Overall I'm pleased. There still all a lot of work to be done to get it to where I'm really comfortable, but the only way to really find out what needs to be done is to play it "under fire".
I went in two hours early, and it took almost all that time to get everything set up. I had to change keyboard stands, mic holders, lights, location of the stand relevant to the speakers (because of the extra length of the kb). Still to work on illuminating the kb controls a little more.
I had forgotten to set up a User midi setup to control the Harmony M, but that took only a couple of minutes. Just went in and sent Transmit chord 1 and 2 to channel one, and turn everything else off.
What I found while playing:
A lot of the styles and most of the voices are excellent. But I was already satisfied with the styles and sounds I had.
The main problems I had were with a few registrations that I evidently saved improperly. The Yamaha Save procedure leaves a lot to be desired but I'm getting comfortable with it again.
For example some of the registrations changed pedal assignments and vocal assignments when I thought they were protected. There should be an EASY way to LOCK anything you don't want changed, like Korg does. The parameter lock does a few of these, but sometimes they don't seem to work properly either. Eventually I'll discover and correct these things. It's embarrassing to push the Sustain pedal and immediately find out it has been reset to Volume!!
I'll need to redo some text files. It's a shame Yamaha can't truncate text lines like everyone else does. If the text line is too long, it just cuts off. I remember this now, but had forgotten, since Korg automatically finishes the text on the next line.
I used the Harmony M vocal processor/harmonizer most of the night, but the last hour used the on-board mic processor. I was pleasantly surprised because I thought it sounded good. Again, some of the registrations changed my default mic and harmony settings a few times.
The latest update, for some reason, made the text display smaller. Enough people are complaining that I'm sure they will correct that.
It's a shame that Yamaha doesn't put lapels across the top back where you can see what cables go where without lifting the keyboard, standing up, shining a light and trying to see the back of the thing. Again Korg and Roland both do this. Absolutely no extra cost would be involved. I will make a stick-on template of some kind. Seems like a little thing, but it would save several minutes and some contortions.
I need to retrain my left hand to a degree, to make some chords lower on the keyboard, taking advantage of the extra keys, and making my hand have to travel not as far to reach the joystick.
Now some good things:
It is really nice having all those sliders and knobs to adjust things in real time, even more of them than Korg. As I make these adjustments and save them, there will be less need for them in the future, but still they are most useful. As time passes, I will reprogram a set of knobs and a set of sliders to control the things I use most, so won't have to be switching between sets so often.
Now if a style part is too loud or unneeded, or balance is off, I just reach and pull it down and if necessary save at the end of the song.
It's really easy to navigate to things such as the mixer, the channel on/off page, etc to make adjustments as needed.
I set up a User E.Q. and used it part of the night, and used a preset E.Q., named Powerful, for the rest. After listening to a few of the recordings, I think the factory knows more than I do.
As predicted I am enjoying many of the voices, especially the Pedal Steel Guitars. My boss was impressed by the piano sound, said I sounded like Jimmy Swaggart, who is his musical hero.
I showed him the new keyboard and told him that firing me now was out of the question.
Gratuities were above average, so maybe that's a good sign.
At this point, it feels like a keeper. We'll see . . .
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