YAMAHA PSR-S950 Big Band Swing (Audio) you judge?

Although I own a S950...I am still not convinced these audio styles are the bees knees.....when I listen to styles like this the drums just sound disjointed from the other style sounds/parts as if they were coming from two Different sources instead of a all together live band? sad how there is NO way To edit the drum kits, etc,..The arrangement is wonderful but to me it just doesn't seem to all com together what do you think? I'll just say this if EVERY style on the KB was Audio driven I wouldn't have this KB. I wanna love the audio styles but I can't at this time.
Thank the lord the MIDI styles & sounds sound fantastic!!.....for now. Just being honest.

Donny, I thought the drums sounded just fine.

They are different than the MIDI styles, but for me that is a good thing. So much of the complaints about Yamaha boards is that they all sound too much like polished CD's. To me, the audio styles have a sound that is not quite so polished. Much more like real drummers many of us have played with. Every drummer out there is not Buddy Rich. I would not want the keyboard to have only audio styles because I love the punch on many of the midi styles. However, for me, they are a nice change and so far I am using some of them on my gigs with excellent results.

Joe

The audio big band, jazz combo, and some of the Latin sytles sound really good to me. However I just played the 950 at a noisy guitar center ( I actually convienced a guy to buy one - I knew way more than the salesman) Perhaps they don't sound good through a PA??? Anyways I'm not hearing anything "disjointed" on the demos that you posted Donny but you have spent alot more time with the instrument than me... I do hear quite a bit (maybe too much) reverb on the drums and that is a drag that you can't edit that.

Listen again....by disjointed I mean....drums vs rest of the song sound like two different sources like Live drummer playing along with a cd backing track....its sonically incorrect IMO.

Not only are the audio drums a bit wet for some, the problem is that a reverb setting in the regular reverb processor that matches the rooms that the drums were recorded in is sadly missing. So this makes matching the space and timbre the drums are in to any other sounds you use with them pretty hard to do.

And this is what I think Donny is hearing.

Pros often have really different reverb needs than 'home users', who usually have their arranger set up in a living room or bedroom that is sonically dead... Pros play in larger rooms, often with a lot of hard surfaces, so the room they are in is quite lively already. So, how do you mix the audio drums? It seems, at least to me, that Yamaha have mixed these drums for the dead environment.

Bottom Line.....if I can't edit my sound I won't use it.

The thing about the Yamaha audio styles, is that they are all different, recorded in different environments. Some are excellent, many have too much reverb. I'm using 4 or 5, and they are really good. They don't stand out so much that they make the midi styles sound bad though. At least no worse than usual.
DonM

Yes Don only a few are usable and that's with only
"SOME OF THE VARIATIONS" involved within the style,.......
I think the S950 is the "Guinea Pig" for the New T5 ...if these audio styles aren't received & acclaimed by the masses I predict Yamaha will drop them in coming models & work on a new angle,......just my take on it.

And I imagine that most S950 users will only use about that percentage of the audio styles, at least in a pro environment...

That seems like an awful lack of styles to justify an entirely new major feature. Just imagine what else could have been added to the PSR line if the major R&D for this barely useful feature had been tasked to, say, a better Songbook, or better MIDI drum kits, or simply adding a loop capability to the audio Multi-Pads.

TBH, the audio multi-pads would be a groundbreaking feature IF it had the ability to loop. Adding electronica and breakbeat loops to standard drumming is THE sound of today's contemporary music. Yamaha have already made it easy to import .Wav files, opening a vast library of just about any content you can imagine... Scrub-board playing for Zydeco, moody chillout loops for chilldown music, spacy drones for ambient music...

Yamaha have probably unwittingly created the ONE feature that might bring young musicians back to the arranger fold. But doh! They forgot the loop command!

They make a strong case for gun control, as badly as they have shot themselves in the foot!

