Genos 2 - My suggestions

[kpblues]

Genos is great machine and sounds amazing but As Yamaha are presumably designing Genos 2 I thought, for fun and feedback, I would add some suggestions/wish list. 

Styles
Many more styles needed on £4k machine. At present I add & get a much bigger choice by buying £20 USBs on EBay.
Suggest : Chill Out, New Age, Tropical (Inc. Reggae/Calypso/Cuban etc), Celtic (Inc. Irish,Scottish), World (Sub divided into geographical areas/styles).

Voices
Excellent currently but always room for new ones
Suggest : Expand choirs to include backing male/female backing singers (2,3,4 people choices) or crowds, Maybe add sound effects section as many artists add these to their recordings
     
Multipads
Lots of work to be done here and far more pads needed. These could be so much better. 
a) Need multi-pads that match each style
b) 6 would be better 
c) Should see Multi Pads on main screen like styles and voices 

Registrations
These can be frustrating and could be improved I think
1) Should be able to view registrations with one button ("simultaneously" pressing buttons should be avoided generally)
2) Viewing registrations should be like Tyros maybe.
3) Saving banks is cumbersome - maybe needs to be Windows style - Press save as etc 

Screen
Would increase size that's all

That's my little wish list.

Any thoughts ?

Kelvin

[EB5AGV]

Yes, one thought: except for the display and the extra pad buttons, all the rest could be just a software update!. So I think Genos I v2.0 is a more logical approach.

Jose

[DerekA]

Yes, one thought: except for the display and the extra pad buttons, all the rest could be just a software update!. So I think Genos I v2.0 is a more logical approach.

Depends who you are.

If you are an end user ... yes this is a great approach.

If you are a company which can make big profits by selling new hardware to an eager market- not so much

[Roy_T]

except for the display and the extra pad buttons, all the rest could be just a software update!

You can not just ASSUME this.  If the additional features (voices, styles, etc.} exceed currently available memory, then an associated hardware change, possibly costly, will most certainly be required.  Software IS NOT MAGIC.  No amount of software updates or upgrades in my automobile's computer will give it the ability to change a tire for me, and it is totally unfair to turn this type of thinking, and the original poster's honest wishlist, into an accusation against a reputable manufacturer.

Roy

[kpblues]

My initial thoughts Jose are in line with Derek and Roy on this one as new voices/styles would need designing from scratch. 
With possible hardware changes as well it probably wouldn't be economic for Yamaha to include these in Genos 1.

Having said that you might be right and I suppose a few extra voices/styles could be included via Expansion Packs so they just charge for those.

If it was lots of styles/voices etc though it would be better for Yamaha to add them as part of the incentive to upgrade to Genos 2 when the time comes.

Thanks everybody though - getting different views is what this great forum is about ! 

Kelvin

[DerekA]

To be honest Jose  I do actually agree with you.

Moving to a touch screen makes it simple to add to the features without needing new hardware buttons - the exception from the OPs list being the extra multipads.

The Genos uses Yamaha's latest CPU which is known to be more powerful that the one used in Tyros (PJD has written some great aricles about this). So I reckon there is plenty spare capacity in that chip which would allow for those new features.

Of course new sample waveforms could require more internal memory space, so that would be going beyond what can be done in software.

[Bachus]

Genos is great machine and sounds amazing but As Yamaha are presumably designing Genos 2 I thought, for fun and feedback, I would add some suggestions/wish list. 

Styles
Many more styles needed on £4k machine. At present I add & get a much bigger choice by buying £20 USBs on EBay.
Suggest : Chill Out, New Age, Tropical (Inc. Reggae/Calypso/Cuban etc), Celtic (Inc. Irish,Scottish), World (Sub divided into geographical areas/styles).

More styles? The 500+ internal styles can be made into almost anything trough simple edditing. And there are like 40.000 styles available for free online..  offcourse there should be some new freebee styles. But all general styles, nothing really specific for a region, as yamaha solved that trough regional expansion packs for the Genos

Voices
Excellent currently but always room for new ones
Suggest : Expand choirs to include backing male/female backing singers (2,3,4 people choices) or crowds, Maybe add sound effects section as many artists add these to their recording

where it comes to voices i think adding the imperial grand would be a great thing, maybe an orchestral section with true divisi (much like ensemble but then with more then 4 voices)..  the weakest point of the Genos is the synth side, would love to see an FM and a VA engine..  and offcourse the organ, there is still room for improvement and new organ models (the models of the reface YC and a true church organ where the bars and knobs function as stops).

Where however the most can be won is the voice structure which is currentl 4 (3right 1 left) it should be raised to 8 and be made compatible to the modx sound structure

Multipads
Lots of work to be done here and far more pads needed. These could be so much better. 
a) Need multi-pads that match each style
b) 6 would be better 
c) Should see Multi Pads on main screen like styles and voices

I would say 8 multipads would be perfect.. you would have 16 part styles this way, with an option where when you chooses a 2nd multipad, the 1st one ends.. also important is an option to sync audio parts with the tempo..or even transpose them, from the genos..

Registrations
These can be frustrating and could be improved I think
1) Should be able to view registrations with one button ("simultaneously" pressing buttons should be avoided generally)
2) Viewing registrations should be like Tyros maybe.
3) Saving banks is cumbersome - maybe needs to be Windows style - Press save as etc 

i an quite happy how registrations work, however Voice sets(ots) should become a sepperate savable item. This works perfectly on a pa4x, its the only thing i really miss from the pa4x

Screen
Would increase size that's all

just size? I would go for an 11" 3x2 tilting screen

That's my little wish list.

Any thoughts ?

Kelvin

There is a long list of other possible improvements..
- uSB audiointerface
-Daw and ipad integration
-an option to load and save user arps
-user arps and motion sequences for all voices (thats 8 on my wishlist)
-much much much larger sample ram. My modx high quallity sample expansions are 450MB each.. i guess 8 GB rom and 8 GB sample ram seems an acceptable amount..
-onboard edditing of midi(piano roll) sounds (modx interface) and audio/samples
-a better way to save dsp effects
-a ribbon controller

And a few more....

And much much more..