I still remember this old story my Martial Arts instructor used to tell every New Year.

A scorpion, being a very poor swimmer, asked a frog to carry him on his back across a river.

"Are you crazy?" said the frog. "You'll sting me while I'm swimming and I'll drown."

"My dear frog," laughed the scorpion, "if I were to sting you, you would drown and I would go down with you. Now where is the logic in that?"

"You're right!" cried the frog. "Climb on!"

The scorpion climbed aboard and halfway across the river gave the frog a deadly sting.

As they both sank to the bottom, the frog said, "Do you mind if I ask you something? You said there'd be no logic in your stinging me. Why did you do it?"

"It has nothing to do with logic," the drowning scorpion said with sadness. "It's just my character."

The story's moral? Some creatures just are what they are. It matters not how gently they are treated; their innate nature will cause them to harm even those who have shown them kindness.



Some people will always remain true to their nature, even when they know their actions will be as much their undoing, as well as their victims.

The instructor used to say, "How people treat you is their nature; how you react is yours.”

Ian

Yes

Hell Ian,

That's some story, don't think anyone can follow that, I think you have just stopped this thread in it's tracks. I think you should have be in the clergy.

Very nice story. Is a good guide to check our own reaction rather than being caught up in how others should be.

And with the topic, the Tyros 5 ensemble voices is a stand out from the other arrangers or even workstations especially if one wants to score orchestral pieces using an arranger. Many may argue that vsti sample libraries are better for such a thing, but imagine the ease with arranger keyboards come up with a quick idea/sketch pad for any genre one wants; nothing beats it.

The Tyros 4 is still a great board. The ensemble voices is a welcome addition to the already superb Tyros. Perhaps they could have added more user sample memory for more custom samples.

Thanks so much Jez for returning to what this thread was about in the first place.

Thanks Jez, a postscript to my little story is that we often can't control or anticipate what other people may do, but we can control our reaction to it.


Again, to nudge us further back on topic...

Even without the Ensemble feature, the arranger keyboard (from any brand) is a great sketch pad for getting down and developing a musical idea very quickly and neatly.

You can also find some inspiration in the intros and endings in a factory style, or even in some of the phrase, pad, and chord tracks within the main variations of a style.

Yamaha's "FreePlay" styles (which can usually be converted for use in other brands) are also good ways to overcome handicaps sometimes created by the strict timing of standard styles.

I was told that there is a room in Nashville where there are a number of arranger keyboards (allegedly Yamaha) that are used for musical sketch pads.

True story, or not, in my own experience, I have learned that these instruments (arrangers) provide an excellent tool to generate "prompts" or suggestions in music composition, as well as providing a quick and easy way to record a rough (or even finished) demo of a song.


Ian

@Nigel: Happy to do so

@Ian: I fully agree with you on the arranger being a sketch pad.
And the free play styles are really nice for playing with variable timing. I almost put my money on the MOX 8(which is a fine instrument for what it does) but I keep coming back to arrangers and chose the S950 instead. I love arrangers for the sheer ease of use, styles, sounds and the complete package that it is.

Here's La Bamba pretty cool If you could emulate something like this with "Ensemble".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjxtQrtnI7c

By the way my venerable old Korg 01W/FD has an 8 layered touch sensitive ORCHESTRA combination that is pretty awesome. When my granddaughter was 2 she played some pretty wicked James Bond background music with this setting Wish I had recorded it.

God Bless,
Don

This is exactly the music I like & will play when I get the T5 so I am very grateful for the feature. Beautiful songs played in Orchestral style. This is why it is so very important to have excellent sound quality (finally we are doing better at this) as no one will be dancing or singing...just listening to the performance on the instrument.

Can't wait to get the T5.

Lee

The T5 should be able to separate the instruments as seen in the video, (Although you will need to sort out a suitable playing technique) however don’t expect the same sound, Nuances, articulations or expression of the real instruments as the T5 does not have enough sample memory to incorporate all of them.

In addition make sure you have an expression pedal, as without it you will have no chance of making it sound like an orchestra. (Unless you play each track individually and use the modulation wheel for expression, but even then you will also lose a lot that is normally assigned to the modulation wheel)

Have fun with your T5

Bill