I cant believe I'm agreeing with you....but alas you speak the truth Diki.....what Yamaha needs to do in the future is just listen to their customers Pro & Amateur players for their wants and needs in an arranger KB. Who's brainy idea was Audio drums & styles this time around anyway? I would have loved to be at the R&D pre-meeting before they made the S950 just to voice my opinions,....Yamaha needs to take some major marketing R&D surveys to get on the right track. I really want to love this S950 and to a point I really like it for my needs now....but, in back of my mind I'll always want changes for it that never get done model after model,....
eg: revamped MFD to include ALL Registration settings & Transpose, ability to SAVE a Registration setting
"while playing" without a glitch, better keybed for MOTl units, Front USB Port, Dual XLR mic inputs, and a few more things..etc.

I started to say, well it's only a middle of the line keyboard, but then I remember the Tyros 4 doesn't do those things either!
If you really want all those things, you should buy a PA3X!

DonM

lol.... YEA DON BUT THEN YOU DON'T GET THE GREAT MAHAYANA SOUND & ALL THAT SUPPORT, STYLES, ETC, ETC, ..

OH YEAH I FORGOT ....I NEED THOSE SPEAKERS in my face !!

That Great Yamaha sound is no greater that great Korg sound, or Ketron sound ... or that great Roland sound. Wersi and Gem are the only 2 that never lit my fire in the expensive lineup. I ever prefer Casio to those 2, but the top 3 are easily usable on most stages with terrific success.
I'd bet that NO one picks Yamaha over Korg or vice versa for sound ... it's features and OS that separate the pack. They all sound great.

WRONG!

The PSR s950 sound good but not as good as my PA600

this place is full of funny people.

I agree that I would rather have better MIDI drum kits, because if I have a great kit, I can add it to many different older styles. The audio drums are only good for that one style.

I just listened to the audio drums by themselves, however, and I have to disagree that they have so much reverb. They do not have a lot of reverb.

I use three of the audio styles regularly, and I get great audience feedback.

Yamaha's audio styles are in response to the Ketron Audya in my opinion. Audio, that is to say .wav and/or .mp3 sound better than midi implementation and I believe the Audya is the first arranger to make use of audio in conjunction with the accompaniment features. Since audio sounds more realistic than midi it was nice to see Yamaha utilizing audio in their latest arrangers. The caveat of course is the audio styles can't be edited or even recorded from my understanding.

I'll let you in on a little secret. I actually purchased a PSR-s950 several days ago with the intention of keeping it. Lo and behold after two days of frustration I decided to return it. Don't get me wrong. The PSR-s950 sounds really good. But if you play in low light situations the keyboard can actually become a hazard because it's nearly impossible to navigate your way around it when the lights are turned down. At least that was my experience anyway. I realize my eyes aren't as good as they used to be but as a comparison I have no problem playing my Roland G7 in low light situations. Yamaha should have put their newest arrangers to the test and if they had done so they would have realized the difficulty customers would face in low light situations. Although perhaps they really did put them to the test and left it up to the customer to purchase a light if need be. Since many people have already complained about that specific problem I hope Yamaha will address it in the future. I should have listened to Don Mason's warning.

Another gripe was the buttons and also the layout of the keyboard. The buttons seemed very flimsy - much flimsier than my PSR-2000 in fact. When I demoed the PSR-s950 at Guitar Center a while back I didn't realize the button issue would be so pronounced. Possibly because of the excitement of playing it for the first time I suppose. After buying it I noticed pressing buttons around the LCD screen was a hit or miss scenario. What happened was I ended up pressing a button two or three times to get it to do what I wanted. Which could be disastrous in a live performance setting needless to say.

My Tyros was solidly constructed and only cost $600 more than the PSR-s950. My Tyros also had after-touch and of course a better keybed; although no on-board speakers obviously. I hate to say it but it appears Yamaha is cutting corners on quality. Most of the sounds are really good to excellent but sounds are only one aspect of a keyboard. If it falls apart a day after the warranty expires the sounds won't mean a thing right? What you could end up with is a $2,000 (after taxes) paper weight. God forbid. The layout also seemed less than optimal to me. It almost seems as if Yamaha created the PSR-s750/s950 without any musician input. I find that hard to believe but stranger things have happened.

