So the PSR-S950 has been out almost a year. They heralded the new technology of audio styles. But the only way you can get additional audio styles is by buying them from Yamaha and loading them onto a tiny 50mb internal drive.

I thought Yamaha would be coming out with new audio styles, but they haven't. The only audio styles that exist are for world styles.

I have a feeling that Yamaha is giving up on this technology.

Then I noticed that Yamaha hasn't come out with new Premium Styles in months. There were probably too many people pirating them. There are so many styles out there, but it would be nice to see more.

The other companies issue new styles occasionally for FREE.
Just something to consider.
DonM

That is bad news, Larry. Like a few others here on SZ, I suspected the Audio Styles might be a gimmick, although I wouldn't totally bet on it yet.

What surprised me was the absence of Audio Styles on the new Clavinova flagship, the CVP-609, which made me dubious that they would be on the Tyros5.

If they are on the latter, MAYBE the additional audio styles will be compatible with the S950? I wouldn't want to wager on that either, but it might be possible.

I am more than a little bit glad I purchased the Tyros4, as it is, right now, the most flexible (and, of course most expensive) arranger in Yamaha's present portable line-up. I'm broke but happy.

The audio drums didn't interest me as I was pleased with the newer on-board non-audio kits.

Surely there will be additional Premium styles for the Tyros5, so perhaps we will see similar styles in the older formats?

I truly hope so.

Ian

BTW...I loved hearing your guitar emulations again...a real treat, and a great skill you have developed.

Larry,

I wouldn't be too concerned whether Yamaha provided more audio styles. I've always been pretty happy with the midi styles, and currently have just over 50,000 of them on hand. Some are incredible, and actually sound much better than the audio styles I have onboard the S-950. I continue to go through a dozen or more styles each day, constantly reviewing the ones I already have, and putting songs to them. It's a continual work in progress scenario, but it's a lot of fun, too. If Yamaha does provide some new audio styles, I'm confident they will be good to excellent, which has always been the case with any new styles they've introduced. Having created several style files myself from scratch, I can assure everyone that it takes a monumental effort to get one that sounds perfect in every segment. Some have taken up to three weeks to tweak and tune to where I could use them on the job. I would suggest that any Yamaha users on this forum that wish to obtain a huge style database, go to the PSR-Tutorial Forum and click on the styles tab. It would take a lifetime to go through each and every style, but for me, at least, downloading a new style collection from the forum and playing them on the keyboard is akin to getting a new keyboard in the mail for free.

Cheers,

Gary

I feel the same way. I have had my S910 for a few months now and am thrilled with it without audio files. In my case, I have all the real band realism with my Audya, and wanted something to give me a bit more laid back sound. This is it.

Thing is, the money Yamaha have wasted on this boondoggle causes them to fall further and further behind when it comes to drum realism.

The T5 will definitely show what Yamaha are thinking... If there are a bunch of really good new KITS, that can be used on any legacy style, then they will have woken up to reality. If they waste their time adding the audio drums to the Tyros line, and don't make a major addition of new, punchy kits, we will know they really don't care.

Admittedly, there seems to be quite a market for insipid sounding percussion, given their sales numbers, but adding a bunch of punchier kits, that you could substitute for the usual flaccid ones would show they are interested in taking a chunk out of Korg and Roland's sales. Currently, it appears they just don't even want to compete.

Maybe they have the market nailed? From listening to user demo after user demo that mixes the drums so far back, it is darn near impossible to tell WHAT they sound like, perhaps Yamaha have simply decided to eschew realism, and go for the 'more me' crowd, and concentrate on the RH sounds..? LOL

I like the smooth, detailed "laid back" sound too, Bernie, and this type of sound is ideal for doing my recordings as well as live play.

I've been doing some made-to-order CD recordings for some friends and I'm getting excellent results with my Tyros4.

If I want punchier, I can always get what I'm looking for using the filter/eq/effects on the percussion tracks.

I liked the S910 as well...having those on-board speakers was especially handy, and it has excellent SA voice choices.

The Audya has a sound all it's own...definitely more "live" sounding than any other arranger available today.

It's nice that each manufacturer has stuck with it's signature sound...having that choice is a good thing.

Ian

There might be a few reasons why Yamaha haven't released any audio styles yet. It could be that they're waiting to release the T5 so that there'd be more of a demand for audio styles as opposed to those who just own a S950, especially if a lot of people are going to trade in their existing instrument for a T5.

It could also be that Yamaha realises that by releasing them singularly as per the premium styles would cost a lot so they'd rather do them in packs? I know I wouldn't pay £20 per style, no way.

Or maybe they've dropped the audio route altogether?

It might be none of the above!

Thing is, Ian, Yamaha don't have to DROP the older kits to put new ones in. If much of Yamaha's current clientèle actually WANT the old, washed out sound, it would make little sense to do that.

