Playing Downloaded Styles on Yamaha Genos - Sound Quality?

[fantasyvn]

I'm considering investing in a Yamaha Genos keyboard and have a question regarding the sound quality when playing styles downloaded from the internet. As we all know, there are tens of thousands of styles available for download that are compatible with various Yamaha keyboards.

My question is, how do these styles sound when played on the high-end Genos? Given the superior sound quality and capabilities of the Genos, would these styles sound significantly better compared to when they are played on other Yamaha keyboards? I'm particularly interested in hearing from those of you who have personal experience with this.

Any insights or experiences you could share would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!

[rodrigo.b]

I'm considering investing in a Yamaha Genos keyboard and have a question regarding the sound quality when playing styles downloaded from the internet. As we all know, there are tens of thousands of styles available for download that are compatible with various Yamaha keyboards.

My question is, how do these styles sound when played on the high-end Genos? Given the superior sound quality and capabilities of the Genos, would these styles sound significantly better compared to when they are played on other Yamaha keyboards? I'm particularly interested in hearing from those of you who have personal experience with this.

Any insights or experiences you could share would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!

I have a CVP 809 and I think it has almost the same sound engine of Genos. In my experience, I can't get great results with custom styles right out of the box, you need to tweak the new styles a lot, remplace the drums with Revo drums, the other sounds with MegaVoices, add some nice DSP effects, and I think that is not so easy, you have to work a lot specially on the guitar tracks and percussion tracks

[Graham UK]

So many factors to take into account....
My experience is most 3rd party styles have been altered and are poorly balance adjusted and are trashed, but there are a few good ones and keepers.

By Using good quality headphones you have the same known source for each test....Plus a decent pair of ears.
My DGX670 £799 is just as good sound wise from genuine Yamaha Styles as my previous £4000.ish Tyros 5-76.
Differences can be from the quality of the different models Pre-Amps & headphone amplifiers.
We all hear differently and the above is just my opinion.

[EileenL]

I use lots of style that I have collected over the years. I always tweak them to suit my new keyboard as volumes can vary a lot. They will all sound good if you spend a little time with them. Have you tried the styles posted on here.

[mikf]

How they sound compared to other Yamaha keyboards is going to depend on which other Yamaha keyboards you are comparing. If they are relatively recent, and high end models, then I don't think they will be "significantly" better - but then sound differences might be in the ear of the beholder. What I consider insignificant you might think is significant.
Mike

[Divemaster]

Personally I'd buy yourself an SX 700 or 900 unless you are absolutely set on a Genos for performance reasons.

[BogdanH]

..there are tens of thousands of styles available for download...

-that shouldn't influence your decision. As Graham mentioned, most of these are duplicates or slightly modified styles circulating on internet all the time. When I got my first Yamaha, I too started to collect them... separated good and bad ones, sorted them in categories... But when I needed a style for some particular song and searched trough them again, I usually found nothing good enough. What a waste of time (at least in my case).

...My question is, how do these styles sound when played on the high-end Genos? Given the superior sound quality and capabilities of the Genos, would these styles sound significantly better compared to when they are played on other Yamaha keyboards?..

As Mike said, there's no difference (except maybe in keyboard owner imagination). Yes, we can replace voices in style, so they sound more to our liking, but that doesn't really change the style (the accompaniment). What I'm saying is, for example, a good bass guitar player or drummer doesn't necessary need the most expensive instrument: how he plays matters -not on what he plays.

In short, if some style is really well made, then it doesn't matter much on what keyboard is being used. Because if needed, we can make final style sound adjustments to our liking anyway.
So, if that's your only decision factor, then I join Divemaster's advice: you save a lot of money by deciding for SX700/900 and that money can be well spent for good audio (amplifier/loudspeaker) system -and that does make a difference.

Bogdan

[MadrasGiaguari]

IMHO, Genos's Revo Drums make the real difference.

Whenever I imported styles from Tyros/Psr, just replacing the original Drum Kit with one Revo kit changes the general sounding of a style, even more than changing the voices of the other tracks.

I believe that Revo Drums have no comparison with any other drum kit available in the arrangers market.

Ciao

Angelo

[Divemaster]

Bogdans post makes an interesting and very true point

Quote:

What I'm saying is, for example, a good bass guitar player or drummer doesn't necessary need the most expensive instrument: how he plays matters -not on what he plays.

I am a keen photographer, and the same rule applies as very well illustrated by a professional photographer called Tim Mantoani in his book Behind Photographs. He says......It doesn't matter how much you spend on a camera.

"A Camera, like a guitar, is only a box with a hole in it.
Until it comes into the hands of a true artist, it will not make music, only noise."

It's a very valid point, and one to consider when buying new instruments.

[Graham UK]

The original question was how do these styles sound when played on the high-end Genos?
Interesting that nobody has mentioned the quality of Key-Beds, which is my first priority and makes playing far more enjoyable.
All Tyros & Genos Key-Beds are very nice to play, but understandable PSRs are built down to a price.

[Divemaster]

I disagree.

I've had Tyros arrangers (1 and 3) and I think the keybed on my SX is far superior to either of them.

Tyros are now old keyboards. Technology marches on. Genos may or may not be better. The PSR SX models are the latest most up to date Yamaha arrangers and in my opinion have excellent keybeds and are superb in every respect.
I own 2 x SX700's and have played the SX-900.

Of course with the addition of high quality, and usually hugely expensive additional speakers, most keyboards will sound better. But I query whether the keybed is 'better'. That's subjective to the player...

I bought a DGX 660 when it first came out. It was a Dire instrument. I couldn't get it sold quick enough.
All the hype about that digital piano was so over the top. Put me off the DGX range altogether.  The keybed on that thing was just plain clunky and awful.

Keith

[Drsun19]

Hello!

I've spent lots of hours tweaking most of my styles, a great number of them come from the net, some sound horrible, some sound not bad, but all of them NEED to be tweaked, since they were not made for this keyboard. Revoicing, adjusting and balancing is something you should do. I bought the STYLE MAGIC YA license which allows me to tweak my styles (with the genos plugged to the PC) in real time and to my taste. easy peasy!

The output from a Genos is better than other keyboards and it will sound better but not great when you play the accompainment. You also need to adjust the voices you'll use. Some need gain, compressor and these DSP effects.

I definitely love Genos, It's worth it because once you adjust all these parameters it will go flawlessly.

P.S. I have thousands of styles, i don't use most of them but there's always one that may be adjusted to the song you're looking to play...

Greetings.

Luis.