PROS: In many cases excellent sounds. Easy navigation - when you can actually see what you're doing that is. Fair price(s) for what you get. Audio implementation. Better sounding drums, albeit, not the bee knees. Lightweight. Nice sounding speakers with the right EQ setting.

CONS: As previously mentioned above. Also, cheesy keys. Screen resolution not up to snuff. No 1/4" inputs. Again, layout is less than optimal in my opinion. Vocal Harmony volume is too low. BTW, never had that problem with either my Tyros or PSR 2000. Build quality seems lacking. Styles seem too robotic but the sound quality is actually very good.

Conclusion: Yamaha should be complimented for the great sounds and for the audio implementation and, yes, for the better sounding drum kits. Although the keys were really really cheesy. But I probably would have kept the keyboard if not for the other problems I experienced.

All the best, Mike

PS: Musikmesse is right around the corner. Summer NAMM could be interesting too.

Having the PA800 as my main board I am not too critical of my added PSR750. That having been said, the only thing that does bug me is the bass response, already mentioned in great detail overhere.

As to the drum issue which this thread is about, I think Yamaha should secretly sample all OLDER KETRON drum samples and apply them in their keyboards. Last year I had the Ketron SD5 (2006) and those drums ( so no audio drums, beware) were absolutely stunning and real..........................

regards,
John

If Ketron were any significant competition to Yamaha, I'd say you were probably right. But the audio feature on Ketron's hasn't equated to a massive spike in sales, and the other manufacturers don't seem to be losing significant market share to them.

Personally, I'm more of the opinion that audio has been added to Yamaha's because it is EASY... The code for audio manipulation is well matured, pretty bombproof (once upon a time, tempo and pitch manipulation of audio resulted in all kinds of nasty artifacts), and engineers versed it its use are commonplace.

Mind you, I said adding the audio features was EASY.... I didn't say it was easy to turn it into something PRACTICAL! Yamaha's engineers obviously found it easy to add the core audio functionality, but apparently found it hard to add the features that would make it of any real use...

And this, finally, cements why I think Ketron had no influence at all Yamaha's decision to go audio drums. Let's face it, if Yamaha had spent any time with a Ketron, they might have actually got it RIGHT! They have ignored every single audio feature on Ketron's that makes it a practical feature - Most of the styles being audio (so you aren't forced to use MIDI styles most of the time), easy import of your own audio into a style, fast, practical loading of new audio styles, and looping capability on the audio.

Yamaha may not even have heard of Ketron (they big in Japan?)!

So where did your sd5 go? They all seem to be hidden now...

I thought the drums in the swing style sounded like they were muted; like being played behind a wall or studio partition.

To me, Keyboardplayer's assessment of the S950 was exactly what I've been thinking, having played it several months. However, I'm keeping mine for now. Except for the sound of the S950, I think I prefer the color and overall layout of the S910 better.

Audio loops saved as MP3...(MS)..Guitar, bass, drums..

nice demo.. ....don't know if it is more advanced enough then this You Tube Yamnaha version Blues Rock,..
For example T2..

Well let's see...since you cannot load , edit, sequence using audio (Wave), on the Yamaha s950...I would say the MS is much more advanced..

The content of the loops is in material...you can use any wave loop...even the few in the s950, if you can ever get them out of the keyboard...

Listening to the Tyros2 demo has no common comparison..ordinary midi seq or style that can easily be beat by any Korg , Roland or Ketron product

BTW: Using audio loops...are way to much trouble...I too rather use PCM samples controlled by midi..

Kool....I'm glad you agree!!

We all went round and round on the MS back when Dom was making them. It still boils down to content, and assembly. I mean, kudos for Ketron getting MUCH further down that road than Lionstracs ever did. They at least know, for the vast arranger market, you have to do most of the work for them! It takes skills that few players have to assemble all the pieces parts to make a good usable style out of audio loops.

