Most of you in this forum have a lot more experience than me..that said...

It appears to me, with what understanding I do have, that most arranger upgrades within the same model are really just software upgrades.

For instance, Tyros 4 to Tyros 5, really just a software upgrade?

Korg PA2X to Pa3X just a software upgrade?

These would be just two examples.

Any thoughts?

Tx

Hi

The "upgrades", as you called, are beyond Cosmetics and Software upgrades, at least as Yamaha concerns, there are new features, as an example:
In Tyros 5 vs Tyros 4 we find :

Audio link in Multipads (Not in T4)
Organ world (Also not in T4)
Ensamble Section (Not in T4)
New DSPs (Digital signal processors) This alone makes the instrument sound much better.
More S.A.2 Voices (Super Articulations Second Generation)
Audio Styles (Not in T4)
More sounds over all sections (Not in T4)
New Processors that make the instrument boot up much faster (Those Tyros2 users would remember, of course the ones with the optional memory loaded), and in other areas as well.
Etc.....

All this features can not be added through Software.

I am not up to date on the Korg models....so, somebody else may be able to clear that out too.

While we allways want more and new things, the way both Korg and Yamaha upgrade their systems has one very strong point.... Backward compatibillity. Whenever i switch to the newer system, i can take all my personalised sounds and settings with me... I still can use that 8 year old T2 style on my T5 because its still there. Thats a very good thing..

And while for the untrained eye/ear the upgrades seem small, i think for example the upgrade from T4 to T5 was the biggest ever in the tyros range, the number of SA2 sounds trippled, they added audio drums, the organ world feature, and the sensational ensemble feature... And even a 76 key version is available..... And the effects section got vastly overhauled, whihc in my opinion adds some superb stuff to EPs , guitars and more...

And Pa2x to Pa3x was the same, with an overhaul to the DNC engine and the whole sound engine... For the next version ( pa4x i am expecting a huge step, because it will have to be much better then T5 and compete with the T6 for most of its lifetime ) but we will see...


For most gigging musicians, i think the backwards compatibillity is what allows them to even just think about upgrading...


And you must keep in mind, that current day arrangers are mostly software with a hardware case build around it, but the heart of an arranger is its software. All sounds are created by the software, so even a software uodate can be enormous...


However, there is one thing bothering me about the arrangers of today, the computing hardware is last centuriees, it does not even come close to the power of my ipad, and the power of a PC is more then 10 times that of an ipad... So while the arrangers are steadilly improving, they could have been more, much more, having much more voices and much larger samples, creating even more accurate sounds and lively styles...

Incorrect. The main reason why I did not update from PA800 to PA3X and later on PA900 was the fact that ALL of my meticulously programmed PERFORMANCES turned into complete gibberish once loaded onto the latest Korgs. Since the introduction of the PA series in 2000 this had never been happened before...

regards,
John

[i]However, there is one thing bothering me about the arrangers of today, the computing hardware is last centuriees, it does not even come close to the power of my ipad, and the power of a PC is more then 10 times that of an ipad... So while the arrangers are steadilly improving, they could have been more, much more, having much more voices and much larger samples, creating even more accurate sounds and lively styles...



Thanks for all the replies.

It appears that folks do agree to some extent that upgrades are in fact mostly software. Perhaps a few hardware changes.

When a person looks at the price of the Tyros, $5K, that would buy one heck of a CPU/Tower/processor these days. And it does appear the processing power of the Tyros is somewhat limited.

It made me wonder about just upgrading the Tyros with software and keeping the keyboard housing.

Perhaps the vArranger is the future in this way? Keep the old board and upgrade just the software?