Yamaha Genos 76-Key Digital Workstation

super satisfait

I upgraded from a Tyros 4. I love having the additional keys (72 vs 61 keys), especially in the automated mode for the left hand (it give more options when moving between pairs of chords). There are a few rough patches in upgrading from a Tyros to the Genos ... the "music file" is handled very differently (and less conveniently) and I haven't quite figured out how the "registrations" are loaded. But in time, the wrinkles will come out of this transition. Most importantly, the instruments (even the legacy instruments) sound better on the Genos -- so much so that my wife (a non-musician) commented on it. It is a very complex device and there are many aspects that aren't really intuitive. Expect to spend time with the user and reference manuals -- but as the various mysteries are solved, your satisfaction levels will rise. Major initial shocks: (1) the "initial touch" switch is no longer present. As a former accordionist, this is a major adjustment for me. Many instruments are quite sensitive to the initial speed/pressure of the keypress and you can get unwanted effects, especially with guitars. (2) the "fade in/out" switch is no longer present. Less of a problem, as I use an "expression" (volume) foot pedal, but a mild surprise, nonetheless. Those who moved through the Tyros 3-4-5 transitions will find the Genos "better" in many ways, but also frustrating (or perhaps just annoying) in some aspects during the transition period. I am making more notes in my music about settings -- that used to be easily taken care of in the music list (which is changed radically on the Genos). I always felt that the Tyros ought to have a touch screen (rather than the switch buttons surrounding it) ... but now that I have the Genos ... I'm bothered by all the fingerprints on the touch screen. (sigh). But the touch screen IS a more intuitive improvement. After 4 months of use... I still rate this as 5 stars. Some of the initial frustration has gone away once I've become more certain of the controls and segregation of instruments into various categories. One confusion was that the Saxophone is listed among the wind instruments (this is technically correct as it generates sound via a reed, whereas 'brass" instruments (the various horns) use the vibrations of the player's lips to create the instrument sound). However, on the Tyros 4 Saxophones were grouped in their own category. Indeed, there were 18 buttons opening various groups of instruments, including one for the "user drive" and one for the "expansion voices" list. (16 dedicated to the preset voices). The Genos also has sixteen "buttons" (on the touch-screen) but the buttons are sliced and diced differently. (I note that the Tyros5 had instrument buttons that are more similar to the Genos arrangement). It has taken some time for the logic of this new arrangement to make sense. One big improvement is that "expansion voices" on the older Tyros were jumbled together behind one button. Ideally, purchased optional expansion voices would append to the end of the various presets. However, the Genos solution is an important and helpful change. Expansion voices are reached via the "user tab" (top of screen next to the preset tab) and are sorted into sub-menus by the packages they were distributed with. The is a big improvement -- on the Tyros 4, one often had to page through a multitude of voices to get to those of particular interest. (Still, it would be nice if they would 'sort' to the preset files.) Improvement in voices. Yamaha, in creating the Genos, has re-created almost all the voices. This is both good and bad. Most of the voices are an improvement over the Tyros4 voices, especially when considered one at a time. When grouped together (normal mode) it can sometimes be difficult (adjusting sliders) to get several instruments to work together -- and in some cases, some instruments simply don't seem to get along well with others. As part of this "recreation" of voices, Yamaha has gone to some effort to add realism with overtones and artifacts of the instruments as they might be played. (e.g. guitars might include swishing sounds like fingers running along the string between strums, etc.) Sometimes these "realistic" additions are nice ... other times, it would be nice to turn them off. Related to the "realism" factor, Yamaha has created 5 different "initial touch" modes. Taken individually, these nuances seem like nice additions to the voices, but (again) when combining several instruments, the interplay can be annoying. For example, the "Aloha Guitar" voice has an "initial touch" feature that emulates the slight tonal adjustment as the player 'slides to' a note -- this occurs when the key is pressed more firmly (quicker/harder). Unfortunately all the analog pianos must be keyed "with authority" to obtain a fairly decent volume for each note (just like a "real" piano). When a piano is combined with the Aloha Guitar, to get a good piano sound, each note of the guitar has the initial waver, that you may not wish to hear (that often). So far, I have not found an easy way to adjust this away. The Tyros4 simply had an on/off switch for the "initial touch" feature. The Genos has 5 different variations -- but no "entirely off" choice. Unfortunately, I come to keyboard playing as a former accordion player. Analog accordions have a very soft touch and very short key travel. It does not matter how hard (or soft) your touch is, because once you've pressed the key to its full travel, the note is played, with "expression" and volume provided by how much pressure is applied (with the left arm) to the bellows. Thus, I have years and years of "soft touch" keyboarding experience -- and most of the previous keyboards I've used accommodated this technique fairly well. The Genos, however is a problem for me. Varying strength in each finger, and the need to press the "piano" keys with authority for a full-voiced note is (for me) difficult and tiring. I've changed the mix of voices for many songs, dropping "natural" piano voices and switching them to "electronic piano" voices instead. It would have been nice if Genos had a complete "off" choice, instead. One last note, on expansion voices. The Tyros-series used a special memory board to store expansion voices. On the Tyros 4 (and earlier) there was a hard limit based not only on the maximum amount of memory used, but also on the number of files. Though I had a 1GB memory card, I ended up with too many voices, and had to uninstall certain once. The Genos, instead, seems to use the "regular" RAM for the extension voices and does not have the limitations of the Tyros 4 (or 5). However, a utility on an external computer (both Mac and Win OSes are supported) is required to "group" all the expansion voices. When you add voices, you need to re-install ALL expansion voices together. I consider this a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. However, I now have considerably more voices supported than was possible on my Tyros 4. After 11 months of ownership: As time goes on, I become more and more pleased with this device. However, the nearly endless complexity can be frustrating at times. I recently updated the "firmware" and was surprised that the "multi-pads" did not automatically shut off when a style switched to an ending routine. Surprise -- there's a "menu for that" ... (that should probably be the catch phrase for this beast). After a query to Yamaha Customer Support via email, i received a timely response that led me to the menu item that controls the way multi pads work. The installation of the firmware upgrade had simply changed the default to "off" ... and I discovered several additional parameters that might prove interesting to experiment with. One pleasing discovery, is that the midi output that I use do drive a "box" (no keyboard) Alesis Quadrasynth (a 90's era synth/keyboard) actually switches instruments to some that are relevant to the selections made in the styles. With my previous Tyros 4, the output regularly switched instruments on the QS, but they were often rather poor choices. With the Genos, they are often closely related to the #1 instrument (out of 3) in the selected Genos Style. Pleasantly, that's a nice starting point for the external Quadrasynth. I suspect that other keyboards/synths attached via midi might be similarly affected. Voice expansion is in many respects easier/better than the "Tyros generation" situation. With the Genos, there isn't a required "option" of purchasing additional voice memory card as the case with the Tyros line. It does appear that there is a large, but limited amount of memory for expansion voices. The only quirk is that the Yamaha Expansion Manager software (free download from Yamaha web site) is required to install expansion voices -- the method requires deleting all previously installed voices, then re-installing everything (with any additions to the voices) with a new package created with the YEM software. Fortunately, YEM "remembers" the previously installed voices and easily allows adding new ones to the "package." I still miss the old Tyros-type "music list" -- instead, I've been creating modified "styles" unique to each song. While this works reasonably well (storing them on the internal hard drive), another quirk is that the system is inconsistent with saving of beats-per-minute in the styles. Sometimes it works, and sometimes the OEM BPM rate "sticks" and does not change when saved. I may yet figure out why this happens...

