Ok Guys, I've owned my Tyros for two weeks now and have been enjoying it immensely overall, except for ONE thing that is really BUGGING me. I KNOW you've all been WAITING to hear something bad about the Tyros, so here goes:

Have any other Tyros owners (except for myself) noticed that the 'bass part' of styles which utilize 'Mega Voice' Bass patches, sound way 'TOO LOUD' in the style's overall mix?

Also, if you play the bass voices themselves, you will immediately
notice that all four Mega Voice Bass patches (Mega Voice Aco Bass,
Mega Voice Finger Bass, Mega Voice Pick Bass, and Megavoice Fretless) are FAR LOUDER than all the other Tyros 'bass' voices (Cool Finger Bass, Aco Bass, Cool Fretless, etc). As a result, all the style patterns that utilize a Mega Voice Bass patch sound FAR too loud (bass emphasized), and results in an un-natural boomy bass
sound. On the other hand, If the bass patch is changed to a 'non' Mega Voice bass sound patch, the overall volume mix sounds far better balanced (pleasing).

Unfortunately, the ONLY way to permanently change a style's 'individual part' volume level is by going into the mixing console, editing it, and then saving the style into a brand NEW location (User Memory or Hard Drive), because there is no way to write OVER any of the Preset styles themselves. Having to do this not only requires a lot of labor (& time), but because the Tyros
Music Finder can only access styles located in the Preset area and the limited space of the User Memory area, but NOT styles saved on the hard drive, this severely limits the the number of edited styles which can be accessed via Music Finder.

Frankly, I can't understand WHY Yamaha programmed all their internal styles to have the Mega bass voice sounding so LOUD in comparison with the other voices in the style. Also, why are the Mega Voice Bass patches themselves so MUCH louder than the other bass voices (patches)?

I love the Tyros in so MANY other ways, but the OVERLY LOUD Mega Voice Bass part in MANY of the preset styles is a problem which I cannot seem to easily resolve. The only workaround I've found so far is to lower the 'overall' Style volume level (from 100 (default setting) to 85 in the 'balance' window, but this is a very limited compromise , because it not only lowers the Bass Voice, but ALL other style voices (parts) as well. Is there an easy solution to this problem that I've overlooked?

Btw, this problem is MOST noticeable when played thru external speakers (EV SXa100's, etc), and not as noticeable when played thru headphones.

ALL Tyros owners: PLEASE check this out on your Tyros keyboard and respond with YOUR feedback and opinion about this. Am I the only one that is upset by the overly loud Mega Voice Bass volume problem? This problem does not exist on my PSR2000 as its Preset styles do NOT incorporate Mega Voices.

Other than this, I still really LOVE the Tyros, because everyday I discover yet another great feature that it has which is not supoprted on the PSR2000, so I hope an easy solution can be found.

Thanks,

- Scott

HI: Scott
If you are programming your songs into the registrations, can't you
make the adjustment to the mega bass voice to lower the volume
and have it saved in the registration ?
Denny

Scott,
You can solve that, by going to: mixing console>EQ & mixing console>compression these two menus are masters mixes and you can adjust the sound globally to what you want.

Give those a try and see if it solves it for you....don't forget to save your changes under store button H.
jam on,
Terry

Hi Denny. Thanks for your response. You make a Good suggestion, but unfortunately, saving a 'lowered bass volume' in Registration Memory also saves the associated 'style' with it, which I DON'T want, because I want to be able to use the Tyros Music Finder database to freely select different songs, all utilizing - DIFFERENT preset styles, yet still have the bass volume for 'ALL Styles' lowered.

Terry, THANKS for the EXCELLENT suggestion. Though I'm not very experienced or well versed in the way the Tyros EQ settings & Compression work, I'll try experimenting with these settings. In the meantime, perhaps someone else more experienced might offer some specific Tyros EQ and/or Compression settings which they've discovered which actually WORK to alleviate the overly accentuated BASS frequencies that I'm complaining about. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I guess it's off to the Tyros manual now to read up on all this.

