Studio Gear: Yamaha Tyros4 Workstation
Author: Mal Smith with David Chechelashvili
 |
The Tyros is Yamaha’s flagship arranger keyboard and is arguably the benchmark for all arranger keyboards. The first Tyros was introduced early this millennium and has been developed continuously since then with the latest version being the Tyros4.
Compared to the Tyros3, Yamaha have doubled the Wave memory to 512Mb ROM, provided a faster processor, replaced the DIMM memory with Flash memory, upgraded the vocal harmony technology, added a synth vocoder and an XLR mic input. Software improvements include a drum mixer where you can make and balance your own drum kits, wave cycling – for vocals a new vocal harmony interface, ambient sampling and an improved SA2 voicing technology with an additional layer.
Many of the voices have been improved and there are also several new voices that take advantage of the SA2 technology. There are 500 styles, many completely new and all styles have been upgraded with new voices.
Physically speaking the Tyros4 has a 61-note (five octave) keyboard, is 114cm long, 47cm deep and 14cm tall, making it a little larger than other 61-note keyboards. It weighs in at 14.5 kg, which is lighter than my Motif ES6.
It has a solid feel without being too heavy and the control surface is clean and spacious. The layout is very similar to previous Tyroses (what is the plural of Tyros?), so if you were upgrading the transition should be fairly seamless. The buttons are a generous size and nicely spaced, so you can make changes easily on the fly without accidentally nudging the wrong thing. It features a generous screen (not touch) to aid navigation around the different menus. Access to menus is via dedicated buttons that are positioned next to the screen.
What should you expect from this machine? Well, that depends on what you want to use it for. It’s primarily designed as a ‘one man band’ and aimed at the solo keyboard artist, duo or small combo. However, it is more than just that. Serious composition, backing tracks, demos, advanced click tracks for production, live theatre, jingle writing and recording, or just messin’ about, it can give you what you want. And apart from all that, it’s just great fun to play with.
The first thing that I look for in a new keyboard is the quality of sounds. I am a big fan of the Yamaha sound and the Tyros4 adds many of Yamaha’s newest sounds. You can also purchase additional sounds and styles in the form of Performance Packs. The basic sound palette contains some beautiful sounds and each voice (Yamaha’s name for an instrument or patch) can be EQ’d and have effects applied. Some of the sounds that synths traditionally didn’t do well are very realistic here. I especially liked the saxes, brass, harmonicas and slide guitar. The Articulation buttons add extra expressions giving an even more realistic impression of these and other instruments.
The huge variety of voices are arranged into 16 easy-to-navigate sections with dedicated buttons for Piano, Electric Piano, Bass, Guitar, Synth, Brass, Choir, Trumpet, Flute etc. There are also two dedicated buttons allowing access to the Expansion Card (either 512 or 1024 Mb – available separately) and to a User Drive (USB storage device) where you can store and access your own sounds.
The keyboard has a nice semi-resistant feel to it, a bit firmer than my Motif ES but lighter than a weighted keyboard. I didn’t have to adjust the velocity curve when I first started playing which was great, and the polyphonic after touch allows the user to get extra expression from the patches. There are two octave buttons (one up and one down) positioned above the modulation wheel but I didn’t find the necessity to use it very often.
Frankly, as a piano player, I would like a larger keyboard, especially since you lose one and a half octaves to the auto accompaniment. Also the action is too light for the playing ‘piano’ per se. Having said that, once I started to play it I got very used to it very quickly.
Playing along with yourself couldn’t be easier. Press the ACMP button in the top left corner of the ‘Style Control’ section. Choose an instrument – you can choose to put different instruments into any of the four part slots. If you don’t want to choose your own voices there is a One Touch Setting that will automatically allocate appropriate voices for the style you choose. Pick a style from the 500 available options. Choose from one of the dedicated buttons for Intro (choice of three), Main Variation (A, B, C or D) and press the Start/Stop button.
You can choose between four main variations as you play the body of the tune and when you want to finish press one of the ‘Ending’ buttons (again there are three choices). The transition between variations is seamless and will occur at the beginning of the next bar. Unfortunately the right hand voice is truncated or re-triggered if you change variations while holding down a note and have the One Touch Setting link engaged.
As the numbers increase so does the complexity of the backing for the section you are playing. Intro I gives you a simple count and then goes straight into the Main Variation. Intro II plays a 4-bar intro with descending chords. Intro III plays something similar but with a more complex arrangement. The numbering regime is similar for the Main Variations and the Endings. Each Intro/ Ending is indicative of the chosen style.
