6 Tyros Keyboards arrived at 2PM and I've installed 6 IBM 10 GB hard drives which work great! I only wish I had time to play with them but I'm shipping 5 out tonight and have to get them all "loaded Up". I've only listened to two styles so far and all I can say is "wow", just as I remembered from my day with the Tyros a few months ago. I'll get back with more info later.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George,
Regarding the hard drives, was it quiet in operation, and how difficult to install?
Thanks, Lou

Lou,
Simon put up a thread with pictures not too long ago here all about the h/d install. http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/004947.html

Have a look at this one too. http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/005259.html
Terry



[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 12-02-2002).]

Lou,
It couldn't be easier. After taking off the bottom black cover and removing the four screws which hold the hard disk holder, I just took the 4 screws under the mounting board off (which hold the hard drive to the hard mount), mounted the hard drive to the holder with the four screws provided and then you just slide the board on it's mount straight into the connector which is right in line with the hare drive. There are no cables to attach at all. Then, I turn on the keyboard, go to "Function", then to "Utility", hit the key next to format hard drive and in about 2 seconds, it's formatted. One of the other things that surprised me was when copying a floppy disk with 20 songs to the hard drive, it only took about 30 seconds to do the whole disk. On most keyboards this takes a lot more time....So, for those of you waiting to receive your Tyros keyboards from me, I've copied about 100 songs with lyrics and harmony plus about 100 XMAS tunes. It took such a little time to copy them that I was happy to do this.
I tried the guide feature where you play the keyboard to a song and it follows your tempo and it worked great. I also tried this when singing and it also worked great.
I played some of the new styles and I had everyone hanging around my store falling in love with this keybaord. Of course I expected the mega voices to knock everyone out, but it was also the great new styles that got there attention. I played a funk style which sounded like the band Tower of Power was in my store. I can't wait to go to work tomorrow and arrive early so I can play around for a couple of hours. I'm so tired tonight after installing the hare drives and repacking the keyboards for shipment, that I didn't stay much after closing to play around. After a good night sleep tonight, I will be fresh and ready to go in the morning.
Yamaha received fewer than expected for their first shipment last week, but more arrived today and they expect to have inventory for a few weeks. Again, not that many dealers ordered Tyros. Many are really afraid to stock these $3000.00 arranger keyboards. It's fine with me, I'll get more next week now!
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

George, where are you getting the 10 GIG IBM 2.5" 9.5MM Drives? I can find 30 and 40 GIG drives but not 10 GIG. Since the drives will just be holding Tyros program data (no audio or samples) I would think 10 GIG drives would be more than enough disk space (right?).

Does a 5400rpm drive make any difference over the 4200rpm drives when used in the Tyros?

Thanks

George,
It does seem pretty straight forward, but this post of Simons seems to be confusing regarding the formatting.... Thanks for the reply...Lou

Thanks Terry

If you want to partition your harddrive for use with the Tyros, then you need to do so either on a pc computer or on a PSR9000/9000 pro. The tyros doesn't have any facility to create or format partitions, but it will recognise them if they are present. My drive was formatted on a standard PC using a 2.5" adaptor for the IDE connection. Although 10GB is probably ample for the Tyros, the cost of drives is so that often a few extra GB's are worth it. Its cheaper in the long run, although as pointed out unless you intend storing lots of bitmap images for your karaoke backdrops, you probably won't need that much room!
Also, on the subject of a 2.5" IDE convertor for your PC computer, its definitely worth having one if only to transfer large amounts of stuff to the drive. The USB connection is fine for a few midis, styles but too slow for major bulk transfers of 100's of MB. The convertors I mentioned fit into a 5.25" bay and only cost a few dollars, even if you only use it once its a must!

Regards
Simon


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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________

I have a local wholesale hard drive supplier I use and he doesn't sell to the public. The hard drive is a 2.5" 12mm size. I sell these drives for $150.00 and I install them for my customers buying the Tyros.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George,

Did you by any chance receive any Tyros Speakers (TRS-MS01) along with your first Tyros keyboard shipment? I had heard (rumor?) that Tyros speakers won't be arriving to Yamaha USA from Japan till the end of the year. True?

