Can someone who own the SD-1 tell me if it is so much more expensive than the 900pro because it really is better? The website's description to paint a glorious picture of the SD-1 with the increased sampling memory, "live sampled drum loops", but are the sounds better or at least just as good? I have been sold on the "sweet voices" from Yamaha, but I am teased by the SD-1's ability to load in your own WAV loops to incorporate with the style creator. Can you really only import mono wav loops though? That seems counterproductive, doesn't it? I was excited about putting my ACID loops into this keyboard and marrying them to my styles. Are the onbaord drum styles mono also? Can the 9000pro's sampler be used like this too? Is the SD-1 worth the extra price or is it just more because there are less US dealers?

Can PCM sounds from other keyboards be loaded into these types of arranger keyboards?

From the price quotes I've gotten, I believe the SD1's 'streetprice' is actually LESS than the Yamaha 9000pro's. Has this changed recently? - Scott

I sell both the SD1 and the 9000pro. I really don't know very much about the sampling abilities of either one because most of my customers don't really want to know about this feature until they decide to use it. I usually suggest they call Yamaha Tech support (Dave Lindsay) or talk to AJ (ketron support) when it comes to sampling. These two models are similar in features but differ in some areas. The sounds are great in both. I like the key feel better on the SD1. Both have 16 track sequencers but I prefer the Yamaha. Both have direct disk play of songs and styles but I prefer the SD1 for songs, by a long way, and I prefer the Yamaha for playing styles direct from disk. The SD1 has a hard drive and the Yamaha you need to add one and I like the SD1's hard drive management and access much more than the Yamaha.
As for price, the SD1 is selling for less than the 9000 pro currently at my store.
I sell more SD1's because of their great style playback over the 9000Pro. The SD1 styles are more realistic in my opinion and sound more like a live band.
Let me know if you need a price on either.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

Sean, I've listened to and auditioned BOTH the SD1 and 9000pro. BOTH are great sounding instruments, but each stronger in different areas.

I feel that the SD1's strength lies in its pop/dance grooves and its superb dynamic live sounding drums which work well with these styles. On the other hand, I personally prefer the brighter piano sound on the 9000pro, finding the SD1's acoustic piano a tad too dark for my taste, though still impressive. If sounds, not styles are your principal concern, I would steer you towards the 9000pro, or even getting the much cheaper PSR2000 ($1,000) with it's exceptional acoustic instrument sounds & capable (but not extraordinary) styles, and then purchasing a Synth (like the Motif) or other Synth Workstation, to gain the other features you said you were looking for (on your other post). Just my opinion. - Scott

Sean.
A agree with Scott.
I think that Sd1 have a lot of very impressive styles but I prefer the simplicity and cleanness of 9000Pro.
The voices are good in both kbs with a special prominence for sweet/live voices and piano in 9000Pro.
If you want special voices, the way is a synth as Scott said.
Regards
Chico www.compumusic.hpg.com.br

Sean,
I prefer the 9000PRO, for many reasons. But then I could be biased. The honeymoon with my 9000PRO is still going strong (over a year now). Both the SD1 and 9000PRO are great instruments. Here in Australia they are about the same price before the deals.
For me the polyphony 126 Vs 64 for the SD1 was a big point. Also the lay-out and the user interface of each. For me I prefer the 9000PRO's keyboard action (it is so close in weight to my piano's action).

Also, The fact that you can have three instruments layered in the right (R1,R2,R3) as well as the left(L) and be able to set three separate split points - for the accomp., left and R1/R2, and also R3 gives you a lot of flexability in performing. The sounds and the styles - this is very personal - upto the indevidual's own taste. Both instruments are soooo strong in this area unless your ear takes a definate like or dislike to either, then I would say that the sounds wont be the deciding factor. The combination of your most sought after bells and whistles will become the deciding factor.

On the styles, I nearly always end up tweaking the 9000PRO's styles. Whether its the choice of instruments or the tonal qualities of the instruments. That's another strength of the 9000PRO - the capability of the almost un-ending number of options for varying a style's sound and character. I think that is why Yamaha engineers set such a bland middle of the road setting for the styles. They know that the indevidual will want to change the mood or the sound of the style to suit what ever the occasion is.

