If have ever made a "Karaoke" file from a well known song $5.00 would be cheap to buy one. IT can take many many hours to recreate all the parts exactly and would required the ability to play a MIDI guitar and in some cases a wind controller to take advantage of the Mega voices.

I have all the Toon 1000 tracks and am amazed at how well they did them when compared to the original arrangements in so many arenas. My wife makes CDs of them minus the parts she will play live with great results.

The Earth Wind and Fire tracks are a really good example of tracks I would not want to re record. I would bet if Phillip Baily sang in front of them on a CD the Avg Joe would not know it wasn't the band behind him. They use the T3 voices that well. The additional "programmed harmonies" that play like the real thing within the tracks are a nice touch as well although they are woefully bad voiced through the T3.

I have the S900 with power switch on the front, and the Tyros3 and KX8 with rear mounted switches.

The PSR-S900's panel switch is far more convenient, but you get used to the rear mounted switches after several years.

Ian

Two comments -
Jedi, I use my T3 nearly every day for gigging - not a problem as far as I can tell.

Second, A few months back while playing a gig with my PSR3000 I reached for the fade button and hit the power switch - bummer. I rather like the power switch where it is out of the way.

Hammer

Thats always the result when whiskey is thrown into the 'mix'..the hole for the power button on your 3000 is reccesed for a reason,learn to cordinate those 'hammer'n' fingers,Hammer!

Well,
If I drank I might have an excuse - but I don't so I guess I don't have an excuse.

Hammer

I've explored my Tyros3 for 2 weeks so far and am willing to share my experiences with you. I've seen that nobody seems to be waiting for positive feedback, so I'm just concentrating on points that need approval imo :

Housing:
It's absolutely HUGE !! I think it's depth is just to much (like T1+2), it's all empty space you carry around and I find that very inconvenient. I use it more for studio use, though.

Styles :
Sound nice OTB and there's a lot of them.
If I even use standard styles, I find I'm shutting up nearly all the accompaniment parts, because it's a complete chaos : too many parts, too many instruments...your sound is becoming a "blur" that way.

OTS settings :
it really pays of to walk through them, as there are some really good settings according combination voices/harmony and EQ settings. Take for instance the Jazz Tumpet (SA2) who's effects are balanced in a way that it truly sounds like a muted trumpet.

"Music Internet Direct/ Music Finder +" :
This is a website you connect to with your Tyros. It's the biggest piece of crap I've seen to date! Even the characters in the input page (numbers and letters) aren't cached, so they have to reload everytime you switch from capital to normal letters and so on.
Every single song/setting has to be seperately downloaded (because there are too few "collections") and if you've looked at the "details" page, you're only way back is starting again from the root menu (music finder +).
It's a very powerfull idea, but the site is so userunfriendely I could go on for hours complaining about it.

Yammie's way or the highway :
I hate it that Yammie's preset styles and sounds can't be overwritten with your own custumized sounds/styles : now the tiniest adjustments lead to having everything I use being grouped under the "custom" buttons.
and you can sure customize a lot !

Compressor :
If everyone who complained about the concert grand patch being "thin in the middle" knew what a compressor whas and would have bought real speakers, we wouldn't have seen that remark so much. I find the standard compression setting the problem in cutting the C3-C5 range off too much. I've had the concert grand against a CP-300, and it's definitely the same sampled sound (I dunno if it's the same samples though!). But with al my tweaking skills, I can't match the warmth and depth of the CP-300. It just is lacking soul in some way.

EQ :
Yamaha could have made the T3 sound FAR better if every part would have it's own 5-range EQ : the overall EQ is a 5 range, but on a part (left,right1,right2,etc) you only get a 2-range EQ, aka bass/treble. For someone who wants to get the most out of the tyros, this absolutely stands in the way ! This is IMO related to the complaints about the concert grand sound not matching the demo's : I don't think you want to hear a style or a guitar with the EQ settings used in the demo for the piano solo !
Yammie dares to say in it's manual that every part has it's own high-quality EQ. High-Quality EQ means 5-range EQ per part and not bass/treble !!
I now work around this by recording each single "instrument" solo, with customized "overall-EQ" seperately on a (external) HDD recorder. That's not what I was expecting to do and this is without any doubt the issue that gave me a dissapointed feeling of this "musical workstation", also considering the pricerange it's in.

EFX
The EFX department is great : finally semi-pro effects are available. It's just a shame that OTB the EFX on styles as well as sounds are just WAY too much ! This takes away the "live" sound : too much reverb and chrous. Suprisingly often too little DSP depth though!

Overall :
I'm very pleased with my T3, but as I stated above, there are some issues that need improvement. It's an arranger and definately not a professional workstation.
For the home-user or "midi-file-performer" it is complete overkill and they will not uncover more than 40% of it's potential.
For the pro it will sadly be a work-around-station, but it's worth the effort if you hear the results !

I think the way to go for the T4 will be to consult super-users worldwide in a virtual community and for once build a flagship workstation that fits flagship-users. I'd be happy to take part in such a thing, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one, hey ?

why even use an arranger like the T3 if your not going to utilize all the great styles by shutting off almost all the parts within the accomp....sort of defeats the purpose....you can achieve the same results with so many other units.

Dnj,
I mainly make my own styles, plain and simple. All those parts in a style are only useable if you don't play too much melody yourself. It all clouds up the sound by hearing drums, bass and 6 different instruments playing different patterns and layering your own lively playing upon that. In such a mix, the soundquality of the leadsounds is hugely diminished by the blurr of the parts because they are often in the same range as the lead instruments(a good mixer knows what I'm talking about).
Here also the lack of a 5-band EQ per part is in play !
Try it, and you'll notice that by turning parts of and keeping the accompaniment "realistic,tidy and clean", you're going to free the leadsounds. The SA2 saxophone for instance sounds great solo, but in blend with the styles, you don't hear the fine nuances anymore. T3 is not the only kb I use, I use it mostly for it's sounds and for (custom)styles.

BTW : the point of improvement I ment is primarily in the versatility of the styles : I don't want a machine packed full of styles only applicabele to 1 specific song. Secondary the T3 would sound alot better OTB if the OTS's would not have all of the parts activated.

I disagree on your remark making it sound like the only distinguishing point of the T3 is it's complex styles : I think the styles are nothing special the competition can't match.

I understand where MusiCo is coming from. It's not the first time someone has brought up the issues with some styles being "too busy". We've talked about this many times in the past about styles on all the major brands.., in how some leave you a lot of room for solo work.., and some make you feel as if you're fighting for the spot light with the other parts of the style.

Also understand that he creates his own styles which means he most likely digs a little deeper into his arranger than many users here.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 01-05-2009).]

Everyone uses an arranger for different reasons, granted I prefer as much music coming out to the audience as possible because as a Singer performing with a FULL BAND is my signature sound & always has been since I went solo 17 years ago after 23 years with a 7 pc dance band....I have no problems soloing lead sounds to cut thru the mix at all because I make it sound that way using all the editing tools I need to do so no problem. I make hundreds of people dance everyday & it ain't gonna happen with a stripped down cocktail piano, Lh bass/drum routine at all.......although when I'm in a small situation I have custom styles just for that purpose.....being the maestro is what "ARRANGING" is all about hence the name Arranger Keyboard.....and again in the end result it all about WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE plain & simple!