It's good to have an arranger again and the Tyros 3 hits the mark in so many ways. I have previously talked about how arrangers are good for initiating song ideas and how they make great sketching tools for song composition. The auto-accompaniment features and styles make that possible needless to say. Professional musicians will buy an arranger for that very purpose and they can inspire a new dimension of song creativity. The Big Three and also Ketron and Casio have discovered a gold mine of opportunity that musicians of all stripes can utilize and as the technology and sounds continue to get better the opportunities become even greater.

Here is a little song 'idea' I put together using a Tyros 3 style and auto-accompaniment. The neat thing about it is that it's fast, fun and easy to do in most cases. It has a gospel feel to it but the sky is the limit with any genre of music.

Arrangers can spark imagination and creativity. The companies that excel the most bring home the bacon but for the companies that oftentimes play catch up the monetary rewards are not as great, needless to say. That's why it is in the best interest of the Big Three and the others to stay on the cutting edge of technology because the rewards are bigger for both the companies and musicians alike.

The key is to make top-notch products that are competitively priced so that more people have the opportunity to partake in the musical experience. Charging an arm and a leg might seem legitimate from a business standpoint but it obviously deters many people from forking over the dough in the first place. Yammie does it because they know they can get away with it since they have a huge following of devoted customers and a lot of those customers keep doing the upgrade shuffle during each new product launch. To each his own, but obviously it can hinder innovation if a company keeps raking in the dough with little oversight or accountability. In other words, if people keep forking over money irregardless of a product(s) own self-worth then there is less of an incentive for Yamaha and other companies to keep producing cutting edge products. I'm not criticizing Yamaha mind you. I'm simply pointing out some things for discussion.

Korg is another example. The Kronos was highly touted before it launched but when it arrived on store shelves there was serious quality control issues that sent shock waves throughout the music community. People bought the Kronos and in some cases the keyboard fell apart at the seams.. literally. Korg was slow to correct the situation too if I'm not mistaken. But Korg also has a huge following and they also make tons of money so a sense of entitlement may have crept in at the upper management level and perhaps led to the shoddy workmanship on the Kronos and perhaps other Korg products?? I heard that some of the parts on the Kronos were made in China (the RH3 keybed, etc.) but later on Korg switched to parts made in Japan. The Kronos also costs an arm and a leg so again it's very troubling to see these supposedly high-end products having serious problems after they're released to the public. And when the companies are allowed to get away with it, unscathed, consumers end up with what are, in some cases, 'incremental' upgrades that could in fact have a variety of problems on both the hardware and software side of things from the factory. The Tyros 5 roll-out hasn't been all that smooth either because of various quality control issues. If Yammie and Korg aren't careful the possibility of sub-standard products might continue to occur and as such they would be undeserving of the Yamaha and Korg name in my opinion. If people keep forking over dough for those very same products there is a higher likelihood the problems will continue to happen in the future. As I stated in a previous post I have high hopes that Yamaha will get a handle on any remaining issues on the Tyros 5 and again it is a great arranger keyboard especially for those fortunate enough to get a problem free one. So the logical course of action would be to hold these companies accountable so that they 'stay on their toes' because without customers to buy their products they wouldn't be in business in the first place and they realize that. Okay, I'll stop. For now.

PS: As you can tell the quality of the sound isn't the best since it's an .mp3 and I had to cut the bit rate down to 192 kbps to be able to post it on this forum because of the size limitation. I used Sony Sound Forge to record to in uncompressed .wav format @ 24 bit 96 kHz and the original .wav file sounds much better but it was like 90 MB. The file I posted is just to give you an example of using an arranger as a quick composing tool. It also helps if you listen to it through a decent set of speakers.

All the best, Mike

Tyros5 issues kept me from upgrading, although most are/will be corrected.

I never could see/justify the inclusion of the audio drum based styles, either on Tyros5 or S950, as they are very limited in regards to editing. The rest of Tyros5's styles are pretty much identical to Tyros4 which is the instrument I chose to buy.

Tyros4's main advantage over Tyros3 is the ability to use SA/SA2 voices in the styles, but I also found T4's overall sound "sweeter" than that of Tyros3. I had both here at my home and was able to do extensive comparisons before deciding on the Tyros4.

Having said that, the Tyros3 is still an incredible arranger, as you have discovered, Mike, and the advantages an arranger has in song composition are many, not the least of which are ease of use and almost immediate results.

I still feel the Korg arrangers have a more powerful sequencer, but the one in my Tyros4 has not left me wanting in any way, so I guess it's a matter of what works best for one's needs.

Congrats on your Tyros3 and may you have many hours of enjoyment with it.

Ian