I guess Sean if you have zeroed in on both of these instruments, my advice is to really spend a lot of time with each before making the decision. This includes spending a lot of time going through the user manuals - both are available from the respective web sites.

Also, if you can do the evaluations through the same sound system. If you can't manage the same sound system then get a really top quality pair of head-phones and use them. I used this technique and I believe it paid the dividend. I spent a lot of time on the 9000PRO before I finally bought one.
Lots of luck Sean. Try not to become impatient during your evaluation trials - enjoy the experiance!
Jon.

Thanks for the help. Of course I still haven't ruled out the MOTIF yet either. I don't understand why YAMAHA makes two keyboards that essentially do the same thing but with different bells and whistles. Or am I wrong? What would would I be gaining with the MOTIF that I would lose with the 9000pro and vice versa? I'm not asking about the obvious specification differences that I can read about on the Yamaha website, but in terms of actually sitting down and making music. Can't I basically create the same thing on both?

Wow,
I don't even know where to begin. Comparing a Motif to a 9000pro is like comparing two different things at two ends of the spectrums. The common ground here is that both are top quality performers in their own fields. The Motif is not an arranger keyboard and the 9000 pro is and that's the main difference. The 9000pro does not sound like the Motif or work like a Motif in it's recording mode. Yes, there are a few of the "sweet" sounds taken from the 9000 and put into the Motif, but that's the end of their similarity. Motif's sampler lets you sample (sing or play an instrument) along with a song and record it as a track in "real" time. Motif's sampler lets you slice and dice your samples and do extensive editing to your samples. 9000 pro can't do many of the sampling features Motif can do. Motif has a total of sixteen, 16 track sequencers to record songs in and then put these sixteen together and create a song. Motif has an entirly more sophisticated editing mode for making and editing sounds. Motif is an incredible keyboard, but,,,,,it is not an ARRANGER, specializing in style auto accomp. playback which the 9000 pro does. If you are thinking one of these will do both, I think you will have to get both! These are very different products with different purposes in mind. Of course both can play sounds, both can record songs and both can sample.....Just differently. I generally find my Motif customer is not my 9000Pro customer, but not always. Sometimes I'm wrong, though hard to admit!
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Hi Sean,
George is right in what he says. If performing and song writing is your goal, then the answer to your question is both yes and no. It depends upon how you want to get there (and by this I mean how much time and effort you wish to contribute). Let me try to explain ....

When I arrived at the decision to buy my first keyboard (not the 9000PRO) I had to go up a very steep learning curve to understand (appreciate) the differences in the many types of keyboards available. All this was done before I knew about this wonderful group of people at SynthZone. Through my many questions, and I really think that at the time I taxed to the limit the patience of some of the store people I asked, I zereod in that I needed either an arranger keyboard (Yamaha PSR or Roland ) or a Synth (Roland or Yamaha S80) and not an "electric piano". My biggest problem at the time was getting the information in a form that I could understand (relate to). Many of the stores people new what I was asking but could not answer it in simple man's terms. They did not ask the obvious questions - "what do you want to use it for?" and "what do you think it will do for you?"

The bottom line was that if I wanted to put together arrangements of songs quickly to use immediately, then an arranger keyboard was my choice. If on the other hand I wanted to mainly work with a band and contribute all the sounds and effects that these instruments can, and as a side operation "take time" to craft and "write songs" using the syth's tools which work from the ground up, rather than quickly write using the styles (arrangements) of an arranger keyboard, then the synth was for me.

I chose the arranger because, yes I wanted to "write songs" but more over I was not continuously working with a band - mostly there was just me - so I needed the flexability of being able to quickly bring songs together through arranging rather than working on them from the ground up (which is what I would have had to do with a synth).

I realise that I have not answered your question via a definative feature / advantage comparison of the two instruments. I think that if you downloaded the manuals for both, after a few hours of study you would be far clearer on the issues than reading any amount of rambling I could do in this post.

However if you decide at a high level, along the lines that I have outlinned, to determine what YOU want to do with the instrument and what you want IT to do for you, then I think you will have your answer as to which would work best for you. I hope that this helps.
Jon.

