Problems in Genos

[sunny]

Friends,

Although the sound quality between Tyros5 and Genos is very much improved but features are not improved. I have noted 20 problems and I hope Yamaha will improve the features in the upcoming model.

1) OVERALL SOUND : Sound is warm but not Bright. Brighter sound needed like Tyros5.

2) KEYBOARD LENGTH IS NOT CONVENIENT ;  61 Note keyboard is preferred.

3) NO INDIAN VOICES & NO INDIAN DRUM KIT : All indian voices available in Yamaha MONTAGE & MODX keyboards and Indian Drum kit to be included in Genos replacement keyboard.

4) NO SEAMLESS SOUND SWITCHING (CUTTING OF VOICES ) : Voices are cutting off when Registrations are changed, Seamless Sound Switching (SSS) is highly needed like Montage keyboard.

5) ORGAN & CHOIR SECTION TO BE IMPROVED : Hauptwerk Pipe Organ Voices and Wurlitzer Electro Static Reed Organ and Farfisa,COMBO Organ voices needed.

6) REGISTRATIONS SAVING PROBLEM :

(A) During live performance, When Registrations are saved from one bank to another, pop up message asking to save or not, this is not convenient during live performance. Registrations need to be saved immediately like earlier PSR-740 keyboard without any pop up message. Two options needed for saving Registrations 1) Direct Registrations saving one bank to another without pop up message 2) Registrations saving with pop up message.

(B) Last used Registrations voices to resume automatically, when the keyboard is turned off and on.

(C) Registrations buttons to be increased to 16 . Assignable buttons also to work like Registrations buttons.

7)  MICROPHONE SECTION :

     (A) Dual Microphone inputs needed.

    (B)  Master Reverb,Chorus effects to be applied for Microphone sound when Microphone output is routed through Sub Outputs.

    (C) Feedback destroyer function needed.

    (D) Vocal Harmony button to be always off on default.

8 ) ASSIGNABLE FOOT PEDAL FUNCTION  : Foot pedal to control Song Volume and DEMO volume.

9) STYLE (ACCOMPANIMENT) VOLUME :

    (A) Sub-Woofer Output : A new Separate sub woofer output needed for Accompaniment(Style) voice.

    (B) Accompaniment (style) volume need to be controlled with pedal also.

    (C) Accompaniment (Style) output to be assigned to sub outputs without any missing of Master Reverb and Chorus effects.
   

10) STYLE (Accompaniment ) Volume changes MIDI Message :
Accompaniment (Style) should generate MIDI messages, so that Accompaniment (Style) volume can be controlled by using external MIDI volume pedal.

11) AFTER TOUCH EFFECT WITH PEDAL :  After Touch effect to be applied via Pedals,since some players don't like to shake the key or applying pressure on keyboard.

12) INDIVIDUAL UPPER OCTAVE BUTTONS :
Individual upper octave buttons needed for R1,R2 and R3.

13) NEW TRILL TONE/ TREMOLO EFFECT BUTTON AND LAST NOTE HOLD BUTTON : New Trill button needed for adding Trill tone effect to Dulcimer, Mandolin,Santoor, Banjo, Rabab etc voices and a new  "Hold Button " needed to hold last played note like left hold button.

14) MULTIPADS : Multipads buttons (1-4) to be off when pressing on each button again.

15) REGISTRATIONS & FREEZE BUTTON : Registration button &Freeze button to hold Master Reverb, Chorus, Master Equalizer and Compressor settings.

16) TEMPO SPEED CONTROL ON DISPLAY :
Style tempo speed control to be controlled on Display with digital slider with touch response.

17) AUDIO RECORDING :

(A) Extra separate track recording for Microphone needed.

(B) Separate manual volume slider to control Line In (Audio In) volume.

18) WI-FI SHARING OF AUDIO RECORDINGS :
Audio songs recorded to be shared through Mobile phone through Wi-Fi.
   
19) PDF FILES DISPLAY :
PDF song sheets to be displayed on the Display.

20) 8 PIN MINI DIN CONNECTOR PROBLEM :  8 Pin Mini Din Connector pins are getting damaged, replace 8 Pin Mini Din Connector with normal instrument cables for external speaker system.


Sunny.

[Toril S]

I agree with nr. 20.