Scott

Tyros Speakers and stands will not be available until probably January. I just spent the past 5 hours trying out this keyboard. I really can't imagine anyone not being as thrilled with it's sounds and styles as I am. It's easy to use, the operating system although similar to the PSR2000 is easier to navigate, and I love the ability to change the view to "scroll" and be able to use the keys below the screen to directly call up a song, style or voice from a 0 - 9 number system.
The styles Yamaha call "pro" are like nothing I've heard before. The keys feel good to me. there are led weights glued to the bottom of each key. I've tried out the "guide" feature both with singing vocals and playing the keys and although they both work, I don't think the Pro guys would use this feature, because although it waits for you, you really don't seem to be able to make the song playback any slower or faster than the tempo it started with. Although it is easy to use and I certainly haven't had enough time to try it out long enough yet. It's really easy to record songs and I love using the hard drive along with the user memory for direct access to songs, styles and user styles.
For those who have ordered and are waiting for this board, I say it's worth the wait and for those who haven't jumped in yet and are waiting for their stores to receive their's, go try it.
I will have 3 more available by Thursday if anybody is interested in buying from my store.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

In a addition to the Tyros 'scroll' feature, what OTHER navigational IMPROVEMENTS have been made on the Tyros vs the PSR2000?



Are the 'pro' styles basically just the styles with the new megavoices added or? Curious to find out WHAT makes the 'pro' styles uniquely different than the others: Session styles, etc.



I can only assume (with the added lead weights) that the Tyros key feel must be dramatically improved (more weight resistance & key responsiveness for more sutble playing dynamics control) over the toy feel of the PSR2000, right?

George, I'm curious now to hear how you rate the Tyros 'key feel' compared to the Yamaha 9000pro and PSR9000 and other brand arrangers keyboards.

Thanks for your continued insights.

Scott

Scott,
Some of the other navigational improvements is now you have 6 buttons dedicated for calling up song banks. These banks can be either from the user, floppy or hard drive folders. Like the PSR2000 you can hit the function button next to the icon called "song" and then using the page up button, you can select either preset, user, floppy or hard drive, but with the dedicated song select buttons, you can go to any of 6 places quickly and you can be playing a song from one bank while searching through the other 5. Also, now there is a button in the style selection called preset and user and when I select user, I can use any of the preset catagory buttons as user catagory buttons allowing me to call up a bank of user styles either from the user, floppy or hard drive. An example would be that today I loaded in all my middle eastern styles into a folder on the hard drive called "middle eastern styles" and I put them in the preset catagory button called "world" so that when I select "user" and then hit world, I have access to all my middle eastern styles.
the new "Pro styles" are what If would say are the new Styles the Yamaha engineers told me they would put in this generation keyboard to go head to head with the best from Ketron, Generalmusic and other what we all consider to be the most realistic and exciting styles currently available. Yes, there are many of these featuring the mega guitar voices, but there are dozens and dozens of swing, jazz, funk, country, etc. with the "pro" word associated with the style name. Just wait till you hear them. I can't wait for you to hear the new BEBOP style which in variation "D" trades two bar phrases with the drummer!
There are some of the best ballad, pop and jazz I've ever heard on this board and the music data base has over 1400 selections. I played a version of All I ask of You from the Phantom of the Opera today which was outstanding.
The keyboard is not as heavily weighted as the Ketron SD1 or Genesys, but one of the things I really appreciate is that even though there is aftertouch on this keyboard, you don't hit a key and after hitting the bottom find that you still have a 1/4" or so of movement happening because of the range of aftertouch. On the Tyros, once you hit bottom, if you want aftetouch you just apply more pressure, but the key doesn't physically move any more under your touch. I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain. You'd have to feel this to understand completely. It's more like the 9000 pro or the Motif feel, however, as I stated in earlier posts, this is a brand new keyboard and not one used previously.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

In playing around this morning with the Tyros, one of the features I'm really happy was added was the ability to save a registration memory with the sync start function set to on. On the PSR2000, you can't do this. The sync start has to be hit manually before you start the style, but with Tyros, it is saved with the registration.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Hi George,

MANY Thanks for your continued Tyros insights and explaination of the Tyros' 'new' features.

The manual Sync start issue on the PSR2000 has always been a re-occurring annoyance for me, so I'm thrilled to hear that it's been addressed & corrected on the Tyros.

I'm even MORE excited now to receive my Tyros.

Scott

Here's the answer I got from John Traves, when I asked the SAME question on the Yahoo Groups: TyrosWorld Forum:

"The rotational speed is irrelevant, unless you are worried about a few microseconds, the difference is theoretical rather than practical in this application."