Yamaha Tyros 2 Review by John Romero (Music at Home Magazine 2006)

Keyboard technology has come along way in the past 20 years. Gone are the days of the predictable and boring piano arpeggio’s running in the background, with a drum unit that sounds as if it’s drums are being played with two wet fish. Today, excellent musical results can be achieved from a simple keyboard costing just a couple of hundred pounds. At the top end of the technology, our current musical workstations are capable of producing music of a spectacular standard but these instruments don’t come cheap. Flagship keyboards can run at a cost of £3,000 or more, especially if you add in their accessory items such as hard drives, memory, and software to say nothing of additional amplification. You can end up spending a vast amount of money. In conjunction with our illustrious editor, Stuart Hutton, it has been decided that I should have a look at one of these leading flagship keyboards, Yamaha’s Tyros 2 to see just what you get for your pennies. Before I start, and as this is my first article for "Music at Home", I think it is only fair to briefly mention a little of my background in case you detect any bias I may have. I started my keyboard career using Technics instruments and indeed was a feature writer for the "Tec Plus" magazine. Add to this the fact that most times when I use a keyboard, I play it via Midi and my accordion so I have perhaps a slightly different perspective from the average reviewer. What follows is not just a general review of the instrument for those that are considering buying, but also hopefully an insight into things you may not have found if you already have one.

When the Tyros 1 was first launched, I did hear one or two cynics say if you look up the word Tyros in the dictionary, you’ll find the definition "a beginner or novice". I'm not sure that this is what Yamaha had in mind. If they did I'm sure the Japanese translation was meant to be that Tyros was a new way of thinking, rather than a..... you get what I mean. The explanation that I prefer for how it got its name, is that Tyros is an anagram of story. The reason is this beastie has lots of musical tales to tell.

The first thing that struck me when I removed the Tyros 2 from its packaging was that it is relatively light, just 14.5 kilograms. There seems to be a trend at the moment for heavier instruments. Other brand keyboards, such as the Korg PA1X and Roland G70, both of which I have recently had my grubby paws on have weighed closer to 20 kilograms. The second thing was a minor but important point. Somebody in design actually thought about how the instrument will be picked up and it has a nice ledge at each end that is ridged underneath so that your fingers can get a good grip. So Yamaha’s first points are scored on behalf of those that wish to gig the instrument. Once placed on the stand you're presented with a very clean, silver liveried instrument which when plugged in and powered, comes alive with a host of green buttons and a 640 x 480 VGA full-colour screen which tilts up to face you in the centre. The layout of the instrument is pretty much now the industry standard of voice control buttons to the far right of the screen, with Menu and control buttons to their left. Mike and sequencer controls to the far-left of the screen, to their right are the rhythm pattern buttons. Sandwiched between all these controls and the keyboard is yet another array of buttons. I could explain them all, suffice to say you end up with just what you need from the flagship keyboard which is lots and lots of control.

For obvious reasons, sound quality is an essential part of the instruments credibility. I have not used Yamaha’s own speakers that bolt on to the Tyros for this review, instead I used an Alesis studio speaker system which really highlights the tonal characteristics with a pair of near field monitors. My first impression of the overall sound was that Yamaha know that many of the prospective buyers are going to be of an older age bracket and the instrument will likely be played in their front room. Now there is nothing wrong with this as out of the box, T2 gives a very smooth performance. However, to really make the instrument come alive, try pressing the ‘mixing console’ button once and the ‘tab right’ button four times. This will take you to the instruments overall EQ page. Press ‘edit (F)’, and you will be presented with a page that says ‘Master EQ edit’. Change the EQ one to five settings so they are on an upward slope from left to right and all of a sudden the instrument starts to come to life. The metalwork of the drums and much of the other instrumentation starts to bite at the top frequencies. Let’s face it, when a drummer plays he hits a bit of metal with a lump of wood, it’s harsh and it’s certainly not quiet. Incidentally, this trick can be used with Tyros 1 and several other PSR keyboards.

We could blind you with science and list every technical specification but the object is to try and give you more of a feel of what the instrument is about. Sounds are a good example. 300 megabytes of Wave Rom sounds a lot and it is. Yamaha have filled this space with over a 1000 sounds, quite a number of which are absolutely superb. A lot though are old sounds which you will probably never use and are only there to make the instrument backwards compatible. To list every one would take ages, so on a more general level you are presented with almost anything you will ever need. However before I get to the good bits, I have to say I thought the choirs were quite dire and as an accordion player I found only a couple of the sounds that I would even consider using. There are also some sounds that are missing or I just can’t find. A 16ft Jazz Fisa Accordion would be an example. I do wish Yamaha would forget about the titles Sweet, Cool, Live and Super Articulation (well maybe not these as they are new sounds to Tyros and most are stunningly good and I will deal with these in a moment). I’m sure that they are only there for sales pitch reasons. All these types of sounds are just confusing and why do they put the Mega Voices under the front panel buttons at all. They are programming voices and in most cases are virtually unplayable by all except the most experienced of players.

