Topic: s970 & s770 erratic behaviour / faulty [A] to [J] buttons - is yours affected?

[Chronos1976]

Hi everyone,

[UPDATE March 20th 2016: Yamaha have released a v1.05 firmware update that appears to fix the issue for many users but please keep reporting to Yamaha and this thread if it hasn't worked for you. Thanks, Paul.]

I've been having a problem with a couple of PSR s970's and their [A] to [J] keys registering either not at all or double pressing. I'm wondering if other people have the same problem?

Here's a a link to three videos showing tests that demonstrate faulty right screen buttons, normal left screen buttons and another test showing faulty right screen buttons:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/clouddrive/share/5859MRIAkh8D0B3QTwKSW9vig3ZrR7OX1V82YKgnO5n?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy

The Fault
-----------
The fault appears as if the keyboard behaves erratically, randomly exits screens (most noticeable when selecting voices), on/off buttons changing from on to off to on again in one press (e.g. in the organ flute screen, the vocal harmony screen, song setting screen), button presses not being recognised, save and information requesters cancelling themselves, saves overwriting without confirmation, or other intermittent random events occurring when pressing the [A] to [J] screen buttons.

The actual fault is the [A] to [J] buttons intermittently registering as a double press instead of a single press or not registering at all. It can affect the buttons on one or both sides of the screen. The keyboards I had were part of the November batch delivered to the UK and were both tested running firmware 1.03 and 1.04.

TEST YOUR KEYBOARD
--------------------------
To see if your keyboard is affected, follow these procedures:

TEST 1 (demonstrates fault on both sides)
--------
1. Disconnect all external devices such as pedals, WIFI dongles, USB sticks and MIDI cables.
2. Power on the keyboard.
3. From the main screen, press the [Piano] voice category button to open the voice selection screen.
4. Single press button [A] then [B ] then [C] then [D] then [E]. Repeat 12 times (60 key presses). The timing between button presses doesn’t matter but ensure they are all single button presses.

RESULT: If your keyboard is OK, the selection will move with the key press. If your left hand screen buttons are faulty, the keyboard will exit the voice selection screen back to the main screen during the test.

5. If your keyboard went back to the main screen, return to the voice selection screen.
6. Single press button [F] then [G] then [H] then [I ] then [J]. Repeat 12 times (60 key presses). The timing between button presses doesn’t matter but ensure they are all single button presses.

RESULT: If your keyboard is OK, the selection will move with the key press. If your right hand screen buttons are  faulty, the keyboard will exit the voice selection screen back to the main screen during the test.


TEST 2 (only demonstrates fault on the right hand side buttons)
--------
- See video. From the main screen single press [G], [H], [G], [F] and keep repeating the cycle for about 60 key presses. If the voice selection screen appears, you have faulty right hand buttons.

Please let Yamaha Technical Support know if you have this problem. It would be useful to compile a list of people with the issue in this thread as well as which keyboard is affected (s970 or s770), the month of purchase (batch if known) and which country the keyboard was purchased and I'll point Yamaha to this thread.

I will update as soon as I get any more information.

Many thanks for any feedback.

Paul.

[Ingar]

I have not tested but think rather that it is a kind of built is protected against overloading of the system?

[eaglevision]

I didnt test it as you described above pushing the buttons 60 times but the behaviour u said already happened to me a few times as I thought I pressed the button twice while selecting a voice jumping the main screen..

[textbook]

Main issue I've noticed on my 970 is that occasionally I have to press a button twice to register the press.

However,  after watching your video clip Paul,  I did try both tests for you exactly as you describe, and after a few presses mine reset back to the default screen too, with the last pressed voice showing.  This happened on both left and right buttons.  Strangely the first time I tried it I was going back up to A again when pressing the buttons and it didn't do it,  but when following your example of going from A to E and then E to A it did it,  same thing when doing the test on the F to J buttons.
So I tried the test again going from A to E and then repeating A to E again and it did reset back after about 6 cycles, so obviously not a pattern to it as I first suspected.  Only difference was I had to press F again to return back to the voices select screen, it didn't go back itself.

I think it would be better Paul if you invited people to view the video clip earlier in your post,  Simply asking 'DOES YOUR 970/770 DO THIS' ?
IOW give the video clip more priority,  I'm sure the response will be better, as I'm sure many people like myself won't be aware of this issue
ie. a Picture/video is better than a thousand words...lol

This is something I personally had not noticed before,  the main thing I noticed was that I sometimes needed to press a button twice to register the press, I can't say I've seen evidence of a double press being registered.

I asked my neighbour who has a 770 to try the same thing, he's a retired vicar, and he phoned me back and said his 770 does exactly the same. He also mentioned a while ago that he frequently has to press a button twice to register the press,  which is why I figured it was poor button switches.  Also noticed I occasionally need to press twice on the right 1 and 2 voice select buttons including the part select buttons.

