VOTE: Which Yamaha Arranger Piano Sounds BEST?

Checkout the Yamaha Grand Piano sample comparison 'Shoot out' test between the:

1) Yamaha 9000pro 'Live' Grand
2) 9000pro expansion board PLG150-PF:GrdPiSt
3) Yamaha Tyros 'Live" Grand

Evaluate HERE: http://svpworld.com/tyrospiano.htm

Please RATE the THREE Grand Piano samples from BEST to worse and provide any additional feedback & comments.

Kudos to BOTH 'the Pro'and Simon Williams for their hard work in recording the midis files, producing the MP3s, and uploading them to the internet.

Scott

First thanks to Simon & Pro for doing this, second absolute KILLER rendition of moon river, excellent guys!

Well, I had several listens and my ranking went like this:
1. Tyros
2. 9K pro
3. Expansion card

Here's how it went for me...it was easy to put the Exp. card in 3rd for me. Then between the Tyros and 9K it took a bit more listening.

I chose the Tyros because overall I felt it had a clearer more expressive sound to it. The 9k sounded great but a bit more muffled to me and not as much presence.
jam on,
Terry

Ok B0yz.... to my ears I rate them as follows:

1- 9k pro Exp

2- Tyros

3- 9k pro


9k pro w/Exp had a great "FULLNESS" and Live accurate resonance and get my #1 vote out of these 3 test ONLY.

****Remember its how your hearing it thru YOUR P/c speaker system too.

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 11-06-2002).]

1- 9k pro

2- Tyros

3- 9k pro EXP

Well I agree with Donny
#1- 9000 PRO EXP
#2- Tyros
#3- 9000 PRO
I also feal that there is more fullness, &
accurate resonance, with the PRO EXP.
that's the way my ears hear it anyway.
Thanks to the PRO & Simon for there hard work.
Denny

[This message has been edited by dlstarry (edited 11-06-2002).]

Hmmmm, I liked the 9kpro best
The exp board was second and the Tyros was a pitiful, thin third for me.

As the Yamaha piano contest goes, I liked the Exp piano best, followed by Tyros, and lastly the 9000 Pro[although Iliked the dynamics of the 9000Pro the best]..For the heck of it I played the sequence[moon river] on my Roland G1000 and I prefered the G1000 bank piano more than any of the Yammys..And to me the G1000[bank] is not the best Roland pianos, I rate it behind the 5080 with the SRX concert exp, the E600 second, FP3 and even the Va's.. Hopefully someone will record the 5080 with the exp board piano[not the GM patch].. I will record the G1000 and send MP3..Fran

Evaluating the piano samples thru a pair of Sony studio headphones, I feel the Tyros, though lacking the extra deep rich bass of the 9000pro & 9000pro Exp board, has a better overall pleasing (unfatiguing) sound, especially in the mid & upper octaves: spacious & clean, with clarity & detail.

The 9000pro and 9000pro Expansion board provide a fuller sounding bass, but as a result the 'over all' sound seems a tad bit covered (muddy?), and the mid-upper octave notes (and chords) sound harsh, almost as if the notes were plucked, the 9000pro more so than the Expansion board.

For an 76 or 88 note solo piano playing situation, I'd probably choose the 9000pro expansion board for its rich full bass, but for 'piano' comping & soloing in arranger keyboard mode, I give the Tyros the edge.

1) Tyros, 2) Expansion Board, 3) 9000pro

- Scott

Thanks for doing a great job on this Pro and
Simon. I compared the 3 mp3s to several of my own keyboards / samples via the midifile. I played all through the input of the PA80 ( over and over ) and used the same effects settings for the mp3s and the Keyboards / samples / I came up with the following evaluations ( for my ears of course ).
From best to worst:


1. & 2. Tie : 9000 pro and Yamaha Motif 'Power Grand' ( loved em both )

3. PC51d ( freeware of all things ) soundfont
( tough call because in some areas I like this better than 1 and 2, but not over the entire keyboard range )

4. 9000 expansion board ( very good )

5. PA80 "AJ grand" ( performance made from user programs / patches ) ( OK )

6. Tyros ( OK )

7. Virtual sound canvas module ( not particularly pleasing )

8. PA80 preset Grand piano ( yuck )


AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-06-2002).]

