Well, after nearly a week of intense work, I'm getting a lot closer to taking this wonderful machine on the road. I still have some EQ tweaking to do, and work some more on the vocal processor, but thus far, the updates have been a lot easier than I anticipated.

First and foremost, Yamaha has always made their arranger keyboards in such a manner so that all the older styles from both the PSR and Tyros series will play in their newer, MOTL keyboards. The S950, however, seems to take this a step farther in that the old styles sound a lot better in the 950 than they did in the 2000, 3000 and Tyros 1 and 2 keyboards. They're clean, crisp, clear and I heard things within the old styles that I never knew was in them. Believe me, that's a big bonus, especially for some of the song specific styles. The only downside is that now I'll have to go back and listen to a bunch of the older styles again, looking for newer sounds that may really spice up some of the songs I perform regularly.

The Music Finder Directory was directly transferable, which was a real plus for someone that relies heavily on the MFD every day. What was really neat, though, was that when I transferred the third party styles from the 3000's directory, put them on the USB, then put the drive into the 950 it found those styles and entered them into the MFD without me having to intervene - NEAT! The only editing I had to do at that point was to reselect the intro and variation - everything else was automatic. LOVE IT!

Still with the MFD, on previous models when an MFD entry was selected the OTS (one touch setting) link was automatically activated. There is still somewhat of a problem with this, but there is a bit of a workaround so to speak. After selecting the song on the MFD, turn off the OTS link, then select another right hand voice(s) and when you fire up the song, the OTS link does not turn back on. Hopefully, Yamaha will come up with a software update that will solve this problem for this and all other models - it shouldn't be all that difficult from a programming standpoint.

All of my PSR-3000 registrations directly transferred, which was fantastic and saved me a ton of work. With the exception of about 90 songs that utilized third party styles each and every song sounded fantastic, even those that the keyboard selected new styles for. Then, I transferred the third-party styles to the USB drive, and wallah! The S950 found each and every one of them, placed them in the correct registrations and everything was done automatically. WOW!

So, everything considered, I feel it will only be another week or so before this baby goes on the road. At that point I'm confident that I'll get some audience feedback, and believe me, my audiences have been with me for a long time, and none of those folks are the least bit bashful. They'll tell me if something doesn't sound good to them - no bones about it! My other critic, the one whom I rely heavily upon for feedback, is sitting upstairs in the kitchen right now. She'll be coming down to the office/studio to give me a haircut in a little while. I'll do a dozen songs for her, and she'll tell me what I sound like. And, believe me, after more than a half-century of living with this woman I can assure you that she will be very, very critical - one way or another, and you can take that to the bank.

Cheers,

Gary

Gee!. You're wife and mine must be twins.
baz

... aren't they ALL ?!?!?

I got yer backup ready to ship Gar!

(I'm a Korger again!)

I have been anxious for you to find a viable replacement for the 3000 So glad to see your excitement and hear more after your first gig with it! You are always trying to help us all, whether we are pro's or not! Thanks Gary for all you do!

Congratulations Gary never thought I'd see the day you'd find a replacement for your 3000s, enjoy that new board s950.

The S950 is hard to beat!.........Gary make sure you REPLACE & update all of your PSR 3k "factory" styles with the same S950 factory styles first,.....then work on third party.. there is a BIG difference in sound vs the two, for vocals try the
R&R preset,...... good luck.

Donny, with the exception of the third party style files, the MFD and the Registrations all picked up onboard styles from the PSR-S950, therefore, none of the more than 1,200 songs programmed currently use PSR-3000 styles. I didn't transfer any of the 3000 styles to the S-950. I was up till 1 a.m. this morning just going through the registrations, which all sound very, very good thus far. Like I said, still a few things to do, though, before going on the road with this one.

Dave, I have a good backup - I still have a pair of PSR-3000s, but one will probably soon be up for sale if you're interested.

And, yes, my wife has a lot of twin sisters out there - I'm thoroughly convinced of that!

Cheers,

Gary

Gary yes the NEW same styles will utilize the mega voices and more....you will certainly hear the differences ... enjoy.

I would sell my two psr-3000s and by Dave's Psr-s950. It's very convenient to have identical keyboards.

