Hi,

Hope I am finding you all well.

I posted a while ago that I was debating whether to get a PA900 or PSR-S950....

Well after much thought, analysis, demo viewing and research (as well as reading all the great comments here), I have purchased the S950 to go along with my T3.

I think as much as the PA900 is an awesome bit of kit, I didn't want to deviate too much with something totally different again like I have done in the past. I thought about the most important thing I would need and that is cross system compatibility but in a slightly more portable form. The T3 (for me) has been all I've ever wished for or needed from an instrument after many years of swapping and changing, the T3 is everything I wanted from an instrument and will always stay with me. I now wanted a 'backup' or 'clone' of the T3 but more portable and it seems the S950 is just that (and probably more). I hope that the S950 will play the T3 styles comfortable and with minimal tweaking.

Believe me though, I have been so close to buying a T4 many times but in the end I came to the same conclusion that the additions on the T4 over the T3 wouldn't justify changing it as I don't think I would use them all except for some of the new sounds and styles. Although there are clear differences between the two, I don't think they are a mile apart from each other and in some cases they sound identical.

I am guessing though with the T5 it will be something special but it's going to be way above what I would want it for although I am not sure if the Audio route is completely feasible especially if it takes away the editing ability of the style, if all the internal styles will be audio then editing will be severely limited (or they may treat it like SA sounds and add in a few at a time with each new model).

Hopefully I will have the S950 in the next few days or even tomorrow!

One quick question, how do you obtain the free premium pack that you're entitled to when you purchase this keyboard? Will the instructions come with the keyboard on how to get this?

Thanks,
Danny

Great choice good luck

Thanks Dnj. It will be nice to have built in speakers again although it isn't a factor anymore, I got used to it when I had the i30 back in the day (still miss that keyboard funnily enough).

The S950 is a killer arranger KB!!...once you learn it's language it's hard to beat. keep us posted on your progress, questions, etc...

Danny,

You're gonna love what you hear.

Gary

Ditto.

Well I've had the S950 for a week now and i'm not sure what to make of it however I must be true to my word when I said I would be very happy with a keyboard that's a mini version of the T3 and in effect that's what I have. So I am not going to criticise it for being exactly what I was looking for.

There are though a few things I am slightly disappointed with. Firstly, I don't like the feel of the keys, they are too light and flimsy for my liking, or perhaps I've forgotten what a mid range model feels like these days as the last mid range keyboard I owned was a PSR-620 way back in the 90's! I didn't think I would notice the lack of aftertouch but it is very noticeable especially if you've used TOTL's for many years.

Another small gripe is that I don't think this keyboard has any of the sounds from the T4? That's fine but then why include styles from the T4 that originally uses the specific T4 sounds? For example, ChillPerformer (one of my favourite styles of all time) on the S950 sounds a complete mess as most of the voices used in that style are the new ranges of voices specifically from the T4's E.Piano and Pad sections & after comparing the data lists the S950 has none of those sounds and what Yamaha have substituted the sounds with just sounds totally awful. Luckily the version I reworked on my T3 which sounds really close to the T4 works perfectly fine on the S950 too as do many others so that makes up for it!

Would have been nice to add a few decent choir and vocal sounds, it just has the exact same ones from the T3, infact, I think a less few than the T3! I hope an expansion pack will be available to rectify this as it's something I would use.

Overall I can't complain though, the above were just nice to haves and I think I made the right choice in the end.

You didn't forget what a mid priced arranger's keys feel like... you forgot what a Yamaha mid range keybed feels like!

Every other arranger manufacturer includes a decent keybed on its mid-price arrangers... some even on the BOTL are better than those $2000 PSR's. Had a friend bring over his S950 recently to A/B it with my BK-9. He could not believe how bad his PSR felt once he played my BK-9..!

Yamaha are shafting you guys. Time to take a stand.

Nothing wrong with the lightning fast Keybed of the S-950 I actually love it..

I guarantee that you can play as fast on any other plastic keybed. I know I can! Having played the S950 and the BK-9, the only difference between them is there is no FEEL to the PSR keybed. I feel utterly disconnected to the sound. But I can easily play as fast on the BK-9.

But keep 'defending' your manufacturer's decision to shaft you... I'm sure they are happy as sandboys thinking of all the money they have saved, passing off toy keybeds on you at $2K a pop, and don't really want to raise their game and be competitive with other mid priced arrangers.

Sometimes, this kneejerk 'nothing wrong with MY arranger' BS actually works against you. I guarantee, were your PSR keybed replaced with a quality one, you would be JUST as happy about it... Because it would be a Yamaha! But keep Yamaha immune to criticism, and what exactly is their incentive to improve it?

Nothing.

Diki thats where your wrong for me anyway when I play.. ...I feel a HUGE Connection between the SOUND and the Keybed on the S950 ....that's the "sonic magic" between your fingers, brain, and sound...it's hard to explain.

Try a BK-9, Donny.

A class keybed, and great connection without a toy keybed to leave you with little tactile feel.

You can get USED to anything, Donny. You really deserve to get USED to something good... Keep making excuses for Yamaha, you never will.

Diki ...I've played and performed with many many KBs thru the years on stage, with groups and solo, ....with many different key-beds,...I still prefer the lightest touch for my style of playing which I enjoy, there are NO Rules what ever you feel comfortable with playing, ..it's like strings on a guitar individual taste,....get used to it sure I can and have done so many times, enjoy it?.. no way!...it's all about what the music "sounds like" no matter what gear or keybed is being used to create it, fingers FEEL, ears LISTEN ,.

Hi all,

I thought I would add some more comments to this thread...

Spending a bit more time with the S950 and it's a joy to use. Everything seems quicker than the T3, reactions of the buttons, menu options, selecting styles etc. etc.. all just seems to flow at speed. On the T3, I am now finding the plastic buttons on the display clunky and lacklustre in comparison!

Something that I've also noticed, I apologise if it's been discussed before I may have missed it. I am finding that on the S950 the GM/XG sounds are very clear and vibrant compared to the T3 where they sound thin and almost in the background. For example, compare the S950's primary Piano sound to it's XG counterpart and they sound almost identical. I only really noticed this because I still have many styles that I've downloaded and not modified yet but I found playing them on the S950 in a lot of cases didn't really need modifying much if at all! I've almost always had to modify downloaded styles on the T3 as I thought those GM and XG sounds sounded lifeless. I have no idea how this compares on the T4 but certainly the S950 seems to play downloaded styles significantly better than they do on the T3 !

The only slight downside is that I prefer the sounds of the Drums on the T3, they sound more realistic and tighter (with the exception of the Real Drums sample), the other equivalent's such as Acoustic, Power etc.. sound better on the T3, or at least to my ears they do. Not a problem at all considering its not a TOTL board, just more of an observation.

The S950 is a great keyboard and I am liking it more and more.

All the best,
Danny

Danny, Good post and I couldn't agree more - the S-950 is one Hell of a machine.

Cheers,

Gary

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your comments.

I've been spending a bit more time with it tonight and it really an awesome instrument only spoilt by the fact that it hasn't got any of those lovely vocal or choir voices it badly needs which does surprise me considering that it does feature quite a few styles from the T4, it would have been great to add even a couple of decent vocals. It's such a shame but I hope that Yamaha creates a vocal & choir pack for the S950 something like I've got for my T3/T4 as it badly needs it.

Been playing around with the audio styles and they're not as locked down as I thought, you can edit the tracks but it will only let you save it to the internal memory, at least it's something.

It would be good if from here it gave you the ability to save the modified styles into an expansion pack type format so that it can free memory for other things but guessing this isn't possible? I've not looked into it yet.