I was surprised that the 9000 pro and the PLG expansion board have more bottom end depth to them than the Tyros, given the pro should be the same sound. I ensured that when recording the Tyros the output eq was flat and compressor was off. I have asked "the pro" to check this on the 9000 pro and if possible to resample them without his mixing desk in line (even though it was set to flat and no post fx). In my case I connected the tyros outputs direct to the pc soundcard without using the mixer. We both used the same soundcard, same sampling rates and same mp3 bit rates so there shouldnt be much other difference.

Out of interest I felt the pro sounded best, the PLG board second and the Tyros third. The differences were marginal though and it was only the enhanced bass of the first two through my YST-MS50 speakers that tipped the scales for me.

Regards
Simon



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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________

In producing the MP3 files of the 9000 Pro and 9000 Pro EXP, I tried to keep it simple: the 9000 was run through a Mackie mixer with all EQ at "7" (which is considered flat), no compression, straight into my soundcard and recorded using Sound Forge. Unfortunately the way my studio is setup it wasn't possible on short notice to bypass the mixer, and I am now on the road so I can't redo the files without the Mackie until then. None the less, I feel that the Mackie mixer should not make much of a difference, all other factors being equal.

Since I am away from home I don't have access to any computer/speakers I can trust so I will have to abstain from voting on the best piano until I can hear the Tyros fairly, hopefully early next week.

Thanks again to Simon for participating in this arranger piano-emulation shoot-out and to everyone for their comments - it's really interesting to see how varied the responses have been. I hope we get to hear more arrangers tested this way.

Yes it was fun. Lets try a Tenor Sax next and then a Trumpet and on and on thru many different KB's!!

My humble opinion:
The 9000 pro has more depth and more bass, but it's the best also in the higher registers (hear the final notes).
The expansion board has less bottom than the 9000 pro and sounds synthetic in the midrange and thin in the higher notes.
The Tyros is the less natural of the three; with the other two you can at times fool yourself thinking that you are listening to a real piano; with the Tyros it is evident that it's not an acoustic instrument. Maybe due to this synthetic nature, it can be more "relaxing" than the others (the sound is overall mellower).
However, while the excellent performance of our pianist masks their limits in the Moon River sample, when you listen to the C major walkup all three pianos show their pitfalls, but of course we all know that if a digital piano is already an acceptable compromise -compared with the real thing- an arranger piano is just a compromise.

So my vote is:
1) 9000 pro
2) 9000 pro exp
3) Tyros.
Final consideration: from this test it's difficult to believe that the 9000 pro and the Tyros share the same piano multisample.



[This message has been edited by Dreamer (edited 11-07-2002).]

They all sound good, just different.
I find that whatever I'm used to hearing sounds best.
DonM

My vote:
1. 9000 Pro
2. 9000 Pro expansion
3. Tyros

Paul Ip
from Texas

Hi Paul: GREAT to see you back. Really thought you had disappeared forever ! I assume now you've been lurking all this time, right?

I listen and listen,and play the midi on my
Kn6000.
And the winner is ....KN6000>kn6500 and 7000

Regards
Arno

i,m afraid my vote wont help much cause i found them all good,mike

Great thing that evaluation of piano samples.
And, for my ears, all of three sound well, but I prefer both 9000pro.
I would ask Simon (or someone giving it to Simon) for putting the same mp3 piano samples from PSR2000 (and KN7000 and VA7 if possible). It will be the best way to compare not only between top Yammies.

I'm with Andrea on the first one.
The Pro sounded richer to me, not just because of the extra bass.
It didn't sound muffeld at all to my ears, as Scott said. I guess I like the rich deep sound better.
But they where all good.

1. 9K Pro
2. Tyros
3. Exp. card

This is my final answer....

Eric

Eric, you are the man!