- Scott

Scott,
Thanks for Beta-testing the Tyros. Keep working. Find all the boo-boos and maybe Yamaha will correct them. Let me know when it's perfect.
DonM

The Tyros is a fine keyboard, but like all the newly released instruments has a few things that need to be fixed. This is a message which appeared in the Yahoo Tyrosworld Forum. I have removed the actual member names for the sake of privacy.


From: "*****"
Date: Tue Dec 24, 2002 1:17 am
Subject: Re: [tyrosworld] Some Gripes about the Tyros


I agree that this program/facility is frustrating.

I installed my Vince HD this afternoon (which comes with an unbelievable number of styles, programs, registrations and other musician oriented goodies!), and started to download files. Vince had put useful files in a couple of the partitions, and these took too many minutes to recall for display.

The slow updating makes the facility almost useless. I could not wait long enough and finally loaded my favorite files via floppy. The Tyros OS internal file system is fast; but the USB link can't cope if there are any number of files on the disk.

At some point I did something routine that caused the USB port to generate an error. I don't know what finally cleared it, but I did have to reboot the PC, toggle the Tyros power and disconnect the usb cable (I think this is what did it), before I could restore communication.

BTW, I was able to rename directories from the utility program. Right click on the name. You can make a new fiolder and type in a name using the new folder icon on the toolbar.

I also agree regarding MOST megavaoices. But HiString and 12 string are much more tolerant and the bass voices might be possible (I have not tried them yet).

Regards,

*****

***** wrote:

I spent a day transferring midi files, and that was after the 2 hours
it took to get the file transfer program to actually work. There
should be no Christmas bonus for the engineer who thought this would
be better than a simple SCSI or zip connection. Thanks for tying up a
days worth of my time. I can usally copy everything I need to (via
scsi) on the PSR9000 in about 40 minutes. It took 7 hours on the
Tyros. I hope to never use it (the file utility) again. I'll go back
to the prehistoric floppy....at least it's consistant. AND WHAT'S
WITH NO KEYBOARD. Get real. Who was the brainless idiot that removed
the ability to use a pc keyboard to input data like file naming....Oh
yea, it was the same person who removed scsi transfer!

My other beef - there is so much hype about mega voices. Yes, I've
downloaded all the samples. They are way too cool! Sure would be nice
if you could actually play one. No way Yamaha says. The mega voices
are for midi implimentation. Now I bet the average person that buys
one of these beauties is not a technical wizzard, will not have a lot
of experience with midi and won't have a clue about velocity control
and keyboard mapping. The mega voices realed in a lot of us. Their
are only THREE PAGES in the manual dedicated to mega voices. No
hints, no how toos. C'mon Yamaha, you can do better than that. I
personally feel that Yamnaha gave us the green weenie when it came to
mega voicing. At least one can play the live and cool voices.

This is marketed as a Digital Workstation. Must be because it has an
LCD screen. No CD burner. I guess that will come out on the Tyrex.

Finally, it would have been cheaper from a manufacturing point of
view to drill a hole on each side of the front panel and then have
the music stand (with longer supports) be inserted into the holes -
like the PSR 9000. My drummer wanted to know why the "handles" were
so tiny. It wasn't until I inserted the music stand into the holes
that he figured out what they were for.

Instrument sounds good - a lot of old, some new.

Scott. I think from what you say about the balance of the Mega Bass Voices in the Styles is possibly that the Styles were made long before they decided to add the Mega Voices. They have just inserted the Mega Bass Voices into the styles without considering that Mega Voices respond to velocity layers which is causing the balance problem you have noticed.

Its no good going the EQ Route because this will effect every other style and sound on the board.

Dreamer....That's possibly the same chap at Yamaha that left off the 3rd right voice Split from the 9000 & 9000Pro.

