To me the Genos is the almost pefect arranger..

But yamaha is promoting the Genos as a workstation..
And thats where it does not convince..
Worse even, its not a workstation at all in the traditional sence..

Based on this feeling i maintained a post on psr tutorial forums
With criticisme on the Genos, and advice for improvements
Knowing that Yamaha reads those forums..
After posting in that topic to answer someone’s question today
(After being almost inactive in the last 2 weeks)
I got banned again.. and the criticla topic got removed..
Now i dont really care about the 3 months bann
But i do care about my opinion(and many others opinions which contributed to the topic)

Luckilly i made a copy of it..
That i will gladly share here..
Because here on synthzone everyone is allowed to say what he thinks
Which is a very very important good in the free western world

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This is not about the Genos being a bad instrument
This is about making the Genos a better experience for all (possible) owners..
Trough software improvements and adding new features and content..

I posted quite some tidbits about possible improvements..
Butt somehow the posts got lost, no hard feelings, so this post will start with a small recap

Its not about issues that cant be improved by software like :
- the capacitive tochscreen
- missing hardware buttons
- the knobs not being encoders, but static potentiometers
- not having a half damper pedal
- not having a 61/88/module version

Its about things that can be improved... in the current instrument...

- No DAW integration (which is required to make Yamaha an integral part of the studio, Audio over USb and Montage connect should have been part of the instrument) which would be a requirement to make the Montage the perfect scratchboard for composers which Yamaha claims it to be..

- The arps section with only 216 arps, and only assignable to R1, makes it a toy, its exactly the same toy they put in the PSR-E series. No user ARPS. No edditing of ARP's. To make the tool usefull and pull in the younger players, there should have been 4 arps, with access to Style, pannel and Multipad voices. And preloaded with Btween 1500 and 2000 arps and atleast a 1000 locations for user arps. Its Yamaha's most expensive instrument, they should atleast make this feature a pro feature and not a toy.

- Sound edditing and sound creation, should have been onboard. Also for midi edditing there should have been a piano roll editor (the screen is big enough).. maybe they will add this trough an ipad app.. Yamaha advertisies the Genos as a tool for producers and composers to get away from the PC and being creative. Not being able to edit sounds on this level will leave the newcommers in the dust. Its important that you can edit sounds real me in the Genos and save them directly to memmory or USB. Now i can live with an ipad tool that does this if it takes to much effort to program, but the tool should also available on windows and android. The problem with the current Yem is that its offline, and it is not possiblemto save a single newly created sound.
The same goes for advanced midi edditing, you want to be able to directly edit the midi of styles, somgs and multipads inside the Genos, and then save them in the Genos. The current midi edditing tool is not graphical, adding a graphical piano roll tool is a huge improvement for edditing inside the Genos, it takes away the strainnof moving files trough usb stick to a pc, you can just directly edit with the onboard sounds and effects. Same as with the sound edditing, its not a problem if this requires an ipad tool, or any other type of tablet

- No insert DSP for multipads, unbelievable, with adding a few hundred sets of multipads, and with the live controlls making the multipads just as important as the 8 style tracks, why dont they have insert dsp effects?

- No audio syncing with Midi, even tough most of the required software algorythms are allready in the Genos. Having 4 audio multipads sync with the beat of a style would be a great asset for toying with audio drum loops. As wel as syncing an audio file with style and multipads..

- No syncing start of Song and style, just make it possible to automaticall start a style when starting a song, or to sync the audio song wav or mp3 with the bpm of the Genos.

- No real onboard synth engine, which would have suited the EDM part really well. Its quite well possible to make a layer of a synth on the screen much like the organ flutes based on The AWM2 synth engine. Which you can edit in real time with the live comtrolls

- parameter assign, yamaha should make it possible to assign any parameter to the knobs, sliders, pedals, assignable buttons, joystick .. not just internal parameters, but also external midi cc

- There is a very cool Retrigger option that allows you to do EDM buildups by retriggering the beat in 1 / 2 /4 /8/16/32, but for some reason when you exit the buildup (by hitting BREAK fill as a typical DROP), it doesn't exit on Beat 1 of the measure, but on Beat 2, so your build up just lands nowhere. Apparantly this is also the case on the PSR 970. Very strange and very sad that such a great feature is so useless.

- There is a foot switch option for "Half Fill" which means if you have a 2/4 in the middle of a 4/4, you can trigger a half fill and move seamlessly (instead of estimating it inaccurately and and unsmoothly using "Sync Stop"). But it doesn't work. The foot switch when pressed simply does nothing. Another great idea that would be so amazing if it worked. Alas it does not. please repair this bug.

- On the Tyros series you were able to program your style buttons to open USER STYLE folders. We no longer have that option since those style buttons have been removed. But worse, you don't even get a USER style menu on the Left side (like for the presets), instead every time you want to pick a style you will have to navigate through your folders. So whereas on the Tyros picking a style was a 2 step process (choose the folder, hit the style), it is now a 4 step process (1)Hit the style gateway/or select it from the screen (2) select USER (3) Select the folder library (eg: EuroDance, Turkish, or whatever you have), (4) select the style. And it could be more if the style is on page 2. Please make an option to get faster to the user styles, songs and sounds.

