Its been released and people still are complaining just seeing demos, no one has one yet....and really people?.. what more could you ask for in an arranger KB and WHY may I ask?

Thoughts ?

Donny anybody who complains about this unit is plain crazy its going to be great lot of very nice upgrades I am looking forward to it T5 76 FOR ME.

Ron agreed !!

I was wondering about the same thing ... when someone posts "It's good but I expected more..." it would be nice if they said what it was they expected and where the unit falls short ...

I expected more audio, not only drums. I expected midi loops that could simply be browsed into a style. No, I don't havr a Yamaha now, but these would really have made for a serious upgrade.

Henni

I think the upgrades are very good, and in keeping with Yamaha's policy of the new arranger not suddenly making the last model suddenly obsolete.

But, for those thinking it needs more, or who want something with a different overall sound, there certainly are other fine 76-note arranger choices available in the PA3Xpro and, for those on a more stringent weight and dinero budget, Roland's cute little MOTL BK-9.

Ian

Ok. since you asked.
I'm not really into the big production stuff that sounds like a cinema or that it was done in a full-scale production studio. Sounds as if this would be terrific for that.
I do like the guitar sounds, but they were already great in previous models.
I still don't like the size of the case, though weight isn't bad.
They are not telling us in the demos whether they are using audio drums or midi. The ones that sound really good are probably audio. If they are midi, then there are improvements. If they are audio, then there probably aren't enough of them and new ones probably can't be easily obtained or created. I'm still not hearing the realism of Ketron, Roland, Korg, as far as listening to a live combo-type band. In all fairness, maybe they just aren't demoing it in that manner.
I think the vocal hits or yells are hokey and not really usable much in many real situations. At least not in my real situations. I didn't use the ones on Audya either. As far as the lead-type vocal sounds, I still much prefer the triple-touch function that Roland uses, where you can switch between three options via varying key pressure. I'm hoping we are only seeing and hearing the tip of the iceberg and that are other great things to be discovered.
The double midi/audio player is old news, and I don't use the one I have. DJs might. And they might use the voice cancel feature, although I have yet to see one that works very well. If you are doing DJ stuff primarily there are far better options than an arranger keyboard.
I'm sure the samples that can be loaded are still in a proprietary format.
Multiple line outs are nice. They may be catching up with Ketron and Korg. They make it sound ground-breaking. It's not.
Still no facility for adding light-weight, low-cost foot controller with multiple functions, as far as I can see.
It does sound really great, if you want to hear a polished song that sounds as if it were done in a big studio, yet retain live control of everything. It would be amazing in a studio environment and probably put lots of mediocre pickers out of work. However, the studios are not going to do that, because they look down their noses at arrangers.
I don't think it sounds that much different from previous Yamahas, but there is absolutely no fair way to evaluate this or any other arranger without sitting down and playing it. THEN if it blows your mind, it means something.
Just an opinion of a tired old guy.
DonM

I wish Yamaha kept the "jewel" industrial design and make the Tyros look more edgy (pun intended). Seems since T2 every iteration seems more and more bland. It's a flagship - make it look like one.

As I have pointed out in the past...

Limiting multipad audio to one shots, and no loop capability should be the one thing ALL Yamaha users should clamor to have added

Why should be obvious...

I'm one of the people underwhelmed with the T5, so I will try to answer your question:

First thing you need to know is that almost all the innovations on the T5 (audio multipads, time stretching, pitch shifting, audio styles, new DSP section) have already been available on the s950 for a year - so they aren't quite innovations that are getting us excited.

- My biggest problem is the fact that the Audio multipads cannot be looped or programed to start at the beginning of a measure (like MIDI ones can). Not to mention that you can't time stretch or pitch shift them. This is such a pity because the technology is available in other places on the keyboard and these features would completely change the way we use our keyboards. These features (or even just one of them) would be a game changer. The way it is now, it's just a limited tease.

- Lack of memory. The Tyros 3 released in 2007 had 6MB of User Ram - which was too little even back then. The 2013 T5 has how much? You guessed it - 6MB. At a time when memory is SO CHEAP, this is just a joke. By contrast the Korg Pa2x had 20MB, and the Pa3x 256MB. The reason USER memory is so important is because it is instantaneous. Running a style from the HD takes a lag of a second or two which could mean your new style starts a measure late.

- 1GB of Flash RAM. Some of us were really hoping for more memory. Considering that I already had 1GB of RAM installed on my T2 (launched around 2004/5), we figured in 2013 we could get at least 2GB as is available on the Motif. Those of us who are heavy pro users are having our options greatly reduced by this limitation.

- Size: I fly to many of my gigs. This year alone I flew 80,000 miles in the USA and Canada alone with my T4. Problem is the Tyros is oversize which can cost up to an extra $200 EACH WAY ($400 round trip). (The Korg Pa3x by contrast comes in undersize and can be flown with for free).

- Drums: This doesn't bother me so much anymore as I spent a lot of time and money sampling my own drums which are a thousand times more punchy and real sounding than Yamahas. But I just don't understand why Yamaha doesn't get it - even Yamaha knows that real drums are necessary (which is why we now have Audio styles), so why don't they give us punchier drums kits (like Korg, Roland, Audya and others). The T5 doesn't even have ONE extra drum kit over the T4, which is the first time this has ever happened in the history of Yamaha TOTL arrangers.

- iPad editing: I wish we could plug the T5 into an ipad and edit the sounds and styles (the way that can be done with a PC). I haven't yet seen an app for this on iTunes or Yamahas website.

- I read the entire owners manual, reference manual, and data list and see NO instructions on making custom audio styles. If this is indeed the case, the Audio styles on the T5 are just a gimmick. Power users and ethnic musicians do not rely on Yamaha's styles - I perform 150 shows a year and very rarely will use a Yamaha style (except for the new EuroPack which I highly recommend). If I cannot create my own custom audio styles, I really have no use for the feature at all.

These are the things that bother me the most. There are other things that bother other people depending on their preferences and on how they use the keyboard. For people such as yourself and others here that use the Tyros "out of the box" or "plug and play", this is an AWESOME keyboard. For professionals on the other hand, this keyboard is a walled garden.

I hope that answers your question.