Drums, Drums, Drums.

[Pianoman]

I have had the chance to download all styles from the T2 right up to the T5, with the
sole purpose of listening to the evolution of all the drumkits from the aforementioned
Keyboards.

It struck me that the T2 had what we now call legacy standard drumkits that had a loose
kind of sound, like the skins of the snare and bass drum were not properly tightened,
and where some of the kits sounded like one is playing drums inside a tunnel or metal
container.

Then the T3 came along with nicely tight drumkits possessing tight bass drums and
snappy snares on the majority of their styles, which is ideal for live playing, or even just
playing at home through speakers or headphones.

I then listened to the T4 drumkits and  noticed that the tunnel sound on the drums
slowly started returning to the drumkits.

It got worse by the time the T5 arrived, where the T5 drums had more in common with the
T2 than the T4.

After buying the Genos as an emergency measure, I am absolutely shocked by the
atrocious drumming in a tunnel hollow kind of sound that came with so many of the
drumkits on this keyboard.

My view is that on most of these keyboards the manufacturer's emphasis may have
been more on great intros and endings, as well as other accompaniment voices and
right hand solo voices. Leaving the drums by the wayside.

The much vaunted REVO!! drumkits have turned things full circle and brought back the
hollow sound again, and where even the hi-hats and cymbals sound like hitting the side
of a bottle or tin can.

In a previous post from a year back at least, I posted an opinion that the most important things
that make a style great are the drums and the bass.

All the other accompaniment sounds and voices are just garnish on the cake,
that should be used as sparingly as possible.

There simply cannot be a great style if the drums are unsatisfactory and they ARE
unsatisfactory on the Genos.

I have been playing music for a living since the age of 16, first in bands, then as a solo
artist, and like to think that I know what I'm talking about.

Please note that this is only my opinion, and in no way is meant to criticise the opinions,
choices, or judgements of the illustrious members of this forum.

It is also not a wholesale criticism of the Genos as an instrument, just the drumkits.
They are the thing that makes or breaks a good style, and they could have been
better.

Best Regards.
Abby.

[Toril S]

Hello Abby :)I have the T5 and the S975, but, believe it or not, I like the drumkits on my old 2100 the best.
BUT, I know almost nothing about drums, how they should sound etc, it is just how they sound to me, how I like their sound that matters to me.  I understand that drums are the backbone of any music, and they are very important.
Let us hear more about your Genos, how it goes? Congratulations! I believe you can edit the drum sound, but don't ask me how!

[Patrick]

Hello Abby 100 % with you; i change the drums kit on all the styles i'm playing; i just want simple drums kit! they're the best for live playing; have a nice day Patrick

[RoyceM]

For many of the songs I play, I switch to a Brush Kit.

- Royce

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi
I find the drumkits on the Genos great, but you have to manipulate them.
I find the bass too heavy and the drumkits have to be pushed up or brought down a little sometimes. I find the kicks  heavy and have to reduce them a little.
You can EQ the drums to your likeing. It takes time manipulating old Ginger Baker!!   Eric Delany and  Buddy Rich!!!
I do find that you have to work at the Genos a lot more than the T5  for great results.
I am amazed at what you can get out of the Genos .
I love the Byrds songs and making an octive sounding guitar out of two guitars and then playing with your fingers an octave distance makes sounds like the Byrds spot on with that jingle jangle I come following you sound!! . There is so much to dig down into with the Genos.
Just played Summer of 69 a Bryan adams song and it is just amazing how authentic you can make It. I have got Rondo Veneziano  La Serrisima sounding like the real mcoy.
I think a lot of it is getting the EQ just right and not over doing the reverbs etc.

Well That is my opinion .

Also with those DXR8's in my room playing with flat eq is just right as adding all those gold Eq's etc create boom in the room.
Playing with the Eq of each track in a style and volume adjusting and also cutting some sounds does the trick for me and I am still experimenting.
I have a little tweak every now and then, but always come back to flat somehow.
I do know that getting your sounds right playing live gigs can be more trickier. I do not play out , but i used to run a disco before stopping after 10 years at it and then taking up playing the keyboards. Some rooms are great and some like an echo chambers and some with wobbly stages. Not good for the old stylus/stylii.
That was 38 years ago!! . " I had long hair then!!. Now where did i put that Biotin tablet!!
AHHH!! i should be talking about drums !!!


