... will be tomorrow at the winery. I used the P-121 the last 2 times, but I've since dedicated that as a living room piece, so lil' Geno gets the nod tomorrow. I'm planning on just using a small monitor speaker TC-FX150 to help cut through the chatter, but this job is primarily a background sitch, so I don't expect to need more coverage, or presence. Fingers crossed that it's a good fit! (I'm pretty confident it will be)

Doing a double tomorrow, so I'll post my results on Sunday ... if I wake up in time to unload the car before work.

Good luck, Dave - I am confident the rig will work out great for you and your audiences.

Gary

Have fun Dave! Enjoy the new board!

Good luck Dave,
Look forward to your report.

Wishing you a great performance at the Winery! You and Mason amaze me at your adaptability to just about any Arranger. Much talent, my friend.

I'm pretty stoked about this rig. I have a Gator case that is much too deep for the keyboard, so I was able to put the X-Stand, and mic stand in there on the bottom, then a nice soft cover, and the keyboard fits above it all. Saves a trip to the car. I'll use tomorrow to explore the different rhythm styles I loaded in, by the grace of our many fine members who were willing to share.
It'll be lots of swing, bossa, 6/8, and 12/8 ballads, and other easy 8/16 beat stuff. I'll also get to brush up on all the Christmas stuff that's in the "dusty" section of my brain since last year.

Good luck Dave, I know you'll smash it!

Dave, you don't need luck, you've got TALENT !!! ... but Good Luck, anyway ...

Dave, hope everything worked well on the maiden voyage!
Mitch

Ahoy mates! I'm back in the harbor .... Baby G is docked, and ready for tomorrow. Here's my "gig-notes":

Very few minuses: (and these are Yamaha in general)
1) I miss the chord triggering method that Korg uses. I don't like to play 3 note chords all the time, as I started playing only LH bass. The Yamaha 1 finger method is either (a) stupid, like early Casio with a non musical approach to Maj-Min-7th, or (b) "mostly" correct, but when I forget to play enough notes, I get empty chords with no 3rd to identify it. I can get used to this, but I have never liked it. Again - not specific to SX .... it's a Yamy-thang.
2) The best grand piano, while wonderful, does not seem to sustain as long as it should when the keys remain pressed. I'm sure I can tweak this, too.
3) Many string and organ sounds do not sustain with the damper pedal. Been this way for years, and I can modify the sounds I need to overcome this objection.

THAT'S IT for the negatives! Nothing surprising here.

Now, the PLUSES:
1) sound projection was excellent. I added the FX-150 to fatten up the bottom end a bit, but TBH - I probably didn't need to. This is a live room, and the sound traveled very well, as I expected.
2) voice quality was excellent. The VH2 is still worlds behind what I'm used to, but mostly in operation. The actual tone of the voices is pretty good. I play with lots of tracks, and seq files, so without the rhythm running, there's no way to sustain the harmonies when you pick up your fingers ...even if the damper pedal is pressed.
For feature jobs, I will bring an outboard unit, but for background things, like this one, it's was just fine. Better than fine.
3) Woody is crazy if he can't find a Rhodes he likes. I had several that played just fine, and sounded great. Also found a super Wurli. My go-to sound bank was:
Piano-Rhodes-Wurli-Acc Gtr-Elec Gtr-jazz organ-pop organ-brass. That's the only RH sounds I used all afternoon. I will dig deeper, but those are the staples.
4) Yamaha patterns are so very logical in their progressions. V1 to 2 to 3 etc .... adds just enough each time to add some sizzle, without giving you whiplash from a drastic change. Korg "sometimes" is guilty of this. I like a gradual "get busier" as my variations advance. Overall drums sounded excellent.
5) The live controls are a true blessing. You have 3 banks of 2 controls and I use them for mostly balancing sounds, styles, etc. The coolest feature is that you can assign a volume knob to control the aux-in (my iPad, in this case) eliminates the need for a sub mixer.
Here's my 3 banks:

1) Volume of styles, seq, drums (all LH) ....... 2) Volume of RH sounds
1) Aux-in volume ........................................... 2) Same as above
1) Style mute A ............................................. 2) Style mute B

The style mutes are very cool, as you can dial in, or out the bulk of the accompaniment tracks. Style Mute A goes from drums-adds bass-adds guitar-adds piano
Style Mute B starts with more sounds and adds the fluff sounds like strings, and brass .... super easy to blend in real time

No issues seeing, or navigating the entire screen.
No touch screen malfunctions.
No trouble doing quick edits in Mixer, Voice settings etc .... The only advantage Korg has here, is that you can alter, and save almost any edit in real time while the unit is running. Yamaha won't write certain things is a style is running. No biggie.

I have another winery thing on Dec 22, so I hope to have more to report after that outing, but for now - I give it a solid A. Sounded great. Looked Great.
I would like to find a smaller case. I hate extra room in my gig bags. I put tthe extra room in his one to good use, but I'd rather have a glove-fit for the kb.

What cased are you using SXers?

I have one for sale that fits it perfectly. But it has wheels, so a little heavier than the bags.

What's the model. I'm pretty picky about exact size.

Answered your PM.

Great to hear, bubby G behaved itself , on the first outing. Haha

Seems to be way more pluses than negatives which is good.

Great report! Glad to hear the youngin' made us all proud Dave! Great observations too! Happy to hear it worked out well for you on the gig!

UD, Thanks for that report very informative.

Congratulations Dave! Glad to hear your first outing with the SX went well. Fair winds and following seas
Mitch

Next time out, I'm bringing the Bose S1s, to hear it in a different way. I certainly don't NEED extra amplification for this setting, but I want to hear the different tonality with more bass.

