2018 Summary

[Joe W]

As we start a new year, I thought it would be useful to look back on the year we just completed to help me decide directions for 2019. So, here is a bit of a summary for 2018.

PSR Tutorial Forum

We currently have about 4,800 members.  2,400 joined in 2018 and 2,600 joined in 2017.  We average about 6-7 new member every day.  The total is kept in check by deleting members who are absent over a two-year period.

There were 5,900 topics (16/day) in 2018, up 11% from the 5,300 in 2017 and 4,200 in 2016 and 2015.

There were 44,000 posts last year. That averages to about 120/day. This is down from 52,000 posts in 2017, which was a record high.  The posts do indicate where the member interest is. I looked at each of the boards to see where the majority of posts were being made.  The table below shows the results of this survey.

Posts	Board
11,300	Genos-General
3,900	All other Genos boards
3,700	PSR-S970 and PSR-S975
3,400	Sheet Music, Fake Books
2,100	Tyros5
2,100	Styles/OTS
2,100	Songs Played by Forum Members
1.200	Misc Announcements
1,100	PSR-E Series
1,000	Yamaha Keyboards

Clearly the current keyboards get the majority of activity. The Genos was not only new, but it was different from earlier models and so it generated lots of discussion.  Keyboards that are several years old are no longer of much interest.  Besides the keyboards, members cared about styles, sheet music, and sharing their songs. For more info on Forum Statistics, click on Home and then scroll to the bottom of your screen and check out the Forum Stats link.


PSR Tutorial Web Site

Sharing songs was also the focus of the main PSR Tutorial site. 21 PSR Performers added 514 songs in 2018, 30 hours of music. We introduced 5 new Performers in 2018:  Andrey Gusev (Tyros5-76) in May, Yuriy Baygush (PSR-E363), Ryszard Bieszdad (Tyros4), and Norman Fernandez (S770) in June, and Toine DeJong (Tyros2) in December.  9 contributors joined 13 performers to give us 96 songs in the 2018 Christmas Jukebox.  At this moment there are 3,307 MP3 songs available online.  760 of these are in the Archived Performers section where I have kept a sample of 20 or so songs from earlier PSR Performers, some of which are no longer with us.  There are over 3,400 songs that are retired, that is, no longer available online.  Most of these songs, however, are available in the Songs 2013 and Songs 2017 collection, which was updated in January of 2018.

The Genos also dominated the styles generated last year.  We had Genos conversions released by Henni and by Peter Mahl. Onacimus released a Unique T5 styles collection and a Tyros5 Special Styles collection. He has also been working on doing a complete conversion of all Genos styles for the S970, the Tyros4, and the Tyros5.  That work is still in progress. Henni also provided a collection of Korg styles converted for the Tyros5.  I released the Styles #12 collection in April of 2018.

In May a Genos page was added under Yamaha > Styles and in April a PSR-S975 page was added.  Also in April, I added a pSR-S970 Tutorial videos and PSR-S975 demo videos.

Brian Cowell added two articles: "The MVC10 Controller and the S970" and "Using the MFC10 Midi Controller with the PSR-S970."  In October, Onacimus' article on "Replacing Unknown OTS Voices" helped explain how to determine what the unknown voices were.  I also added a QuickStep article on how to convert a midi file to a wav file on the S970.

Finally, Murray Best released Version 5.11 of his Registration Manager in March and Etienne Voibragt released updated versions of MixMaster in March, May, and August.

At the start of 2019, I am now in the process of moving my support of this site from my aging iMac to a new Windows 10 PC.  I have also acquired a new version of Dreamweaver and, hopefully, will be able to update the site to handle pads and smartphones as well as computers.  Updating the content is another issue.  I have a Tyros5-76, but not a Genos or a S970 (or S975).  The lack of interest in older keyboards may indicate a lack of interest in most of our lesson material.  Also, we have all those MP3s online showing up not only on the PSR Performer page, but also in the alphabetical index.  Does anyone really care about all those songs?  Should I get rid of the alphabetical indexes? But, Lunarpages renewal is due in the next week and I will be paying for another year of the PSR Tutorial.  It will be interesting to see what that year brings.

[Toril S]

Hello Joe! Thank you for the summary!
We are many here with Tyros 5, and I think the lesson material is of interest to many of us.
I also care about the MP3 index! I check this when learning new songs. Often i find that other forum members have played the song, and I can learn from listening to it.
BUT, you must do what is best! This is the best forum in the world, and i don't even begin to grasp how much work it is to maintain it! God bless you Joe!

[Joe W]

Thank you, Toril.  It is always useful to hear what people think is valuable in the site.  I am transitioning support to a Windows PC and I have acquired the latest Dreamweaver to run on that platform and also moved my database software over.  I hope to be able to do more fine-tuning on the site and, eventually modify the pages to be compatible with pads and smartphones as well as computers.  How to handle all the MP3s is one of the questions I need to wrestle with.