All the best
john

[pjd]

You can EQ the drums to your likeing. It takes time manipulating old Ginger Baker!!   Eric Delany and  Buddy Rich!!!

And, here, we thought we had gotten rid of our troubles with drummers. Well, at least the Genos doesn't show up late. 

-- pj

[EileenL]

I have to agree John that you really can change most to suit your individual taste hence calling the keyboard an arranger.

[vbdx66]

And, here, we thought we had gotten rid of our troubles with drummers. Well, at least the Genos doesn't show up late. 

-- pj

Very true, but I think that Ginger Acer, Eric Delany and Buddy Rich could go on playing even in the event of a power failure 

[manuel]

I agree with John and Eillen.....

I have been doing music since I was 12, now 63, so, 51 years playing....and since I like software and computers, also in the last 6 -7 years ago, as an external consultant for Yamaha Corporation of America and from time to time also with Yamaha de México been part of the team that develops the Expansion packs like the Mariachi-Norteño, Banda Mexicana, Cumbia latina y mas, and the soon to be release "Fiesta Caliente"...

I still play in senior dances in the Phoenix AZ Metropolitan area. The Genos is a joy to play with.

my 2 cents.

Manuel

[Gloria]

Hi Manuel,  (sorry Abby, I am chris-crossing posts!) 
   It was good to hear you're still going strong in the music world, especially in Phoenix!    I am now enjoying a Genos also, using it for teaching & my own enjoyment.

Gloria

[mikf]

Abby
I am a bit puzzled by what you are saying. Uploading a style from another will result in it calling up the drum kits on that instrument, not from the original instrument. i.e. if you play a style from the T2 or T4 on the Genos, the drum kits you hear have to be on the Genos. That wouldn't be true if you are comparing two different instruments directly, but if you upload the style from one to another ......
Mike

[panos]

Hi Abby,
Tunnel sound is caused probably from the reverb effect on the drumkit and the hollow sound from the luck of reverb and other effects maybe?

I would consider preset styles/OTS on a keyboard as just basic tools to work with and make them sound to our liking.
I wouldn't expect from a technician or a group of developers to have the same taste with me on how drumkits and voices should sound.
So I am using the mixing console and style creator to change things for better or worst but at least for the final result it's only me to blame.
If a sheet music has things I don't like,I just change them.Same thing.

Maybe you have missed my other post where I have written that from what I understood,
as long as the drums are not following any chords, on Genos you can record real drums to play in a style and not having to use Yamaha's drumkits at all.
Using a pc program can also do the job:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNZWClzqRwQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8ecAOZWaag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhlhMxb1PC0

If these things are easy or not?
If you want an arrangement for a song to be good as you wish,sometimes you've got to pay the price I guess.
(in time,effort,experimentation,mistakes,dissapointment etc)

If I stick to just what I have studied and expect from pc programs(with faults,with lots of changes I don't like etc)to do the job for me in the office I am working,
I will be unemployed.
 
The keyboard is a machine with lots of features to make it sound right.

We've got to learn how to use them little by little everytime.
And I am not reffering to Abby of course, but to all of us 

[rodrigo.b]

I agree with John and Eillen.....

I have been doing music since I was 12, now 63, so, 51 years playing....and since I like software and computers, also in the last 6 -7 years ago, as an external consultant for Yamaha Corporation of America and from time to time also with Yamaha de México been part of the team that develops the Expansion packs like the Mariachi-Norteño, Banda Mexicana, Cumbia latina y mas, and the soon to be release "Fiesta Caliente"...

I still play in senior dances in the Phoenix AZ Metropolitan area. The Genos is a joy to play with.

my 2 cents.

Manuel

Amazing! I hope we can see and hear megavoice latin brass or something like that on these new "Fiesta Caliente" expansion pack because the factory megavoice brass sounds incredible but I think it still doesn't sound good compare to real latin brass ensemble.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Genial! Espero que el nuevo paquete "fiesta caliente" tenga nuevos sonidos megavoice de metales, y saxos, entre otras cosas. Porque estoy seguro que usted como latino estará de acuerdo en que si bien el sonido "Megavoice Brass" de los PSR S (que proviene del Tyros 2, si no me equivoco) es aun increíblemente realista, no es el más adecuado para música latina,  y esto es entre otras cosas por el tipo de micrófonos que se utilizó para grabar por ejemplo a la trompeta y que estoy seguro que es diferente del que se utiliza para grabar una trompeta de un ensamble real de metales de música latina.

