I'm curious if anyone knows if you can record simple grooves on the s90 to be played back along with or if you need the motif for this.

I don't need all the motif sequencing and sampling stuff but would like to be able to lay down a part or two to play over. Any thoughts or comments?

much appreciated!

The S90 has a 16 track sequencer to record tracks and play them back. You don't have a sampler to record from a mic or CD like the Motif.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Thanks so much! Looks like I'm in the market for an s90. Happying playing--Evan

Hi keys81,

Errr, Ahhh, George made a mistake. You can not record into the S90's sequencer. It is a playback only sequencer. I'm an owner of an S90 and a Motif ES7. The classic Mo's have built in recordable sequencers and samplers. The ES Mo's have better memory expansion capabilities for the sampler.

But unfortunately you can not record a sequence on the S90. You'd have to create the sequence somewhere else, then you can use the Yamaha File Utility program for the S90, to copy the sequence to a smart media card that you previously insert into the S90. Then you can playback the seq. from the smart media card with the S90.

Peace
Bob
<><

[This message has been edited by RW (edited 10-08-2004).]

Hi,

Thanks! Sorry to be so ignorant on this matter but does the fact that you cannot record into the sequencer mean that you cannot record anything directly to the keyboard period? I'm in the dark in terms of the technology here as I use keyboards strictly for live performance rather than songwriting or any of the more recording oriented uses.

Right now I have a Roland FP-3 and I can hit a record button, play something, and then play that track back while playing something over it. Nothing fancy, but just the ability to play over a groove. despite the lack of a recordable sequencer in the s90, can you do something similar in performance mode?

Sorry to go after you like a yamaha rep but I haven't been able to figure this out looking through the s90 manual and I'm sure you know how uninformed the typical music store sales person is.

Thanks in advance--Evan

Hi Evan. FP-3 huh? Very nice!

Basically today's modern workstations come with one or both of these recording options:
1) On board sequencer, 2) On Board Sampler.

One records Midi messages into the sequencer and one records audio into the sampler. The S90 has neither capability as it is truly not a workstation at all but a "performance" keyboard. Your FP-3 contains an onboard sequencers but it is a highly limited one.

What can be done with the S90 is this. You can create a voice that uses drums and you can set the arpegiator to loop through a series of notes. Thus you can hear a very limited drum loop. You can use the arp for any sound in the S90. But that is technically not a sequenced track. You can place this arpegiated voice into a performance on the S90. A Performance is a setting that uses up to four voices. So you could use three voices like this. 1) Set an arp to a drum voice (for a very limited drum loop), 2) set the bottom octaves to a bass sound, 3) Set the higer octaves to a Vibraphone sound. Then when you select this Performance and begin to play, the drums will drum, your left hadn can play bass and you right hand can play vibes.

But you certainly can not record any midi sequences into the S90. You'd have to use an external sequencer, like a computer or workstation or a dedicated hardware sequencer via USB or MIDI. Then the notes played on the S90 could be recorded into that sequencer. As I mentioned earlier, you would need the Yamaha Filer Utility fro the S90, to copy that file from a computer to a smart media card in the S90's smart media card slot. Then you could play back that sequence on your S90 and play along with it in "SEQPLAY" mode. That's the only way I know of and I'm 99.99% sure that's the only way period.

To answer your question directly. No You can not record anything directly to the keyboard (S90) period.

Your FP-3 has a recordable sequencer. The S90 does not have that at all, but has a play-back sequencer. You have to create the sequencer elsewhere and then copy it to a smart media card fro the S90 to play it back. You can have hundreds of sequences on a smary media card and can link them ("chain") then in any order you want to play them back (with the software I believe). I'm beginning to get out of my area of knowledge though. I've only used my S90 to play live and to practice one. I do all my sequecing into a laptop PC.


Hope this helps.
Bob
<><

PS. Check out http://www.sninety.com/index2.html

It's a great resource!


[This message has been edited by RW (edited 10-08-2004).]

oops. sorry for the blank post above!

Thanks so much for a lucid, informative and very helpful response. Now its just a question of whether a step up to the motif is worth the extra cash and weight. Glad to now know more about the differences I'm considering.

all the best--Evan

I killed it for you. But you can do that yourself as well. Just click on the Edit/Delete icon at the top of your posting and take it from there.