This is from the recently released reference manual:

(PSR-S950) Limitations on the Audio part:
• If you select a preset Audio Style as starting data, the Audio part is to be used as is. The Audio part cannot
be deleted, edited and created from scratch.
• The created Style containing the Audio part can be used only via an instrument that supports Audio
Styles as well as the SFF GE format.
• The Audio part cannot be copied from another Style or Section in the ASSEMBLE page. If you want to
use a specific Audio part, make sure to select the corresponding Audio Style before calling up the Style
Creator display.

As I haven't laid hands on the keyboard yet, there is no way of knowing, but I suspect that additional Audio Drum styles will only be available via Expansion Packs that can only be played from the 64MB flash drive. As the manual states, only one Expansion Pack can be on the keyboard at a time, and to change Expansion Packs the keyboard needs to be restarted.

Yamaha's Audio drums implementation does not look that great in the S950.
Big limitations !!!
The Audya is miles ahead.

Larry maybe its time to jump ship and try the Audya....

I can buy two PSR-S950's for less than one Audya, and I don't think the Audya would fit in the trunk of my mid-sized car along with the speakers. The S910 just barely fits.

The Audya sounds like an amazing keyboard though. On par with the Tyros 4.

Hopefully, we will find out soon if the Audio Drum styles can be saved onto the USB or USER memory on the PSR-S950.

Yep... comparing arrangers without taking price into consideration is just not realistic.

Diki,

That's true indeed. Only problem is, now that Yamaha has also mentioned the word "audio", the only thing most can think of to compare it against is the Audya, which is indeed, like you say, not right price wise.

I really do not think for a moment it's a case of the Audya versus the S950, but rather Yamaha's application of audio versus Ketron's. Like someone said before, a more appropriate comparison would be against the SD range, of which I know very little.

I think everyone looks at the s950 and try to determine where Yamaha would go next, hoping for a full on competitor for the Audya. I believe competition is good as it is always to the advantage of the end user.

Keep well my friend,

Henni

According to the manual, there will be 25 audio styles, however I was unable to find the names of those styles. Anyone find them?

By audio styles, someone mentioned only the drum part will be audio? Is this fact, or speculation?

If a fact, I wonder what happens to the audio drums if we try to edit a recording in a computer program, example Cakewalk?

I've been wondering how Yamaha will EQ these new audio drum tracks. Will the drums have a sizzling sonic sound or will they be compressed in an attempt to put them more in line with the drum tracks of all the non-audio styles? I guess we'll know soon.

I would imagine that the Audio Drum styles are the styles that don't appear on the T4 or any other instrument.

The S950 supposedly has a guitar enhancement technology with more realistic sounds. I don't know if the improved guitar sounds are only on the brand new styles or are carried over into other styles. I believe the new guitar technology is still MIDI and not uneditable audio recordings.

I'm sure that you can edit the effects on the audio drum part, but if you were to isolate the drums and then edit them with Cakewalk or Melodyne, how could you insert the edited drum part back into the style - especially if the Audio Drum parts can only reside on the keyboards hard drive and in the expansion drive and can only be part of an expansion pack?

In one of the pieces of literature on the S950 Yamaha boasts that you can even play Audio Drum styles from the Expansion drive. That makes me infer that you cannot play audio drum styles from USB.

I have a feeling that Yamaha is creating a technology that cannot be copied.

I expect that the only Audio Drum styles will come via expansion packs, and the only way to be able to play as many of these as you wanted during a performance will be with the successor to the T4 as the S950 only allows one expansion pack at a time.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that you can get future Audio Drum styles individually from Yamaha, and that third party programmers will create ways that these parts can be spliced and edited.

the proof will be in the demos