Drums, Drums, Drums.

[Toril S]

Hello again Abby!
I am mot a professional musician, just an amateur, with occasional gigs. But my new S970 broke down, and it took 4 months before the matter was sorted out and I got a new keyboard. In the meantime I had some gigs. Had to use my old PSR 2100!
With floppy disks and all! It went well, but there were some hefty differences between the S970 and the 2100!
I understand the need to have a backup, especially if your music is the thing that brings food on your table!
Maybe your T3 could be brought back to life? And be your backup? I also understand the frustration about sound of Genos compared to your Tyros. I had a hard time adjusting, and, truth be told, I still think my old 2100 is better sounding in some ways than my S975!

[Pianoman]

Thank you Gary and Toril for the good tips and well wishes.
Best Regards.
Abby.

[Kaarlo von Freymann]

Hello again Abby!
........... But my new S970 broke down, and it took 4 months before the matter was sorted out and I got a new keyboard....

I keep asking myself whether all the hype we read is paid for advertising just like the doctors claims  "there is no proof that smoking is habit forming" were lucrative lies.  A few years ago I actually had a  3 months long fight with TC Helicon about a malfunctioning Voice Works Plus that they in the end admitted was defective, but Helicon is a dwarf compared to YAMAHA.   


Cheers

Kaarlo

[markstyles]

There are tons of different engineering/mixing approach to drums..  Way back when, drums were drums.. and you just took for granted how they sounded,  Then engineer/producers started really experimenting with them, taking of one of the heads, changing the snare wires on the snare drum, tuning the drums.  making them extremely weak, big, gated etc. Indeed a good producer really pays attention to the drums, their sound can help make or break a tune. 

I have found over the years, often the instrument sounds in Tyros and GENOS supersede a lot of other keyboards, and Kontakt libraries.  But in the drum department I agree with you.

While I think the drums will certainly pass in an arranger keyboard,  playing live.  I find in recording, I often replace them with drumagog, (a plugin for DAW which detects the audio of a certain drum and replaces it with a group of different drum samples.  or use ToonTrack Superior drums (there are a bunch more other companies also).. 

This ALWAYS brings us back to the sound, options on arranger kbd, and COST..     Yamaha has the very difficult job of deciding what features, what sounds, options etc, are going to be in the keyboard, and keep it at a price that a sizable number of people can afford. I often raise pitch of some drums, tighten the envelope and definitely tighten the snares..  But that is my personal preference.  Others will want Led Zeppelin drums smashing in a huge riverbed room. 

AND sometimes, I do end up using the GENOS drums the way they are, depending on the song , and it's arrangement.

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi
I think the Genos Drums are great, but they are all kick and snare  heavy in my view.
Adjustments to the kick and snare has to be made for songs to not get annoying.

All the Best
John

[Lee Batchelor]

Overall, I think the Genos drums are more dynamic, not better. That's a combination of how the drums were sampled and then processed. I agree that Yamaha really dropped the ball on the kick drum. It's way too loud!! It's the same with the toms. They are very loud, boomy, and ringing. I always route them to a separate external mixer channel through the Sub 1 out so I can control the beasts!! I don't hear these anomalies when playing through studio monitors or cheap home speakers. It's only when I plug into large performance speakers, especially when adding a sub. I never had that issue with my T5.

During this Covid nonsense, I have spent the time honing my recording skills in Cubase. One very useful tool in Cubase Pro 10.5 is an EQ comparison tool. It displays two waveforms at once so you have a graphic version of how two instruments are fighting for the same acoustic space. Invariably, the bass guitar and kick drums in most of my raw recordings are about 6 dB too loud in the same frequency range. This problem translated to simple English is called "mud." Of course, I can fix the issue with the EQ tools.

The reason I mention this is I think the same issue may be happening in the raw, unprocessed Genos Revo kits. The kick, toms, and bass are all interacting in a very narrow bandwidth and fighting for attention. The result is a very "heavy" sound that is only useful in this terrible new Millenial style of music. You can probably use the Mixer > Filters to fix the problem. I've never tried it.

Abby plays a more traditional style and very well indeed!! He requires the more laidback sound of the T5 drums, hence why he thinks they are the superior choice. Metaphorically speaking, Abby has the wisdom, talent, and brains to not use a sledgehammer to drive a finishing nail home. A simple tack hammer is all he needs.

Abby, keep doing what you do best, and that is to bring musical happiness to people by just bringing your tack hammer to the stage .

[J. Larry]

When it comes to the sound of the instruments/voices included in a new arranger, as well as the styles, would it be too much to expect Yamaha to bring in well-experienced studio types, who are tops at mastering music?  Maybe they do.  Or, are the final decisions made by the style programmers?  What if new arrangers first passed the "inspection" of recording engineers, who are tops in the various genres of styles represented on arrangers----so that the sound is truly representative of past and current trends in musical styles?

[Lee Batchelor]

When it comes to the sound of the instruments/voices included in a new arranger, as well as the styles, would it be too much to expect Yamaha to bring in well-experienced studio types, who are tops at mastering music?  Maybe they do.  Or, are the final decisions made by the style programmers?  What if new arrangers first passed the "inspection" of recording engineers, who are tops in the various genres of styles represented on arrangers----so that the sound is truly representative of past and current trends in musical styles?

Those are all great ideas, J.Larry. Trouble is, nowadays the tech people no longer have much say about what should be built. It's the marketing dudes (or duds, depending on your viewpoint) who call the shots, and their strings are being pulled by the profit junkies called, "Management."

Undoubtedly, we're dealing with much younger marketing people who think the traditional sound is passe, and all you and I need is this heavy bottom end frequency junk. Now I know how my parents felt about the music I listened to as a teenager. You know, the music of those horrible performers like Neil Diamond and the Beatles. They were awful compared to Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey!

I'm going through a similar exercise trying to find decent drum plugins for recording. The Genos drums are just not up to the task. In my hunt for good drum plugins, I have found that most contain 80 percent of this modern EDM or other electronic garbage that I never use. All I want are decent Country, Blues, and Jazz styles. Finding them is next to impossible!!

[jugge]

I'm going through a similar exercise trying to find decent drum plugins for recording. The Genos drums are just not up to the task. In my hunt for good drum plugins, I have found that most contain 80 percent of this modern EDM or other electronic garbage that I never use. All I want are decent Country, Blues, and Jazz styles. Finding them is next to impossible!!

Hi Lee,

Have you checked out Ezdrummer or it's big brother superior drummer?  https://www.toontrack.com/product/ezdrummer-2/ They have a lot of expansion packs which contains drumkits for blues, country, jazz etc. I've just started to explore this product and it's really easy to work with. It comes with pre-recorded drum midifiles that you just drag and drop into Cubase.

Best regards
/Jugge

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi Jugge,

Yes I have. You're correct, in that those programs hold the most promise for me. Thanks for the note.