Hi Bob,

The PSR2000's Music Finder feature allows you to store a style, tempo, and associated variation (4) and OTS settings (instrument sound setups: Rt, layer, and left voices) for a given song. Unfortunately the Music Finder does not store a transposed key , but to get around this limiationa, I store the transpose setting (+1, etc) and key of the song, preceding the song's title, so you can easily manually change the transpose setting of a given song right before playing a song. The PSR2000 also has an OTS link button which allows you to change the variations and have the 4 OTS 'instrument setups' optionally automatically change when the variation changes as well. Another Yamaha PSR2000 feature which I wish my previous Technics KN5000 had, is the fill button(s) 'integrated' with the 4 main variation buttons. In other words there are NO separate fill buttons on the PSR2000. Instead, there is a separate 'auto fill'on/off button which can be activated, so when you select any of the 4 variation buttons, a fill will 'automatically' be triggered (if desired). Unfortunately,on the KN5000, the auto fill only works in descending/acsending variation order (1-2-3-4) or (4-3-2-1), while on the PSR keyboards, you can select any of the 4 variations (in any order) and the correct fill associated with the specific variation will precede the variation change.

Another powerful feature of the PSR2000's Music Finder is the ability to create an infinite number of search criteria fields. In addition to fields already included like song genre, tempo, style, I also created custom database search fields which include: song decade (30,40,60,70,80,90), senior gigs, wedding gigs, novelty, songs to memorize, top requested, etc. You can also perform MF database searches within searches to narrow down your song choices even more. Occasionally someone may request a tune I may not know that well, but using the Music Finder, I can quickly pull up a similar alternate song (same composer, cover artists, music era, etc) which may even please the customer more than the originally requested song. The Music Finder allows you to scroll & search alphabetically, by tempo, by genre, or beat. It never takes me more than 5-10 sec maximum to locate and load any given song in my 460+ Music Finder database.

Grant it, having a hard drive has an distinct advantage (huge storage capacity to store thousands of custom styles and registrations), but for a gigging musician who needs a flexible quick search & loading access to a large core repetoire using mostly internal styles and a some custom styles, the Music Finder is great. Insteading of collecting & organizing endless styles, I now prefer spending time focusing on polishing my 'live playing' (chops) and the performance aspect, over spending too much time organizing & tweaking styles. Afterall, the essence (soul) of arranger keyboard playing comes from what we play live, and hopefully not from the auto accomp parts. - Scott

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