Both TOTL offerings from Korg and Yamaha come with some unique features that are incredibly useful, hopefully they don’t wait another ten+ years before they become commonplace!

Of particular interest on the Yammie side is that amazing 8 part chord sequencer, the divisi voicing capabilities of Ensemble Mode, the pedal steel ability to bend the third inside the chord (or is it the top note? Still not 100% sure how that works) and of course (although the PA5x has caught up a bit) those 28 freely assignable effects inserts. Stackable inserts is incredibly useful when you have enough of them (think phaser into tape echo into tube amp sim into cabinet sim on guitars!).

I’m reading a laundry list of bugs over at Korgforums, which is probably to be e expected on a brand new OS, and some definitely puzzling omissions (no more making styles from full SMF’s, no more Karma, no more EC5 foot pedal input e.g.) but doubtless the bugs will eventually be fixed (mostly!) but more troubling is the omissions. If there’s one thing Yamaha do well it’s building on products without losing much along the way.

As to running two arrangers in sync, my views on this are well known. Until the main players get together and start to standardize the MIDI codes for general arranger operation, stuff like bass inversion codes, variation and fill selection, etc., trying to do anything more than use one arranger’s sounds as lead while the other plays the style is problematic for even the most technical of users. Yammie are still using sysex to do stuff that Korg (and most others) do with PC/CC codes, hugely complicating running two in tandem.

This is why I find Korg’s simultaneous running of two separate styles so exciting, as it was a technological nightmare to do it with two separate arrangers of different brands…