[This message has been edited by JonPro (edited 07-25-2002).]

Actually, I'm more interested in working from "the ground up" as you said. So probably I would be better pleased with something like the MOTIF, EX5, or Triton. My problem is not with building the orchestrations, but I am not good with sequencing fantastic drum parts beyond ordinary, easy things. But I was thinking just today that with a sampling workstation, I could easily import ACID loops that are already "fantastic" and then simply orchestrate on top of that. I love the ease of arrangers since my only experience really has been the PSR-500, but my problem with the arrangers is the (I hope I don't offend anyone) generic quality of the arrangements which seem tailored more towards traditional pop music than cutting-edge stuff. Though I don't know whether or not this is the case with the 9000pro since I can't seem to demo one hear in my town, but I guess either the MOTIF or the 9000pro will be a big leap in learning for me. If there was an arranger workstation that also had arp features I would be most pleased.

[This message has been edited by seanbaker (edited 07-27-2002).]

Ketron supply's PCM soundson the hard drive when you pull it out of the box !


That's all I have to say ! good luck ...........dano at the pianoman


ketronguy@yahoo.com

DanO - I have to show you how to use the "reply with quote" feature!!!!!
It's so easy .......

Back to the core of the problem:
As you know, I have an SD1 and I like it a lot, but after trying Eric's 9000 pro I think I would like having one, for the following reasons:
- beautiful looks
- great action (76 notes, semi-weighed keyboard, a pleasure to play)
- great sounds: acoustic piano, electric pianos, organs, soprano sax, accordeons, synthy sounds.
By the way, while I was in California, I tried both the 9000 pro and the PSR 2000: maybe it's true that they share the same waveforms, but I think that the 9000 pro sounds better and this could depend on the effects. Take a Rhodes piano: it can sound just good or terrific, depending on the quality of the reverb or the chorus. I think that the 9000 pro has a better DSP, and that makes a difference.
Just my Sunday morning thoughts.

Andrea , I think I could agree that the 9000pro may have a better sounding DSP. I only wished it didn't weigh nearly 50 lbs and I could get it into my car (with a case).

I still think the PSR2000 sounds terrific for 'live' performance though. If only Yamaha could give us everything the 9000pro has in a MUCH lighter (less than 30 lbs) 61 note package. For solo piano playing, 76+ notes is essesntial, but for arranger style playing (utilizing auto accomp mode), I really don't see much of an avantage. I can explain why, if anyone wants to know. - Scott

DanO, Were you talking about panning the onbaord preset drums? I was referring to the imported ACID loops. I doubt it can turn a mono sample into stereo. However, if there was some other way to import the ACID loops as wav files (like through a PC interface cable?) into the SD-1, then would it accept them in stereo format since I wouldn't be actually "sampling" them in? I guess what I'm saying is: The SD-1 only samples in mono, but can I import a stereo wav file for use on the SD-1?



The Motif, Triton does arpeggiate more than drums, but not in an "auto-accompanitment" way (except for a few specific patches) like arranger keyboards. I am not interested in auto-accompaniment, but building my arranement from scratch. The synth style arpeggiators like the MOTIF's interest me because of the electronic/techno style they can achieve which would be very hard to simulate in a style creator on an auto-accompaniment keyboard. However, the arrangers' preset drum patterns which allow for main beats, variations, fill-ins, etc. fill an area that I am weak in which is making really good, fantastic, groovy drum tracks. That's is why I think importing already made loops into something like the MOTIF would be good. I could import main, variation, and fill loops to be used together as needed. Plus I'd get the techno-styled arpeggiator funtion which to my knowledge NO arrangers have (I mean good ones, not the casiotone bleepers, if you know what I mean). SD-1 seems to have a portamento function which is rare on arrangers. If only it had the arpeggiator AND I could be certain I could import stereo WAV files then I'd have to say I'd be sold almost definately.

I hope this explains better what I'm trying to find. You must all think I'm a real pain in the butt with my posts since I started. I really do appreciate everyone's opinion and points-of-view. It's hard to try all of these machines hands-on because either they are not available in my town, or to really play with them, you have to learn how to use them first which takes too much time to do when you're in a music store. So thanks, everybody for the input.


