OK fellow SZ members here are my T2 thoughts as of now almost 2 months of gigging almost every day & night.....
Do I love it? yes & no........Are there better arrangers there that I haven't played yet? Probably, that's an unknown at this time being I haven't played the Genesys, Pa1x, G70/E80,60,50,SD5,Wersi Abacus.......But as far as T2 there is a lot to do to make it your OWN so that it will be usable in a professional live playing situation on stage .......IMO The SA voices are not what they are cracked up to be for my uses and really need to be "played as constructed" & many times in a real situations especially when RT hand comping is required the SA voices are totally useless & need to be replaced by the very good sweet,cool, & regular voices and some of the GM voices which aren't too bad at all.
Yes the SA voices are a great way to market the T2 and sound great in the demos but under real world playing for a pro musician they pretty much are exclusive & really need to be played as designed & being everyone playes differently conforming to Yamaha's requested playing method for these SA voices becomes very annoying & useless for my needs, yea they are great for a player who uses them as LEAD MELODY voices when NOT being a Singer, but as an Accomp rt hand its difficult to control.....I have had to replace many of them to make the T2 sound good for me.
Secondly the Left Hand accomp INITIAL touch control is useless for my needs and the way that I bang the key resulting in me almost dumping the T2 after the first week. Now I have recently had the time to go back and change & shut off all left hand INITIAL touch control "per registration" vs a global shutoff Arggg! to achieve a better flowing constant accomp volume throughout the song.
Now as you all well know the MONO issue with the T2 is horrible to my ears....I have to play in Stereo to be able to be happy enough sound wise to keep the T2 otherwise I yearn for my Ketron Midjay and controller KB with my Bose PAS system that I just got rid of which sounded great in MONO.....my life musically is not like many others, when you have to make a living playing music very day to survive.....& being happy to go to work & play in a happy mood with the tools you use is essential..........100%....if not then my heart & mind starts to wander & yearns for a better solution........!! I know so many people love their T2 & honestly I am not knocking it but rather just voicing my personal opinions and as player/singer using the KB....there are many hours of homework, tweaking, editng, replacing, etc etc involved with the T2 to make it your own...........as there are so many very good things included onboard also that I havnt mentioned yet....thankyou for listening to my rant & I would love to hear your honest personal T2 opinions also PRO/CON? As for me Im making it work gig after gig.....its a good tool & how you configure it & Tweak/EQ makes all the difference BIG TIME!!!

Personal Pros....:
Keyfeel
Hd Recorder
Display Screen
Weight
Mixing console/editing/efx/Eq's
Seperate Mic Vol knob
Aux Inputs
2 Mic Inputs
Multi pads
Most Voices & Styles
Hard Drive
USB
Large lit Buttons
Online Support

Cons:
Exterior design/shape, sharp corners
Sequencer navagation lags from HD takes too long to get to song folders etc etc in real time.
Registration bank Navagation needs inprovement access in real time
SA voices with dropouts in polyphony due to block harmonies mostly on Brass pads
No global part INITIAL touch on/off
Not MONO friendly....but sounds great in Stereo




[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 06-17-2006).]

tyros 2 is the best keyboard out there

I disagree youre statement about the V,harmonizer, it's much better than on the T1 & 3000.
I have no problem to play with the SA voices,never heard a dropout, ?? explane ?
I have never heard a synth/keyboard with a decent sound in Mono, it is made for stereo !
I agree about the desing, too sharp and why
again silver. . .
I wish they made a Tyros with real drawbars and audio synchronisation with the wave player, it would be perfect(and 76 keys:-)

