If you could design your own TOTL Arranger Workstation, irrespective of price, what feature(s) would it it have?


No promises, but they've asked me and I'm asking you.

Steve Deming

The registration memory buttons need to be back underneath the screen. This one issue has hampered what I can do significantly on the Tyros 4. No sliders needed. They do double duty with the existing buttons.

Having a Music Finder feature as is done on the Korg's Songbook. Especially, to be able to hook up an ipad or laptop and use apps like unreal book to pull up the lead sheet and set up the keyboard all at once.

http://www.synthzone.com/forum/ubbthread...lect#Post342636

Also, to be able to do more globally such as increase the drum volume across the board.

To have it so that more standard samples can be used.

To be able to have the full title of a song in a style file instead of having to skip words and abbreviate.

I don't know how deep editing goes on Yamahas, but, from what seems to be generally acknowledged, it's not even close to that on Korg. So that might be the way to go.

Then again, from the gist of forums over the years I get the impression that Yamaha devotees are not as interested in deep editing. Who knows for sure?

Although functional, the user interface could use a major update. It looks outdated.

Improved DAW integration and a decent easy to use 'functional' onboard sequencer would be appreciated as well. Both suggestions would benefit from a larger high res screen.

Besides the regular sounds & styles updates, this are my two 'realistic' wishes. In general i'm satisfied.

Best Regards,

Joost

Steve,
Number one is great drum kits, that sound live--my pet peeve. T4 is an improvement, but there is still room for more!
Registration system could use updating, with option to call up registrations numerically. You have to go through too many steps to make changes and save them.
Copy Korg PA3X songbook and Roland Chord Sequencer.
Full time volume sliders for style parts and lead parts.
Two XLR mic inputs, at least one with phantom power.
A smaller footprint. Tyros has WAY too much wasted space. You can't even put it in a 61-note bag, and it won't fit on a lot of stands.
Personally I prefer a Joystick to Wheels, but not a big thing.
Have the pads under the keys been updated? If you use a PSR for very long, it will need the pads replaced, regardless of how light a touch you have.
Ability to replace, delete, edit factory styles.
Tyros 4 vocal harmonizer is way better than the old one, but still a little short of Ketron, Roland and Korg.
Of course, hold on to the many things you've got right!
Thanks,
DonM

Steve,

The only things I would improve on would be:

1. The Vocal Processor/Harmonizer to mimic the TC Helicon Harmony-M, or better yet, Voice-Live.

2. Drum editing features that would allow the user to edit all segments of the drums.

3. The ability to select any voice in the keyboard and place it with the Style's OTS settings without first going to the Style Creator Program first and creating a user style.

4. Expand the capabilities of the Music Finder Directory to where it can save Transpose, and also link to MIDI files.

5. Two XLR mic inputs, one with phantom power, or simply a phantom power switch that can activated. I would prefer two inputs, though, one for a guest mic that can be set up independently.

6. An auxiliary, stereo input that has it's own, independent volume adjustment, slider or electronic--either is fine.

7. A User Style button that takes you directly to the User Style area instead of going through a Style Page, then tabbing to User - too many button pushes for live performers.

Overall, I'm impressed with both the sound and quality of Yamaha's PSR and Tyros series, and I believe Yamaha should be applauded for the great strides they've made of the past two decades.

Gary

My wishes (many of which I have been requesting and posting for years) are as follows:

- PLEASE alphabetize the styles on all the style categories. The current random order is a pain when sifting through 5 or 6 pages of styles

- desperately need a SEARCH feature to quickly find styles, songs, etc

- allow all OTS to be customized and saved to the built in styles. change the deal of having to create copies of styles to do this

- more robust and useful Music Finder. As mentioned, look to Korg for how well it should be done.

- more assignable options to the sliders and the wheels. Everytthing should be assignable.

- a couple or 4 assignable buttons for you to customize per your choice

- map the tempo increase/decrease to the pedal. a way to more easily and smoothly vary the tempo during a song would go a long way in reducing the mechanical feel

- fix the sliders so they do not "jump" in and out when you first move them. makes using them frustrating and can produce huge unexpected variations in track volumes.

- increase user memory A LOT. Or ditch it all together if it isn't needed. It's just another tab to pass by when pushing buttons

- allow HD and or USB drive to be the first tab that is displayed when going to voices/files, etc. Always having to tab past internal, user, HD to get to USB takes too long.

- finally, get rid of all the menu choice buttons along the bottom of the screen and return to allowing all those be page buttons only. On some menus, you see only 2 or 3 pages and have to continually hit next over and over to get to a given page. All 8 buttons at the bottom of the screen should go to pages 1-8, 8-16, etc.

- put the on/off switch back on top

- please do something better than the existing speakers. they suck

and I also like the idea of a clock but it should be internal so that the styles and files would have the true date & time on them.

Tom G.

And three more...

- PLEASE alphabetize the styles on all the style categories. The current random order is a pain when sifting through 5 or 6 pages of styles

- desperately need a SEARCH feature to quickly find styles, songs, etc

- allow all OTS to be customized and saved to the built in styles. change the deal of having to create copies of styles to do this

And one more thing...

PLEASE fix the annoying sound thump when switching from certain OTS settings. Any Yamaha player knows what I mean there area certain styles and OTS that when you change variations you will hear an annoying loud sound and not a smooth transition. I don't know the technical term, but some have suggested this results from the effects settings on var 1 changing abruptly on var 2. Whatever it is, fix it. Korg, Roland and Technics have managed to avoid this. If Yamaha can't fix this, DO NOT SET UP THE built in OTS on any style that will cause this.

Tom G.

Sorry if I may have repeated a few of my requests above. It just shows how important they are to me!

Tom G.

Steve here are mine:
(1) Dedicated Bass Inversion button on the console

(2) A new chord recognition mode that EXACTLY mirrors Roland's "Chord Intelligence." (Yamaha's AI Fingered is close but not exactly the same, and thus it's a deterrent to switching brands.)

(3) "Batching" of chord input to prevent premature triggering of unintended chords. This problem can be ameliorated by a user adjustable delay from real time up to about 60ms (0.06 seconds.) I believe Korg batches their chord note input, and the software arranger Live Styler has a user-adjustable delay window. For more details see this post:
http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php?topic=8234.msg56366#msg56366

(4) The ability to correct the chord track associated with a real-time "quick" recording, after the fact. This could be accomplished with a fuller implementation of the "Chd" tab, which I believe is currently limited to step recording. Korg models presently have this capability.

Thanks for asking! -Ted