I'm expecting my s950 to arrive any minute now. Unlike Gary, I'm not as much of an editor and will probably only tweak some EQ before using it Thursday afternoon. Then I'm gone for a week before I can get to it. I'm sure I will be spending my down time to read up on new features in the manual and check SZ for more updates from Gary. Surprisingly, I've rediscovered the PSRTUTORIAL site and have started going thru their related pages. Thanks, Gary and Donny for all your helpful info. I look forward to loving this s950 as much as I did the s910.

UPDATE: In an attempt to clear myself of all unnecessary equipment, I am still attempting to sell my Roland BK-5. Make me an offer I can't refuse.

WOW, as I am finishing up this post, the s950 has arrived via UPS. Gotta go, talk to you all soon...

Best of luck and fun with it Cass ...

Cass, Have fun with your new toy!!

good luck Cass you made a very wise choice .....

You're gonna love what you hear, Cass.

Gary

Just ran thru some stuff for about an hour - lovin' it. The internal bass response is much stronger; will that transfer over when I connect it to the Compact? I know I'm semi-stupid, but where in creation is the brightness control? I'm liking the new styles I've tried; very useful stuff. I'm looking forward to Friday when I'll have a chance to really give it a workout and figure what tweaks I want to make.

Thanks everyone for leading me to this upgrade decision.

Still selling the BK-5. Someone's got to want this little cutie... Taking offers.

You MIGHT want to hang on to the BK-5 just a BIT longer... The BK-9's new OS just added a boatload of new features, and maybe some of them will trickle down to the BK-5/3...

No guarantees, but worth the wait, if you can afford it.

Yes, Gary’s observations are insightful and helpful. However, my major wishes are that the vocal section of the S950 was of higher quality and that it included some of the vocal styles and voices of the Tyros 4. I’m content with all the S950 styles and, basically, everything else. Not asking for much---just a wee bit more than what’s there. I’ve even learned to live with the black face and dark buttons. Just memorized their locations in low-light situations and go by “feel”. Maybe the upgrade to the Tyros 4 (whenever) will be appealing to S950 owners. Just make it lighter, include onboard speakers and add $1,000 to the price. I’d bite.

J. Larry, no problem reading the white print above the buttons on a black background, but keep in mind that my console lights the entire top of the keyboard with a soft, white light so that's not a problem.

For me, the vocal voices in the T4 are more gimmicky than useful during live performances, but I guess if they're used sparingly they could provide some pizazz to a few songs during a performance.

I just began working with the mic/vocal harmony section of the S-950, and I sincerely believe with some tuning, those harmonies could be pretty darned good sounding. I'm not convinced they will be as good as the TC Helicon Harmony-M, but if properly used, they could end up being a close second.

Someone posted something about the lack of a brightness and contrast control for the display - there is none on the S-950, but this particular type of display really doesn't require one. However, if you are sitting lower than normal in a chair and playing, they you may have some difficulty seeing the tabs on secondary screens. Other than that, the display is quite brilliant, far better than anything Yamaha has utilized in the past.

One of the things I've noticed is they have a VU-meter on the left side of the main screen display for the mic, something that I really like. You know immediately if you are over-driving, or under-driving your vocals, which is really important when trying to achieve a good balance between the vocals and accompaniment.

I just tried out the onboard audio recorder a few minutes ago and recorded a song that is really popular down in Don Mason's and Paul's part of the world - Amarillo In The Morning. I only spent a brief period of time with the mic/vocal harmony page, and this is just a one-shot recording, no different as if I were on stage. No backing tracks, no special effects other than some reverb on the mic settings - that's it.

Gary

Amarillo In The Morning

Sounds good Gary. Maybe back off the reverb just a bit. The name of it is Amarillo By Morning. What are you a Yankee or somethin'?
DonM

Thanks for posting that one Gary. I've been wanting to add that one to my playlist since I heard Don M play at his country club gig.

When I lived in Palestine, Texas, which was when I first got married, the locals pronounced it Amarilla. I guess it kinda stuck with me.

I'm going to redo the recording and use a lot less reverb. I'll do it later today and post it.