Impuls

Hello Don,
Thank you for your honest evaluation of the T2. I always said that I most wanted to be like you musically. I have my own opinions about arrangers and owned and played a modest number of them. I know and occasionally get together with a number of other musicians and the same discussions as are prevalent on this forum are recurrent. I’ve had in recent years; Roland’s G-600, G800, RA-800; Korg’s i5s, is40, i40M(s) among many other brands including the Orla PK400. I’ve had a Korg PA1XPro for about 7 mos. I have a friend with a T2 that I have listened to extensively and only played briefly. A couple of weeks ago, I spent the better part of a day playing the PSR3000 and last week about the same time with the Genesys XP. I will say that the T2 and Pa1Xpro are in a league of their own. The Pro has some features that the T2 lacks and the T2 has features that a Korg player could certainly use. However, at the risk of starting yet another argument about the “best” arranger board, I must say that I think that the Korg PA1XPro has an distinctive quality that - For Me(!) gives it an edge over the T2. IMHO, the styles and sounds have more “aliveness”, less synthetic. Also, you may like the fact that it has 76 keys.
Having said all that, I bought the Genesys XP. Not because the styles and sounds are better than the Pro and T2 or any of the Rolands for that matter, but it has pretty much the features of the Midjay plus the features that the Midjay lacked and many of the features of the Pro and T2. I do miss however, the USB connection and the touch screen. Everything in the XP is editable and I can use it with my midi accordion and/or my controller – and – I can carry it and not drag it.
I have been using the Bose PAS since November, 2003 and it’s pretty much all that Bose touted it would be. I forego the use of the Bose remote mixer and instead use a mini mixer with effects into the PAS channels 1 and 2 set to zero. I know this doesn’t help with the mono/stereo problem but it seems to be a little more flexible.
Ciao,
Jerry

Donny,
I agree with a little of what you are saying. The SA voices take a little getting used to, and I have saved the older voices in some instances.
I have had ZERO problem with the sound through the PAS. Did you try it?
You are I either one could dump everything and play a Casio WK and the audience would probably not know the difference, much less care.
It's all about what works for you. I am enjoying the T2, but I have pretty much enjoyed all of them, at least for a while.
I have cut back some on my playing schedule, btw. More to come later.
DonM

I love to tease ya'll!

Thanx everyone for chiming in HONESTLY and not BRAND LOYALY It helps us all to talk about the pros & cons ........I ignore MY KEYBOARD IS BEST Posts .......just the facts ..............& experiences please.
Tyros 2 for now does the job because I make it do the job plain & simple & continue to do so.....would I ever dump it? not right now, but in the future there is always the possibility for sure, nothing is forever in this business!

Posted by: DonM

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You are I either one could dump everything and play a Casio WK and the audience would probably not know the difference, much less care.
It's all about what works for you.
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Well said! In the end it doesn't matter if
someone is playing a Casio WK, Casio CTK, Korg PA1X, T2,G-70, or whatever. As long as the board makes you happy

I may have left arrangers and gone back to synths (because that's what works for me), but things change, I may add an arranger to my synth set up in the near future.

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 06-16-2006).]

I respect Donny's opinions about the Tyros2. He has been a professional musician for many years and he's mostly voicing his concerns about the T2 from a Live performance perspective. Having played the T2 myself I agree with Donny about the SA voices being a little tricky to play in a live setting and that most of them don't sound a whole lot better than many Sweet!, Live!, or Cool! voices in my opinion. But they are a technical advancement in overall voice realism and I think Yamaha is on the right track with the SAV concept. I'm sure they will further improve the SAV sounds and the technology behind it as time goes by.

If you use the T2 for your home or in a studio I could see where some of Donny's concerns about the T2 would not affect you personally and consequently the T2 makes you as happy as can be. Congratulations if it does! More power to you.

But Donny's concerns about the Tyros2 from a long standing professional musicians perspective is just as valid (if not more so) than someone who thinks the T2 has NO faults whatsoever and wouldn't say a negative word about it even if their life depended upon it and all facts and other public opinion pointed to the contrary.

