Thanks to Marcus on the PSR Tutorial site for this great chart: unfortunately, when copied the columns don't line up wel. The chart is best viewed at http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php?topic=22447.0

Main Feature Comparison Chart
Tyros 5. Tyros 4. Tyros 3. Tyros 2. Tyros 1. S950

Keyboard. 61/76. 61. 61. 61. 61. 61.

Type. FSX. FSX. AEM. AWM. AWM. AWM

Polyphony. 128. 128. 128. 128. 128. 128

Voices 1279. 993. 749. 504. 403. 786
40 OrganWorld 30 Organ 20 Organ 10 Organ 10 Organ 20 Organ
Ensemble 55

S. Articulation 288. 164. 53. 42. NA. 62

S. Art. 2. 44. 15. 11. NA. NA. NA

MegaVoice. 54. 43. 23. 18. 10. 23

Live! 138. 101. 70. 58. 7. 39

Cool! 81. 71. 58. 39. 4. 64

Sweet! 37. 30. 26. 23. 9. 27

Drumkits. 37 audio. 44. 35. 28. 35. 25 audio

Styles. 539. 500. 450. 400. 300. 408
40 audio 25 audio

Opt. Memory. Flash. Flash. DIMMS DIMMS. NA. Expansion
Max. 1024 MB. 1024 MB 1024 MB 1024 MB. Pack 64 MB

thanks Gary

From what I can see, they are re-inventing the wheel, I don't see that big of a difference? other then the 76 keys, nothing else to make the big sales, and price it will probably be up there.

Careful, vangelis... don't upset the Faithful..! They like to think they exist in a world where other manufacturers don't make far more significant changes when they roll out a new TOTL arranger.

Then they point to sales figures as the justification. Well, the best selling car in America is a pickup truck. Anyone want to tell me that's the best vehicle on American roads? LOL

Geez, I don't know - I haven't seen or heard the T5 yet. And, I have absolutely no idea what the best motor vehicle in the United States is, and really don't care.

Gary

I am excited about Tyros 5. Many seem to feel it isn't that major an upgrade but if you look at all the comparisons over all the models Yamaha has made real improvements on each model. Many said the same things about Tyros 4 over Tyros 3.

I am particularly excited about the audio styles coming out on Tyros 5. I use several wav loop based programs on my computer and have been blown away with their behavior the past 2 years. Super fast computers now allow seamless sound shaping and modeling and time stretching. Fast memory allows hundreds of wav samples to be played at very high quality. Computers and keyboards no longer have to have the hardware to "make" sounds. Many just need the speed and capabilities to play back high quality samples of real instruments. I'm glad that Yamaha is adding this technology to their toolbox.

I have always thought it was strange that electronic instruments were sometimes criticized for their inability to reproduce acoustic sounds at high quality. Now that they can play back real recordings of acoustic instruments they sound much more realistic. I hope this lets "synthesizers" do thier thing.........which I define as creating sounds that do not occur naturally.

Charlie, you are still among my heroes on this site and others like it.

Gary

Sadly, though, the difference between computers' use of loops and audio and most arrangers (including both Yamaha and Roland) is night and day.

While the idea of audio loops is quite spectacular in theory, only Ketron seem to have fully embraced them, and I'm not convinced that Yamaha have really thought this through. For starters, relegating them to drum tracks only (years behind Ketron, who moved on from drums only years ago with the Audya's release) seems such a baby step... Surely mighty Yamaha is technically capable of taking the fight to Ketron if they choose to?

And then, releasing a paltry 50 or so audio drum styles (only about 10% of the styles) again limits both its effectiveness and its significance as a feature. And the Achilles Heel of the whole system still looms... there's NOTHING you can do to the loop to edit it. Unlike computers, which can give you considerable power to alter the loop, move beats around, replace certain sounds within the loop, etc., the loop in the arranger is only that. No way to alter it at ALL.

Add to that the expense and probable complexity of adding any more audio drum styles to the T5 (Yamaha haven't exactly overwhelmed us with new audio styles for the S950), and we haven't yet heard anything about whether Yamaha have made loading new audio styles in any less slow and complicated as it is on the S950 (basically, you can't do it on the gig), and I'm still not convinced the feature is worth the time and money they must have spent on it.

Loops are indeed a great way to create interesting music on a computer, but only Ketron seem to have grasped the bull by the horns and done what it takes to integrate them into arranger play in a comprehensive way.

Both Korg and Roland have decided to embrace loops in a different way, allowing the user to load their OWN loops, and trigger them in sync with the arranger from multipads or keys and switches, and IMHO, this is the way to go if you don't go the full Ketron route. For starters, the full power of your computer is available to sculpt these loops to be exactly what you need. Not to mention, the available choice of loops out there is as overwhelming as Yamaha's selection of extra audio styles for the S950 is underwhelming..! Everything from jazz drumming, to dubstep beats, to great Latin percussion playing, synth arps, you name it, it's out there. Much of it free. Most of it VERY affordable.

But, Yamaha's decision to go proprietary (as usual!) for the audio style format, then the perplexing decision to not implement a loop capability on the audio they DO allow you to put on the multipads, essentially relegating the feature to one shot use rather than loop use, this basically stops you from using the promise of user loops.

But perplexing is the best way I can put it. Personally, I think that user audio loops alongside more standard MIDI styles is the BEST way to marry the two technologies. Our arrangers don't have a fraction of the processing power of modern multi-core computers, so I think it's a bit unrealistic to think that simply adding proprietary audio styles to the T5's feature set is going to make much, if any difference at all. However, put in a loop capability to the multipad audio would change EVERYTHING. It seems such a tiny thing, but it makes all the difference!

Use the computer's formidable power to sculpt the loop to your taste and needs, then import it to the arranger and play it in sync with the MIDI style.

If I were a Yamaha user, I would be screaming blue bloody murder to have them implement a loop capability on the multipad audio, and I'd probably ask them to drop the audio styles altogether and just add more decent KITS... After all, if the purpose of the audio styles is to allow better, more punchy realistic drumming to their arrangers, the best way to do this is simply to add more punchy KITS, and more dynamic programming of the style.

You know, like Korg and Roland already do...

Thanks Gary!!

I haven't heard a Ketron and didn't know they incorporated loops..........Whatever baby steps they might be, I'm still glad Yamaha is taking some direction towards implementing them.