Graham UK

About USB and file transfer of styles at least....I thought it worked fine and had no grief at all with it. The 30 or so style files I transferred, went as fast as they do on PC from one file to another.

About the EQ and mega voices while true it will effect across the board, but it will only effect the frequency and width that is chosen and leave the rest alone. So Scott needs to dial in the bass freq. that is bugging him and I believe that will solve his boomieness. Parametric eq's work that way and the Tyros has a 5 band eq, so the remaining freq's can be left alone.

But if you do want one of my "they could have done a better job on" the choir voices are just good, but not great.
jam on,
Terry

[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 12-24-2002).]

scott,

can you adjust the mega bass vol via the mixer (not the eq), if you used a reg panel instead of the "music finder" to access the styles. Or is this problem there regardless?

Donny: Yes, I am able to adjust (turn down) the volume of the 'bass track' in the Mixing Console (style part) window, but this affects ONLY the presently loaded style. Unfortunately, the bass track volume will revert back to the louder level once ANOTHER style is loaded. What I WANT to be able to do is turn DOWN the 'volume' of the 'bass track' for ALL styles universally.

Donny, yes, you can save the volume level of a specific track in 'Registration Memory' but it only affects one specific style, not all styles universally. The problem lies when I'm playing 'out the box' and using the 'Music Finder' to select songs.

Graham: I agree with you that adjusting the universal EQ & compression settings isn't really addressing the REAL problem: the bass track VOLUME level. I tried playing with the EQ & Compression settings, and though they do alleviate the 'perception' of an overly dominant bass track, it unfortunately, also affects the overall sound of all the other parts (both style & live playing).

An IMPORTANT point I need to make here: When I had auditioned the Ketron keyboards recently (both the SD1 and XD9), I had also felt that their style's too, had 'overly loud dominating bass (and drum) tracks. Perhaps it's just that my musical taste is a little more conservative, and that I prefer a more acoustic 'less hyped 'in your face' bass track.

Scott,

Sometimes you gotta do things
"OLD SCHOOL" style and manualy edit each registration seperatly. I like to do that myself it lets me cutomize EACH STYLE REGISTRATION perfectly to my taste. I start at ZERO Volume on all style tracks and "SLOWLY " bring up each tracks Gain until I get the "PERFECT MIX" that I need.

Scott. This is where my old Korg i30 scored. It had separate sliders for each ACC parts. We have not progressed at all really have we.

Graham UK

Hey Scott,

Until recently, I owned a pair of PSR-5700s, keyboards that allowed you to turn down the volume of any of the drums, bass, chorus1, chorus2 and pads using nothing more than a simple volume slider. Granted, they didn't have all the great sounding instruments found in the Tyros and 2k, but the piano and vibe sounds were outstanding. Unfortunately, all of the advances in keyboard technology seem to have ignored the basics. What most people I've talked with want is a keyboard that produces high quality sounds, has lots of user memory and that can quickly access all files so there is little or no dead time between songs while they're performing. Obviously, the folks at Yamaha, and apparently all the other manufacturers don't seem to be interested in these aspects. I often suspect that the persons who actually design the keyboards have never played professionally in front on a dance-floor filled with people.

Good Luck with the tyros--think I'll stick with the 2k for now and maybe make some major modifications after the warrenty runs out.

Gary

Donny: I agree that creating 'custom' registrations is the BEST way to go (I do this for MANY of my songs as well), but I would have expected that at least the preset style's individual parts 'volume levels' to have been better balanced 'out of the box', especially when you want to utilize the 'Music Finder' which unfortunately, can only access Preset Styles and only a limited number of styles (space) located in User Memory. To have to create a custom registration file for each of the keyboard's 300 styles just to solve this problem seems ridiculous. It would be a lot easier if there was just (like Gary mentions on the PSR5700) a more old fashioned basic slider based 'universal' style part volume control which could boost/lower the volume level of a specific style part for ALL styles loaded.

