The Tyros Mega Voices are meant to be used within Styles although you can access them and play them individually if you want. If you do play them as a Panel Voice it is practically impossible to play them "effectively" without running into dead notes, hammer on notes, velocity switching (high-low - un-anticipated as to which note, ie., high-low sound you will get depending on how hard or soft you hit the key) - in other words it follows no rational logical formula as playing a normal real guitar does. (A Guitarist or Bassist has control as to how his Guitar or Bass will sound - not so with the Tyros Mega Voices). Also the Mega Voices use Effects that will cause weird sounds that you were not intending to hear or play.

OldNewB, if you want Mega Voice quality sounding Guitars or Basses that can be played in a Live setting without the fear of running into all kinds of problems and quirks as is the case with the Tyros' Mega Voices you probably should consider the Korg Pa1X PRO. It has all the features, "relatively speaking of course" - of the Tyros (except 128 note Polyphony) and more. It has 76 Keys vs. the Tyros 61 plus it has Sampling capability. And Korg's answer to the Yamaha Mega Voices makes it all the more appealing because with Korg's mega voice technology implementation you can play the Guitars and Basses and possibly other type instrument mega voices effectively as a stand alone Voice. You're hit and miss with the Tyros' Mega Voices. More miss than hit IMO. Although there are adjustments within the Tyros OS that can make playing the Mega Voices a little easier if not altogether perfect like you can with the Korg Pa1X/PRO.

But having said all that; there are many, many excellent Guitar Voices included in the Tyros. And even though they may not be quote un-quote a Mega Voice, they still sound very good and very convincing.

The PSR 9000PRO is a discontinued Model which support for it has essentially already dried up from Yamaha. There will be NO MORE OS updates for the 9000 PRO and it's a hit and miss proposition with finding parts in the future if not already. It is a great Keyboard though and if you can find one at a good price you might want to consider it also.

The PSR 3000 is the new kid on the block which won't be available most likely until a few months from now. I look for them to become available by this summer if not a little sooner. It appears the PSR 3000 will be a great little mid-range Keyboard that will be packed with features.

I am a little leery about espousing some of those features because there has already been a flap over how much WAV ROM it will have in it. Until Yamaha posts some conclusive specs on the PSR 3000 other than he said she said or a little bird told me so (ever hear of the term = dirty bird?? ) LOL Ha Ha! So until some factual substantial specs are posted by Yamaha on their site then we can only speculate really.

PS: I'm guilty of spreading false info at times too although I don't do it to spite people and it is completely unintentional. As hopefully is the case with the false info on the PSR 3000 WAV ROM. It was a big let down when I heard the 100 MB WAV ROM was incorrect.

So you see; your guess is as good as mine as to how much WAV ROM the PSR 3000 will actually end up having. Same goes for all the other features too IMO. That is until we get the 'official' word from Yamaha.

Best regards,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 02-09-2004).]