REVIEW OF YAMAHA I455, I500 & CASIO CT-X 8000IN

[AnupamEnosh]

Today I visited a local musical instrument showroom, and checked out the I500, I455, Roland EX-20 & CT-X 8000IN. Turns out that Yamaha I500 again wins it single handedly in terms of sound depth in factory uploaded sounds' quality. Casio fell in the runner up category, and Roland is some where below these two. But the most important part, Yamaha has now moved to some more cheaper greyish keys in place of black ones, which are so cheap in feel that you would break the deal at the first glance. Even the I455 which has been continued in the market, has these cheaper keys that feel brittle, worst cheap keys that I can rant about the whole day. On the contrary, Casio CT-X continues with the premium feeling keys, but poor output in sound. Attached here are some pics. Look at the box of I500, can anybody answer if which keyboard box looks similar to this ?

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[vbdx66]

Hi Anupam, as far as the styles are concerned (both Indian styles and Occidental styles), would you say that the 8000in or the PSR i500 is better?

Vinciane

[AnupamEnosh]

In Style & Voice department both, Yamaha is slightly above Casio. In fact when I started playing Casio, I came to know that there are a very very few usable factory sounds. CT-X lineup misses the depth and mellow feel in the lower notes, making the sound very thin, same goes with the styles. Casio requires deep tweaking to make all the sounds usable, which would be always a dealbreaker for me. While Yamaha had a lot of styles, I was little irritated to see lot of Bhajan styles in the row, which are mostly used in religious occasions, and not much suitable for on stage performers in India, which gets worse further, with the limited registration capabilities onboard. I did not try the EX-20 much, as the first sound I got on pressing the keys, kept me away from trying it further.

[GTS]

Hi Anupam,

I came across the PSR-I500 yesterday and it peaked my interest. I currently have a PSR-S970 and Tyros 5 but find both of them very weak when it comes to getting any Indian voice or style of value. Do you know if the styles in the I500 can be used on the S970 given that it has a couple of Indian packs available on it.

Would love to hear your and any other person's feedback on this.

Regards,
GTS...

[SeaGtGruff]

The PSR-E and PSR-I models don't have a Style Assembly feature for saving and exporting styles, as can be done on the PSR-S models. The only way I know of that you can even attempt this is to record a style in a User Song, save it to SMF, and then use third-party software to try to create a style file from the SMF. I say "try" because even though it's possible to create a style file from a MIDI file, you would need to recreate the original CASM section, which might be extremely difficult to do, given that you would have no way to know how complicated the original style is as far as things like using alternate source channels for specific keys and chord types, plus the Indian styles might use more than just destination channels 9 and 10 for kit voices-- which raises another issue, the voices and kits used.

And as far as trying to use another keyboard (PSR-S or Tyros) to control the style playback on a PSR-I, the PSR-E and PSR-I models do not have MIDI settings that let you assign an incoming MIDI channel for controlling chord changes in their onboard styles, as can be done on the PSR-S models. You can send Start and Stop messages if the PSR-I is set to External Clock, in which case I think you can also control the Tempo by the external MIDI clock pulses, but there is no way to control the style section changes and chord changes externally.

Aside from playing the PSR-I and the PSR-S or Tyros at the same time (the best solution, IMHO), one possibility if you don't want to have to keep different hands on different keyboards might be to record the desired PSR-I style to a User Song, complete with all of the desired section changes and chord changes, then set the PSR-I to External Clock, select the desired User Song, and try to send Start and Stop messages from the PSR-S or Tyros to activate the User Song while you're playing the PSR-S or Tyros. But that might be tricky.

[GTS]

SeaGtGruff,

Thank you for your detailed response. It has enlightened me on the difference between the PSR-E / PSR-I and the other models PSR-S and up. It is a real shame that PSR-I has these voices and styles that I would really like to have to use on the S970 or even Tyros5 but there is no way of getting it. This is one area where I am very disappointed with Yamaha.

I see Roland and Korg have made great strides with having Indian drums and voices on their newer keyboards. Had it not been for me to be so heavily invested in Yamaha, I would have ventured over to either Roland or Korg. Come to think of it, with the amount of time I spend trying to get proper Indian beats into the S970 / Tyros5 via REX files, I maybe should bite the bullet and walk away from the Yamaha brand. I also know that I am not the only one in this position.

Thanks again,

GTS...
A Very Frustrated Yamaha User

[SeaGtGruff]

Doesn't Yamaha have Voice & Style Expansion Packs for the PSR-S models which add Indian voices and styles? That would be a better solution than attempting to export the styles from the PSR-I500 or control the PSR-I500 from the PSR-S or Tyros.

[GTS]

Yes - there are couple of Indian packs for the PSR-S models, and one for Tyros5, but these are extremely poor when compared to Roland or Korg. Style wise, I have been able to get by with using REX files, but then memory availability quickly becomes an issue. It is also very time consuming to do.

[AnupamEnosh]

SeaGtGruff,

Thank you for your detailed response. It has enlightened me on the difference between the PSR-E / PSR-I and the other models PSR-S and up. It is a real shame that PSR-I has these voices and styles that I would really like to have to use on the S970 or even Tyros5 but there is no way of getting it. This is one area where I am very disappointed with Yamaha.

I see Roland and Korg have made great strides with having Indian drums and voices on their newer keyboards. Had it not been for me to be so heavily invested in Yamaha, I would have ventured over to either Roland or Korg. Come to think of it, with the amount of time I spend trying to get proper Indian beats into the S970 / Tyros5 via REX files, I maybe should bite the bullet and walk away from the Yamaha brand. I also know that I am not the only one in this position.

Thanks again,

GTS...
A Very Frustrated Yamaha User

What if I offer you the styles/voices, but the keybed of I500/E463 etc is very bad, when compared to other keyboards in the market.. You won't be able to play with the same fluency as you can, on the other keyboards.

[SciNote]

So, I know the keyboard feel of the PSR-E463 is a bit underwhelming.  Is the I500 similar?

[AnupamEnosh]

I500 is even worse in that aspect.