Yamaha development

[valimaties]

Thanks @frankmusik!
Best said!!!

PS: @mikf and @Lee ... sorry for misunderstanding with Eastern market!!! 

Regards,
Vali

[Lee Batchelor]

No problem, Vali. The world of business is a mysterious place .

Excellent post, Frank. You have pointed out the many diverse paths a Genos user can take. Your list of uses is a testament to the success of the Genos. Being typical human beings, we tend to say, "If it can do that, wouldn't it be wonderful if it could do this?" In a lot of ways, our request for new features is a compliment to the Yamaha designers. We are basically telling them, "You folks can do anything. How about doing this?"

No doubt, Genos II will have some of the things we've been writing and dreaming about. If history is any lesson, we'll just have to wait to see when Yamaha decides to release the new model. When it hits the Eastern and U.S. markets, I (and all Canadians) will wait the extra 3 or 4 months to hear it .

[mikf]

Frank - all these different uses happen, but how much. My guess is that the arrangers are used more than 75% in the home, by people playing very straightforward music without much editing of styles or sounds. So this is the core market for these arrangers and they need little more than they already have. In fact the TOTL arrangers may already seem unnecessarily complicated to these people. These other uses you list may be seem a lot collectively but individually each one is a small %. So it's hard to satisfy everyone.
If you were reading these kind of threads from outer space you would conclude Yamaha were a chaotic corporation and the Genos has so many shortcomings it must be a total failure.  Both a long way from reality.
Mike

[EileenL]

I think the idea for this site was to collect all suggestions on one site. If they get enough ticks or likes they will probably be investigated further.
  I think we must also realise that most of these keyboards when they first started coming along were used very much in the home as before this people had had very large organs and apart from them getting very expensive they also took up a lot of room and were not easily portable. If some home players wanted to entertain there local care homes they had to rely on them having something there that they were used to.
  I still suspect that the majority of keyboards sold in the UK are mainly for home use and people who have not played for year's due to having to work and bring up family's buy them when they retire  as a hobby.
  Half the stuff mentioned on here probably goes straight over there head so I say good luck to a site that can keep all this in one place and if you are that way inclined you can go there with all the complaints and at times some quite mad suggestions.

[Lee Batchelor]

Mike said,

My guess is that the arrangers are used more than 75% in the home, by people playing very straightforward music without much editing of styles or sounds. So this is the core market for these arrangers and they need little more than they already have. In fact the TOTL arrangers may already seem unnecessarily complicated to these people.

Very true. That's why people can buy the full version (Genos for home and pro users) or a simplified version (I forget the model number, for primarily the home players.)

It doesn't mean future Genos models should not have even more capabilities. It's great that Yamaha has covered both markets though .

[mikf]

Lee
You are saying the top model should be bought by the most demanding, most competent, players. People with less demands can buy the lower models.
But thats not the way it works. The top model doesn't just have more features, it also typically has the best sound and looks the best. The Genos buyer is giving himself a treat, has the cash, and wants the best, even if arguably they don't need it. I'm sure that Yamaha knows that adding something like advanced midi features have an appeal to a relatively small proportion of buyers, and has to weigh this up in their development spending.

Mike

[pjd]

Hi all --

Whew, this is a long thread to read after a quiet weekend. :-)

Ben Israel from Yamaha is a solid guy. I met Ben during a phone meeting. He initiated the well-known Yamaha synth IdeaScale forum (or whatever you want to call it). The synth guys get barraged by comments from arranger customers, so maybe this is an attempt to focus and collect arranger-oriented comments in one place. Right now, arranger ideas on the synth forum spill into the "Other" category.

Yes, IdeaScale is chaotic. :-) It's a place to collect ideas and let other users vote on the ideas. That lets Yamaha know if an idea is a pet feature or a feature with broader user need. You won't find a crafted architecture on IdeaScale...

The synth IdeaScale site has all sorts of useful -- and wild -- ideas. Votes do stack up on popular ideas. Some of the synth ideas have appeared in updates.

I have spoken with a few Yamaha USA reps who read PSR Forum. They know we are here. Yamaha may have a relatively strict policy about direct participation in non-corporate sites. Dunno.

Hope this sets a little context -- pj

[Lee Batchelor]

Lee
You are saying the top model should be bought by the most demanding, most competent, players. People with less demands can buy the lower models.
But thats not the way it works. The top model doesn't just have more features, it also typically has the best sound and looks the best. The Genos buyer is giving himself a treat, has the cash, and wants the best, even if arguably they don't need it. I'm sure that Yamaha knows that adding something like advanced midi features have an appeal to a relatively small proportion of buyers, and has to weigh this up in their development spending.

Mike

Agreed, Mike. I stand corrected. There are of course many home players who enjoy diving into the deep end of the Genos pool. They are prime customers as well .

