Ian,

Wersi's specifications aren't what their OAS instruments can "allegedly do", it's what they can actually do. Considering your constant negativity of nearly all brands but your beloved Yamaha, you'd certainly question whether a Ferrari 458 Spider has nearly 600 HP and can go 200 MPH. With that kind of attitude I'm certain even if a mate of yours owned one they'd never offer you a ride.

It behooves you to constantly profess Yamaha as the panacea and other brands inferior simply because you haven't seen or played them all. Still there's no shortage of snide quips, inaccuracies, and baiting from you in an attempt to lessen other brands.

Call me foolish but I'm the type to actually try a product be it an arranger keyboard or a sports car before I can conclude it's not as specified. In some instances specifications can tell a story, such as the Tyros 5 lacking loop and record features for audio styles and a Voice Creator, or a Ferrari 458 being infinitely faster than a VW Beetle. Specifications aren't the end all be all but they are a good basis to make some judgments from.

Most manufacturers, including Yamaha, will usually tout specifications of what a product can do so they can market it to those that want to know and make informed purchase decisions. While not always true, if specifications aren't given about particular features, chances are the product can't or doesn't have those features. The Tyros 5 can't host VST's, doesn't offer 24 Bit 96K recording, doesn't have a large touch screen, doesn't have 16 real drawbars, doesn't support up to 32GB of sample RAM, doesn't offer full synthesis capabilities with real time controls, and can't play audio and sample files from nearly every current file format. If it could, you can be assured Yamaha would have listed that in their specifications and sales brochure.

Why not take the time and make the effort to personally see a particular brand in person before slagging it? If you're unwilling to do so, why not do the prudent thing and zip your mouth shut rather than spew unfounded rhetoric. You'd be doing the Synthzone community a service rather than disservice.

Ensnareyou,

It appears we can surmise by your reply that you aren't going to post anything to show what your Wersi can do.

That is very disappointing.

Thanks anyway.

Ian

Thank you for the link, its obvious that they are still improving the oas system. Not only 16 vsts plus effects, but also you can use the vst effects on the standard wersi instruments. And i agree with you that the 13" touchscreen on the sonic just looks devine.

Is it still possible to use any Yamaha style out of the box on OAS?
Does the native sound system have something comaparable to SA2? (because the native soundsystem is what powers the styles, and for an arranger the most important part of sounding good, is its style section, thats what defines an arranger. And to make those styles sound more dynamic and reallive SA2 or DNC sounds or whatever you call it isa requirement these days)

With the vst improvements you can actually have any high quallity sound possible on your Oas instrument. Just wondering how you bind real time controll to the vst settings, can i assign drawbars to vst instrument knobs/parameters or is it only possible to controll them over the screen? Or can i use an external midi device with knobs to directly controll the parameters on the OAS instrument?

I have allways been interested in wersi, but due to its high prices i never got to own one. But if they ever release a new abacus pro with an attachable 2nd keyboard 76 keys.

I actually am happy wersi is making this come back and hoping that music store can give the brand the marketing it needs, because wersi has a huge advantage on all other major brands now its OAS is finally becomming rockstable and extremely user friendly, and still gaining more features.

Nice demos, sad thing is that a top player like Barta on the Wersi barely makes use of the style feature, and thats what we want to hear.

Hi Bachus

The full details are still a bit sketchy of what it can do, however if you can do it on a Workstation then you can probably do it on the Sonic in Expert mode.

Each voice can have up to 64 layers and (Not 100% sure on this) 51 different effects that can be combined.

Not known if Yamaha style compatibility has been carried over from OAS 7 and Pegasus Wing.

I believe you can route anything anywhere and customise the screen layout per pre-set. (Don’t quote me on this though)

It runs on the latest Windows 8 (64bit) platform.

