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.