[valimaties]

I think the view of the problem is seen by each other from the perspective of his country, what happens and what do arranger players in their countries.
I tell you that in my country I don't know if there is a percent of 1% who is playing with an arranger at home, only sitting and playing. The other 99% of players are playing at events (marriage parties, other corporate events, a.s.o.). I think there are at least 1000 (one thousand) of bands in my country, even if it is a small country ( ) using arrangers (most of them uses Korg PA, because it gives the free way of using the keyboard without using a PC, all the needed functions are in this keyboard/arranger). There are of course a lot of bands which uses Genos, or other Yamaha arrangers (Tyros 3/4, PSR A3000, aso) but because we don't have the liberty of using only the keyboard, it is a small percent using Yamaha. We cannot grow if the limitations continues and Yamaha is not hearing of our demands... Also, there are a lot of users which does not know to use PC in the world of music, using software to create samples/voices or other arranger's needs. That is why there are some players which still uses Tyros 4, because they create their voices directly in keyboard. When you sit and play at home, you create a sound and that's it! But when you sing at different event halls, each building has its own acoustics, and needs a lot of realtime sound adjustments. This is very hard to make in realtime at event with Genos (or other Yamaha keyboard). For example, if I do some adjustments in the middle of a song, using a custom style, because we cannot save it while keyboard plays, its a big disadvantage. The other brand can do it in realtime. It overrides style in realtime (or other settings)! I cannot save at the end of the song, because I need to step froward to the next song immediately, that is how we do. That is how people want, they don't want to hear some long pauses between songs. We need to make the guest of the event to stay on the dancing ring all the night, that means for us a successful event 
The Style Recording function of Korg is much much better than Yamaha's Style Creator, and this was talked a lot of time, it's not my intent to create another polemics here, but if Yamaha does not give as the possibilities of creating professional style using our keyboard (or its software), there will be another 10-15 years of "only Korg have that, have that...".
I love my Genos sound, definitely much better than Korg's sound, but those limitations drives me crazy sometimes... When I want to do something, I cannot do because style creator is limiting me, Voice usability in style and editing is limited, Sustain control in style is not read, using of a pitch bend range greater than 2 is restricted, for that I cannot make a custom slide... And really, I don't understand why, What's the reason?! 

Regards,
Vali

[Lee Batchelor]

Good points, Vali.

Instead of feeding Yamaha all kinds of suggestions about what we need on Genos II, they also need to know what percentage of Genos customers are playing outside the home where the Korg features would be of benefit versus those who play at home and have the luxury of a consistent acoustic environment and time.

If Yamaha found out that most users take their Genos out for entertainment purposes, they would alter the design to match. It's not like they don't know how. Perhaps they are under the false impression that that Genos is primarily an expensive home toy and the Montage is for the outside, money earning work. Yamaha can make the changes. They just have to know what shape their business model should take.

Has anyone seen stats on how many users play outside the home versus strictly home players?

[Sokratis1974]

I think the view of the problem is seen by each other from the perspective of his country, what happens and what do arranger players in their countries.
I tell you that in my country I don't know if there is a percent of 1% who is playing with an arranger at home, only sitting and playing. The other 99% of players are playing at events (marriage parties, other corporate events, a.s.o.). I think there are at least 1000 (one thousand) of bands in my country, even if it is a small country ( ) using arrangers (most of them uses Korg PA, because it gives the free way of using the keyboard without using a PC, all the needed functions are in this keyboard/arranger). There are of course a lot of bands which uses Genos, or other Yamaha arrangers (Tyros 3/4, PSR A3000, aso) but because we don't have the liberty of using only the keyboard, it is a small percent using Yamaha. We cannot grow if the limitations continues and Yamaha is not hearing of our demands... Also, there are a lot of users which does not know to use PC in the world of music, using software to create samples/voices or other arranger's needs. That is why there are some players which still uses Tyros 4, because they create their voices directly in keyboard. When you sit and play at home, you create a sound and that's it! But when you sing at different event halls, each building has its own acoustics, and needs a lot of realtime sound adjustments. This is very hard to make in realtime at event with Genos (or other Yamaha keyboard). For example, if I do some adjustments in the middle of a song, using a custom style, because we cannot save it while keyboard plays, its a big disadvantage. The other brand can do it in realtime. It overrides style in realtime (or other settings)! I cannot save at the end of the song, because I need to step froward to the next song immediately, that is how we do. That is how people want, they don't want to hear some long pauses between songs. We need to make the guest of the event to stay on the dancing ring all the night, that means for us a successful event 
The Style Recording function of Korg is much much better than Yamaha's Style Creator, and this was talked a lot of time, it's not my intent to create another polemics here, but if Yamaha does not give as the possibilities of creating professional style using our keyboard (or its software), there will be another 10-15 years of "only Korg have that, have that...".
I love my Genos sound, definitely much better than Korg's sound, but those limitations drives me crazy sometimes... When I want to do something, I cannot do because style creator is limiting me, Voice usability in style and editing is limited, Sustain control in style is not read, using of a pitch bend range greater than 2 is restricted, for that I cannot make a custom slide... And really, I don't understand why, What's the reason?! 

