No surprise here. The Tyros has nothing to get me excited about except the quality of the drum sounds and styles. I still can't play the Yamaha AI chords, and refuse to relearn full fingered left hand chords at this age. I'll never need to play in a trio where I need to do that.

I had one here today to set up for a friend, so here's my review - based on 4 hrs or so of hands on experience.

1)better feel than the 2000, but not fabulous. The keys have a short travel distance to the bottom, just like the psr9k. never cared for that feel, but it IS better than the 2k.

2)drums are excellent. Maybe the best I've heard....even keel with the impact of the Ketron sounds,but better patterns and fills.

3)Grand piano is still a little weak for my taste. Doesn't play as well as the 9kpro. I even prefer the PA80 grand for expression.

4)VERY nice screen. Great info, but the tempo window is teeny-tiny.

5)transpose buttons are too close to the TEMPO buttons. Accidents waiting to happen.

6) we loaded 49 sequences into the internal memory before it filled up. NOt bad for internal.

7)Too much $$$$ for the extras you get over the 2100...I think

8)didn't play with the mic input, but I expect it to be comparable to the 2100....and that's pretty good.

9)reads from floppies very fast. Button placement is good. Case is too big and long. There should be built in speakers. Not the heavy boxes from the 9k, but the lightweight deals from the 2100.

** I liked it. The mega guitars are wonderful, but often WAY too loud in the arranger mix. Need loads of tweaking there.
If there was no alternative to the Ty, then it would sell better, but as long as the 2100 holds up...it will steal some potential customers. It's not worth twice the money for my taste, and it's still a SLIENT SLAB ! Arrrggggg

Hope you all love your Tys, but I think it was only slightly more than a lateral move over the 2k series. I'd rather have a 9kpro anyday.

Oh well.....
At least you got it out of the way...Next!!

As long as the 2100 doesn't have a HD option, it totally outrules itself as even a remote contender.

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Roy-Andrè

Who needs a HD when you have a laptop?
I also have no need for an onboard Sequencer in a keyboard. When will they just make an arranger with Great styles/sounds, solid keyfeel, onboard speakers and lightweight, and the smallest size possible. Everythig else can be done with a laptop.

I just read the review of the Tyros in Keyboard. I didn't really find anything to get excited about. Still rather have the 9000. If I wanted a fancy lift up console I'd get the KN-7000. That's really nice to play and has touch response on all the organs.

You're not too old to learn, UD. I'm still using full fingered left hand chords at 65, one of the reasons I got an arranger, though I always use it in full fingered mode.

Bryan

Totally disagree.
Having to plug in and out a lt everytime you wanna do some work on the keyboard, no matter how small or large the job is a pain.
With a HD, turn the keyboard on, work! No floppies, no lt connections. Tons of storage right in your keyboard for styles and files. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

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Roy-Andrè

The laptop is so much more versatile & portable, to do so many different functions,
SMF, Mp3, Wav, Lyrics, Word Files, Recording, Sequencing, KB problem backup, etc, mostly while your playing the keyboard at the same time. If your not in a live performing situation its hard to see the importance of using a laptop on stage. Its a must have for me.



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 08-18-2003).]

Uncle Dave,

I do appreciate your review. It seems to me the biggest complaint against Tyros is the price. Furthermore, it seems that the price is high because Yamaha has been invested lot of money in the research for styles and sounds. Now motif es is coming out and it is benefiting greatly from the work that has been done for Tyros. So motif users will be glad to know that it will less than the price of Tyros. I wish the cycle is different. I wish they produce the best motif first and motif users pay for the research and developement of it. Then a top arranger is produced on top of the best of motif for lower price.

I play out live quite a bit, and I use styles for traditional stuff and sing-a-longs, marches,etc, and midifiles for back-up when I play my guitar. Therefore I don't need anything else but my Tyros, it even gives me text and chords for backing me up when I get rusty in my brain. (Which happens quite often). When this MS3 becomes more available (that might prove to be the beginning of something that you can edit etc.) I will probably use a laptop too. But as long as MP3 locks you up with regards to editing, I'm not interested. For a back-up, I do agree, the laptop I guess, is handy. (So in the course of my writing, I gave in somewhat,Don!)


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Roy-Andrè

Keyboard mag just reviewed the KN7000 .