Everyone should know that the only reason the top Yamaha arrangers were compared was because that was all that Simon and I had handy. I devised this test because I've been curious as to how the Yamaha Tyros' best grand piano compared to the Yamaha 9000 Pro's best and the best grand piano on the Yamaha PLG150-PF piano expansion board. It was meant as an apples-to-apples comparison, but it need not be limited to the top Yamaha models.

Simon has invited other arranger owners (or people who can borrow one), Yamaha or otherwise, to download the three test midi files from his site and try them on your arranger's best piano sound. You'll find the guidelines for creating the comparison MP3's posted with the midi files. If you can produce a fair and comparable MP3 files to the ones we've made, please send it to Simon at SVPWorld so we can all hear it.

1. PLG150PF expansion
2. 9000Pro
3. Tyros

I think the PLG150PF sounds almost the same as the 9000Pro one. They were very similar. Also I think the Tyros piano sound sounds a little 'YAMAHA-ish'. I've noticed that that YAMAHA grand pianos tend to have a bit of a "closed lid" sound.

Anyway that's my opinion. I was wondering can someone try a PSR9000 and PSR2000's pianos? I'm very interested in these as well.

Sunny

1. 9000pro
2. Tyros
3. 9000 expansion board

I do agree with DonM that all sound good - just different. Geez, what would I give to play Moon River like that!

Tom G.

Yes I would be more than happy to do so, if any psr2000 and KN7000 owners can download the midifiles from my site and send me mp3's recorded from their machines.

If there's any other sounds you would like also compared, send them in as mp3's so that I can upload a corresponding tyros version. Either use the midifiles on my site to create the mp3's or send me your own, as we need to make equivalent comparisons.

Simon



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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________

Hang on, perhaps I should remove the top casing and rerecord them :-)

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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________

I thought they all sounded like they came from the same tone generation system. More treble on the pro and tyros - a little less subdued presence on the pro than the tyros. Overall quality? - wouldn't have em. They just are not as rich as Roland or Ketron's high end. Easily better than Korg - which has the single most over-rated sound arsenal out there - except for Alesis maybe.

MH

Finally, I got to check out the shoot-out and I'm ready to cast my vote. Incidently, at the link provided by Scott at the top of this thread, there is a new MP3 of the PSR2000's Grand Piano posted for comparison with the 9000 Pro, the PLG150-PF and the Tyros.

I stand by my liking of the PLG150-PF piano expansion card. I'm a big Kurzweil fan and the PLG150-PF is the only Yamaha piano emulation to come close to the warmth and richness of the K's in my opinion. The Yamahas in general tend to decay too quickly in the upper midrange for my taste, with the PLG150-PF having a more natural piano decay than others - some of which can sound very clipped. The overall sharp attack and quick decay makes most Yamahas good for rock 'n roll but bad for solo performance, both in electronic emulations and in the real thing.

As to the arrangers, I was highly impressed with the Tyros piano in comparison to the 9000 Pro and the exp. card. It was warmer than I expected and it sounded better than the native 9000 Pro IMHO (I've never liked the 9000 Pro's native piano sound). This was a pleasant surprise, but in actual use the Tyros could not produce the "Moon River" you hear in this comparison because of it's 61-note keyboard, (the demo was created on the 76-note 9000 Pro) so that has to be taken into consideration.

So my vote goes as follows, based solely on sound:

1. PLG150-PF
2. Tyros
3. 9000 Pro
4. PSR2000 (distant fourth)

As to other brands - I recently heard the Roland 5080 with the piano expansion card and it was superb (and I generally don't like Roland pianos). Korg makes a fine organ. But nobody can top Kurzweil still for electronic piano emulation IMHO and for serious 88-note keyboard performances that'll always be my first choice... too bad they can't make a decent arranger !

Thanks Pro for the comments. I agree with you that the top octaves of yamaha synth pianos often decay rather quickly. The Tyros I've noticed also has rather substantial changes in the brightness with velocity, when compared to the 9000 or 740. All this feedback is great because maybe we can use it to "tweak" the yamaha piano sounds and come up with something more favored!

Now... technics, korg, roland.. where are thou piano!

Simon


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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________