Yamaha, OTOH, haven't even latched onto that basic fact, despite years of domination of the arranger market. Of what use is an audio loop arranger, when there are so FEW audio loops available for them? They wrap it in a proprietary shell so you can't get your own loops in even if you COULD make your own, and the one area where you CAN put your own content in, Yamaha forgot to make it loop!

In the meantime, MIDI arrangers continue to get better and better. Drum kits get more and more dynamic and live sounding, SA voices make legato parts more realistic, and a variety of 'guitar modes' make guitar parts more realistic (and able to play any chord!) and voicings more authentic.

Everything about MIDI styles is getting better, and we only have to wait a while for factory sample sizes to get bigger, and we will have nirvana! Admittedly, much of what we are waiting for CAN be done now, using the MIDI output of our arrangers and low latency VSTi rigs. But the main thing missing is the skill that the factory programmers show to tie it all together. Once the kits are made into factory presets, the style programmers will have something stable to work with, and then watch out!

I only see big things for MIDI arrangers in the next few years.

Whats new about audio drums in an arranger?

Those Yamaha demonstrators want people to beleive they are the first one to have these audio drums, we all know better, don´t we?


Personally i think they sound really poor compared to Audya styles.

Yamaha's business model is to make mild or slight improvements on the next model with just enough to tempt their customer base to change up and purchase the latest model. They ensure That the product is limited so that it cannot accommodate third-party products only the proprietary Offerings which Yamaha charge through the nose for. I'm not criticising Yamaha for the business model. It works clearly. Yamaha simply have understood the market, they understand who they are selling two, and they understand the triggers that will encourage its market to buy the next model up. No doubt Yamaha have twigged onto the idea that its customers will buy a new keyboard every year or two And inject a new cash supply for Yamaha's boffins to tweak the next model Which has probably been lying on some technicians desk for the last year already been on the .That's just clever marketing.

Ain't it great that we have a choice?..

This S950, as far as I can remember, is the first Yamaha to introduce a totally new, important feature on a mid-priced arranger. Usually, everything groundbreaking has been introduced on the Tyros (or what was TOTL for its day) and then trickled down to the MOTL a couple of years later (with some restrictions compared to the TOTL).

Not so, audio drums. Perhaps the code for this was ready to go LONG before Yamaha were ready to make a new TOTL, who knows. But there seems to be a glaring error. Yamaha would never have DREAMED of introducing this feature in its current, almost unusable form on an arranger costing up to $4000. The backlash would have been immense. A tiny handful of styles, no way to load your own, no additional content of any size, and a reboot just to load the few in that you can..! Tyros owners would have been up in arms.

So, breaking with precedent, Yamaha roll it out in its almost unusable form on the MOTL... Maybe this is genius marketing, but I am utterly hard pressed to figure out how..! TBH, if this is Yamaha's idea of beta-testing the feature, they have failed miserably. In fact, I'd have to say, from reading so many of the diehard Yamaha user's comments, that this is the first PSR MOTL to take some backward steps (buttons, displays, etc) and introduce a feature that no-one requested, no-one needs, and no-one uses much (little to be used!).

Maybe Yamaha are human, after all.

Yamaha need to step up their game when this makes it to the Tyros line. Bigtime! The content had better MOSTLY be audio drums. The library of extra styles to purchase had better be extensive. The time taken to load those extra styles in on the gig had better be minimal. The drum reverb levels had better be tamed, or MUCH better room reverbs available in the effects section, so other style parts could be made to match. The multipads MUST allow audio looping. And VERY fine tuning, to match tempos over 32 bars or so (contrary to popular belief, not all MIDI gear runs at PRECISELY the tempo it says - 90.01bpm, when played against a 90.00bpm loop, will go noticeably out of sync after 32 bars or so). If this isn't possible, there needs to be a MIDI trigger for the loop every x# of bars.

Without this, the inclusion in the Tyros line is going to upset a LOT of people with a LOT of money to spend. Maybe, if audio loops are what they have their heart set on, they'll start taking a closer look at the Audya's, who at least HAVE got this feature down cold...