[Amwilburn]

Some of your criticisms are spot on, like #20, that 8 pin din cable needs to be replaced by something much less fragile

Some of your other comparisons are a bit odd, howevever:

Friends,

Although the sound quality between Tyros5 and Genos is very improved but features are not improved. I have noted 20 problems and I hope Yamaha will improve the features in the upcoming model.

1) OVERALL SOUND : Sound is warm but not Bright. Brighter sound needed like Tyros5.

If you're using the GNSMS01 speakers versus the TRSMS05 speakers, the Genos is *considerably* brighter and clearer than the T5. I have both sets plugged into our store Genos, the Tyros set is so dull and muddy it compared to the Genos ones. I'm guessing you're either using a mono woofer stick PA system or a KC, both of which aren't known for clarity.

2) KEYBOARD LENGTH IS NOT CONVENIENT ;  61 Note keyboard is preferred.

3) NO INDIAN VOICES & NO INDIAN DRUM KIT : All indian voices available in Yamaha MONTAGE & MODX keyboards and Indian Drum kit to be included in Genos replacement keyboard.

4) NO SEAMLESS SOUND SWITCHING (CUTTING OF VOICES ) : Voices are cutting off when Registrations are changed, Seamless Sound Switching (SSS) is highly needed like Montage keyboard.

all 3 of these of these are fair:
2) However, T5-76 outsold T5-61 by a large margin (approx 4 to 1 in Canada) so you can see why they simplified things and went with just the 1 size; remember for 10 years, they only offered the 61 key size, the PSR9000 was the last time before T1 that they offered both a 61 and 76 key size.

3) You can technically get Indian drum kits for free right now (the T5 worship styles works on Genos) but yes, it would be nice if they offered a Genos specific Indian pack

4) The T5 didn't have seamless switching either. But that would be nice; it *would* require them to set the internal voice volumes to all be the same (the 'jump' you hear is partly switching samples in ram, partly dsps, partly the different volume levels)

5) ORGAN & CHOIR SECTION TO BE IMPROVED : Hauptwerk Pipe Organ Voices and Wurlitzer Electro Static Reed Organ and Farfisa,COMBO Organ voices needed.

6) REGISTRATIONS SAVING PROBLEM :

(A) During live performance, When Registrations are saved from one bank to another, pop up message asking to save or not, this is not convenient during live performance. Registrations need to be saved immediately like earlier PSR-740 keyboard without any pop up message. Two options needed for saving Registrations 1) Direct Registrations saving one bank to another without pop up message 2) Registrations saving with pop up message.

(B) Last used Registrations voices to resume automatically, when the keyboard is turned off and on.

(C) Registrations buttons to be increased to 16 . Assignable buttons also to work like Registrations buttons.

5) The Genos has all the organ sounds of the T5's amazing Organ World...? But yes, more (and more accurate Leslies) would be welcome

6) This is a really unusual complaint, as *any* registration system where it's not a fixed array (ie Yamaha since the 2000's) should ask you if you want to overwrite without changing the file name. This was in fact a complaint we had, back in the day the fixed array registrations had no name, and without asking you if you wanted to overwrite the same slot it was easy to wreck your work. The warning was added because we wanted it.
You should never be overwriting a registration on the fly, as the whole point is to preplan the setup you need at each step of the performance... if you're changing it on the fly, you didn't set it up correctly in the first place...?

We complained about the psr600 and 700 series for *not* checking before accidentally overwriting, and Yamaha fixed that with the warning, now you're complaining about the fix?

the rest: Completely agree about mics. 2 would be nice, but only 1 should have harmony. And strongly agree, the default should be harmony off.
7)  MICROPHONE SECTION :

     (A) Dual Microphone inputs needed.

    (B)  Master Reverb,Chorus effects to be applied for Microphone sound when Microphone output is routed through Sub Outputs.

    (C) Feedback destroyer function needed.

    (D) Vocal Harmony button to be always off on default.


"8 ) ASSIGNABLE FOOT PEDAL FUNCTION  : Foot pedal to control Song Volume and DEMO volume."
Demo? Why would you need to control the demo volume hands free? And you can already control midi song volume with an fc7 (or an Fc3 if you enjoy a challenge)


"9) STYLE (ACCOMPANIMENT) VOLUME :

    (A) Sub-Woofer Output : A new Separate sub woofer output needed for Accompaniment(Style) voice.

