Originally posted by Dnj:
I really don't need another KB right now besides my trusty S910.....but when you have nothing to do sometimes you start to wander around the Internet and look at gear ....but before long like a Cocaine high it dissipates and your back to reality realizing you DON'T need any of this 
btw what did you like or dislike about the unit when you had it?
LOL, yes I know EXACTLY what you mean, I do it myself, TOO often
The S70xs I had and the keybed was excellent, a really good balance between weighted keys and speed and a real pleasure to play.
The sound is totally unbelievable, superb and the best bread and butter sounds going, even better than the T3, of which it has several mega patches on board, linked to factory arps.
Navigation was not the on-stage "snap" that Yamaha's marketing would ahve you believe, although it was not too bad.
Midi file navigation and song play is very awkward and non-intuitive.
Simply laoding a midi file from a stick required about 3 menu pages, a process you had to repeat to play any subsequent files.
Yes a play list can be set up, but again it ws not very user friendly. Absolutely NOTHING like the ease of the PSR series, or the Korg PA series. So the use of an external laptop is still required if you want to do ad hoc shows.
Forget trying to do one-off requests, it takes far too long to load up one individual file and to THEN return to the pre-set playlist.
The arps are good, although they changed the flashing system from the Motif series, so that it flashed continuously no matter whihc arp is selected. (on the motif the arp being used had a fixed LED, and when you selected another it would flash until it was engaged.
There are some (not many) with an ending arp, a new innovation not found on the Motif series, which work okay, but as with the motif series the arps are very time consuming to locate and implement.
And remember the S series does NOT have a recording sequencer, so you cannot construct your own ending or intro arps. This would have been very handy for constructin simple intros, and "one-shot" endings.
All Yamaha say about this is "if you want to edit arps, buy a motif..." and as far as I can tell haev no intention of even including this in the PC Editor they provide. So if you want the feel and "Live" aspects of the S70, well, tough, according to them, you need to spend another $3k on buying a superfluos keyboard JUST to make a couple of dozen arps.... Or find a very generous Motif XS owner who is willing to do them for you...
In fact, not being able to create my own arps was the main reason for ditching it. Had that been possible, I could have seriously used it for arranger type play. Especially as on all the arragners I have owned I stripped all the styles I used down to 4 parts
.
It is , in my view, a "pre-set" machine, in that you need to forsee what the gig is to be and then set it up BEFORE you go. Very difficult on stage to change a great deal, or edit something easily and speedily "on the fly" as it were.
Again, another Yamaha product that is "NEARLY there" as far as a complete solution, but not quite. Deliberate??? I cannot say as I don't work for Yamaha, but it sure seems that way.
I could not see why they could not include a simple arp editor within the (provided) PC S70/90 XS Editor.
I even made suggestions that owners could PAY for such a software upgrade, but this was met with stony cold silence
Sorry if thats a bit general. But if you have more specific questions you need answered, shoot
Overall, awesome sounding keyboard, great keybed action, but the rest "needs work" in my view.
Dennis
Previous Topic
Index