Friends,
many thanks for your words; I have played with the Tyros 2 briefly yesterday evening (till well past midnight), and this morning; right now I am busy transferring my old registrations and styles from T1 to T2, via hard disk. To stay safe I have saved to the HD also the internal styles of T1, because some of them have been tweaked on T2 or have changed names, so I did this this just in case I liked the old styles more.

Here are my preliminary impressions: Tyros 2 is an improved Tyros 1, without its defects or bugs.
The internal sounds have been MUCH improved and some of them are even outstanding; just to name one category, the guitars are all amazing and I cannot get tired of playing the SA Concert Guitar or the SA Nylon Guitar: very simply the most realistic acoustic guitar I have ever played on every arranger, synth or sampler.
Speaking of other sounds, the Saxophones and the Brass too have been greatly improved, but it takes some time to accustom oneself to the subtleties of the Super Articulation, and maybe a breath controller would help too. All the sounds have been, more or less, improved, and there is a dedicated pop-up menu to explain how you can obtain the different sound effects with different playing techniques (aftertouch, legato vs. staccato playing, etc)
Another category which has been greatly improved are the Strings; here again, I have never played Strings so realistic on another arranger or synth and maybe only the Roland SRX 06 expansion card (Complete Orchestra) can come close in terms of choice or sound quality.
I am sure that I will discover many more features as I explore all the other sound categories; for now I can only say that I was disappointed to see that in the vocal categories are still missing the beautiful Scat Voices already present in the old 9000 pro (sorry Eric... )

Speaking of styles, the old ones have been almost all tweaked and revoiced and are now generally improved; there are also many new styles, never released before by Yamaha, and I was pleased to discover a lot of them in the latin section, like "Guajira", "Bachata", "Cuban Son", "Guaguanco", "Danzon", "Vallenato", etc (I remember some of them from the SD1). Other styles now have different names, like the "Cuban bolero" that now is called "Slow bolero" and also sounds a bit different, so I saved the old one to my hard disk, just in case...
I was very pleased to find a lot of new and interesting multipads and finally now they are linked to the style, meaning that whenever you select a new style you already have a corresponding multipad selected (and one that makes sense from a musical point of view) and so one is not bound anymore to that awful "Hip hop 1" bank.
The multipads are now synced to the style even if you start to play them first (as an introduction) and trigger the style only later (on T1 they were in sync with the style only if you started the style first and the multipad later).
Another thing I loved: when you switch from one registration to another there is not anymore that dreadful lingering effect of the old sound that the T1 had (maybe this has something to do with a better handling of the transition at the level of the DSP).
I hope to post some demo's in the next days, as soon as I feel comfortable with this beast (believe me, it's not easy to tame it, and going from T1 to T2 is like going from a peaceful donkey to a wild horse!)

I would like to add a last word about the comparisons between different arrangers that have been going on this Forum in these last days: now that I have the Tyros 2 I am more than ever convinced that every arranger, just like every synth, has its personality, and so Ketron lovers will never be satisfied with a Yamaha, and vice-versa. This is to say that the Tyros 2 has the same clean sound (with a CD like quality) of the Tyros 1; this could be a plus for some, and a minus for others: now, who is right?

A final consideration about the drums issue: I have the feeling that, speaking of them, many of us are referring mainly to "kicks and snares"; if this is the case, I agree that an arranger like the SD1 has nice, crisp and punchy kicks and snares but... my humble opinion is that "Drums" is a category that should include also things like cymbals, triangles, snowbells, or agogo... and here -to my ears- the Tyros has clearly an edge, with its clean, CD-like, sound: try to record a song using the cymbals of an SD1 and you will understand what I mean...

OK, enough said for now; more to follow as I have something new to report.
Best regards to all.

Andrea

Thanks Andrea .... nice report !

Another thing: the keyboard is definitely improved in feel compared with T1; however, the width of the individual keys is apparently the same.

Andrea thanx for the informative T2 review...
heres a few thing I would like to know if you get a chance to check out vs T1....

1- Vocalizer quality changes ?

2- New Music Finder features? will it save key too?

3- SMF playback that plays in correct original key not the key that the KB is in the last
registration mode without having to switch modes via direct access?

4- Can you edit SMF on the fly & save?

5- can you play songs from the HD after recording

6- Is there USB to PC?

Thanks Andrea for the review and enjoy.

Donny,
I have no T1 or T2 yet, but can answer some of you questions :

2. Perhaps I don't understand correctly, but I asume you mean the transpose-setting ?...I doubt if the music finder will ever save that setting, because thát is a typical function for the registration memory feature.

3. I never use(d) SMF on stage, so I have no idea about this one.

4. SMF edit 'on the fly' ....don't know, but who wants this on the fly?

5. Absolutely YES ! (of course) Not only the recorded stuff, but any WAV-file can be played back e.g. after file transfer from PC through the USB interface.

6. Two USB connections : USB to device and USB to host(PC). (A&B)

Donny,
I will try to answer your questions, but for at least some of them I have to just quote what the owner's manual says.
1- Differences in the vocalizer: I cannot comment much here, since I don't sing at all and actually have never used the vocalizer in T1; the user manual says that the T2 has 60 presets, ranging from Country Quartet to Pop Vocal (preset 81 is "Thru"). The vocalizer menu (window) looks the same, both in T1 and T2.
2- Music Finder: I don't think that it can save the key of the song; I have tried to call several songs, but each time in the main screen there was no indication whatsoever of the key; this appeared as soon as I played a chord in the left section of the keyboard. The Music Finder, however, now remembers the song you called last and so you don't have to scroll every time from the first item on the list (as it was the case with T1).
3 and 4 - I cannot answer right now, since I haven't tried to play or edit a midifile yet.
5- Yes, you can play a song recorded to the hard disk and you can even import songs from an external source (like your computer) and create a playlist with them.
6- Yes, there are three USB ports: two on the rear panel (to device and to host) and one on the front panel (to device), on the right side. There are also a video output (NTSC or PAL) and an RGB output.

On a side note: the keyboard is very easy to transport, due to both its weight (14,5 kg, 15,5 with the music rest) and also its shape (it's really easy to get a hold of it due to the protruding upper part of the case).

Thanx Andrea for the info.....and tryiong to find out what Im asking.......
Does the USB let you transfer files directly from the Your PC too? or is it just for thumb drives, external drives.. etc etc ?

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-22-2005).]

Donny,
yes, the USB will let you transfer files to and from your PC (it has the same Storage Mode as the T1, only improved).