Personally, I am still hoping Yamaha find this experiment a failure, and choose to fix the drum problem the simple way... MUCH better kits!

I really liked the audio drum patterns on the 950 - I used the swing and latin a lot, and they worked just great. I see it as a step forward.

Diki,

You must be reading a number of comments that I just haven't seen.

For example:
A number of forum members asked for a black keyboard - The S950 is black.

People asked for a better display - The display quality has advanced significantly.

Vocalists asked for a better vocal processor - They got it.

They asked for livelier drums - Most owners claim the drums are far superior than those of earlier models.

People wanted the ability to record in an audio format - they got it.

Performers asked for improvements in the Music Finder Directory - Yamaha responded with the ability to access third-party styles from the USB drive, MP3s can now be accessed via the MFD, and Michael Bedesem updated his Music Finder View program to make creating custom MFDs a breeze.

Forum members asked for more guitars, improved pianos, and hotter styles - Yamaha provided what was asked of them.

Now, all of this is contained within a lightweight, rugged, arranger keyboard that not only looks professional, it sounds great. And, it's under $2,000. The only people I hear making derogatory comments are those that DO NOT OWN AND DON'T INTEND TO PURCHASE ANY YAMAHA PRODUCT.

Has Yamaha provided everything that every person on this and other forums wanted? Of course not - and that, my friend, is why they're still in business and doing very well. I'm confident that there was a lot of market research that went into the production of the S-950, including the "Yamaha Listens" question-airs posted by Steve Demming on this and several other forums.

There are individuals that claim the PSR and Tyros series of keyboards are best suited for home players. Of course, this is a statement often made by those whom own other brands of keyboards. Those that use the PSR and Tyros series for entertainment purposes, full time entertainers worldwide, seem to be quite happy with their keyboards. Their audiences also seem to be pretty happy with what they hear. And, I'm not just taking about the senior set. For the past few months I've been performing for a somewhat younger crowd, not teeny-boppers, mind you, but folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s. They love what they hear, they're up and dancing, having a ball.

Now, after listening to that Big Band style, to me, it sounds great. It's a wonderful, full-bodied style that in the hands of a competent musician/entertainer, a person that not only plays the keyboard, but additionally can provide good to excellent vocals, will wow any audience that appreciates good musical entertainment - young and old.

From my perspective, and the perspective of thousands of Yamaha arranger keyboard owners, Yamaha stepped up to the plate - and delivered.

Cheers,

Gary

ditto. The 950 is a much improved product, and totally useable.

As someone who has been and still is basically more Korg orienated than Yamaha I go along with what Gary says. Even my less comprehensive PSR7550 is a great keyboard and in particular its abiiity to load extra new basic samples is a great advantage in this price range. As a matter of fact I only have two wishes, one of which I wrote about to Yamaha and might be fulfilled in time.
First and foremost the Drums, though a lot better are still not in league with Korg or Ketron. But worse than the lesser quality is the fact that you cannot intervene in this area the way you can with the two K"s. I mean on my PA800 I can go to a page and alter the volume, pan, reverb,even cut-off of each individual item in that particular drumset ( bass, snare, hi-hat etc.). This to me has always been of the utmost importance and practical use.
The other thing is that I would wish Yamaha would use the possibility to add 64Mb Sound/Style Packs to create special Packs for those interested in ONE particular sound,for example Piano, Sax, or Trumpet. They could easily provide the Pack with a substantial and very good basic sample ( just one or two)add a few styles for good measure and I for one would be happy to purchase such a Pack, personally with an outstanding acoustic piano.
Other than that ( and of course the lack of a touchscreen) there ain't nothing wrong with these new Yamaha siblings......
Gary, when will you get yours ?

kind regards,
John

Probably place an order in late April, when I get back home. Don't want to order one till then, though.

Gary

I'd be getting a Yamaha if it did what I need... And first and foremost on that list is punchy, live sounding drums. I don't play NH gigs, and I seldom play background for dining. I need drums that ROCK!

