hi Chas
Thanks for being the 1st to reply. I trust you're feeling better and on the mend from your recent illness. Considering the fact that your fav genres are jazz, blues & R&B, and your Korg PA1X Pro your preferred kb (particularly its drums), I'm anxious to hear more thoughts from you about this, as my music background (college days: piano jazz combo before discovering arrangers) was similar. Do Korg arrangers include many jazz styles (including swing brushes) and are they suitable for performing tunes included in the Real Book. and playing lounge gigs?
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Here are my answers to the questions I posed:
1) Music Genre Most Played:
a) Jazz standards (3-4 piece combo setting): Porter, Gershwin, Jobim, etc. Cocktail Hour jazz requirements: decent acoustic piano patch a most; good Jazz brushes a plus.
b) Pop/Rock/Country/R&B: 50's - Present: solid rhythm sec. backing styles Require good sounding voices: esp. keyboards, organs, guitars, & synths.
Music Genre least played:
atonal music
2) Yamaha Tyros2
3) Overall still satisfied, but looking for improvements (see #4)
4) I've been playing Tyros2 for 5 years now and overall, still pretty satisfied with its sound & performance. I love the SA voices & ability to load & utilize custom sound samples. I find the Vocal harmonizer (after tweaking) acceptable for live performance (though definitely not 4 studio rec). T2's weakness sound-wise is that it doesn't have the full bodied live sound & punch (esp drums) that Ketron keyboards deliver. Overall, I like Yamaha's performance navigation system (REGs, OTS, etc), but one important feature improvement that would make calling up songs (when performing live) far better, is for Yamaha to add the ability for its MusicFinder to call up custom REG BANK files.
As far as construction, I really appreciate T2's relative lightweight portability, but don't like the body design (sharp corners) or poor silver paint finish, because as early as after 6 months I bought it, the silver paint began wearing off the buttons and body shell corners. Also, after a year, the headphone jack & a couple of the arranger function buttons began to act flaky. I later learned that a quick shot of contact cleaner solved those problems.
5) The three arrangers I'm currently considering to replace the Tyros2 are:
1) Yamaha Tyros4 / S910 successor
2) Korg PA3X / Korg PA800's successor
3) Ketron Audya
I listed Tyros4 first merely because it's the natural succession to what I already play so probably the easiest to transition to. That said, I'm unwilling to purchase a Tyros4 until Yamaha releases an update fix to correct the style creator issues that Chony reported and that Steve Deming and several other T4 owners have also confirmed. The inability to save ones edited styles is too an important feature to live without.
In light of this, I'm intrigued with what the next gen of Korg brings, or the Ketron Audya , for their impressive 'live sounding' rhythm section styles. My biggest reservation switching to Korg, and more so with Audya, is the learning curve, and style availability, particularly swing jazz & brushes. An even greater concern are the reported reliability issues I've read about Ketron arrangers. Then again, I realize that DonM and others say they experienced no problems of that nature.
Having played Yamaha arrs for over ten years now, it's gonna be difficult to decide between an arr brand I've grown so comfortable with (though perhaps a little bored with too), and moving to a totally new arranger that will mean new learning challenges yet offers the live backing sound I'd really appreciate.
The other arr feature important to me is auto accompaniment 'chord recognition'. As some of you remember, I made it a personal crusade to get the arranger manufacturers to incorporate 'jazz style' (ala Bill Evans) rootless chords to their chord recognition table, of which enables you to comp in the style of Wynton Kelly & Bill Evans . Yamaha & Technics always supported this, but over the last few years, Ketron & Korg finally added this feature so appreciated by jazz pianists too. Kudos to Ketron & Korg. Regretfully for me, The last holdout remains Roland, so I'm still not able to consider a Roland yet. In conclusion, Whatever arranger I eventually upgrade to, it's definitely going to be a difficult choice.
That said, any observations, recommendations & input appreciated. - Scott
[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 11-13-2010).]