People get this attitude of trying to somehow defend their precious little investment - or in regards to the T2 a HUGE investment. - to the point they're blinded to reality and think they somehow owe Yamaha their undivided loyalty and devotion. Besides, having paid over $3,000 for the T2, they may rationalize that something that expensive which is now theirs couldn't possibly be anything less than perfection. How could it? I paid a fortune so it must be beyond refute right? They try and defend their position to the point of absurdity even when facts and truth point to the contrary. Talk about loyalty right? Oh well... if that is their position then it sure is going to be a hard nut to crack. I just try and tolerate it but inside I'm thinking HELLO??? Somebody please poke that person and wake them up to reality... NO Board is worth defending to the point of extreme. And you don't owe Yamaha a thing either.

Besides in three years or less you will have most likely sold your current Board and gotten something else anyway.

On the contrary, they owe YOU a gigantic amount of gratitude and support for choosing their company over some other and for spending a sizeable portion of your disposable income on one of their products in which they make a handsome profit from. But the way Yamaha tends to forget their valued customers once they've taken the bait from the hook and how they're not as supportive of their products in my opinion as most people would like them to be in the way of OS updates and bending over backwards to please their customers with product support AFTER the sale has been finalized leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. The Tyros will probably never receive another ounce of support from Yamaha in the way of OS updates or product enhancement. And I cringe at what awaits Tyros2 owners. I hope I'm wrong on that one but if the Tyros is any indication of valued product support then T2 owners may be in for a rough ride.

Best regards,
Mike

PS: The Vocal Harmonizer on the T2 is the SAME ONE that is on the Tyros so I cannot fathom why you think the T2 harmonizer is so much better than the Tyros'. They are identical i.e. "one and the same". Let me hear it in person. Post some .mp3 T2 harmony effects if you would please and then I will give you my honest opinion.

Posted by: Keybplayer

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People get this attitude of trying to somehow defend their precious little investment - or in regards to the T2 a HUGE investment. - to the point they're blinded to reality and think they somehow owe Yamaha their undivided loyalty and devotion. Besides, having paid over $3,000 for the T2, they may rationalize that something that expensive which is now theirs couldn't possibly be anything less than perfection. How could it? I paid a fortune so it must be beyond refute right? They try and defend their position to the point of absurdity even when facts and truth point to the contrary. Talk about loyalty right? Oh well... if that is their position then it sure is going to be a hard nut to crack. I just try and tolerate it but inside I'm thinking HELLO??? Somebody please poke that person and wake them up to reality... NO Board is worth defending to the point of extreme. And you don't owe Yamaha a thing either.
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Excellent statement! It can be seen in all areas of the keyboard market. I owned the Fusion 6HD for a very short time. Man the Fusion's initial release was a nightmare from hell! There were soooooo many OS bugs (HUGE ONES TOO). Talk about a synth release that "totally" bombed

Even though that synth was full of bugs, there were the "di-hard" fans that went nuts if you said anything negative about the unit. I couldn't believe it when I read angry posts about users defending this faulty keyboard with the attitude as if they owed Alesis something.

I got rid of mine and sang nothing but the blues when I had it We're always going to have the keyboard war. The more we fight over the my balls are bigger than yours (in terms of keyboards) sales will just continue to rise. There'll always be the Yamaha Basher, Roland Basher, Korg Basher,and the Ball Basher (our wives). In the end it doesn't matter. As long as we're all happy.

Squeak

Hi Donny

I understand what you say. I loved the G1000 that I used to play, the sounds, the feel. But frankly, in the job I do, as Music Director at our church and in gigs at Nursing homes, I need portability.

I owned the Korg Pa1X for a while, loved the touch and sound, but it was too heavy and too hard to learn how to use.

The T2 is easy to figure out, has a great user interface and is light. That's a big deal to me. That's why I like my Yamaha StagePAS system too. The sound is fabulous for the money and size, far richer than the Z2200 I used to use, and again is relatively light to carry around.

I really want a 76 key keyboard, but again I won't trade off the portability of my T2. It's just the best compromise. When the other manufacturers figure out that that's what we need, then there'll be some competition for Yamaha.

Unless, of course, I get a road crew (it's never going to happen!).

Graham