Thanks guys,

Gary

Gary great tune,.....I would say the vocals are a bit OVER Modulated peaking throughout causing distortion & just a bit bottom heavy...nothing some EQ adjustments and gain couldn't fix...otherwise I'm glad your on your way to S950 Happiness!!
The R&R voc setting works for me..

The tendency to use too much reverb is a bit like the tendency to have our RH Parts a bit too loud... It comes from trying to make our performance sound great WHILE WE ARE PLAYING.

Thing is, while you are singing, you not only hear the arranger and your voice with the effects coming out of the speakers (or headphones, if you are using those - you should, so you can turn off the speakers and avoid bleed into the vocal mike if recording at home), but you are ALSO hearing your own 'head voice', that is, the acoustic sound of your voice and what the ears pick up from vibrations going through your head from throat to ears internally...

Now, this 'head voice' gets added into what you are hearing, but of course, it has no effects on it. So this tends to make what YOU hear a bit drier than what is coming out of the speakers (or cans). So, to get a perfect effect level on the recording, you should always set your reverb a bit drier than you actually want to hear..! Then on playback (with the head voice no longer present in your ears) it should be much closer to what you want.

Experiment a bit with it... remember, reverb is really a 'distance' parameter. You want your voice front and center (where singers like to be!), so you don't want to push it to the back with too much reverb!

Try to bed the vocal reverb in with the track... if the style is pretty wet, you can get away with a fair amount on the vocal. But if the style on the whole is not very 'reverb-y', keep your vocal in the same ballpark, and it will all gel together nicely.

Hope this helps.

Thanks everyone, and I really do listen to your comments - I have a notepad page filled with things to do in order to make those improvements you suggested.

Gary

Gary, I didn't expect to hear such a deep baritone; it sounds good.

I played my NH gig today with the 950 out of the box. It was fine, but I didn't realize I had done a few things to the 910. I'll definitely have to tweak a few things before the next job. Thank goodness I have. Almost two weeks vacay before the next job...

Cass, I'm still in the tweaking and tuning process as well. I have a job tomorrow, but the 3000 will be going with me. The following week is relatively light, just three jobs, and the way the weather has been lately, on my days off it will be raining, so I won't be able to sail and spend lots of time on the 950.

Tonight, I worked on the vocal processor for three hours. I'm still not happy with the results, especially when using the Crown CM-311A. The distortion was really noticeable, so I switched mics to my Sennheiser E-855, which seems to be quite a bit cleaner. It probably has something to do with the mic input impedance, and if this is the case, I'll try hooking up my TC Helicon Harmony-M and fire it into the line-in of the keyboard and see if that improves things.

Here's a song I recorded using the onboard recorder and the Sennheiser E-855.

By The Time I Get To Phoenix

Cheers,

Gary

Thanks Brian. I hope to connect the Harmony-M this afternoon when I get home from today's job.

Gary

Honestly I just weened myself off the VH in my act I ain't carrying anymore stuff to a gig...my vocals are strong enough not to need the gimmicy VH, just not worth it to me anymore it just adds another "FAKETIVITY ELEMENT" to my act on top of a arranger KB to the audience.. ...I will however use outboard units like the tc helicon units, to create some killer "backing harmony vocals" tracks at home for live work to play and sing with in songs that require it, versus live style play of which the s950 really shines,.......

Hi Donny, on your pre-recorded tracks that you perform with, why don't you record your "real voice" doing the harmonies? I guess I'm confussed why you don't like to use a VH live but you use it for your pre recorded backing tracks.

Paul you can do so much more "mutitracking" & recoprding your vocal harmonies in studio within the "song mix" then singing them live in real time for "certain song arrangements" leaving you to concentrate on lead vocals and playing keys with your BT "band members"

I have 4 hours worth of pre-recorded backing tracks and many feature harmony that I recorded in real time with a harmonizer, and this allows me to use different approaches to playing these crowd-pleaser songs. I can use guitar, sax, flute, stand out front, play 2 handed piano ... whatever the spirit moves me to do ... Still, I need the option of adding my trademark "Four Freshman-esq" sound on the fly to add some flavor to my shows. I do not think my use of harmony is gimmickry at all, in fact I think it defines my sound, and as much as I am confident in my vocals, I still love the package of me ... with me, me, me and me accompanying ... ME!