These comments might sound a little harsh but hang on a minute. Yamaha have obviously devoted a lot of time in several key areas of the instrument, to very good effect. Drawbars and Organ presets are one such area and full credit must go to those that worked on the samples and settings. If you like Hammond, Wersi and Lowry type sounds then stop reading this right now and go and buy a T2. Yes it is that good! I also particularly liked the strings, synths and pads. The show-stopping item for the right hand sounds come under the title of Super Articulation. These on their own will keep you amused for hours. A good chunk of the instruments sound Rom is devoted to them and each has its own little twists that add an extra dimension of realism. It’s usually a good idea having selected an S.A. sound to then press button ‘six’ at the bottom of the screen. This information button then tells you the tricks of the sound. If you choose the S.A. Concert Guitar you are told "legato notes within an interval of a fourth sound as a hammer on/off or slide. The last note has a release noise. Fret noise is added randomly and a footswitch adds body tap". Incidentally, try using the S.A. Concert Guitar in conjunction with the Guitar Hero, it’s a great sound for power ballads. I wasn’t very keen on the S.A. Sax at first although it is growing on me. I can't think of any piece of music I play that uses a harpsichord but I am going to have to learn one as this is a gem of a sound. There are five S.A. trumpets. All are very good although I would have preferred more variation in the modulation speed. Take your time going through the S.A. voices, it’s worth it. There’s hours of enjoyment to be had here. Oh yes, don’t forget to try out the Magic Bell in the pad section. Before moving on its worth pointing out that the keyboard action of the T2 has been improved from its predecessor, this is important as it gives more control over these lovely new sounds.

I mentioned some missing sounds before, if you were to feel that a sound was missing, then no problem. Just add it to the user memory. There is an additional four megabyte of user ROM which can be extended to a staggering 1GB. It’s a great capability although using it can lead to very long switch on times. It is a trick that probably more than 90% of its potential owners will never use. It is an interesting subject but too large to cover here in depth. Right-hand play with Tyros can be layered in up to three parts, using all of the above sounds. A number of other playing tricks can also be achieved by the splitting of the keyboard in various user defined places. Extra DSP effects can be added as well and parts can easily be turned from monophonic to polyphonic. Much more detailed editing can also be done underneath the ‘mixer console’ buttons where specific levels of DSP can be edited and selected, as can pan and a host of other things. Now it may be because of the use of a studio sound system or it may be because I do so much studio recording, but to me the quality of the reverb effects could have been better. For my taste I also found many of the echo default settings just had too long a delay.

Not being a lover of one-touch settings, I find most instruments preset sounds to be boring almost as if the manufacturer said to an employee "there’s a room, go and lock yourself in and don’t come out until you have at least 1000 one-touch settings". As a software writer myself, I have to tell you it’s hard to do that many sound combinations and keep everything sounding fresh and authentic. Tyros 2 seems to be the exception to the rule and anyone using the instrument for the first time should thoroughly explore these settings as they are generally very good and particularly highlight some of the keyboards major strengths. There are four one-touch settings for each rhythm all appropriate to the style. They are in my opinion the best I have come across for any flagship keyboard . I have already mentioned the organs and also worthy of note were a number of the big band settings, which were just beautiful to play. So many things to tell you about, so little space to do it but before leaving the overall subject to sound we should mention the ‘Music Finder’. This has its own bright white button to the right of the screen. Press the button and you will be presented with a list of songs in alphabetical order, just scroll down this list until you find a song that you know and press the Enter button. The keyboard immediately sets itself up to play your song with a pre-selected rhythm and sound selected from the one-touch settings. It’s a very useful tool even if occasionally you’re presented with the selection that makes you wonder what the programmer was on at the time of setting it up. If you find a set-up that you like, by pressing the ‘H’ at the side of the screen you can add it to a favourite’s page. Even cleverer than this is the ‘Search 2’ option which looks at the rhythm you have selected and suggests a number of songs to play to it. There are so many choices. Two of my favourites though were "Oxygene" and "What a wonderful world". This brings us neatly to the patterns.