But ADDING in newer kits (like they already did with a couple on the newer Yamaha's) simply opens up the door to the many here that won't look twice at a Yamaha because of the insipid drum sound.

Audio styles need to either go the whole hog, like Ketron have, or just not bother at all. I think Yamaha are starting to realize the expense of the feature. It's not like hundreds of new audio styles have magically appeared for sale (lot more expensive to hire a great drummer and a studio full of expensive mikes to capture a great drum track than to farm it out to some style creator with a T4 in his bedroom!), and that's the only way the feature was ever going to take off...

It seems strange to have incorporated the ability to load in some more audio tracks, then fail to support it in any meaningful way. But this is Yamaha's modus operandi, overall. Employ a proprietary format for samplers and other audio features, make sure the user can't make their own, then dole out new sounds and grooves miserly, and expensively.

The features sure SEEM like a good idea when you are buying one, but if you dig deeper into how poorly Yamaha have supported their own proprietary formats, you realize what a waste of time they are. If Yamaha were serious about allowing their users to utilize these new capabilities, they would open them up to common formats and allow the user to create their OWN styles and sample sets. What's the POINT of a 2GB sample size for the T4 sampler, when so little is available for it? I wouldn't be surprised if all the official Yamaha soundsets for T4 combined didn't even fill that up!

In the end, capability is only as good as available CONTENT...

Diki, what I may say about what they might add, don't add, or need to add, would be simply after the fact. It's pretty obvious the Tyros5 is mainly finished and it will have what it will have. All your rhetoric is not going to change it now...not one iota.

I tend to keep things very simple and basic. These days, all I need be concerned with is getting the arranger that sounds and performs to suit my way of playing. The Tyros4 has proved perfect for my needs, so it's a keeper.

When the Tyros5 comes out, it will either be a phenomenal success, like the Tyros4, or perhaps less so...time will tell. I seriously doubt if I will buy one. I'm done buying for, hopefully, quite some time.

Also, I tend to take other people's opinions of how an arranger sounds, not as fact (as some here feel they are), but simply for what they really are....just opinions.

Ian

There is really no point to make audio styles for s950's 64mb .Why did Yamaha do this by only adding 64mb I will never understand.It's a great keyboard and Yamaha has some nice expansions made,but you can only use one.

As I have said elsewhere on SZ, mirza, I was not impressed with the way the S950 implemented additional audio drum based styles, although, admittedly, what was already there did sound rather good to my ears.

In their stead, I would have preferred the S950 had additional (more) preset drum kit choices as they did on Tyros4 and CVP-609, but it's rather late to say that about it now.

Ian

better yet Yamaha should allow users to totally delete audio styles and any other styles factory defaults included from the memory like KORG does so you can use & keep what ever you wish in your KB...

If I were the only one dissatisfied with Yamaha's drum sounds, I think you'd have a case for it simply being one person's opinion, Ian... But generally, for those that choose something other than Yamaha, the flatness of the drum sound is the #1 reason anyone picks anything else. Enough people with the SAME 'opinion' can make it a fact, Ian!

It seems a bit strange that Yamaha don't even offer an alternative, simply to scavenge sales they currently can't get. They have the tools to do it... an expansion area for both S950 and T4. Why those areas of RAM have never received an expansion pack that had a couple of great punchy drum KITS (which the ROM styles could be altered to use), and instead you get a somewhat poor selection of ethnic specialties http://www.yamahamusicsoft.com/en/category/VSE/catalog?currency=USD&nav=4 of extremely dubious value to most players NOT from those world areas. Where are the first class drum kits Yamaha are in a perfect position to make? The Tyros has FAR more than enough RAM to put in the entire soundset of the TOTL DTX drum module, should they choose. And the 64MB in the S950 is still more than enough for at least a couple of really detailed kits (drum samples are pretty short!).

But what do Yamaha try to flog us? Chinese, Balkan, Greek sounds... Now, no offense, players in those parts of the world really NEED those sounds. No problem with them at all. But where is the stuff for US? Where is the one thing that would address 90% of criticisms leveled at Yamaha by non-Yamaha playing arranger users?

Yamaha are asleep at the wheel. Can they not see the potential profit selling a really punchy kit Expansion Pack, not only to existing owners (I guarantee, were it available, most Yamaha users would buy it... they sure seem to like the new kits in the T4 and S950!) but as a way to remove objections from those of us that HAVE to use something else if we want realistic, live sounding drums to play along with..?

I'm sorry Diki, but that's as far as I can stand to read into your post. I'm not sure what your problem is, but lately everything from you is very negative, and quite frankly, not very interesting.

I used to really enjoy your posts; most were quite captivating, and usually well written, but now you just keep repeating the same mantra over and over about basically the same things...if it isn't ridiculing a manufacturer (all of them, it seems) that doesn't do things the way you think they should be done, it's offering thinly veiled insults about the caliber of talent of fellow SZ'ers.