[Melvin]

Mine does the same!

Scrolling up and down results in jumping to the main screen and auto-select the last pressed button.

I now wonder too if this is more of a common thing than a flaw in the PSR line.

I've never noticed this until i saw your video, and tried. So i agree with textbook, you should give the video more priority.

Maybe Yamaha can fix this in a OS update.

Regards,

Melvin

[mrestyle]

Yeah, mine has been jumping all over the place since I got it, even tried resetting it, no improvement. I had to wait nearly 2 months for it to arrive so I don't feel like sending it in for service, hoping an update will fix these issues.

[Chronos1976]

Thank you for your feedback! :-) I've edited the post to make it clearer, moved the video link up to the top and tried to shorten it a bit. Apologies for the long post. I'll keep trying to cut it down :-)

I too initially thought it was the way I was pressing the buttons - I tried all sorts of keyboard acrobatics including soft presses, hard presses, slow presses, fast presses and all combinations of the above.

It's interesting it affects the 770 as well. Spread the word :-)

mrestyle - I know how you feel - I waited for 2 months to get mine as well and it's a fantastic keyboard but now I've been without one for almost as long. Thank you for posting here. Hopefully if lots of people report the issue in this thread, Yamaha will see there is a broader problem to fix and will be in a better position to address the issue either via a hardware revision or firmware update. Either way, I fear I could be sitting looking at an empty wall for a while longer.

Now if only they would change the red / green LED combination for those of use who are red / green colour blind as well... :-)

[textbook]

So Paul, has your 970 gone back to Yamaha for this to be checked out then ?   as I see you mention you don't have it at the moment.

I must admit,  it would make this keyboard perfect if that intermittent missed button press could be fixed with a firmware update,  TBH I'd convinced myself it was likely poor switch contacts or similar, and because it was intermittent had tended to ignore it.

In effect, you suspect it's the way the firmware OS is polling the button presses rather than a physical fault with the switches themselves. ?
TBH I thought it was just me, so I suppose it's a little reassuring knowing it's more common than I thought. (or should that be worrying...lol)

I'll contact their support tomorrow, AYS the more that do this the better.

Thanks Paul for initiating the thread, as I suspect it's something that while not catastrophic it probably affects a few of us 970/770 owners.

[Chronos1976]

Hi,

Yes, both keyboards I had are now under scrutiny at Yamaha Technical Support in Milton Keynes. Thankfully my workflow is mostly VST instruments these days so it isn't much of an interruption just frustrating to wait two months to get it, spend the money and then still have no keyboard two months later.

I initially thought it might be a software issue (maybe a mangled pointer causing a stack or buffer overflow or something) because of there seemed to be a pattern in the faults that repeated every 300 key presses or so but I wasn't in diagnostic mode at the time, just trying to use the thing so I didn't collect any quantitative data.

Having got feedback from a few sources I'm starting to think it's just as likely to be a hardware problem but I'm expecting to hear something tomorrow and will hopefully be able to post something definitive then.

Regards,

Paul.

[textbook]

Hi,

I initially thought it might be a software issue (maybe a mangled pointer causing a stack or buffer overflow or something) because of there seemed to be a pattern in the faults that repeated every 300 key presses or so but I wasn't in diagnostic mode at the time, just trying to use the thing so I didn't collect any quantitative data.

Having got feedback from a few sources I'm starting to think it's just as likely to be a hardware problem but I'm expecting to hear something tomorrow and will hopefully be able to post something definitive then.

Regards,

Paul.

I can understand why you may suspect a software bug,   I doubt it's a stack overflow problem, though certainly if there's a bug in not pulling a value back off the stack so the count gets screwed up it'll cause all sorts of problems,  though IME a stack overflow will generally bring everything to a halt unless they have some very good error handling routines in place.  TBH I'm out of touch with modern day CPU instruction sets so unsure how improved error handling has become.

Also though it may explain the reset screen, it doesn't explain why the occasional missed key press, which really is my main concern.  That sounds more like a key polling issue where it's not polling the keys frequently enough, or AYS it may even be hardware in which case we are stuffed..lol

I look forward to hearing more from you in due course Paul, as I think in reality this affects many 970/770 owners.

Best wishes...Cameron....and BTW keep up the good work. 

[Bill H]

FWIW, I got mine from Kraft Music in mid-November and it's doing the same thing. What I'm noticing is that when I'm selecting voices, it'll jump all the way out to the main screen. Seems to happen more on the right-hand screen buttons. Just often enough to be annoying.

[Joe H]

I think this should be reported to Yamaha.  It sounds like a bug in the firmware.  It should require 2 button presses to return to the main screen. Maybe there is a fix for it.

