Hey Diki I agree with you for sure here but I think Korg have undercut them self by saying "50 new styles"...

the truth is they probably still kept the rest of the styles from the PA 2X's names the same but re worked most of the style parts to make them sound different.

Yamaha Do this with the Tyros 3 - 4... Tyros 4 probably only has about 50-100 "new" styles but the remaining 200-300 still have the same name as the previous model but they could sound completely different...

I Doubt that every style ported across from the PA2X into the 3X will sound the same. There will be re voicing and complete new arpeggios / loops etc...

this is something you cant really tell until you go into a store and play one. But it is definitely something I have noticed over the years with upgrading Yamaha PSR and Tyros Keyboards...

Nick

CAPS LOCK IS ANNOYING, WHY ALL THIS SHOUTING?

Btw,
agree, arranger keyboards are about styles, that's why it's an arranger, or...?

Hey how about not posting in ALL CAPS ... and please don't quote yourself ... that is like "forum masturbating" !!!!!!! Strike One, Strike Two ...... You know what comes next.

Quantity of new styles too me is not as imprtant as the whole mix in there...how good are they ALL and how do they utilise the new sunds?
We will not know until we get or hands on one...and some good youtube and official demos come out. Youtube demos/songs can be outstanding IF done corretly by someone who knows what they are doing.

Here is a good example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUSxxRPtsac&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
And:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR7X9fCpbyw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

THis one shows lots of orchestral voices too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVbJLg8bXiI&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

If you listen to all his songs...I think you get a pretty good idea of what a T3 and T4 sound like.

Audio wise..no not as good as live...but pretty well done!
I would like the same on PA3...I'm probably hoping for too much.

Lee S.

Well, anyone that sees '50 new styles' and DOESN'T think that many of the previous ROM styles are re-worked to leverage the new sounds and capabilities hasn't been around arrangers for very long..!

BUT.... to be fair, I have never heard a re-worked style, especially one that one is intimately familiar with the previous incarnation of it, sound TRULY significantly better than the original. Yes, there's a nice improvement, but it often seems like the arranger manufacturers use these updated styles as a reason NOT to make new ones. Often little more than changing sounds of the old style is done, and Lord knows, we can do that ourselves pretty easy!

What I'd like is a completely NEW ROM set of styles, backwards compatibility with the old ones, and for those too lazy to edit the old styles themselves, an option to BUY the previous set, already tweaked for the new arranger.

But, sadly, you think 50 NEW styles, what are the odds that possibly 50% or more of those are in genre's you have no use for? So, you got 25 NEW styles you can use. Humbug! I payed $3500 for 25 new styles??!

Not good enough. Not good enough by FAR, IMO....

(and before this breaks down into a 'mine is bigger than yours', be honest... Just how many TOTALLY new styles did the T4 introduce - not re-works - or the Audya, or any new arranger?)

As crippled as arrangers are, compared to their WS siblings, what you are primarily paying for is CONTENT. And you aren't honestly getting a lot for it, I fear.

I've spent quite a bit of time playing Tyros 4, and they did indeed include quite a few new styles. Most of them are in categories I don't use much though. I was expecting a lot out of the new drum kit, but on many of the country styles, I had to look in the mixer to see what kit was being used. Sure enough it was the new Live one, but my ears had trouble hearing the difference.
Yes there are many thousands of Yamaha styles floating around, but they aren't going to sound any better on a new keyboard unless you take the time to edit each one.
Even with the Audya, I find about half of the styles I use are carried over from the SD series. At least Ketron went to the trouble to tweak them for the Audya though.
I'm glad we have so many good choices, even though none of them will ever be perfect.
DonM

exactly. In a few years, all these 'closed architecture' keyboards will be a thing of the past.
And yes, it's nuts spending £ 3500 on an instrument , reselling it after 3 years and losing £ 1500 on it, plus forking out another £ 1000.

As fast as computer 'architectures' change, anyone thinks an 'open' system future-proofs them is a bit optimistic.

Let's just take the expansion slots as an example. In the last ten years, there have been FOUR new, totally incompatible slots for computers, from PCI through to PCI-e (or whatever is newest, I can't keep track of them all!). There have been three changes to USB. There have been innumerable chipset changes, and some significant differences between different CPU architectures.

These are where your soundcards go, where your storage peripherals and external controllers come into the system, where the raw computation of the entire machine resides. Not exactly 'future-proof' by any means...

Secondly, you have to take into consideration the enormous COST of developing the sounds, styles (especially the styles) and the OS of any of these arranger products. If the development costs are ONLY paid for by minor upgrade fees, that's a DRASTIC loss of revenue compared to what a manufacturer gets by selling you an entire NEW keyboard to go along with those styles and sounds and features. Now, you might THINK the closed arranger manufacturers are greedy bastards who are just out to rape you, but that money is NEEDED... I mean, just take a look at just how POOR all the included content is with open arrangers, how unintegrated and piecemeal it is, how it compares very poorly to a closed one. All that extra money that buying the closed arranger is going towards some VERY important 'software' features. Ones that, without that higher cost, are being short-changed on the open arranger.

There's both sides to this coin, all is NOT nirvana in open-land, and wishing that the same amount of work be done for you for a tiny fraction of the price is dreaming in the extreme.

Don,

Carol told me the third thing to go was the hearing. She said the second thing to go was the mind, and I don't remember what the first thing was.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be global tuning software within any keyboard's OS for just the drum kits--at least none that I know of. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Fortunately, registrations can do some wonderful things, and there's lots of ways to utilize and access them.

Cheers,

Gary

So...how many styles do you need?
Well, I bet most of us use maybe 50 styles total?
What's important is whether the ones you like/need are there.

Same goes for sounds...give me 100 top notch sounds that don't have damm problems with them...don't need 1,000 sounds.
How many sounds are in a full orchestra + an average band...
Add different pianos, E-pinos, some ethnic stuff...100 wound be enough if all of them were top notch and useable for lots of songs.

To me quality is more important than quantity.
Lee S.