    (B) Accompaniment (style) volume need to be controlled with pedal also.

    (C) Accompaniment (Style) output to be assigned to sub outputs without any missing of Master Reverb and Chorus effects."
By definition, a subwoofer only handles bass. And again, you can already control song and style volume by pedal Direct Acces, step on the volume pedal, and then uncheck everything except style or midi)


"10) STYLE (Accompaniment ) Volume changes MIDI Message :
Accompaniment (Style) should generate MIDI messages, so that Accompaniment (Style) volume can be controlled by using external MIDI volume pedal."
Again, this already works.


"11) AFTER TOUCH EFFECT WITH PEDAL :  After Touch effect to be applied via Pedals,since some players don't like to shake the key or applying pressure on keyboard."
That's fair, since it's not quite the same as modulation

"12) INDIVIDUAL UPPER OCTAVE BUTTONS :
Individual upper octave buttons needed for R1,R2 and R3."
that would add more buttons, they've been trying to streamline using fewer buttons. And you can already assign individual R1,R2, R3 octaves via touch screen. However, a bigger octave shift than +2/-2 would be nice for that exact reason.

"13) NEW TRILL TONE/ TREMOLO EFFECT BUTTON AND LAST NOTE HOLD BUTTON : New Trill button needed for adding Trill tone effect to Dulcimer, Mandolin,Santoor, Banjo, Rabab etc voices and a new  "Hold Button " needed to hold last played note like left hold button."
Already can if you assign keyboard harmony to repeat, and set the type to "Echo" then tremolo, and settings to 16th notes. However, it sounds artificial, it would be nice if there were a way to 'humanize' the repeats.

"14) MULTIPADS : Multipads buttons (1-4) to be off when pressing on each button again."
I get where you're coming from; the current method to stop by holding stop then tapping the 1-4 button is slightly awkward. But then what if we want to re-start the multipad? Right now, we'd just tap it again, which is what you propose for stop. In this case, I think it would be worth them showing the pads on screen; if you want to restart, press the (1-4) button again. But if you want to stop? tap the *lit* multipads on the touchscreen.

"15) REGISTRATIONS & FREEZE BUTTON : Registration button &Freeze button to hold Master Reverb, Chorus, Master Equalizer and Compressor settings."
I think those settings are already "outside" of the registration memory... meaning that there's nothing to freeze...?


"16) TEMPO SPEED CONTROL ON DISPLAY :
Style tempo speed control to be controlled on Display with digital slider with touch response."
You mean instead of the data dial?


"17) AUDIO RECORDING :

(A) Extra separate track recording for Microphone needed.

(B) Separate manual volume slider to control Line In (Audio In) volume."
A built in audio interface would solve that, although there *is* already mic gain knob, and you already can assign a slider to mic volume. Tap slider assign on the left until you see "Mic Volume" on the 9th slider.

"18) WI-FI SHARING OF AUDIO RECORDINGS :
Audio songs recorded to be shared through Mobile phone through Wi-Fi."
Already shares audio through the wifi, but yes it wouldn't hurt to be able to send files that way. Although you can send midi through the wifi already via the chordtracker app.

   
"19) PDF FILES DISPLAY :
PDF song sheets to be displayed on the Display.

20) 8 PIN MINI DIN CONNECTOR PROBLEM :  8 Pin Mini Din Connector pins are getting damaged, replace 8 Pin Mini Din Connector with normal instrument cables for external speaker system.

Sunny."

Very strongly agree with the last 2, especially #20. Those pins are way too fragile, we need a more "blocky" connector end, like a USB port or an HDMI port.

Mark

[Fred Smith]

6A. There is never a good reason to save a registration during a live performance. Set up your registrations ahead of time.

Cheers,
Fred

[Duffy]

04 - Seamless switching would be good. I have been hoping for this for a long time. The keyboards I was playing 20 years ago could switch sounds without that horrible glitch.
05 - Organ & Leslie definitely need improvement for the Hammond sound.  The 02 upgrade which Yamaha did on the YC series is really first class and the Genos should get the same.

[Amwilburn]

04 - Seamless switching would be good. I have been hoping for this for a long time. The keyboards I was playing 20 years ago could switch sounds without that horrible glitch.
05 - Organ & Leslie definitely need improvement for the Hammond sound.  The 02 upgrade which Yamaha did on the YC series is really first class and the Genos should get the same.