I know I sound like a stuck record, but it is SO frustrating to watch Yamaha shoot themselves in the foot. Audio drums will NEVER be as good as MIDI drums, simply because the styles are too expensive to produce, and don't address your legacy and favorite styles. PSR Audio styles, even if you use them ALL, are only 4% or the ROM set, and new ones cannot be loaded in as you need them - you'll have to load what few you want slowly, and then reboot your arranger... Who can afford to do that on a gig?

The simplest, least expensive, tried and true solution to the problem is simply more and better kits. I haven't heard any examples yet from the S950 using whatever new kits there are that have made me sit up and go 'Finally! Yamaha are getting it!'. I've heard Korg and Ketron drums do that. I'm not a rabid Roland fanboy! When I hear drums that sound live, I admit it.

Maybe owners can tell the subtle differences, but what I'm talking about is a pretty radical change in direction. Now, of course, all the legacy kits would remain, so the 'CD sound' crowd can remain content. But I need to hear something quite different from the current 'sound' for it to fit my needs.

And, it's a shame, really, as there is MUCH to like in Yamaha's... the SA sounds are excellent, guitars are great (fantastic, actually), multipads are cool (audio multipads would be cool if they looped!). I've said for a long time there is so little for Yamaha to do to make me buy one.

Either fix the kits to sound punchy, or allow user control of what MIDI codes trigger the arranger Divisions (so I can run it from a Roland, and have Roland drums with Yamaha guitars). Oh, and toss a Chord Sequencer in, too!

I have focused VERY specifically on the Yamaha audio drums section. I have not put the S950 down for any other reason. Please don't put words in my mouth. Yamaha have NOT addressed this need for punchier drums (most people that don't play Yamaha's cite this as the primary reason they haven't got one) with this new feature. All they have done is tacitly admit to the need (or why have punchy, live drum recordings in the first place?), but have not provided a solution.

Kits WOULD have. Still waiting...

Yamaha are targeting their drums at a particular user. The home user. And their needs will be very much different to a live performer. And in particular a performer like yourself Diki. If a home user needs to reboot the entire keyboard to load up another set of styles with real audio drums, what difference is it to them? But to a love performer that two minutes three-minute delay in time could be critical to keeping an audience captivated . yamaha are certainly not shooting themselves in the foot. They are focused on the home market and not the pro market

Spalding,

You are assuming that EVERYONE will be loading those audio drum files, which is not the case. But, if a pro-performer were to load them, don't you think they would do this during the setup procedure, or during a break?

I'm playing every Wednesday afternoon and early evening to what I now refer to as the "Young-Drunk Set," folks that make the rounds of the Tiki Bar Happy Hours, which all seem to last 3 to 4 hours at the very least. I'm still pounding on that old PSR-3000 and keep the place rockin' with relatively young folks and some oldsters that tend to interact with them.

Now, when I get back to Maryland, I'll be back to the Nursing Home Set, which includes assisted living centers, retirement communities, and nursing homes. Hey, that's where the money is.

On occasion, I fill in for a friend at an Italian Restaurant, but again, these are somewhat older folks that love to party and dance. I could continue using the 3000, but to be quite honest, I'm really looking forward to getting a new S-950 and utilizing some of the newer features, and hearing the new sounds. So, while many forum members claim that Yamaha mainly targets the Home Player, I believe that Yamaha is targeting a much wider and more diverse audience that includes home players and pros alike. Just a guess, though, because no one other than Yamaha really knows.

Gary

I'm afraid I can't agree, spalding. Yamaha, in their own promo for the audio drums feature, make a point of emphasizing how much more live and punchy the audio recordings are. So, it appears they ARE aware of the need...

Just not how to go about getting it.

Better KITS, Yamaha. Pretty please.

Thanks Dave! I was beginning to think I was the only one out here who actually likes the audio styles.

Joe

Nope, I like a few of them. Most are not what I use though.
The ones I find useful go over very well. As long as I can please my audience and myself it's good.
It will be interesting to see if Yamaha supports the technology at all. My guess is very little.
DonM

BTW, Dave... do you remember ANYTHING on the 'Yamaha Listens' questionnaires about audio drums? Did anyone have even the slightest hint that this feature was coming? Did Yamaha ever ask YOU (obviously, you consider yourself Yamaha's demographic) what you would need for audio drum loops to be a useful feature?