- You can only save PRESET voices and styles into the favorites folder. So the Favorites tab does not solve the last problem in any way. make it possible to add user voices styles and songs to the favorites tabs.

- Live Control: The knobs can be used to add filters to the entire style or to any of the L,1,2,3 voices. It cannot however be used to add a filter to a SINGLE (or multiple) parts within a style. So if you wanted to use the Live Control to create a sweeping effect on your pad within the style, that cannot be done. Live control also does not affect Multipads. Please adapt the live controll so the knobs can be used on any track and not just on the main voices.

- support for Rex files, to improve audio syncing and allow users to bring their own created content

- a CASM editor for all 16 parts, so we can edit this part of the style inside our keyboard. This is a feature that potetially could be used from an ipad editor. As long as you can edit the style inside the keyboard and are not forced to export it to a 3rd party tool on a pc..

- artifacts apear in seveal video’s when sounds are switched during playing. Its an old bug from the tyros range. Which probably can only be solved by SSS for the 4 panel voices.

- Make a version of Yem that allows people to edit the onboard sounds and save them as a user preset. Add an option to upload single sounds and multisample sets to the Genos. Add new features to the Yem that allow people to edit and create SA1 sounds.. and an option to edit sa2 sounds.


I will administer this post and add other people’s new points to the list on a daily basis. With the real thing ariving in living rooms and stages right now, this seems the right moment to open up a main topic like this..


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I am sorry for the wall of text,
But it just had to be shared here..

The Genos sounds great..
And is a huge improvement over the Tyros 5
But it is far far from being a perfect workstation

Its the best traditional arranger ever made...
Lets just keep it at that..
But still has huge shortcommings when compared to a workstation
And even misses many many things i love on the pa4x.

Bachus: what’s up with the software update they released. Supposedly multitrack audio recording was added. This along with the multiple outputs would bring it closer to titling it as a workstation.

I think Genos is the best arranger in Yamaha series till now, no doubt. (Personal view and only YT videos to judge by so far)
They are on the way to something new. To me it sounds both more balanced and dynamic, new Revo drums and how it is designed/looks is also better in my eyes..
But perfect? Hope not, if perfect, there would not be any more to complain about or reasons to develope new ones.

But if you take a peek at Yamaha's website, They now even range Tyros 5 and PSR as Workstations.
Maybe "Workstation" is common for all "auto-play accomp" arrangers now?

Hello Bachus,

I haven't logged onto psrtutorial yet. What commotion have you created there now??? LOL Just kidding.....as I wrote to you before, the last time you were banned....... I enjoy your posts whether I agree with them or not. I can feel your music passion when you go all out on a topic. I think because the other place is a Yamaha based forum some of the moderators just can't stand to see anything negative about a Yamaha.

I love my Genos. I love it more each time I turn it on. It's as close to perfect as I have seen yet. But there is always room for improvement. And it's opinions like yours that should help Yamaha as they design their next Genos.

Please keep posting here. I read every single post you submit. Don't know if you celebrate Thanksgiving but Happy Thanksgiving if you do. I'm sure we are thankful for Genos whether it is perfect or not............. -charley

GJ: I think you hit on it. Yamaha has re-branded the “arranger” as “workstation “.

Just because workstation was defined as something different in the past doesn’t mean it can’t pertain to today’s arrangers.

Besides, arranger has a somewhat negative connotation among “real” musicians. Maybe this will begin to give credibility to the current state and quality of “arrangers”

Lord knows the price dictates a higher quality instrument. Hey...now that Yamaha are referring to arrangers as workstations, maybe they’ll price them accordingly!

If it looks like an arranger, sounds like an arranger, plays like an arrange guess what?
it's an arranger!

A modern day workstation has the following features..

Full fledge midi sequencer and audio track recording.
16 part layer and split possibilities..
After touch..
separate outs..
Sampling..
Pads or key trigger audio..
Extensive sound editing..
Extensive effects editing and routing..
Ample memory and storage..
Audio and midi interface..
Mixing capable and mastering tools.


Now you can tell me if a Genos, or PA4x, or SD9 are workstations..

Actually the closest arranger keyboard to meet workstation benefits... may be the BK9..

Of the current models I would think Korg is closest to a workstation..

Well, this time its not as much about being banned.. on which i defiately disagree, but its more about posts and topics with lots of valluable imformation being removed..

Please tell me where my criticisme is unfair or not backed up by facts?

The opinion, is not meant for yamaha to improve the next Genos, but to improve the current Genos trough software upgrades the same way as they did with the Montage.

The arranger is on its way out (It will soon just be a niche market like the organ that the easy play arranger came from) and Yamaha know this, so they bring out a top notch arranger (So as to keep the current old fogies happy) and add workstation features to entice a younger audience, however, it is just a first step in what will take a number of years.

Everything evolves around apps these days (Hence Yamaha started adding them a few years ago) rather than inbuilt (Just look at modern TVs, they are flexible because they run 3rd party apps, not because of features inbuilt) so putting things out on apps that will work on the Genos (For those that want them) is the most logical thing to do. (Particularly if you are going after a younger market)

Bill

Good post Bill. I agree.