Hopefully more details will be forthcoming in the near future, including some demos of the finished version, as the sounds of the prototypes are nothing to write home about. (The few that have heard it say the sounds are something else, however as everybody had to sign a non-disclosure agreement we will have to wait and see)

Bill

Bachus,

The advantage of a Wersi is being able to set it up and utilize whatever features you want or need and not be stuck with what you don't want. The factory sounds are great but if you want to take it to the ultimate level, load Kontakt, Omnisphere, or East West VST's in and be done with it. You can use an external ccontroller as well as the onboard Wersi controls and touch screen to adjust VST parameters but you'd need to set that up. For some sound options such as organ expansions Wersi has already set these parameters up for you to make it easier.

Personally I rarely use factory styles unless I'm fleshing out a song for the first time. I find most any arranger styles atrocious no matter what manufacturer be it Yamaha, Korg, Roland, etc.. Wersi is no exception.

You can use Yamaha styles directly with OAA but to get the most out of them you'd still want to set up which sounds they'll play back to sound their best. The same would be true if you converted a Korg style to a Yamaha product.

Music Store is making great strides in updating an already spectacular instrument. The Sonic is pushing the limits of what's available today.

I'd love to see Music Store work with NI, Omnisphere, or East West to directly integrate their VST's so they could make it the best OOTB experience anyone has ever heard. There simply isnt any other arranger that can compete with this technology.

Another thing I'd like to see is a fully integrated audio recorder with at least 64 tracks. The integrated recorder they have now is too limited in tracks. I can of course load a program that has more features but a fully integrated system is more beneficial.

This sounds like a wonderful instrument and uses wonderful, ground-breaking technology. I fear its market is really limited to those relative few who will take the time and spend the money to seek it out, then develop it fully to their own needs.
To be really successful on a large scale, Wersi will most likely have to work on the OOTB package so there is more appeal to a vast market of users, not just the technophobes (and I use this term in a complimentary manner!) Then, they will have to find a way to market and distribute it worldwide.
It seems to me there are some similarities to the Ketron situation, where there is an excellent product that reaches a limited segment of the market.
Hope this makes sense. Go Wersi! Keep up the good work! I am past the point of wanting to make this kind of investment of time and money, but the long-term future of arrangers may well be in the balance, as we grey-beards die off and gracefully exit the market.

I've seen these videos already (I am interested, you know? ), but thanks for the effort.

These sound very good, but, not a lot of Wow, I'm afraid, at least to my ears, and considering these are pretty expensive instruments, the "bang for the buck" seems rather low to me as well, but of course, the purpose behind these keyboards is being able to upgrade using software, and maybe hardware too, and therein lies the value.

That is why I requested hearing the personal instruments used by Billy Abacus and Ensnareyou, as I figured they'd have them loaded up with impressive goodies, such as the VST's that were bandied about here, and some great style demonstrations with conversions with styles from the Yamaha Tyros etc.

Look guys, I'm in no way slagging your keyboards, because, firstly, I haven't heard them to be able to give an opinion, and secondly, and, just as important, I always thought it was a good thing for people to be so interested in the instrument you play (and are very proud of) that they are always asking to hear it.

That's a compliment, guys, yet it appears to make you both defensive, although perhaps I am seeing it wrong.

I have even asked to have these Abacus examples, demos or tunes (whatever you want to call them) sent to me privately, in case there is any fear of some kind of unfair or bad comments, especially by the anti-arranger crew...but was simply refused.

Now, I only play a regular old Tyros4 (and formerly a PSR-S910), but I've been very willing to share music I created on them, both privately and on the forums, and believe me, I don't mind one bit if these Abacus instruments you have blow my arrangers into the weeds.

In fact, with all the impressive specs quoted and the VST's you both have loaded in, I'd be disappointed if they didn't.

These Wersi instruments in the videos definitely "look" impressive, but, unfortunately, most people do not hear with their eyes. And, again, the instruments in the videos do sound pretty darn good, but, again, not much that would make me go Wow!

So, keep your music and your instruments to yourselves, if you wish...my sincere apologies if I seemed to be pressuring either of you into uploading something when you didn't want to, or you felt uncomfortable about in any way.

Best wishes, and happy playing,

Ian