HI ALL,
Thanks for your posts on the Tyros. I have just decided to stay with the PSR9000 and wait to see what the PSR10000 will offer.
The 9000 also works great with my Technics KN6000 which I have also decided to keep and not upgrade to the KN7000.
Bebop

I don't want to make anyone feel bad about their board. They cost too much money to ridicule any one. I'm writing so as to let the manufactures know of something they are missing that is very important to me and it seems more important to ones here then they may realize.

Even playing midi files it's amazing how many times I reach for the sliders to turn either the bass or the drums volume up or down.

Even on some factory styles it is usually the Drums or Bass that is the problem. Sometimes they need to be turned up. Sometimes I turn them down. It depends sometimes on the tune for me.

I wish they'd put sliders on all the boards. I can't do without them.

If you guys ever start playing trumpet or guitar and want to sequence, watch the problems you'll have trying to sequence with some of the stuff on the market.

I know how you folks feel,
Boo

GREAT NEWS Everyone! I just discovered that I was able to easily CORRECT the bass track volume problem by simply changing the Tyros 'EQ/Compressor' Setting to another PRESET setting.

Apparently the BASS track's volume was NOT too loud afterall, and it was just the pre-selected Tyros overall EQ setting that seems to be over emphasizing the bass, making the bass track appear too loud. With the Mixer EQ-Compressor settings finally tweaked to my liking, ALL PARTS: individual style part instruments, live keyboard sounds, and vocals sound great now.

MANY thanks to Terry Telson for directing me to the Tyros' POWERFUL Mixing Console EQ/Compressor feature which allows you to fully customize and tailor the keyboard's sound output to individual tastes. I once again am HIGHLY enthusiastic about the Tyros, and think it's definately a worthwhile upgrade (for me) from the PSR2000. Merry Christmas to all. - Scott

Glad to know that you were able to resolve that problem. The Tyros is KING again!


Jinx

Interesting the different IMO over expectations we all have about keyboards. It's almost ludicrous to me that we all expect with our different tastes, genres and ears that a keyboard be perfect for everyone out of the box. How is that possible?

One person says I like a heavy thumpy bass for my genre and the next says, what I want is a lite one. So again, how can we expect a board out of the box to be perfectly setup?

In reality what we should expect is a board to be middle of the road out of the box and needs to be tweeked to our personal liking. I'm thankful the boards are made to be tweeked for this purpose. I really am not a tweeker, but expect that I am going to have to do something to get the sound I want. The ability to do this is one of the reasons I buy the higher end boards.

Secondly, again IMO we might be a bit too quick to jump all over a company and the board without even trying to resolve the problem. Instead we post a negative thing claiming there is a board fault and what knotheads companies are for producing such a piece of junk, when in reality there is an onboard fix, if we just look for it.

I for one love the Tyros and think it has great possibilities and the best board I have owned. Is it perfect? NO it isn't, but then I didn't expect perfect and maybe is why I am not at all disappointed with it.

And on par so far, I still do not see any real problems occurring compared to the other boards we have been talking about here.

I think Yammy did a great job with this board, but then again I start from a "the glass is half full" frame of mind.

If I find REAL faults with this board I'll be all over Yammy, but I will at least look and read to see if there is a way of resolving it before I do.

"Ya gotta actenuate the positive eliminate the negative and don't mess with Mr. in between."
jam on,
Terry

------------------
Terry http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html



[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 12-24-2002).]

Terry adressed the solution early in this thread. The EQ and Compression possibilities of the Tyros is great, you can get the punch of Ketron or the smoothness of Technics by the press of a button.
It is, however, vey interesting to notice how people jump to speedy conclusions/judgements before full knowledge is acquired.
Merry X-mas y'all!
Roy-Andrè.

Terry, Many thanks for 'coming to the rescue' and eliminating the only NEGATIVE I had about the Tyros. I LOVE my Tyros now 'more than ever'.