Regards,
Vali

I agree 100& with you Vali!!
There are those like me who live exclusively from music.
And although I'm still working on it with Genos, I can not overlook the serious limitations that exist in the many possibilities that should exist in a top model like this.
I respect everyone whether they play at home or are professionals on stage.
It was my first contact with a Yamaha model (with Genos) after 30 years of working on stage and as a professional style programmer but maybe the last with a Yamaha arranger.
And yes. Genos is a very beautiful arranger with very good sound but very discursive in creation (new Styles, Sounds etc).
And if you are wondering what I managed to create despite the limitations, I would like to tell you that thanks to my persistence and because I really like the sound of Genos I managed to make several things. And I am very happy with this result.
P.S Sorry for my bad English.
Here is a small demo https://www.dropbox.com/s/ewwe9sljjszrxs2/Audio%20Styles%20Genos_2021.wav?dl=0

[Ronbo]

Sokratis1974 ,

There's nothing wrong with  your English .  You are quite coherent.

There is nothing wrong with your style creations either.

Your work is good, and inspirational.

regards

Ron

[Sokratis1974]

Sokratis1974 ,

There's nothing wrong with  your English .  You are quite coherent.

There is nothing wrong with your style creations either.

Your work is good, and inspirational.

regards

Ron

Thank you very much dear Ron.
I love my job..
That's all.

[Joe H]

Sokratis1974 ,

There's nothing wrong with  your English .  You are quite coherent.

There is nothing wrong with your style creations either.

Your work is good, and inspirational.

regards

Ron

That's a "ditto"



Joe H

[frankmusik]

Frank - all these different uses happen, but how much. My guess is that the arrangers are used more than 75% in the home, by people playing very straightforward music without much editing of styles or sounds. So this is the core market for these arrangers and they need little more than they already have. In fact the TOTL arrangers may already seem unnecessarily complicated to these people. These other uses you list may be seem a lot collectively but individually each one is a small %. So it's hard to satisfy everyone.
If you were reading these kind of threads from outer space you would conclude Yamaha were a chaotic corporation and the Genos has so many shortcomings it must be a total failure.  Both a long way from reality.
Mike

No one knows this exactly ... me too...
BUT in our region (D-AT-CH-NL) the most Tyros/genos buyers/users  are 100-  and 60+ !!!
not 10% of the users are 18-40 years...  and the small bands (in Europe 1-4 people , mainly use additional midi files as basic),
in other parts of the world LIVE means every tone is played from a human being...

AND there are also people never had a PC and others "nerds with 92 years " programming styles (in good quality!)

I travelled in Europe to a lot keyboard events (in germany almost to all!) and have seen what kind of people there use the keys.
And  I have a musician site (with 5500 registered musicians and bands) to research what is played and used "live on stage".

I find it cool, when a customer of 70-80 years can use the same instrument for his JAZZ as a 45 year old EDM producer ...or "Schlager" composer ..

It ist HARD for yamaha to "fit" a alround instrument for the world....
e.g. some things..

organ players and most Entertainer love to use wheels for pitch / modulation.
every tavalla player and the whole eastern music need a Stick for pitch / modulation... to "snap" the sounds..

No Midifileplayer needs 76 keys on his yamaha (also 25 would be to much :-) )

No 5% need individual outs at home and more than 90% need MORE individual outs in studio/on stage... (I sold live musicians also 2 Genos keys connected to bring the sound to discrete mix channels so a live mix is done like a bandmix !)


I am happy that the industry is still building keys ... there is no long time to do this... so we´l see if we can have 2 or 3 more generations of "entertainer keys"....  I hope so ...

greetings frank

PS: And yes, we all criticize what is not done .. and just use what is inside and makes us happy .. but we don't thank for this ...

[valimaties]

@frankmusik, very true almost everything you said.

Although:

PS: And yes, we all criticize what is not done .. and just use what is inside and makes us happy .. but we don't thank for this ...

I think I've thanked for this when I've spent 4000 euros to buy this keyboard (Genos). The rest of updates and so on, there are indeed to be appreciated!

Regards,
Vali

[Bud2]

This site is mentioned in this month's Yamaha Club magazine, so I would say it is genuine and the reference is signed by Simon Inkley.

[EileenL]

Yes the site is genuine and is really where all questions and suggestions should be entered. Here you know they will be read and talked about by Yamaha. These people do not have time to search forums for these things so have created there own space.

[mikf]

People need to be realistic though, no matter where it is posted, like any sensible company, Yamaha are only going to invest time and money where they judge it has significant effect on future sales. So while they might read everything they will quickly read then ignore the esoteric ideas.
They also have to be cognizant of adding so much complexity it turns off the 100 - 60+  that Frank refers to, who have the money to  treat a $4000 spend on a keyboard as no big deal, and who are their core market in many parts of the world. 
Mike

[EileenL]

As with any suggestions where ever made Yamaha will only consider those that are possible to create within the price range that they think the keyboard will sell. Also it must appeal to there majority of customers who buy these products.