Yes, I know... that's why I mentioned the sample levelling issues. Before they were mostly synthesized sounds with just the piano and drums sampled; there was no sample ram to flush and reload on the fly because there weren't any other sampled sounds. And certainaly not individual dsp's on top of that (the distortion guitars of the time were awful because there was no insert dsp! Listen to the electric guitar on an old PSR275/PSRe403/413/423/433 and cringe!

Because of this? You *can* do seamless switching on all the current boards... as long as you stick to the GM/XG sound library. Go try it!
No large samples to blit into ram, no insert dsps to quickly reallocate.

Patch Remain (the ability to seamlessly switch voices) isn't new; it's just massively complicated by romplers (sampled based workstations and arrangers) and essentially requires redundant dsps, polypony, ram, etc. Basically doubling the specs of a keyboard without changing the sound quality. Patch remain was one of the big features of Roland Fantom G. People  then complained that it sounded slightly worse and cost more than the Fantom X predecessor :p (I'm not kidding)

I agree, I would love to have patch remain on the sampled Yamaha sounds, not just the tiny GM/XG sounds. But the cost... isn't cheap. The Genos is $6499 Cdn, and if they had doubled the polyphony and DSPS and work ram (so that 2 large samples could be loaded simultenaously for smooth transitioning between patches) I think the price would've been rouglhly $8k. It also would've been roughly $8-8.5k as is, but made in Japan instead.

About $10k if Genos were made in Japan *and* they added large sample /double dsp patch remain.
*or* they could cut the sound quality by half of all the sounds, so that the current ram could accommodate incoming and outgoing patches, and still need to double the DSP's. we would have a $7k Genos that sounds a bit worse, but would have patch remain...


Maybe if they offered a ram/polyphony/dsp doubler as an option...?
But then how many people would spend roughly 20% more on a keyboard for it to sound the same, but have patch remain?

Mark

[DerekA]

I am not sure what the real constraint is. But Genos can support 16 track midi file playback, each one using a different sample and a different DSP. So I reckon the Genos is more than able technically to handle seamless switching. It must be something to do with the way the keyboard controller is routed to the AWM engine. They solved it on Montage so there must be some hope ...

[Amwilburn]

Derek, you kind of hit the nail on the head: the Genos always has to have those 16 midi tracks / 8 style tracks ready. There are 28 insert effects in Genos, that means we should be able to use 14 at a time for patch remain issues. If there was a mode on Yamaha arrangers that took out the ability to play on top of a midi, the 4 panel parts, and the 8 style parts (we'd also have to limit multipads to 2, or not use insert effects) then yeah, at least that part of it would be solved.

Incidentally I just tried, and yes some patches do continue when I switch on Montage, but many stop (at least they got rid of the DSP pop). And there's often a delay before I can play the new voice, same thing Roland did with the Fantom G back in the day... not something that would work with registrations.

Also, on the Montage, in song mode, I can't see a way of playing one top without assigning a song channel first? ie they only have 16 channels to worry about simultaneous (the Genos has 16 midi + 4 panel + 4 multipad). So 32 dsp's would do for the Montage, on the Genos we would need 48!

[Lee Batchelor]

We should not go overboard on assigning everything to "a screen function."

When you're trying to keep the song together for your vocalist and then need to drill down through menus to make a change, it's only convenient and profitable for Yamaha, but is useless and downright dangerous for us live players. I find the T5 had just the right number of dedicated buttons.

[pjd]

As to Seamless Sound Switching (SSS) there are both a hardware reservation aspect and a time aspect.

Montage SSS is only available for Performances in which Parts 1 to 8 (at most) are active. The hardware can support 16 active parts simultaneously. By restricting SSS to at most 8 Parts, Montage forces the user to reserve the remaining DSP units in case the user switches to another SSS-compatible performance. The original Performance (voice) needs to continue to play while the new Performance (voice) is loaded and started.

The time aspect is deeper and nerdier. One reason why Yamaha tone generation is so responsive (low latency) is pipelining. Some of the synthesis filtering is performed in parallel with effects processing in a deep pipeline. Even if the front of the engine sees a note off, there are many intermediate computations in flight. These in flight computations need to complete cleanly, i.e., multiple sample clocks later.