We got blindsided... no-one checked with US (or you, anyway!) what we needed for this feature. I don't recall anyone even ASKING for audio drum loops..! Don't recall anyone asking Yamaha to redo the button layout either, or change the screen angle to make it harder to see.

Only someone extremely partisan about their arranger brand (which no-one can accuse me of being!) can look at this and think it is Yamaha responding to users' needs... Questionnaires are only as good as the questions they ask.

Diki,

Yamaha didn't ask any questions in the questionnaire, they asked for suggestions, many of which related to drum sounds, but most were not very specific other than they wanted livelier sounding drums.

As for the buttons, there were lots of comments about them as well, some individuals asking for positive latch type buttons, while others just wanted a more reliable button system. There were a few comments about the layout of the buttons, mostly individuals wanting certain buttons put back on the surface that had been on previous models, and there were a few that made derogatory comments about the Tyros buttons, claiming they looked unprofessional because of the brightly colored lights.

The questionnaire(s), which were posted on several forums, ran on forever, with hundreds of responses on each site. I sincerely believe that Yamaha did an outstanding job in responding to the wishes of the vast majority of those who posted responses to the "Yamaha Listens" thread. And, to my knowledge, there has been no similar questionnaire posted by any other manufacturer - ever!

Cheers,

Gary

Yamaha is providing these new Sound/Style Packs, offering 64MB of sample space. As I mentioned here I already mailed to Yamaha with the question/suggestion to bring out new Packs with sole emphasis on one instrument, for example one or two blinding Sax samples, a few sounds and a few styles thrown in for good measure.
In the same vein they might offer a package with a couple of new drum sets based on other (better?) drum samples. As far as I know an acoustic piano sample needs a lot of sample space but a drum set does not. In the Korg PA800 I can easily load their previous sets from the former PA models within the space of 64Mb. Mind you,I am technically no judge of affairs here but on analogy of the Korg experience I do not see why, other than reluctance, Yamaha would not be able to release a package with drumsounds and samples that would come close to K and K.

regards,
John

The thing with better kits is, they are going to have to be VERY careful to make their volumes and velocities match the current ones, so legacy styles need minimal work (if anything at all) to trigger them instead of the old ones.

TBH, if you have styles going back to much older Yamaha arrangers, a certain amount of tweaking is going to be a must... Here's why.

With older kits, there would be one sample per sound. Kick, snare, hi-hats, you name it. So, in effect, you got the exact same sound from a drum part played with low velocities, and high volume, as you got from the same part with high velocities, but the drums turned down low. Not so with modern drum kits. My Roland has up to four samples on some drums, with the samples being harder and harder hits of the drum (which changes dramatically depending on how hard it is hit).

Now, a low velocity part sounds completely different to a high velocity part, no matter where you set the volume! So, you have to tweak your older styles, and reset where the velocity for each drum sits (or raise or lower the entire part, it just depends). This is where Roland's Makeup Tools really shine. Globally, for each style (in other words, unlike Korg you don't have to do this for each Style division, including the chord variations!) you can go in and raise or lower the velocity of each drum sound individually and alter its volume (or do it globally for the entire kit) to better place the velocity of the part in the range where it hits the samples best.

Sounds like a lot of work, but it is pretty fast and effortless, especially when you look at how hard some other arrangers make this basic edit.

Those multi-velocity drums have one other really cool trick up their sleeves, as far as some Roland's go (sadly, not the new BK's, though). Because they alter their sound considerably, there's a feature on the G and E series where the velocity of each part can be offset, positively or negatively, by how hard you are actually playing! So the drummer follows YOUR dynamics, and not so much by volume, but by timbre too. It is quite amazing in practice. Sounds like you have a drummer that listens to YOU!

More arrangers need this, especially as most have vel-switched drums.