[Pianoman]

Abby
I am a bit puzzled by what you are saying. Uploading a style from another will result in it calling up the drum kits on that instrument, not from the original instrument. i.e. if you play a style from the T2 or T4 on the Genos, the drum kits you hear have to be on the Genos. That wouldn't be true if you are comparing two different instruments directly, but if you upload the style from one to another ......
Mike

Hello Mike.

When I upload or use a T3, T4, or T5 style,  the style will play the original drumkits that
were in those keyboards. These drumkits exist in the Genos as legacy kits.

On the other hand, if you try to incorporate an old drumkit into a Genos style it might
sometimes work, but more often than not you will get a strange sound in the kit.
Like a DJ doing his scratching routine on a vinyl record.

I have been busy over the last few days converting all my registrations back to T3, T4,
and T5 styles, depending  on what sounds best for the song, in order to redo the styles
that the Genos has auto replaced with Genos styles.

I had to buy the Genos in a hurry,  because my T3 died just 2 days before an important
gig, It was the only arranger keyboard in the local stores here.

I said in my original post above that I am not criticising this instrument wholesale.
Or other people's inclination to praise it to the heavens.

I just think they could have done much better with the drums, or just let things be.
When you have a good thing, and it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I am a very practical man and use my instruments only as a means to earn a living.

I once caught some flak on this site for saying that I have no emotional attachment
to an instrument other than that it's a tool for my work.
But that's what it is.

Just like some people do other jobs, this is what I do, and a Piano and keyboard are
my work tools.

I am also well versed in fine tuning a synthesizer or arranger, having spent hours
every day dealing with EQ, Filters, Effects, Compression, and balancing  style
tracks for the last 20 years.

And I still insist that the drums sounded crisper and tighter on the T3 through to the T5.

Best Regards.
Abby.

[markstyles]

Drums can certainly vary a huge amount..  I am not particularly enamored with the Genos drum sounds. I use Genos with a recording studio set-up. I often use Superior Drums, but sometimes use Genos drum patterns. Ultimately i use a drum replacement program like Drumagog or Steven Slates Trigger.

Don't like the balance or eq or particular drums in Genos drums. Although I believe they are fine for playing live. A lot of this boils down to the equipment you have to use, and the situation.  I do not play out live, only in recording studio. If I performed as a one man band. I would use the Genos as it is. It fits the bill.

Genos has a price point they have to maintain.. If they put all the extra features in, ability to alter pitch, EQ, ADSR panning, reverb send for each individual drum, the price would go up, or another feature would be compromised.  We as musicians, must accept our instrument for wha it is..  You do not expect an upright piano to sound like a Hammond B3. i do believe the Genos to be possibly the one best single kbd for me to use (I do have other hardware and virtual instruments), but Genos is the center piece. It is one remarkable package of hardware and programming.

[DerekA]

If they put all the extra features in, ability to alter pitch, EQ, ADSR panning, reverb send for each individual drum, the price would go up, or another feature would be compromised.

But they did. This function is present in PSR Sx70, Sx75 and Genos. They called it 'drum setup'.

[mikf]

I think Abby is commenting rather than complaining. The sound of the drums on Genos styles doesn't suit him. But as he says there are alternatives where he can make it what he likes. Its a bit of work though.
This is probably one of these areas which is not about good or bad - just individual taste, or even just what you are used to hearing. There are a lot of very sophisticated musicians involved in the Genos design team, so I venture a guess they didn't just make these changes without thinking, they thought it was an improvement. But then everyone has their own take. 
Mike

[Joe H]

Hey Abby,

If you are interested in editing your favorite styles with PC software you can tweak the drums to your liking and save the style back.
Here's a thread you can learn about what I am talking about. StyleMagic has a great drum editor. You can tighten up those snares, tom toms and kick drums to suit your taste.

http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,47213.msg383999.html#msg383999

Joe H

[panos]

But they did. This function is present in PSR Sx70, Sx75 and Genos. They called it 'drum setup'.

For older models:
Style creator->Edit tab-> press filter and check everything in Main & Ctrl change menu.
It will display all events and you can insert the ones you like to be applied in each single note of each part of the style.
I can see several effects there like panpot,modulation,pitch bent,brghtness,dsp send level etc.
Isn't it the same thing?