Control is connected to tone generation in the same way on Montage and Genos -- over a dedicated serial bus called the "E-Bus." It's another reason why Yamaha tone generation is highly responsive.

With Genos, Yamaha needs to treat DSP units as a dynamic resource pool. I think Yamaha's allocation is semi-static; they don't publicly document what they do in this regard...

Hope this helps -- pj

[DerekA]

Thanks pjd. I always enjoy the insights that you have into how things work at a technical level. I only wish Yamaha would employ you so that you could find out for sure all their deep secrets, and improve them!

[sunny]

Hey sunny,
about point 3: you can get the Indian .ppf packs of the S970, they work very good on Genos (both voices and styles) offering onboard PSR-S drum kits and voices. Same for other packs like China or Indonesia.

About point 5: I personally don't like Hauptwerk, anyway they are very big in size (lots of GB a single organ set) !!!

Let me add a point 21: replace the internal flash for samples with RAM. This used to be done in models up to Tyros3, but very slowly. Today, however, having to read from SSD and with today's hardware, it should be a much quicker and versatile process, perhaps being able to delete individual packs and load/edit others on the fly, without total formatting.

Francesco

Hi Francesco,
I know pretty well to use  PSR S970 Indian packs on Genos, but none of the PSR Indian packs are compatible with Genos, except Tyros/Genos Indian worship style pack. Yamaha failed to produce not even a single Voice Expansion pack for Tyros or Genos. We can load PSR indian packs on Genos but they won't sound properly like PSR keboards because they are not properly tuned for Genos. We are requesting Yamaha to produce exclusive Voice and Style Expansion packs for Genos.

If Yamaha thinks anything to be introduced ,then it will be done. If Hauptwerk Organ voice are introduced, We can produce realistic Pipe Organ voices on  keyboard.

Point 21 is highly needed.

Sunny.

[sunny]

6A. There is never a good reason to save a registration during a live performance. Set up your registrations ahead of time.

Cheers,
Fred

Hi Fred,
We don't have time to wait for saving registration during live performance, We need instant changes for saving registrations from one bank to another. There is no loss for having two modes of saving registration data, one is direct saving and another through pop up message.

Sunny

[sunny]

We should not go overboard on assigning everything to "a screen function."

When you're trying to keep the song together for your vocalist and then need to drill down through menus to make a change, it's only convenient and profitable for Yamaha, but is useless and downright dangerous for us live players. I find the T5 had just the right number of dedicated buttons.

Yamaha is looking for different customers Home players, Music Composers and Live performers. To satisfy live performers, more buttons are needed on the keyboard to perform easily.

Sunny.

[Fred Smith]

We don't have time to wait for saving registration during live performance, We need instant changes for saving registrations from one bank to another. There is no loss for having two modes of saving registration data, one is direct saving and another through pop up message.

I agree there's no time to save a registration during a live performance. So don't do it. If you have to save during a live performance, it means the registration wasn't set up properly in the first place. So set it up properly before the performance.

Cheers,
Fred

[Lee Batchelor]

I fully agree with Fred. The registration function on the Genos is a VERY powerful tool. I use it to extremes sometimes but I always preset everything in the studio so there are no surprises.

Sunny, if you find that one of your registrations needs tweaking during a performance, make the tweak, and then save it after the song or possibly between songs. I've done that on occasion. It takes no time at all to save a registration. Modifying and saving registrations during a show is possible but it goes against the basic philosophies of registrations.

To your point, the one thing that needs improvement with registrations is some way to see what settings are contained in each registration without having to use Murray Best's program. A live look would be a performers dream come true. I often use 5 or 6 registrations in a bank for all the parts of a song, but there is very little information about each one, beyond the name. There is a huge cry out for this improvement on the Yamaha Portable Keyboards site. Complex registration banks are useless when we don't know what's in them!

[Amwilburn]

We should not go overboard on assigning everything to "a screen function."

When you're trying to keep the song together for your vocalist and then need to drill down through menus to make a change, it's only convenient and profitable for Yamaha, but is useless and downright dangerous for us live players. I find the T5 had just the right number of dedicated buttons.

