9000 and PSR-9000Pro(stock) have 126 notes max of polyphony, not 128.

I have had no dropouts on the Tyros1/2/3 or PSR-3000/S900...the 9000 is a different beast.

Ian

Actually i cannot say i can even hear any notes dropping off,i just want a keyboard with upgraded poly to be safe and or bragging rights.I assure you there is lots of voices going on when i am in the 117range,i cannot see or tell any CPU or "different beast" type characteristics at all however.

[This message has been edited by mr9000 (edited 12-01-2008).]

First of all, how do you know how many voices you are using at any one time? Is there a counter, or something?

Secondly, why not worry about a problem when it actually happens (which apparently is never!), rather than some theoretical time in the future...?

Things have changed a LOT in CPU power since the 9000 days. My G70 had a VERY noticeable improvement in the response time to big stacks (you can layer up to six stereo voices on one sound with a G70 - not that you would ever want to ) and can play very fast repeated chords with no discernible flamming. Something that even two stereo voice layers on the G1000 had slight problems with.

The G70 is FAST...!

And 'bragging rights'? PLEASE.... It's unnecessary needs like this that take your mind off of things you could REALLY use. Like the darn sampler load times. Want to hear the most useless Yamaha 'bragging right'? 1GB of sample memory.

That takes WELL over an hour to load!

Brag about THAT, and stand back as we all laugh our heads off. Just like 256 voices of polyphony when you have never gone past 128 (sorry, 126 )

--
I haven't gone past 126 BECAUSE i have yet to find one that does go past 128 that i like.Trust me,there WILL come a time when more right/left hand voices and MORE elements/parts for styles(say 16 or even 24 instead of the lowly 8) are introduced to all you youngminders who pout about with "why need anything more,just be content with what they crap out of the R&D machine shops..
people were to very impressed with the old model T's..now look at the HORSEPOWER../..POLY..holy!!



[This message has been edited by mr9000 (edited 12-01-2008).]

You'll find that most sounds with lots of elements in them are mainly velocity switching and SA type switching elements. So, although they may have 16 elements, or whatever, but fewer than four will sound at any one time. Plus there are a LOT of fancy polyphony algorithms that take a voice that has been used on a quick transient (but the main voice is still sounding) and immediately reassign it to another voice once it has decayed quickly away.

The 9000 suffered extremely poorly in this critical area. It may be time for you to step up to a 21st century arranger

Just take a look at a score for a symphony orchestra, one day. One of the densest, most timbraly diverse things you could ever write for. How many parts are there? Yep.... WAY under 128! Sure, there are a LOT of musicians. But 15 of them are probably playing ONE part (1st violins, e.g.) and this take ONE stereo voice on a keyboard. And take a look at how seldom ALL of them are playing at one time.

Take a listen to a great pop track, or bigband arrangement. Count how many parts there are. They are great not because of how much is going on at one time, but how carefully crafted the little that IS going on is arranged. Read any book on arranging, you'll see the same thing over and over again....

Less is more

Lots of SUSTAINED voices along with lots of arranger voices...maybe will get you someday.

But the instruments Algorithms to handle polyphony will hopefully kill the notes that are least important. I know with the new OS2 Korg updated this to work better (they say)

But, I haven't tested it. :-). :-)
Maybe I will invite some friends over and we will see how many sustained piano notes (amnd other layerd sounds along with them) we can get going along with the most complex styles?

Ha, Ha....
I would be ready for the nut house!

Lee

DikiWrote:"I can't for the life of me ever remember when I needed more than 128 notes polyphony..."

Come on..diki..you telling me if my keyboard could handle 256 voices that you would Not have....poly envy!

[This message has been edited by mr9000 (edited 12-02-2008).]

[This message has been edited by mr9000 (edited 12-02-2008).]

Arimis wrote:"If you decide to buy a new keyboard novadays, what will be your shoice? Which keyboard do you buy?
yamaha tyros3, korg pa2xproi korg pa800 or waiting a new one?"

I would not buy another keyboard.
If I were not limited to the choices you provide, I personally would like to have a module, or two, based on the technology and features of any of the boards mentioned above in addition to some not mentioned, e.g. the Ketron Audya and Roland G-70 or E series. In that way I could have the benefits of an arranger board along with any size-feel-weight controller (I have several) that I choose for a specific gig.
Ciao,
Jerry

Not a chance, Mr9000...

There are many things I DO envy on other arrangers, but polyphony isn't one of them...

Without giving up my G70, I would LOVE to have the T3's guitar section, the PA2Xpro's sampler, and those wonderful SA2 voices. But I couldn't give up my G70's wonderful piano, drums and B3 (amongst many other OS things like the Makeup Tools) to get them...

This is why I'm so mad at the manufacturers for not standardizing the arranger codes so you could MIDI two together. Dumb, just plain dumb! Don't they WANT to sell more arrangers? I honestly think that if you could easily link them together, most of us here would have at LEAST two, and Donny would have them ALL