Vitally important to today’s workstations is the rhythm section. Speaking with my programmers hat on I can tell you that hundreds if not thousands of hours were spent on this instrument. Personally I would have preferred many of the drums to have been more aggressive however my complete appreciation goes to the team that wrote these styles. Four hundred very high quality rhythms in 11 categories will provide backings for almost any song you could wish to play. Yamaha have achieved some results that are just a dream to play along with. Some of the pattern groups really do deserve very high praise. The ballads group is one such example. The world section has some amazing patterns with Irish hymn, Irish dance and Celtic dance being three of the must try styles. On the downside I really hated the Scottish patterns. Yamaha’s style writers do have one nasty habit, that being to try and fit two, three or even four styles into one. Seventies Disco 2 in the dance group is one such example. One group I think will be a firm favourite is the ballroom section, there are some great styles here. Whilst being completely the wrong tempo for dancing, the Organ Samba for Tico Tico is simply fabulous. I would like to have seen a Viennese Waltz that was not as off the beat as much as the continental versions, which the English don’t tend to like to dance to. If you already have a T2, go to the ‘Movie and Show’ group, ‘page 2’ and select ‘French 50's’, change the tempo to 100 and you will find the best quickstep the keyboard has.

For those that like to use midi files, Yamaha have installed a nice little file player. I loaded half-a-dozen Tune 1000 Midi files all of which performed nicely. The song play facility has some nice tricks up its sleeve. Insert points can be placed into a midi file, for instance at the beginning and end of the chorus, and the song can then be made to loop between these two points. If you have lyrics embedded in your midi file, these can be displayed on the colour central screen as can the notation of any given part. It is also very easy to mute a part with the mixer buttons and then play along with a song. There are many out there that will find this very useful. The song record and play is much more important in a different way though. There is hardly anybody I know that would not benefit from using this. When we play a song we get wrapped up in its chords, melody line, lyrics etc, etc. Very few of us are able to objectively listen to what’s coming out of the speakers. Therefore if you want to improve your performance, you should record it and then listen to the playback. Listen as if you were the audience, pleased or horrified its likely to open your eyes. With the Tyros there is no excuse not to do this as all you have to do is to press the record button in the Song Control Section and it records your entire performance. It’s just so easy and will lead to an improvement in the music you produce.

On the subject of accessories, I have to confess to being on a crusade. I simply don’t understand why more people don’t use foot switches. For instance, when you have both hands on the keyboard and can’t release them to press a fill-in button, why not use your feet? So many players just think "I’ll do without the fill". As well as the usual single foot switch options, Tyros has an incredibly useful underrated accessory. The MFC10 is a set of 10 fully programmable midi foot switches with a volume control placed at the right hand end. Technophobes should not be frightened of this bit of gear, it’s a doddle to use. It is a touch expensive at £185 but speaking as an accordion player where as much control as possible of the electronics needs to be at your feet, it is an essential piece of equipment. Programming it really is very easy, just tell the keyboard what you want each switch to do and the instrument will program the MFC10 for you. Potentially another important accessory will be a USB disk drive as the instrument doesn’t have a floppy disk. USB memory sticks are all the rage now, however I am a little sad to see the imminent demise of the little 3.5 inch disk. It’s quite possible that those without a computer and the internet are likely to lose out to some extent, as it will be much harder to access a great deal of information that the keyboard could use. Another important accessory for those intending to gig with the instrument will be a soft case which can be obtained from any BCK stockist (you will need a KB46 which should cost about £38).

I haven’t even began to touch the sound edit and pattern write facilities which I am sure will enable me to correct the minor gripes I have with the instrument. There are two things though I cannot change and if somebody from Yamaha ever reads this article it is my hope they might try and fix them. Firstly a well-known concert artist friend of mine is partly color-blind and cannot tell the difference between red and green, consequently he cannot see the difference between the buttons and it means that the Tyros is virtually unusable to him. I don’t know that the demand would be very high but perhaps Yamaha should consider the possibility of being at least able to order a special version perhaps with green and blue buttons. Secondly I was also very disappointed to note that the instrument is incapable of recognising the diminished chords sent via Midi from an accordion, there are technical reasons for this, I just thought Yamaha would have been aware of them. So it is that page space runs out and I must wrap this article up. Is the Tyros 2 the perfect instrument? No. Is it the best I’ve ever seen? I’d have to answer with a qualified yes. Would I recommend it to anybody else? Well let me put it this way, I now gig with one. There is absolutely no question, you get a lot of bang for your buck!