Oh, I agree... that's why all the Yamaha's I own are *not* touch screen. They simply told me a decade ago that they were trying to move to fewer buttons because a lot of customers found it overwhelming; the CVP 509 had 119 buttons, the CVP609 had 63. But I personally want more buttons (I hate that you can't reset to default values on the touch screens easily; on the non-touchscreen models you would just hit the opposite data arrows). I also prefer to program on the non-touchscreen.

But since they've gone to all touchscreen models (except the sx600 & DGX670)... plus I really want a Genos myself (the Mrs said I'm allowed to if I get rid of all my other boards :p D'oh)

[Lee Batchelor]

Good points, Mark.

In my mind, there is an optimal number of buttons that should reside on the Genos. Yamaha has but to ask those who play professionally on stage with this wonderful keyboard, what we need at our fingertips to be able to play with ease and not fuddle around with endless menus. We don't have time for that nonsense when the real task is to be a musician, not a computer geek! Anyone can do the latter. Not everyone can make music. It gets to the point where the technology just gets in the way. Yamaha needs to ask, "What is the ultimate goal of paying a huge dollar amount for this keyboard? To demonstrate technical prowess in manipulating the software tools or to make music?" My vote is on the latter.

Yamaha still seems to think that most Genos users play in their living rooms where there's no pressure - which is probably true. However, they need to listen to those who haul this beast onto the live stage in front of the masses and see what we must contend with.

[EileenL]

We also must not forget that with the Pandemic lots of people have been live streaming there performances with there keyboard and what there hands are doing in front of Camera. These have been great to watch and shows the preparation that goes in before a performance to make it run like clockwork.

[mikf]

An interesting question, but maybe the most relevant. If Yamaha did every single one of the things Sunny asks for, how many more Genos would they sell? Yes, a few of the things on the list would each appeal to a few people, but big picture??

Mike

[Lee Batchelor]

Excellent points, Mike and Eileen. I have yet to see a statistic the shows how many Genos owners play at home versus those who perform outside the home. That number would be most interesting.

Even if only 5% play outside the home, it doesn't mean that Yamaha shouldn't add many of the things on Sonny's list or better still, the items on the Yamaha Portable Keyboards site. Reason: Yamaha indirectly touts the Genos as a pro-level keyboard because of its amazing capabilities. Hence, they can't ignore the needs of the pro players. I also know they can't give us all the bells and whistles, keep the price reasonable, and not sabotage the sales of their Montage series.

I'd say most of the things we pro players have asked for would also be very useful to the home players, who have the luxury of time and very little pressure from an audience of friends and family. The issue is, the Genos is regarded as the "top of the line" PSR keyboard. Generally, the PSR series has never been a wonder machine for stage work until the later Tyros and now Genos models came out. Perhaps without knowing it, Yamaha promoted the top part of their PSR series to full pro-level. It also costs more then a Montage, which is a pro-level keyboard. Hopefully, the Genos 2 will be painted with a difference brush .

[mikf]

Lee, I really doubt it is anywhere near  5%, especially if you discount those who are essentially home players but might sometimes  do small gigs at places like care homes using their arranger. Of those that are genuine regular gig players, the vast majority will be OMB style, where auto accompaniment is very useful. But that might hardly be 1%. Especially using the Genos which is a pretty pricey instrument, and tends to the choice of fairly affluent hobby players.
I think hardly any "band" musicians would choose an arranger,  because auto accompaniment is not required. Maybe, if you already have one already, then adapting it to use in a band would make sense, but those would be a tiny, tiny percentage. I think one of the posters who is in retail musical instrument sales in North America said he hardly ever sold Genos, or arrangers in general, to gig musicians. My own feeling is that the Yamaha marketing blurb which appears to tout Genos as a genuine all round workstation is more about making hobby players feel they are buying a "pro" level instrument, than any genuine attempt to market to pros.
I agree that some of the things Sunny mentions, might have some appeal to many home players, but would they influence buying decisions. There is a current post by Andy on another thread, who worked on arranger development with major companies, which says that "good ideas" are normally filtered out of keyboard development unless they can be shown to influence buying decisions by significant number of buyers.
Mike

[sunny]

Excellent points, Mike and Eileen. I have yet to see a statistic the shows how many Genos owners play at home versus those who perform outside the home. That number would be most interesting.