[DonM]

My 2 cents worth, and that's about all it's worth . . .
Yes drum sounds are subject to individual tastes and to what we are used to hearing.
No, you shouldn't have to edit or replace drum sounds on a 4-5 thousand dollar keyboard.
Yes, I knew what Abby liked, and advised him to get a Korg. 
But there were none to try.
I only played a Genos for most of one day, and thought it sounded very much like previous Yamahas. I didn't edit, change, adjust anything, but I don't like to do any more of that than I have to do, and it wasn't my Genos anyway.
Just food for thought, and only my opinions . . .
Abby could make a Casio sound great if he wanted.

[DerekA]

Isn't it the same thing?

Almost .. the newer drum setup function has more options (e.g. select an instrument from a completely different kit, effectively allowing you to build a custom kit without using YEM) and all those options are available through the keyboard panel. Many people don't want to have to use external software, no matter how good it is.

[pjd]

On the other hand, if you try to incorporate an old drumkit into a Genos style it might
sometimes work, but more often than not you will get a strange sound in the kit.
Like a DJ doing his scratching routine on a vinyl record.

Hi Abby --

Yep, Yamaha used different MIDI note drum mappings for the Revo drums. This does cause compatibility problems since the new Genos styles use the newer Revo drum note mapping. Older styles usually work OK with Revo drums, but I've run into a weird thing every now and again.

Background info at: http://sandsoftwaresound.net/genos-hi-hat-happiness/

Take care -- pj

[markstyles]

Thank you DerekA

I was not aware they had added that into Genos.  Yes, a great feature.  That makes the drums much more useful.. 

[Bachus]

But they did. This function is present in PSR Sx70, Sx75 and Genos. They called it 'drum setup'.

This....

[andyg]

Very true, but I think that Ginger Acer, Eric Delany and Buddy Rich could go on playing even in the event of a power failure 

Last time I experienced a power failure at a gig, the drummer refused to play as 'there wasn't enough light to see the dots'. Funny, I carried on, I'd learnt my bits off by heart!   

[mikf]

A drummer who reads dots ......... you'll be telling us he can do joined up writing next
Mike

[Pianoman]

I am slowly rebuilding my T3 in the Genos.

I have copied and linked all my Registrations, T3 styles, right and left hand voices into the
Genos user drive.

It's been quite a job, but I now have the drums that I prefer and it's also the easiest way for
me to continue gigging while I figure out what to do with the Genos styles and drums.

I will not continue criticising this instrument anymore other than to say that I expected
much better.

Even though I bought it for 3200 Euros new, I really expected better after all the hype.

I use this instrument for my work and it's been a painfully embarrassing two weeks
for me in front of my audiences.

I wish that I had more time to choose another suitable keyboard but I had to buy the
first keyboard that I could lay my hands on because I was without an instrument 36
hours before an entire week of gigs.

I'm glad to say though that the keyboard has practically paid for itself these past two
weeks.

Best Regards.
Abby.

[Toril S]

Hello Abby What you have done is sensible. Adapting your Genos to the drums and styles you are used to is the way to go. But I believe you will grow into the Genos, and come to like it more and more, you will see how versatile it is. Moving up to a new keyboard is hard! When I got my S970 I sat up the whole night and cried because the styles and voices sounded so terrible compared to my 15 years (!) old PSR 2100!! Then I loaded all my old styles into it and were happy again. For many months I thought of it as a newer, black version of my PSR 2100! Then I started to grow into it, and realized that it sounded much better than my old keyboard. But I still use a lot of the old styles. My S970 broke down, and I had to take out my trusty, old PSR 2100 again. Then I really noticed the difference. I could hear that my 2100 had some years under the hood!  So just take some time. Congratulations on your wonderful new tool, and good luck with your gigs!

[Henni]

I like to read between the lines:

1. DonM says Abby can make even a Casio sound good.
2. Abby says his/her events paid for the Genos in full in just two weeks of permorming with it.

Abby is therefor a serious, well talented musician - definitely in a higher class/demand range than most. I would not take his/her comments so lightly, even though I do not own a Genos myself...

[beykock]

Henni,

Abby ( Pianoman ) is a real and great pro gigger.

Most of the members here are home players.
Their needs might be different.

Babette