Try this email:    YCASupport@yamaha.com

Joe H

[textbook]

FWIW, I got mine from Kraft Music in mid-November and it's doing the same thing. What I'm noticing is that when I'm selecting voices, it'll jump all the way out to the main screen. Seems to happen more on the right-hand screen buttons. Just often enough to be annoying.

Hi Bill... that's what mine does too,  do you also find you need to press a button twice occasionally as they first press didn't work ?  I find this more annoying than anything or maybe it's just my 970 that's iffy on the button presses. Though it seems to occur on various buttons not just one or two, and not all the time.

[Bill H]

Hi Bill... that's what mine does too,  do you also find you need to press a button twice occasionally as they first press didn't work ?  I find this more annoying than anything or maybe it's just my 970 that's iffy on the button presses. Though it seems to occur on various buttons not just one or two, and not all the time.

Good evening,

I have indeed noticed, mostly on a pretty random assortment of buttons, that they might require two presses. I have been thinking that the keyboard is still pretty new to me and I might not be pressing firmly enough. Or perhaps pressing at a slight angle and not straight down. If I do make a conscious firm push, I usually do get the desired result.

It appears to me that there might be an issue with the keyboard's action. (Not the playing keys but the controlling buttons.) I don't know what kind of switch mechanism Yamaha is using, but a growing number of people all experiencing the same or very similar problems certainly indicates, to me at least, a common cause. And I will always suspect a mechanical component or function before an electronic or software function. I suppose there could be a run of flaky keyboards, or perhaps a design flaw in a new "upgraded" keyboard now in production.

With the growing numbers indicated just here on this board, I'd certainly like to see Yamaha do a survey of all owners to see the extent of the problem.

Regards from Oklahoma...

[textbook]

Thanks Bill,  yes it would appear the symptoms are the same, and my neighbours 770 does it too, and indeed I recall a 770 I tried in a music store a few weeks ago needed a couple of presses on the button to make a contact.

I suspect many have this issue where it needs a second firm press of the button,  but have tended to dis-regard it as it worked next time, thinking it's likely due to the way they pressed the button, as none us want to think there's a issue with our new keyboard albeit a small one, but it is one that can be annoying.  I hope it can be fixed with a firmware update, but like yourself I also suspect.. it's likely caused by very poor switches.  Ironically the cheaper 670 didn't have this problem, it's control buttons were plastic,  my only criticism with the 670 switches was the fact they gave quite a audible click when pressed, but at least they were positive and worked very time.

It mainly seems to be the black buttons, on mine all the white buttons and Registration switches all work first time, as having to press those twice would be a serious problem indeed.

I assume they are using membrane switches, which work when pressed in the centre similar to those one finds on most TV remote's etc these days, and if not pressed in the centre they don't pop in properly and so don't make a contact, and I suspect that's what's happening, due to the buttons being rather floppy and not shorting out the PCB contact area when pressed.

We could do with a poll of some sort,  just to see how many if not all these keyboards are affected.

Also can everyone who is experiencing this problem where you occasionally have to press the black rubber buttons twice,
to get in touch with Yamaha.  As the more of us who bring it to their attention, the better chance we have of getting them to sort it out,
assuming it can be fixed. Otherwise it's a case of returning to the dealer as being unfit for the purpose.

YCASupport@yamaha.com  (USA)

customer_support_uk@gmx.yamaha.com (For UK customers) Tel: 0844 811 1116 or 01526 2449



Regards...Cameron

[EileenL]

I have just been busy pressing the black buttons on the left and right side of the screen back and forth as suggested and mine are working fine. I do tend to press positively and in the centre of the button though.

[textbook]

Thanks Eileen,  I'm also pressing them positively in the middle.    Have you NEVER had to press a black button twice on your 970 at all since receiving your 970..because the first press didn't work  ?

I try and press in the centre of the button too,  but I still get the odd time where I have to press it a second time,  it doesn't seem to be certain buttons either, it can happen with most of the black buttons occasionally,  though obviously it's more noticeable with those we use the most.

[EileenL]

On the time where I have had to press twice it was because I had not pressed it properly. I had hit the side of the button. At no time has my screen changed though and gone to home page.

[voodoo]

On my S970, when selecting voices, it often jumps to the main screen (meaning that the button has been double-pressed).

[EileenL]

Yes it also dose this on Tyros 5. It is a short cut for getting back to the main screen.

[voodoo]

Yes it also dose this on Tyros 5. It is a short cut for getting back to the main screen.

Yes of course, but it also happens sometimes, when the button is intended to be pressed once.

[EileenL]

Yes I suppose it is something you have to get used to. As I work mainly from registrations it dose not worry me that much.

