Yamaha Genos

[I-missRichardTee]

Another video I really don't see where Yamaha thinks it's going with this keyboard, to be honest. The kids making this sort of music aren't generally in a position to spend north of £4k on something which doesn't even really integrate with their studio (no transport controls, no audio over USB etc).

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-54xmiyjUrY

 

I do not know about T4 T5 Genos ( T6 ) comparisons

But this musician is very gifted, and the Genos sounds great to my ears.. And have some pretty good ears. Oh yes , IMHO

 

I have a number of gripes about my T4.. $5000 price tag, and the absolute worst experience using the volume sliders.. the pits.. far inferior to 1990's keyboards .. inexplicable to me.

I defy you to make seamless crescendos and so on with this board.

 

The Attack decay sustain feature is extremely limited it is impossible to make a bass sound decay , even remotely close to what I hear in my mind.. The bass just sustains at same volume forever.. sucks.

 

Changing voices on the fly is very awkward.. unfriendly.. as in don't even try.

 

But back to the good news, this young man on the Genos is the most impressive of any of the demos including Martin Harris's.

Can a T5 be made to sound this good?

 

Edit: I forgot to ask... the Strings that Martin Harris uses somewhere on his excellent demo, are underwhelming for me.

Is it me, or are the strings on Yamaha just weird to you?

For perspective I have liked Kurz strings, and Roland are not bad too.. but Yamaha strings, I am confused!

[Aidan]

Tee, one thing I can tell you is that the Genos sliders are a big improvement on those on the Tyros, as is the whole control over the general mix.

 

Can a T5 sound as good? I think it can get close, although the Genos definitely has at least one new bass sound (a MusicMan Stingray sample, I think) and the new 'Revo' drums (which use wave cycling to produce a more human-sounding player) are a big step up from the T5.

 

Strings - yes, I'm not enamoured with the much-vaunted Kino Strings they've added in Genos (although I suspect part of that may be down to the demonstrators having scant knowledge of realistic string voicings, to be honest). Of course, from T4 to T5, Yamaha also added the Seattle Strings, which are slightly softer and warmer, and are still present in Genos.

[Aidan]

Here's absolutely the best Genos demo I have seen so far. It helps if you have a little French, but I managed to get the gist even with my schoolboy level. The cheese level is low and the audio quality is great.

 

If you only want to watch a little, I'd suggest going from about 28 minutes in, when he starts playing with the arpeggiator and multi-pads it certainly got my creative juices flowing! The 'DJ' section which follows is also quite interesting and again, got me thinking about how you could use this keyboard in many different settings.

 

[video:youtube]

[Doerfler]

Here's absolutely the best Genos demo I have seen so far.

 

Très bonne démo!

[icarusi]

Had a demo of this today from the Yamaha guy and must admit it was a head scratcher as to what this thing is. Reading here, it makes more sense and I haven't seen it yet in 'rock' shops, more the home/school/rock shops who stock a wide range.

 

I kept asking detailed questions about what *I* was interested in, which he answered, mostly, but we seemed to be often talking at odds, like what was 'left' and 'right' referring to. Evidently to sounds more likely to be played with the *right* hand?? In his demos it was more 'background music'/'easy listening' style. When he demoed the strings, it was Kino strings, he described as 'film' strings, but to me sounded like James Last 'Schlager' strings to a 'T'.

 

The auto-accompaniment/styles stuff seemed much more sophisticated in sounding less predictable than the same of yore, but still not like backing tracks of live musicians, yet.

 

This day it was through a large monitor. Previously I've heard it through it's own speakers which have aways sounded seriously lacking. The Yamaha guy reckoned they hadn't been set up properly. I'll double check this next time I see a Genos with it's own speakers. Through that monitor only the drums were lacking, so I'd look to try and get a separate out for those if poss.

 

I liked that the 'styles' included 4 variations of suggested lead instrumentation, selectable by 4 panel buttons, so even if it was an unfamiliar style, the instrumentation wouldn't be too 'set' or to awry.

 

It's not a board I'm directly interested in but I do know players who could use it.

 

As for price, it seems to be pile on the functions and charge for them irrespective of how good or useful they are. I'm more for 'targeted' sounds, so right now having heard the Montage, it's just a good FM section I'm after, to liven up string sounds which never seem 'live' enough from romplers, although good enough for recording, real live strings are much 'grittier' IME.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

The auto-accompaniment/styles stuff seemed much more sophisticated in sounding less predictable than the same of yore, but still not like backing tracks of live musicians, yet.

 

Years ago, Yamaha used to have an option on certain PSR models so the styles would play back at a slightly-varied timing to help it sound more natural. I seem to remember it being called "swing," but I can't find it in any of the PDF manuals for the old PSR models right now, and I can't remember which models had it. In any case, they got rid of that option for some reason, even though slight variations in the timing can go a long way to making something sound less robotic and artificial, and more organic and natural.

[Mighty Motif Max]

Bumping this thread too.

 

Take everything I say here with a grain of salt. It was connected to a very large Roland KC amp, but I hadn't planned on stopping in and was too far away from home to go and grab headphones.

 

 

 

I tried one of these out for around ten minutes yesterday. I think it sounds great. The new piano responds very well to the keybed, which is very smooth and almost "buttery". Definitely a few steps up from my Krome and even the JV-1000. Slightly stiff almost as if it has a slight escapement feature to it, which is probably NOT the intention. Overall quality of sounds is very good. Drums weren't as good as I would have thought, but again I didn't have headphones with as I was not planning on stopping there at all and home was a long ways away. My only disappointment that they didn't have a better variety of accompaniments/styles (virtually no world stuff at all aside from polkas and waltzes). The organs weren't that great to my ears.

 

 

Worth USD $5400? I don't really think so, but it essentially has the guts of a Clavinova in a 76-key portable form. Perhaps to the right person. The styles DO sound radio-authentic and very realistic.

[ElmerJFudd]

Firmware update for Genos.

v2.1 December, 2021

 

 

https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/musical_instruments/keyboards/arranger_workstations/genos/downloads.html#product-tabs

 

[V2.02 to V2.10]

 

You can now change the tempo with dial operation directly (without pressing the [TEMPO] button) while the Home display is shown.

The maximum value of "Pattern Length" of the Style Creator has been extended from 32 to 128 bars.

You can now set whether or not a file is loaded immediately when it is selected with the dial when the File Selection display is active.

[V2.01 to V2.02]

 

Increased the font size of the Score, the Lyrics, and the Text Viewer display.

Fixed a problem in which the instrument would become unresponsive to operations when selecting certain Voices on the Drum Setup display of the Style Creator function.

Fixed a problem in which, under a certain situation, the indication lamps (MIDI indicator) on the Mixer display would not work.

Fixed a problem in which, under a certain situation, the current time would not appear on the Home display.

Fixed other problems.

[V2.00 to V2.01]

 

Fixed a problem in which the Registration Memory function would not work properly in some cases.