[Ryszard Bieszczad]

    Thank You so much, Joe, for a great summary.
You've created a place where fans of Yamaha keyboard instruments can exchange experiences and share their knowledge.
    Our Forum is the best platform of its kind in the world.
Thank You very much, Joe, for the enormity of the work you put in to make the Forum work efficiently every day.
    May God always be with You, the Friend of Musicians.
Let me dedicate the latest composition to You.
   Yours faithfully
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKH7UAKAA_Y&t=
Greetings
erbis / Ryszard

[hans1966]

Thank you very much Joe, for your great effort and dedication to maintain this forum in excellence. sincerely I am very grateful, because it has allowed me, to learn every day more about my keyboard, this due to the valuable collaboration and experience of the members of this wonderful forum, who are always available to support me. to all a warm embrace, and a 2019 full of blessings. Hans

[ekurburski]

This is one vote for saving as much of the content on older kb's as possible.  I am sure I'm not the only one that is content for the present with an older model (PSR 3000).  I will be submitting material in  time (Mp3's, etc) as I advance in my knowledge and supporting equipment.  I'm curious I understand that you can see how many posts are made in the older areas but can you also see how many reads are being made?  Would be interesting to see how many people still own and use the older models.

[gfraden]

Thank-you, Joe. I am enjoying my PSR-S970, learning about music and improving my skills because of your hard work. I cannot thank you enough. This summary is great, wrapping up where PSR Tutorial has been and giving some indication where it might go. You are much appreciated.
George

[Normanfernandez]

Thank you so much Joe,
2018 I've learnt a lot from you guys.
I hope this year I'm able to give you guys sometime back in return.
Thanks again to all to helped me. 
Regards Norman!

[adrianed]

Hi Joe,
I hope you will not consider dropping anything concerning the Tyros 5 for some years to come
It is only the previous model, many of us including myself are still using this one
Adrian

[Gunnar Jonny]

...I am transitioning support to a Windows PC and I have acquired the latest Dreamweaver to run on that platform and also moved my database software over......

Dreamweaver was my best friend at the time when I created and maintained webites. It's a great tool, and probably grown and been further developed a lot since then.
Have fun, and keep up the good work Joe. 

[gmizrahi]

Thank-you, Joe. I am enjoying my PSR-S970, learning about music and improving my skills because of your hard work. I cannot thank you enough. This summary is great, wrapping up where PSR Tutorial has been and giving some indication where it might go. You are much appreciated.
George

Feel the say way!! Thanks Joe for your hard and dedicated work.  Gabi

[simondrake]

This is one vote for saving as much of the content on older kb's as possible.  I am sure I'm not the only one that is content for the present with an older model (PSR 3000).  I will be submitting material in  time (Mp3's, etc) as I advance in my knowledge and supporting equipment.  I'm curious I understand that you can see how many posts are made in the older areas but can you also see how many reads are being made?  Would be interesting to see how many people still own and use the older models.

I also own a psr3000. I realise it's a dinosaur, but I got the most of my knowledge from this website. Thanks to many of you, I'm thinking of Onacimous for example, I am still having fun with it. I fully understand that Genos is the present and I also enjoy reading about the beauty that you can do with it, but for people like me it'll remain a dream... So please, if possible leave a small section with the articles, tutorials and some resources for ancient gears! And thank you very very much for your effort. Simone

[Roy_T]

Simon

Sorry to say, all of the dinosaurs are dead, but the PSR-3000, and some of its contemporary models, are still alive and well.  Gary Diamond, one of our prominent members, made his living with a pair of PSR-3000's until the PSR S-950 came out.  Earl, who you quoted above, I believe, now has one of them.  Toril, one of our "fairer" members, recently fell back to gigging with her PSR-2100 while she was waiting for her PSR S-970, which was severely damaged during a shop repair, was replaced with a PSR S-975.  I think Dick Rector from Bali (talk about a humid environment - with a touch of volcanic ash thrown in) and DrakeM ("If it ain't country, it ain't music") also both used their PSR-2000's untll the PSR-S950's came out.  Knocking on wood, my PSR-3000 is still doing fine, although I did obtain a small PSR-E433 several years ago for easier hauling to family get togethers.  Both I and the PSR-3000 seem to have put on weight in the past few years.  My main studio setup is a 20 some year old Roland XP-80 Workstation MIDI'd into a like-aged Roland JV-2080 sound module with four sound expansion cards to boost available polyphony from 64 to 128.  Some of my old sequences get pretty dense.  I know the future is difficult to see, but the older we get, the more certain some things become.  As I see it now, these keyboards, along with my 13 year old Casio WK-3800 workhorse, will most likely be the last keyboards I will own, but rather than looking at it as "That's all I've got", I prefer to think of it as "That's what I've got" and go about my day to day business as I always have.  Do not diminish yourself or your equipment because it has a little patina on it and/or has a manual whose pages are yellowed a bit at the edges.  Enjoy what you have, while you have it.  As long as it works, unlike the dinosaurs, it is not dead.

Regards,

Roy

[Toril S]

I love your post Roy! Agree fully! Well said!

[vbdx66]

Hi Joe,

These statistics are really impressive!

First and foremost, thank you for the immense work you've been puttings into this wonderful site for years.

Personally, I'd be in favour of keeping all the material concerning older boards as it is such a great knowledge database, it would be sad not to be able to access it any more.

I am also in favour of maintening the MP3s. Just like Toril, when I want to learn a new song, I listen to previous versions other members have created, it is a great source of inspiration and one can learn much about keyboard learning as well as about music in general by listening to these songs.

Kindest Regards,

Vinciane