There has always been controversy over the Tyros series piano voices. They are of average quality, but most of us tweak them in Voice Set to bring out the qualities we want. As pointed out they sound fine in the mix and great within the piano style parts. The key is in the programming to get proper velocity expressions and damper effects, as the Yamaha Premium styles demonstrate.

It is the middle octave ranges with the Concert Grand voice that are a bit thin. I am sure there are fewer complaints from the Tyros 5-76 owners as the piano strengths are within the ranges of the extra keys. When I had my Tyros 4, I made up a Custom Piano Voice adding subtle overlapping piano samples in the middle ranges of the piano voice to strengthen these octaves.

There was little differences between the Tyros 3 Concert Grand (Live!), the Tyros 4 Concert Grand (Natural!), and the Tyros 5 (S.Art!) Concert Grand. You cannot modify a S.Art voice in Voice Creator, but I did notice a little improvement in the Tyros 5 piano voices. I like the Concert Grand (S.Art!), Grand Piano (Live!), and the Warm Grand (Live!) acoustic pianos on the Tyros 5, but are only just okay unless you tweak or play solo piano with perhaps a weighed key controller.

I didn't realize until recently, viewing Michel Voncken's comments from one of his latest videos, that the damper (sustain pedal) has a second set of dedicated samples. I usually run my modified Yamaha FC7 pedal with expression, S.Art1 and S.Art2 controls, but recently swapped out a different registration substituting one of S.Art controls for damper (see FC7(mod) photo). Certainly adds more realism to the piano voices. Coming more from an organist background, I never used or previously found it necessary to use the Damper (pedal sustain) before.

Michel Voncken Tyros 5 Demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5en3RtMEZA

Another forum member kindly translated a section of the video where Michel said that the Tyros 5 has two sample sets for the Grand Piano. One without the damper (sustain pedal) pressed, and one with it pressed. You can hear this: play one note, for example c and hold the key. Listen to the sound. Let the note go. Now press the sustain pedal and play the same note. Now you hear the resonance of other strings.

If a ever purchased the 2 GB version of the Flash Memory Module, I might consider a nice expansion piano voice, but for now I am quite satisfied with the Tyros 5 piano voices. I can see the need for improvement in this area in perhaps the next model, but maybe Yamaha wants to make a distinction between their arrangers and pianos. There is a nice Premium Vintage Sound Pack, but mostly electric piano and DX7 type piano voices.

Marcus