I have owned two Roland and five Yamaha keyboards, including a Tyros 5. This is the best keyboard I have ever had, both in terms of sound quality as well as flexibility. The quality of the sounds is outstanding, and the styles cover a wide range of musical formats from country, to rock all the way to classical. There is no better keyboard available, but then you are paying for that with a hefty price tag. For me it was worth it.

Only the voices are good. The cons: inadequately expensive (6,000$ at the time of purchase) The sequencer is essentially nonexistent, for comparison, Yamaha PSS 790 had a much easier and more easy to use sequencer than this. This instrument's sequencer is a joke. Another joke: there is a brightness setting for the buttons but not for the display itself. The display is too deeply inlaid. Many buttons, but 90% of functionality is accessible only through the display touch controls. Another huge con: the 6 assignable buttons (A to F) have very limited possible functions, for instance you can't set the rec or play/pause functions on any of them. This instrument should not have the "Workstation" status. Had I been aware of the aforementioned cons, I might not have purchased it in the first place. The display is too deeply inlaid, the brightness setting only applies to the buttons - people with vision provlems shouldn't buy this instrument. The brightness setting being only for the button LEDs is especially quite hilarious.

purchase for/by husband as he is the "musician", rating is based on his happiness, like a little kid on Christmas morning. i've heard him tried it out and he seems to enjoy it very much, all the cool drums and styles and selections... thanks for making it available on Amazon!