Hi Ian

Can you explain what you mean by multiple drums, as a drum kit will always only have a limited number of instruments, (The drummer wouldn’t have long enough arms to be able to play them otherwise), and if it’s a marching band, you just load in say 10 of the same snares, assign them the same note and adjust the panorama settings to spread them out.

Confused

Bill

Bill,

Each Midi kit normally has a limited number of snares (regular, gated, piccolo etc.), toms, cymbals etc.

In an Audio style many different snares, for example, can be played either at the same time, or even overdubbed to provide several variations of the same snare. Or, similar snares each might be struck at a different point on the drum head, providing many varied tones.

You can also have a drummer (with or without long arms ) and a percussionist, or, as in some of the more exotic audio styles, several drummers/percussionists, playing at the same time.

Usually, with MIDI drums the "feel" is not going to be as realistic as with a drummer and a percussionist actually playing and recording different beats, fills and passages.

Because Yamaha uses the very expressive Mega Voices (and now, SA/SA2) for the style's bass and guitars (and other instruments), it was deemed only necessary to use Audio only for the drums/percussion tracks...tracks that would benefit from Audio instead of Midi.

I think they have made the right decision.

I hope this helps...it's the best I can do.

Ian

Al.... the PSR certainly doesn't allow you to put a sampled drumkit in.

Secondly, creating a good, detailed kit from scratch on the T4 is a herculean task, as there is NO multi-sample import (like Akai, etc.) which closes you off from the plethora of exquisitely sampled drum kits out there. And if you think that individually importing all 4+ vel layers of each drum in a kit of perhaps 60+ sounds (and creating the exclusive cutoffs for hi-hats, etc) by using individual .wav's is anything that most of us want to deal with, you are probably mistaken. Can't say I have EVER heard a user demo here from anyone with a T4 that uses a custom kit...

What I don't get is how you can listen to a MoXF etc., hear wonderful punchy drum KITS, and say that a) the T4 comes anywhere CLOSE, and b) that Yamaha, rather than put kits like this in a Tyros and PSR, so ALL the styles can sound this good, decide to go the closed route of putting audio styles in (and a paltry 5% of the ROM styles, at that) and leaving you high and dry for the other 1000+ styles you may have.

The answer to fantastic sounding styles is NOT audio drums. It is fantastic sounding KITS. And this is something that their WS dept. knows full well.

Look, both Roland and Korg have great multi-velocity kits, with the drums sampled with a bit of studio 'ambiance' sampled in (and the Korg even allows you to vary the 'room mike' level) and combined with great MIDI drumkit playing, can give you a drum sound VERY close to audio, with NONE of audio's considerable drawbacks (no editing, no reverb control, no balance control, no muting kit and leaving percussion only or vice versa, etc.). Take this one step even further, and go listen to audio demos of BFD2 or EZ Drummer, etc, who's drumkits are much larger (but still primarily in GS layout) and I defy you to tell me they are not live playing!

Think about this for a minute... think of the R&D Yamaha must have put in to make these audio drums work. Think about how vari-speed software must have been developed. Think about the time and money spent on sampling these 25 grooves. Think about the extra FLASH RAM added to the PSR to store them, and load (painfully slowly) others in.

THEN.... think how easier it would have been to simply add some more ROM, and add in maybe 5 or so more drum KITS, sampled with multi-velocity, using the same drums, rooms and mikes as these grooves. Sampled with all the studio EQ, comps, and room mikes...

Wouldn't that have been WAY easier to do, and wouldn't that be incredibly more useful? ALL your styles could now be played through them, not the mere 25 that Yamaha meagerly dole out. Not to mention, ZERO extra technology. Just maybe a GB or so more ROM. Chicken feed!

Let me also point out that, at least on Roland's, and I assume on most else, all the note numbers outside the basic GM/GS layout are chock full of other kicks, snares, cymbals, percussion, you name it. There's no impediment to a style having a variety of snares, etc, either as alternates or layered.

I'm sorry, but I think some of you have drunk the Kool-Aid! This was a feature that, when only on Ketron's, no-one particularly cared about. But now that mighty Yamaha come out with a terribly limited, half baked version of it, all of a sudden it's the best thing since sliced bread! You guys amaze me at times!

I declare, were Yamaha to add a Chord Sequencer, watch all the people who didn't give a rats for it on Roland's or Korg's suddenly pronounce it indispensable now Yamaha have one!

Diki with all that said above which probably makes some kind of sense...Yamaha will sell MILLIONS Of NEW S950's to the Throngs of Yammy players I predict their best seller of all time.

In THIS economy? Maybe. But I have my doubts.

Theres more money out there then you think "In This Economy"....

also it doesn't matter ....
NEW YAMAHA ARRANGER = NEW YAMAHA DEDICATED BUYERS

I believe there ARE 5 new drum kits added to the 950. Not sure what they are, or how they sound, but never the less, it's an addition. Multi velocity editing would have been a good thing.

they are:
RealDrums
Acoustic kit
Rock kit
T9 dance
T8 dance (I think thats what they're called)

These were previously only available on the tyros 3 and 4

T8 and T9 were already on s910.

The new kits are Real Drums,Acoustic kit,Turkish kit,noises kit.
if there is a 5th kit, i cant find

Thanks for correcting me.
I think the 5th one is the "new" Rock kit, (its not the same as the old one)