[This message has been edited by seanbaker (edited 07-28-2002).]

Scott, I think that 76 keys mean a lot more room for your left hand; when I play a song like "A whiter shade of pale" with my SD1 I just move my hand from the right to the left, following a descending bass scale (C, Cmaj7/B, Am, Am7/G, F, Fmaj7/E, Dm, Dm7/C, ecc). With the VA7 I can't do that because if I start with the middle C the highest note falls beyond the split point (in the right hand range); on the other hand, if I change the split point, I feel too limited in my right hand movements.
I guess that's way the organs have two manuals.

I like to "build from the ground up " too. If I were to replace one of my two boards., I'd no doubt keep the Motif ( stunning sounds and great for techno / ambient stuff ) and I'd part with my PA80 ( arranger with excellent sounds and synth editability but also with some limitations that I don't like ). I'd go to either the Triton or Karma instead.

The 9000 is a great board / arranger and my limited experience with the 9000 pro tells me it is also a great araranger. In my own case though I don't necessarily need ( or want ) an arranger though for composing, especially when I consider that I already have the arranger like features of Jammer Pro, XG works, and Sonar's Musiclab drum and guitar accessories, not to mention a few others, even some useful freeware apps.

Another way to look at it.. for approximately the price of a new 9000 pro one can purchase BOTH the Motif and a Triton Le or Karma.

I wonder why the 9000pro costs so much more. Usually a pro synth would be the higher price. When you consider the MOTIF has 85MB wave ROM and the 9000 only 48. ?????

Well, this is a "quantity" approach to the problem, that does not take into account the "quality" of sounds. I have tried the Motif and, even if Yamaha says that it sports some of the cool voices of the pro, I still think that the 9000 pro sounds better. Unless you are into techno, hip hop and stuff like that, the 9000 pro offers you a much better choice of solo voices to play with. Acoustic and electric pianos, organs, guitars, woodwinds, accordeons, brass, strings, you name it. Plus, I think that the Motif has a "cold" quality in its sound, that reminded me of my old Yamaha SY 99; I don't know how to explain it, but I definitely could not define its sound as "warm".
Going back to the 9000 pro, I think that its biggest limitation, as an arranger keyboard, is the quality of the styles, but it is true that you can buy commercial styles (the good ones are pretty expensive, though).

Andrea,

Sounds are so subjective as we always say. I find the piano's ( acoustic and electric ) to be better on the Motif ( electrics and particularly the "Rhodes" a lot better ) . The guitar emulations too. I'd give the nod to the 9000 series on sax and horns though. As far as cold though.. not at all to me. If seanbaker is looking for more electronic and "cutting edge " type sounds, ( as i find myself doing more of lately ), then I'd have to recommend the Motif. Drums are my "achilles heel" too, but if you don;t need them in a live setting and can compose with a the aid of a computer, there are more than enough excellent programs out there that can assist with drums, and that don't have the limitation of providing "locked" patterns like an arranger does.

I really can't say that any of my arrangers have been the better tools for composing. Even if I were to use a lot of the auto accomp in a song, to get that more realistic feel, there is a lot of midi editing to be done later.. subtle things like changing accents, velocities, slight timing variations.. all the nuances that go into trying to emulate a more "real" or "live" performance.

AJ

I haven't seen much discussion on exactly what application Sean has, and I think that's the most important topic when comparing keyboards. The 9000 Pro seems meant to be the central or only keyboard in a live "one-man-band" act. It's music database exhibits it's target market with setups clearly designed for live performance of songs from Proud Mary to the Chicken Dance... it's a "wedding-singer keyboard". I think that point was missed in the magazine reviews of the 9000 Pro... when studio musicians reviewed the 9000 Pro, they did so with their own applications in mind. The reviewer for Keyboard magazine used the 9000 Pro to sample and remix music for a tv commercial, which was her speciality. She really had no use for the music database so it wasn't mentioned in her review, yet it's one of the 9000 Pro's strongest features IF you have an application for it. The 9000 Pro is overpriced if you don't use all it's features, but it's a bargain if you use everything it potentially offers as a one-man entertainment center. If you haven't seen a 9000 Pro, at least check out the more common PSR9000 which has many of the same basic features.