Try and be happy about life, Diki...you don't always have to look at the glass as being half empty. Go back to being that happy little Diki you used to be.

Ian

Actually the part you didn't read, Ian, makes a very good point. Just add a few kits as an expansion, then we would have a choice. Yamaha already has the kits in their synths and modules. Anybody who can make that wide variety of wonderful guitar sounds ought to be able to give us similar choices in percussion.
I really do hate it when I agree with Diki.
DonM

True Don, but it's getting harder to wade through the same old rhetoric and repeated negativity for those diminishing good points.

And yes, I know...I don't have to read the posts if I don't want to...it's just too bad to see them deteriorate, because I did enjoy them quite a bit.


Ian

Exactly the point I made, Ian. And sorry... if you consider ANYTHING remotely critical of Yamaha as too negative, perhaps you need to remember where you are! This isn't PSR country..!

You can spend your life with your head in the sand, or you can make an effort to recognize that you TOO are not the ultimate arbiter of what is good or bad, right or wrong. If it upsets you to see alternative viewpoints, and the negativity of that remember, I am in EXACTLY the same position of painting everything you say as negative too... simply because I don't agree with it. But you don't see me stoop to that. Can you bring yourself finally to being able to argue something on its merits, or do you still need to bring in personal commentary to bolster it?

Remember, I brought up the point that the vast majority of negative opinion of Yamaha's concerned their washed out drums, this isn't me being negative, this is EVERY non-Yamaha user being negative. You can choose to recognize this, or you can retreat to some fantasy world where only MY negative opinion of ONE aspect of Yamaha's sound matters, and dismiss it as a lone voice.

Your choice, Ian.

In the meantime, I offer as a positive the possibility that Yamaha could easily address this widely perceived shortcoming with a few drum Expansions... And that's more than YOU are offering. TBH, there's only one 'negative' poster on this thread.

Someone that is so blindly partisan that they can't even 'wade' through a widely held opinion of Yamaha's, to the part that actually offers a solution.

Of course some non-Yamaha users would give a negative opinion...that's why they aren't Yamaha users...duh!

You conveniently fail to acknowledge the thousands of Yamaha users who like their instruments the way they are.

Again, all you see is the negative side, or your side, if you will.

Try and be positive Diki...it won't hurt, you might even like it, and perhaps it will assist you in being a little more open minded about your evaluation of the talents of your fellow SZ'ers.


Ian

This is the most telling thing you have written, Ian... Basically, you acknowledge that, unless an opinion agrees with YOU, it is a 'negative' one. Can you possibly fail to see the irony here?

You don't see me trying to pass off a contrary opinion from someone else as just them being 'negative'. It is merely a contrary opinion, and I am quite willing to debate or argue the point without bringing up THEIR state of mind. Some, however, when faced with the bankruptcy of their opinion, fall back on the old standby of mocking or attacking the messenger, not the message.

Let me spell it out in simple terms you may understand (one can always hope!). When someone holds an opinion opposite to yours, they are not being 'negative'. Except, perhaps, to someone unwilling to debate the point brought up. If your world view is that every opinion that doesn't agree gushingly with yours is someone being 'negative', you are inflating your own personal opinion to the status of 'fact' in your mind.


The very thing you accuse me of doing. That mirror needs a good washing, Ian.

I have not 'conveniently' forgotten the myriad users of Yamaha's that are happy with it. My suggestion was NOT that Yamaha drop the sound they have used for the last ten years or more, and try to sound just like a Korg or Roland (as much as I might like that idea, personally!), but was that Yamaha, to perhaps ADD users who currently have no choice but to skip Yamaha's because they like the sound of a real live drummer, start to offer Expansion Packs that address the #1 complaint about Yamaha arrangers... Which, BTW, comes not only from non-Yamaha users, but from some Yamaha users able to see past the partisanship of brand 'loyalty', to the place where an improvement would be welcome.

Now, Ian, can we continue to discuss this issue without becoming personal, or is it OK for me to wax on like you, and start to make personal statements? Because, I am quite sure, if I had as little class, I could easily come up with some...

Thanks for your reply Diki.

As been accurately pointed out by several others on other threads...all the way from your chosen Avatar, to the way you manage to find some way of being against (and abrasive) towards nearly everything that gets posted, to the thinly veiled insults about the talent of fellow SZ'ers, it appears to be how you choose to get attention.

And that's really too bad, because underneath you are a relatively talented person and shouldn't need to resort to such antics.

So, there's really no need for me to ever get personal although, it does seem that you feel it is a tactic that works for you lately.

It doesn't work.

No, Diki, the best way I can show "class" is to not allow you to negatively affect my otherwise enjoyable time here on the wonderful SZ, and that means no more responding to you.

Perhaps you could muster up a bit of class yourself and do me, and the other forum members, the favor of not responding to this post and thereby ending things here.

Ian

Have the last word, Ian... it's all you are good for.