Roy-Andrè: What's particularly cool about the Tyros EQ/Compressor settings is that you're able to SAVE different 'custom user settings' for quick/easy ONE button recall. Now I can easily switch my Tyros overall sound to match my mood of the week:

Monday: Ketron
Tuesday: Technics
Wednesday: GEM
Thursday: Roland
Friday: Korg
Saturday: Casio
Sunday: YAMAHA

- Scott

Wow Scott, looks like on Saturday you are in a really BAD mood...

Terry wrote:
"In reality what we should expect is a board to be middle of the road out of the box and needs to be tweeked to our personal liking. I'm thankful the boards are made to be tweeked for this purpose. I really am not a tweeker, but expect that I am going to have to do something to get the sound I want. The ability to do this is one of the reasons I buy the higher end boards."

Terry you hit it right there in that paragraph above but it also brings reality to mind.
How long does it take a person to master and tweak a new keyboard to thier particular likes, dislikes and use.
I have been in computers and keyboards since they came out. I went to College classes 2 nights a week to master the early workstations and midi. I have two degrees and know how to study a manual but that never seemed to help me in learning off shore interpretations of how you do things with a particular board. However that said, It still takes me 2 years to totally master a keyboard. Considering this, I become very unconfortable when I consider dumping a board I can use in every way and starting a brand new steep long term learning curve. Especially at my age of 71 or maybe it is because of my age.
I am told by dealers that many boards are traded in just like they came out of the box and never tweaked at all. This was especially true several years ago when they were workstations only.
I will keep the PSR 9000 for another year and TRY to master it. I am just now confortable working with the KN6000 that I have had for 2 years. I started to sell it at least 5 times since July but each time I would get on the forums and get answers and move up another notch in my learning curve. IT ISN'T THE BOARD THAT IS A PROBLEM, IT IS ME!!!
Just my passing thoughts.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to all the good friends on this board
Thanks to all for your help on getting moving on the PSR. It is actually making some music now days
Bebop (Bill Forrest in San Jose, Ca. USA)

Hi Bebop. After Terry pointed out to me the Tyros EQ/Compressor feature, it actually took me less than 10 minutes to quickly select (& tweak) another Preset Selection to my personal liking. I am forever thankful to all the helpful people on the forum. It's really the terrific give/take sharing thing we all have that make's this forum 'so special'. Merry Christmas to all. - Scott

Bebop,
FWIW.....perhaps I go about learning my boards in a different way than others, to stave off frustration. I learn what I need to know when I need to know it. To me there isn't any sense tackling and trying to comprehend complicated parts of the manual until I need to use that particular function.

Other than a cursory knowledge of a function to make sure it is working, I go away from it and work on the basics of my every day usage and then in little bites learn the rest. There are some things I never get into, because I never use them and therfore do not give myself a headache trying to learn something I'll never use and if the need does arise, I will get into it then.
jam on,
Terry

Scott....BTW you're welcome and glad I could help and get you back to Ty heaven.

Scott!
I'm glad you're back on the "fan-stand" again, we need you amongst us Ty-fans!
Roy-Andrè

My Korg i3 has 5 sliders: Drum, Bass, Acc, KB1, KB2. With additional three buttons for acc1, acc2, and acc3, I can totally adjust everything in real time. I guess when people decided that what they have is "most advanced", they overlooked the simple things.

..rb

Rhumba and Graham,

I had a board once with sliders, and thought it was great. When I upgraded to the PSR8000, which doesn't have them I was dissapointed at first. The only problem with sliders, is you can't save them to a registration (at least not on any board I've seen). With the tools I have on the 8000, I've been able to do everything I want. It did take some time to figure it all out, but I can get the job done. I wouldn't mind if Tyros had sliders, but I wouldnt trade them for the ability to memorize a style with all my tweaks.

Later,

Midnite

Totally agreed with you! I missed my i3's sliders a great deal - I guess that's what they called "unfortunate casualty of progress" or something??

..rb