Having the PA800 as my main board I am not too critical of my added PSR750. That having been said, the only thing that does bug me is the bass response, already mentioned in great detail overhere.

As to the drum issue which this thread is about, I think Yamaha should secretly sample all OLDER KETRON drum samples and apply them in their keyboards. Last year I had the Ketron SD5 (2006) and those drums ( so no audio drums, beware) were absolutely stunning and real..........................

regards,
John

If Ketron were any significant competition to Yamaha, I'd say you were probably right. But the audio feature on Ketron's hasn't equated to a massive spike in sales, and the other manufacturers don't seem to be losing significant market share to them.

Personally, I'm more of the opinion that audio has been added to Yamaha's because it is EASY... The code for audio manipulation is well matured, pretty bombproof (once upon a time, tempo and pitch manipulation of audio resulted in all kinds of nasty artifacts), and engineers versed it its use are commonplace.

Mind you, I said adding the audio features was EASY.... I didn't say it was easy to turn it into something PRACTICAL! Yamaha's engineers obviously found it easy to add the core audio functionality, but apparently found it hard to add the features that would make it of any real use...

And this, finally, cements why I think Ketron had no influence at all Yamaha's decision to go audio drums. Let's face it, if Yamaha had spent any time with a Ketron, they might have actually got it RIGHT! They have ignored every single audio feature on Ketron's that makes it a practical feature - Most of the styles being audio (so you aren't forced to use MIDI styles most of the time), easy import of your own audio into a style, fast, practical loading of new audio styles, and looping capability on the audio.

Yamaha may not even have heard of Ketron (they big in Japan?)!

So where did your sd5 go? They all seem to be hidden now...

I thought the drums in the swing style sounded like they were muted; like being played behind a wall or studio partition.

To me, Keyboardplayer's assessment of the S950 was exactly what I've been thinking, having played it several months. However, I'm keeping mine for now. Except for the sound of the S950, I think I prefer the color and overall layout of the S910 better.

Audio loops saved as MP3...(MS)..Guitar, bass, drums..

nice demo.. ....don't know if it is more advanced enough then this You Tube Yamnaha version Blues Rock,..
For example T2..

Well let's see...since you cannot load , edit, sequence using audio (Wave), on the Yamaha s950...I would say the MS is much more advanced..

The content of the loops is in material...you can use any wave loop...even the few in the s950, if you can ever get them out of the keyboard...

Listening to the Tyros2 demo has no common comparison..ordinary midi seq or style that can easily be beat by any Korg , Roland or Ketron product

BTW: Using audio loops...are way to much trouble...I too rather use PCM samples controlled by midi..