I've been following the posts regarding everyone's frustrations with the build quality of Yamaha's newer keyboards, and there have been a lot of good points made too. Yeah we can all agree that Yamaha didn't intend for the PSR-2000 to be for profeessional use, but if this is the case maybe they should stop calling them "portable keyboards".... That title is misleading in so many ways. They claim these boards are designed for home use, yet they call them portable keyboards... Sounds like a contradiction to me....

Squeak

Squeakster,
I think the mistake Yamaha made with the 2000 is that it turned out better than they expected. It is SO CLOSE to being the ideal arranger keyboard for single or duo work. It sounds good, it is easy to use, it is not very expensive, it is light-weight, it has good mic and vocal harmony (despite bugs).
But then they cut some corners that just made the whole thing frustrating.
It would be so easy to take that keyboard, add some memory--say a memory card, or just a lot of User RAM--maybe beef it up just a little and add a few of the buttons they left off (separate buttons for each intro, ending for example).
I really don't object to the construction that much if beefing it up would add too much to the weight. It is not a piano, so the key touch is fine for me, but I understand others would like sturdier-feeling keys. And of course put the OS in RAM as originally designed so it could be upgraded easily.
Yamaha markets this keyboard, and all their arrangers, to such widely-diverse markets that the single best improvement they could make would be to do like Korg, Farfisa and maybe others and let us replace ANY or ALL of the preset styles with our own, or edited versions. That way you could truly tailor the keyboard to your own needs, whether it is Country, Rock, Techno, Big Band, Latin, Rap, or anything else.
Almost every area where they missed the boat could be easily compensated for if there were enough on-board memory to store custom setups. But having to use floppies for everything is just too time-consuming on the job, despite the really fast load-time.
What would all this add to the cost? Maybe 100 to 200 dollars at the most? Who cares?? I could sell 'em by the truckload.
In their defense, they made a keyboard for the pros--the 9000 Pro. Had I known the vocal harmonizer in the 2000 was lacking some presets that it was supposed to have, and that the OS couldn't be upgraded (obviously it hasn't been in more than 6 months!) I would have bought the Pro instead.
Now I can't buy one because I'm so disappointed in Yamaha's (non)handling of the 2000 situation that I may never buy another product from them.
DonM

The 9000pro is not degigned for the SOLO pro, really. It's more of a "band" pro because of the size, and lack of speakers.
I mentioned this to Mark yesterday, and stated that the "one nighter" of todays needs a smaller, powered version that is lighter than the 9k.

The 9kpro had EVERYthing you'd need to work as a soloist ...... but the size made it just too cumbersome to deal with, and the lack of speakers just put it out opf range for the smaller jobs. The PSR9k was not a suitable substitute, because of the awkward size and same horrible weight factor.

Face - it ... these two are just too darn heavy to be called portables. I'm an artist, not a piano mover.

lets not just jump on Yamaha...... EVERY ARRANGER KEYBOARD MANUFACTURER SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THIS ARGUMENT !

DNJ, I agree! It seems to me that the only ones who will listen and respond are Ketron and GEM (to a lesser extent). Now let's see what they offer us.
Dave, isn't the Pro some 15 pounds lighter than the PSR9000? I was thinking 35 vs 50.
DonM

My wk8 is perfect in every way !!!

(I am so just kidding)

I don't think I'm gonna ever find the perfect board, but the PA80 works well enough for me that I can be happy with it. Some of the Yamaha arrangers I owned or played had excellent features, but I was never totally able to embrace any of them and make them "mine". Doesn't make them bad boards by any means, but that's just a personal preference. In fact I liked some of the styles and features enough that I customized my PA80 to mimic some of the 9000 / 2000 / 740 styles and voice assignments. The good news is that there IS so much that can be tailored to my preferences on it. The harder part was learning how and spending the time to do it. I'd like more and better fills in the Korg styles, but I also know that it isn't likely going to happen just because I want it, so I modified some the Korg styles myself as best I could to my liking. The good thing on the PA80 is that I can overwrite any part of or a whole factory style without having to waste user style space.

It isn't fair for me to evaluate the Technics arranger I owned since it's was an older model and it's been gone for many years now, but at the time I thought it was a good board. If the MZ2000 is a semi clone of the KN5000 ( at least in features ), I bet I'd have really liked it, but I won't buy a board sight unseen. One of the unfortunate things about living in this area is knowing that other boards are out there but not being able to see or play around with them.

I'd have to say Korg Italy has done a fair job of communicating with us on the PA80 forums and it seems that at least some of the things that were asked for by users were implemented in the OS updates. Obviously not everything that everyone asked for, but some things.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 04-23-2002).]

HI: DonM
My name is not Dave but I will answer your
Question about the weight of the 9000 PRO
it is 45 lbs.
Enjoying the 9000 PRO
Denny

may be Yamaha needs to come up with "2000Pro"

Hi Guys,
The spec's say the PSR-9000 is 50lbs.
Not including the song stand???????? Huh!
How heavy is that song stand anyway??

Denny, I like my 2000 too!
I would like it a lot better if I had the OS upgraded with the new chips.
And I didn't worry everyday, as to when mine was going to start falling apart!!
Still ok so far,
Nobby

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