Glad it's working great for you...Only concern you mentioned is the Piano Sounding Great but a short decay or Sustain in the sample...That would bug Me for using Piano as a Go to Sound...Just Me...Who knows I may own one someday...Harold

Harold, it's by no means a bad sound. Maybe I'm just very used to a particular sample I like on my PA4x. A simple edit of the envelope may customize it to my liking. Maybe the filter should open faster .... dunno. I'll fiddle with it over the next few days and report back, but this was such a minor concern, and totally subjective. Like I said - the actual tone of the piano is great. It also may be a velocity issue. I've been playing this sound with my Korg SV-1 weighted keys at home, and it's much more expressive, so maybe the limitation is in the velocity curve I've selected on the physical SX keybed. I'll look into it. With that said - the difference in playing the sounds through midi is night and day, but maybe that's just my touch. I love the feel of a more solid keybaed, and while the SX is greatly improved .... it's still very light compared to what I'm used to.

Yes. That.
(a) isn't worth bothering with. VERY limited, only 48 chords and no provision for on-bass.
(b) is called "Multifinger." But not all multifinger are created equal. The implementation on the YPG-535 works pretty well, and is actually BETTER than the one on the Genos and SX. Why!? Try it and see for yourself.
Unfortunately neither of these are compatible with the the Korg-Roland-Ketron-GEM approach. If you play C and Bb expecting C7 you're gonna be disappointed because you'll get C minor! The fingering is so different, you might as well play a clarinet!

So I knuckled down and tried to learn the "AI Fingered" system that everyone on PSRTutorial brags about. It's pretty logical with a few quirks, and it is helpful if a song has a lot of slash chords. BUT-- the burn is, a single note is recognized as a UNISON. What?!? I mean, how often do you use that? Someone should make Steve Deming write on the blackboard 100x "One finger equals a major chord!" Seriously, Yamaha should allow the user to choose whether a single key is silent (two notes minimum), major chord, or unison for those who like it the way it is now.

I mostly play simplified scores. They have a lot of major, minor, 7th chords with the occasional slash chord thrown in. Being able to play a major chord with one key facilitates fast transitions and often saves me the need to reposition my whole hand. By contrast, Roland's Chord Intelligence allows one-finger majors, two-finger minors, 7ths, Maj 7ths, and Dims in pretty much any inversion. All of the trigger notes are part of the chord. When you activate Bass Inversion, it will also permit playing many slash chords with just two notes. It doesn't penalize you for playing all the notes, and it will accurately recognize 9ths, 13ths, etc. if you are skilled enough to play them. I've found that I can play more music accurately and easily with the Roland system, compared to any other.

To make songs with occasional slash chords easier, I figured out a way to use the Midi Solutions footswitch controller to make Bass Inversion a MOMENTARY function. (This should have been an option from the factory!) When I press and hold the pedal, the lowest key controls the bass. As soon as I release the pedal, it plays the root bass for any inversion. The factory requires one push to turn it on, and another to turn it off. That's hard to do if the chords change on every quarter note.

Korg's Fingered 1 is similar to Roland's approach. If you don't play any slash chords it might be better. But Korg tried to give the player a shortcut for everything, and sometimes it gets in the way. For example, if you play G-C expecting C/G you get Gsus4. If you really want C/G you have to stretch for the 3rd above. If you want C/E you had better get that G in the middle down, otherwise you get Eaug. I rarely encounter augmented chords, so this logic is frustrating.

If Roland abandons the arranger market, I hope they license their Chord Intelligence to a third party, or even release it into the public domain. It's been around practically unchanged since 1996, and it's truly ingenious! I'm done with Yamaha for real-time play unless they swallow their stubborn pride and make the changes I describe. But all brands would benefit from more customizability in this important facet of arranger operation.

Yup. What HE said!

Well said, TedS.

Dave...Do still have Yamaha P-121 Piano?...If So is the Grand Piano Sounds close with the 900x...Decay and sustain, etc...Thanks Harold

I do, Harold. I haven't noticed that same symptom on the P-121, that's what makes me think it's a triggering issue. I need to research this more.

Hi Dave,
if you come up with a better setting for piano on sx luv to know what it is. I just press the sustain button on mine for r/h melody, good enough for my playing skills .
Weird , I don’t like using the sustain pedal on the keyboard, but no hassle using it on the p121.

I did manage to hook up my p121 to sx900 via via USB cables using my laptop as an interface. Not ideal but just wanted to see how sx piano sounded played via the weighted keys. Gives a much nicer feel.

Still debating whether I just keep using them as 2 seperate instruments or go out and purchase a proper interface.

Rikki, I just bought this from Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CFOHF9M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Hoping it'll make life a little simpler, and declutter a few wires in my living room, where the 121 lives. If I tweak the SX piano, I'll share the results! I was thinking of you last night - a guitar player sat in who was from Australia! He was born here, but lived down under for most of his life, and now he's back. Found us on www.openmics.org - a service that brings many musicians through our doors.

Hi Dave,
actually have one of those, they included it in my p121/sx900 package.
To be quite honest , I haven’t really played around with it too much.
I tried it with the p121 and the piano app, when I first bought it, but I must have been doing something wrong, I couldn’t get them to connect. I eventually got the camera adapter , to work , so didn’t want to start messing around with it.

Never really used Bluetooth for anything except for the phone connection to hubby’s car.
That was a nightmare too, had to take it back to BMW, to get his $12 flip phone ( which did actually have Bluetooth) connected to his $80k BMW. Should have have seen the lady technicians face, priceless, when she asked him why he didn’t get a decent phone. His answer was, oh, I could have spent $18 for the upmarket version, but I did want to spend the extra. Haha.

Thank goodness the kids bought him an iPhone for his 70th birthday, he wouldn’t let me do it.

Couldn’t get that open mics link to work, so looked it up on google.
Interesting.