Arranger workstation - yamaha?

maxman65

Member
I've been looking at the recent yamaha psr s775. It's a kind of entry / mid workstation . I can't find any clear information on whether the mic / guitar input will allow recording directly of an external source . It looks like it's there for live vocal and a backing track.it has 16 track for arranging and recording internally .does anyone have this (or s770 predecessor ) who can state definitively whether it can or cannot record from a direct line in for either a vocal or guitar . Basically i need a rough acoustic guitar down so i can figure out an arrangment around the chord progressions .Thanks
 
Don't buy it! Imagine the things you can do with a master keyboard and a basic computer with even a cut down entry level real sequencer. Then imagine doing those things with buttons, and no mouse, no VSTi instruments, no expandability and a very restricted and finite upgrade path. These things are good for a one man band in a pub, who is a master of dexterity, who can sing, play and press buttons all at the same time. A jack for a mic input? That's a clue. These things let you put together tracks for live use, but Yamaha have some excellent sounds and some truly naff ones. They can play a GM track sourced from the net quite pleasantly. They can let your programme robotic drum and bass, but they are complex to use, restrictive and a niche product. Please forgive me, but they're about as much at home in a studio as a person with garlic breath and the habit of farting all the time.

For the price - they work in a one man band in a bar or pub with an audience who don't care much. The youtube demos concentrate on a few nice sounds. other video reveal the old fall back - press a button, a pre-programmed rhythm tracks appears and you can play chords over the top that play a pre-programmed twiddly bit.

I found this video - showing it's designed to produce pre-programmed nice sounding stuff. YouTube

As a music production tool, and for recording and real studio stuff, it's the wrong product. If you want to entertain to a non-discerning, easily impressed audience - then it's a one box solution.
 
Yes I get where you're coming from . I was worried about that too. That said some of the super articulated sounds are suprisingly pretty decent .yes I've seen that video too. It may not show it at its best (understatement ) .there's a factory demo in there of a classically oriented film type score and it was actually pretty good . The whole vst /computer type way forward isn't really practical for me unfortunately. The last time I had a synth was a kawai k4 from about 1994. So I guess that tells you something right there
 
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The "Korg Kross" has both audio and midi recording but i am not sure if you can start with the audio recording (your guitar) and then continue with midi (internal keyboard sounds) recording in sync ? The other way around works for sure.
The answer to that should be available at the Korg forum.
 
Ok thanks I'll check that out too. I don't know if the korg kross has been updated for sounds recently . I seem to remember it being a competitor to the Roland ds61 at the time . I quite fancy a few of the sounds in the yamaha s775 and it's only about 6 months since release so a recent generation
 
I would say that most of the acoustic instruments sound better on the s775 vs Kross 1 or 2 (not much difference in sound quality between the two), but no audio recording on the Psr !
 
I'll go into a shop and try find out . What I do know is the s775 has a line input for audio and a usb facility to save it on (I think )
 
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