When you play a chord below the split point (default is the second lowest F# giving you an octave and a half) the Tyros4 uses this as the basis for the harmonic structure. The chord recognition algorithm is excellent, as long as you include the root note in your voicing. You can invert the chords and the Tyros will get it right most of the time.
Compared to the Tyros3, Yamaha have doubled the Wave memory to 512Mb ROM, provided a faster processor, replaced the DIMM memory with Flash memory, upgraded the vocal harmony technology, added a synth vocoder and an XLR mic input. Software improvements include a drum mixer where you can make and balance your own drum kits, wave cycling – for vocals a new vocal harmony interface, ambient sampling and an improved SA2 voicing technology with an additional layer.
Many of the voices have been improved and there are also several new voices that take advantage of the SA2 technology. There are 500 styles, many completely new and all styles have been upgraded with new voices.
Physically speaking the Tyros4 has a 61-note (five octave) keyboard, is 114cm long, 47cm deep and 14cm tall, making it a little larger than other 61-note keyboards. It weighs in at 14.5 kg, which is lighter than my Motif ES6.
It has a solid feel without being too heavy and the control surface is clean and spacious. The layout is very similar to previous Tyroses (what is the plural of Tyros?), so if you were upgrading the transition should be fairly seamless. The buttons are a generous size and nicely spaced, so you can make changes easily on the fly without accidentally nudging the wrong thing. It features a generous screen (not touch) to aid navigation around the different menus. Access to menus is via dedicated buttons that are positioned next to the screen.
What should you expect from this machine? Well, that depends on what you want to use it for. It’s primarily designed as a ‘one man band’ and aimed at the solo keyboard artist, duo or small combo. However, it is more than just that. Serious composition, backing tracks, demos, advanced click tracks for production, live theatre, jingle writing and recording, or just messin’ about, it can give you what you want. And apart from all that, it’s just great fun to play with.
The first thing that I look for in a new keyboard is the quality of sounds. I am a big fan of the Yamaha sound and the Tyros4 adds many of Yamaha’s newest sounds. You can also purchase additional sounds and styles in the form of Performance Packs. The basic sound palette contains some beautiful sounds and each voice (Yamaha’s name for an instrument or patch) can be EQ’d and have effects applied. Some of the sounds that synths traditionally didn’t do well are very realistic here. I especially liked the saxes, brass, harmonicas and slide guitar. The Articulation buttons add extra expressions giving an even more realistic impression of these and other instruments.
The huge variety of voices are arranged into 16 easy-to-navigate sections with dedicated buttons for Piano, Electric Piano, Bass, Guitar, Synth, Brass, Choir, Trumpet, Flute etc. There are also two dedicated buttons allowing access to the Expansion Card (either 512 or 1024 Mb – available separately) and to a User Drive (USB storage device) where you can store and access your own sounds.
The keyboard has a nice semi-resistant feel to it, a bit firmer than my Motif ES but lighter than a weighted keyboard. I didn’t have to adjust the velocity curve when I first started playing which was great, and the polyphonic after touch allows the user to get extra expression from the patches. There are two octave buttons (one up and one down) positioned above the modulation wheel but I didn’t find the necessity to use it very often.
Frankly, as a piano player, I would like a larger keyboard, especially since you lose one and a half octaves to the auto accompaniment. Also the action is too light for the playing ‘piano’ per se. Having said that, once I started to play it I got very used to it very quickly.
Playing along with yourself couldn’t be easier. Press the ACMP button in the top left corner of the ‘Style Control’ section. Choose an instrument – you can choose to put different instruments into any of the four part slots. If you don’t want to choose your own voices there is a One Touch Setting that will automatically allocate appropriate voices for the style you choose. Pick a style from the 500 available options. Choose from one of the dedicated buttons for Intro (choice of three), Main Variation (A, B, C or D) and press the Start/Stop button.
You can choose between four main variations as you play the body of the tune and when you want to finish press one of the ‘Ending’ buttons (again there are three choices). The transition between variations is seamless and will occur at the beginning of the next bar. Unfortunately the right hand voice is truncated or re-triggered if you change variations while holding down a note and have the One Touch Setting link engaged.
As the numbers increase so does the complexity of the backing for the section you are playing. Intro I gives you a simple count and then goes straight into the Main Variation. Intro II plays a 4-bar intro with descending chords. Intro III plays something similar but with a more complex arrangement. The numbering regime is similar for the Main Variations and the Endings. Each Intro/ Ending is indicative of the chosen style.
When you play a chord below the split point (default is the second lowest F# giving you an octave and a half) the Tyros4 uses this as the basis for the harmonic structure. The chord recognition algorithm is excellent, as long as you include the root note in your voicing. You can invert the chords and the Tyros will get it right most of the time.