Even if only 5% play outside the home, it doesn't mean that Yamaha shouldn't add many of the things on Sonny's list or better still, the items on the Yamaha Portable Keyboards site. Reason: Yamaha indirectly touts the Genos as a pro-level keyboard because of its amazing capabilities. Hence, they can't ignore the needs of the pro players. I also know they can't give us all the bells and whistles, keep the price reasonable, and not sabotage the sales of their Montage series.

I'd say most of the things we pro players have asked for would also be very useful to the home players, who have the luxury of time and very little pressure from an audience of friends and family. The issue is, the Genos is regarded as the "top of the line" PSR keyboard. Generally, the PSR series has never been a wonder machine for stage work until the later Tyros and now Genos models came out. Perhaps without knowing it, Yamaha promoted the top part of their PSR series to full pro-level. It also costs more then a Montage, which is a pro-level keyboard. Hopefully, the Genos 2 will be painted with a difference brush .

Now a days Yamaha is concentrating on world content to attract Oriental musicians also and ethnic music players and live performers to beat Korg,Roland keyboards because most of the Oriental musicians, Classical & Ethnic music players buy Korg&Roland Keyboards only. One of the other reason for them is availability of Joystick feature in Korg,Roland keyboards.

When i am playing Tyros5, I made suggestion to Yamaha to replace replacing modulation wheel with Joystick and increase registration buttons to from 8 to 10. I am happy to see that Yamaha  introduced new Joystick and Registration buttons increased from 8 to 10 and now oriental musicians showing interest on Genos keyboard.

My suggestions are reasonable for satisfying  World musicians and also benefit Yamaha Company to beat Korg and Roland keyboards professional arranger keyboards.
I hope Yamaha will consider my suggestions for the upcoming Genos replacement keyboard.

Sunny.

[Amwilburn]

Yamaha still seems to think that most Genos users play in their living rooms where there's no pressure - which is probably true. However, they need to listen to those who haul this beast onto the live stage in front of the masses and see what we must contend with.

Yup, I'd have to agree, it should be optimized for live use. I can adjust things on the fly much more easily with buttons than a touch screen (you'll note all of my live performances on YouTube, after I start playing I pretty much just use foot pedals to switch banks and control things, I don't want to faffle about with a touch screen while I'm performing!)

Just understand that Yamaha is afraid of overwhelming customers... I've had customers choose instruments over a superior one just because they didn't look as scary.

Mark

[pjd]

Just understand that Yamaha is afraid of overwhelming customers... I've had customers choose instruments over a superior one just because they didn't look as scary.

Mark is quite correct on this point. I've had conversations with Yamaha marketing people who have said this directly. The same issue arises in synth design. When used synths are traded in, they often come back with the user locations unchanged from the factory settings. Says something about usability and/or lack of adventure.

All the best -- pj

[Fred Smith]

Yup, I'd have to agree, it should be optimized for live use. I can adjust things on the fly much more easily with buttons than a touch screen (you'll note all of my live performances on YouTube, after I start playing I pretty much just use foot pedals to switch banks and control things, I don't want to faffle about with a touch screen while I'm performing!)

OK, what is it on the Genos that's not "optimized for live use"? Isn't that what all the live control knobs and sliders are for that we play-at-home users never use?

I'm curious,
Fred

[Toril S]

So am I. If I live to be a hundred I will still have things to discover on the Genos!

[EileenL]

Well a keyboard has to be quite versatile so that it suits a broad range of users. There will always be people that never use half of the functions on there but others will use them. As for live controls they are very useful to a lot of us whether we play out or at home. 

[stephenm52]

Well a keyboard has to be quite versatile so that it suits a broad range of users. There will always be people that never use half of the functions on there but others will use them. As for live controls they are very useful to a lot of us whether we play out or at home. 

Plus one.  I find the live controls great for my live gigs.

[mikf]

I believe that Yamaha's fear of overwhelming their typical user with features is very realistic. It's even possible they have already arrived there with Genos. There may be a bigger case for a keyboard with pared down features, but top of the line sounds, and top quality key feel, than for even more, deeper functionality. Almost moving in the opposite direction that Genos took us.The vast, vast majority of arranger buyers, even those buying the most expensive boards, are just looking to be able to play 'Moon River' and sound decent!
They will never use or be interested in manipulating midis, creating studio level production, making complex styles, importing into Cubase or the other myriad of things a relatively small number of people want to be able to do.
Mike