Yamaha Tyros 2: My Digital Arranger Workstation

Summary: We bought the Yamaha Tyros 2 in December 2007. The Tyros 2 is a 61-key digital keyboard bursting with innovation, and obliterates the limits faced by traditional electronic keyboards and has to be one of the most powerful digital keyboards ever.

We never thought it to be possible — we bought a Yamaha Tyros 2 on December 21^st, 2007.  One smiley is certainly not enough to capture the grin on our faces! We are wrapped, delighted, ecstatic!

Update, Dec 29th, 2007: You know what? WE ARE NUTS about the Tyros 2. We have done nothing else but Tyros 2 since Dec 21st! Forget Xmas, forget the kids… we woke up, had breakfast, walked the dogs, did Tyros, eat, Tyros, eat, Tyros, sleep, and again… Completely nuts!!

• Getting it though had its minor obstacles.
• The decision to purchase the Yamaha Tyros 2 took a while and was done in comparison to the Yamaha PSR-S900.
• We also got the Yamaha TRS-MS02 speaker set.
• I installed a spare HDD to the Tyros 2.
• I installed extra memory to the Tyros 2.
• We now (since October 13th, 2008) have the Yamaha L-7S Keyboard Stand

So, What Is All The Fuzz About The Yamaha Tyros 2?

The Tyros 2 is currently Yamaha's flagship digital arranger workstation since 2005. It is loaded with heaps and new features, the most predominant being:

• 504 Authentic Voices, including brand new Super Articulation Technology, which includes additional sound effects on voices, adding much realism to any performance. It has Live!, Sweet! and Cool! voices, that are painstakingly sampled using stereo and multilayered samples to fully capture the natural presence, expression and vibrato of the real instruments.
• 400 Accompaniment Styles powered by MegaVoice, which use velocity switching to add realism to the music
• Hard Disk Recorder (with optional hard disk drive)
• One Touch Setting and Music Finder provide instant professional sounds.
• Text Viewer

I dare to say it is the best digital arranger workstation keyboard out there. The technical specifications are only one part of it. Apart from having a nice and functional design, the practical aspects, such as MegaVoices and Super-Articulation voices are the real icing on the cake (see Styles List). What I found really useful and cost effective, more so from a technical perspective, is the ability to install a standard hard disk, as well as standard computer memory (SDRAM) in the Tyros 2.

The standard 3-odd megabyte of internal memory did not sound like much to begin with. It took only two days to find out the standard memory needs extending / upgrading when wanting to add custom voices and styles. The upload errored after the fourth voice, when I tried to load the Super Edition Platinum (SEP) package from Yamaha Germany. The SEP adds 14 new "Alpensounds" (German Country Music, not that I am into this kind of music style, nevertheless the voices are nice) as well as the Oriental pack (30 styles and 21 voices), all up 142 MB.

Super Articulation

Super Articulation is only one of the many features the Tyros 2 has to offer and I am going to describe. With the Tyros 2, Yamaha introduced a completely new level of sonic realism and musical expressiveness with a brand new technology: Super Articulation. Just play as normal and Super Articulation delivers MegaVoice authenticity to the melody that is played, but adding unique performance characteristics of each instrument — for example, the expressive finger-slides on guitar, or the breathy, legato phrasing of a saxophone. Never before have stringed, wind and brass instruments — played live with a keyboard — sounded so convincing or so real! These voices can be played right away out of the box and without any special technique.

I thought about it for a moment: if I go through all accompaniments, listening one minute to each style, it will take 400 minutes or some seven hours to go through the lot. You can guess what I am doing over the Xmas break 

The Fuzz about the Yamaha Tyros 2

Maybe fuzz is the wrong term to use; The word is "versatility" and "infinite possibilities" to describe it more appropriately.

The Yamaha Tyros 2 is and will be many and different things to different people!

• Some will use it just as it is, out of the box, and enjoy making music with the almost endless variety possible my mixing and matching styles and voices. My wife belongs to this category.
• Some will use it as arranger workstation, using it in music production environments, be it in home or commercial settings.
• Some will use it to entertain, producing music, compiling medleys and performing their art on many different occasions.
• Some will use the MIDI capabilities, others will record live music, others use it as a sound generator, and many many more applications.
• Some will use only a small number of particular features; others may use combinations of features, and so forth… the possibilities are truly without boundaries.

A Bright Outlook

It will take many months to go through the capabilities of this marvellous instrument; and I am looking forward to it. It is just a question of how much time I can spare with my piano tuition and practice. I agree with how Michael P. Bedesem has put it:

"The T2 is one of the finest instruments that most mortals can ever hope to touch. Its sound is extraordinary. If you appreciate music, you are in for quite a ride."

Give it a couple of weeks and I shall write about my experience with the Yamaha Tyros 2.

Visitor's Comments

Entries are shown in the order of latest first.

Author Date / Time	Comment
MaxG from Brisbane wrote on Sunday, January 04, 2009 14:51	Hi Gil, Happy New Year! Congratulations to your new T2! I am not sure what you mean with changing chords on the MusicFinder. The MusicFinder only saves intro, accompaniment style, variation, ending, and tempo... as far as manipulating the T2 goes. I am playing full fingered chords, but the T2 has single fingered chords too. The chord changes are also shown in the display. As for further questions, there are two good forums out there: 1.  the PSR Tutorial website 2.  Yamaha Keyboard Owner forum Enjoy! Cheers, Max
Gil Gebert from Australia wrote on Saturday, December 27, 2008 21:11	Hi Max, Congratulations on your great website. I found your articles on the Tyros 2 (T2) extremely interesting and useful. It definitely influenced my recent decision to buy one. Having noted that you would have had the T2 for some time now, I thought you might be able to enlighten me on the Music Finder feature. I have used the Music Database (MDB) on the Yamaha PSR-S500 and was expecting the same and better on the T2. However when changing chords on the T2 Music Finder, the change does not sound obvious and clear. Is it normal or could it be a faulty unit. Also the PSR-S500 recognises a single note as a chord (easy chords) when using auto-accompaniment or MDB, whereas this does not seem to work on my T2. Do you have experience with the easy chords feature. I would really appreciate if you could throw in some advice. Thank you and best regards, Gil