[Ingar]

On the time where I have had to press twice it was because I had not pressed it properly. I had hit the side of the button. At no time has my screen changed though and gone to home page.

Me too. I`ve been pressing buttons and pressing buttons all possible and unpossible ways up and down but nothing odd happend with my beloved 970.

[Chronos1976]

Yes I suppose it is something you have to get used to. As I work mainly from registrations it dose not worry me that much.

Hello Eileen,

Whilst an occasional random double press back to the main screen is annoying during voice selection, when using the sequencers, effect editors, voice set functions and other features of the keyboard regularly these unpredictable and unintended double presses have all sorts of undesirable consequences including permanent loss of data.

When these buttons are being pressed a few hundred times a day there are about 40 keyboard generated errors introduced into the work flow - that's potentially over 200 times a week that information is lost or altered that takes time to correct or restart from scratch. That's not a good statistic for a production environment :-)

However, it's reassuring to hear of keyboards that are not affected (and it's interesting to note the previous generation of keyboards didn't seem to have this issue despite having the same key bed technology) so hopefully the fault is due to an isolated batch of key beds.

Thank you to everyone contributing their experiences of working and faulty keyboards in this thread. I'm wondering if people with working models all bought their keyboards before November?

Regards,

Paul.

[Joe H]

I tried to produce the problem on my S970.  I have not had the experience of the keyboard jumping to the Main Screen while navigating through Voice selections, etc.  Since I'm just getting setup, I still have Firmware v1.01.  Once I update to the current v1.04 I'll see what happens.  If the erratic behaviour starts up... then I will assume it is a firmware bug that was introduced since the initial v1.01 release that shipped with the first batch of keyboards.

Those of you who are having this issue should check your firmware version... maybe we can establish a pattern.

Joe H

[Bill H]

1.04. Not sure about 1.03 -- I updated it right after I got it, so not much experience on earlier version.

[Chronos1976]

I had the problem on both my keyboards with v1.03 and v1.04 firmware versions.

Joe, it will be interesting if the problems appeared after a firmware update. I look forward to seeing what happens when you update. Can you downgrade though if you did get the problem?

[textbook]

Mines on 1.04. I think 1.03 was installed when I had it but not 100% sure,  but the problem of having to press black buttons twice which is my main concern, to make it work has been present since new, so on all firmware versions, which is why I'm inclined to think they are a batch of faulty switches.   

[EileenL]

Have you spoken to Yamaha about this. They are always the best people to go to.

[Joe H]

I found the luxury of about an hour last night to play my keyboard.  I selected a lot of Voices, styles and MIDI song files.  I did not experience the glitch of EXIT to the Main screen.  I hope to find some time this evening to install the v1.04 firmware.  If the problem shows up... then we will know something new.

Joe H

[Joe H]

OK,

I install the v1.04 firmware and my initial testing found no erratic button behaviour or glitches.  Everything is working normal. So it appears it is not a firmware problem. Either the problem is with the Voice Panel Board switches or how some of you are pressing the buttons.   

Joe H

[textbook]

Have you spoken to Yamaha about this. They are always the best people to go to.

I have sent a email to Yamaha UK outlining the issue of needing to press black buttons twice in order to make contact, and gave the link to this thread,  that was about 5 days ago,  but not heard back from them yet.

I agree with Joe, I think it's more likely a batch of bad bubble switch panels myself, as it occasionally misses a press even when pressed dead centre and positively,  it's not just one or two buttons either, the 'Right-1 and Right-2' and buttons around that area doing it quite often.

I'm not concerned about the issue of reverting back to the main screen,  but missing key presses is quite annoying,  in view of the fact Yamaha UK have not commented yet, I will give them a ring next week.  Fortunately it's just the black buttons,  it would have gone back before now had the Registration buttons done it too, but all the white buttons work perfectly.

[Chronos1976]

Hi everyone.

I spoke to Yamaha today, they have been able to replicate the problem and they are sending me a new PSR s970 next week. Yay!

I have to say I have found Yamaha UK and Allegro Music (where I purchased the keyboard via their website) have been extremely helpful, friendly and efficient through out.

Hopefully we'll hear something official soon.

[textbook]

What did they have to say about needing to occasionally press the black buttons twice to make it contact ?  as that sounds like its more likely to be a hardware problem such as a faulty batch of key panels. rather than a firmware fix. ?

[Slarty42]

Hello Folks

Problems with A-J button presses I see !!
 I'm Not going to get into the technical aspects, but rather just a friendly, family oriented posting.

 Well.... I fixed MY problem today and all problems with missed presses and unintended double presses are gone. I just joined the forum today and thought I might be of help to others with PSR 770. I've had my 770 for a month and this is the first chance I've had to actually use it.

If you look closely at the A-J buttons, you'll notice that the TOPS of these buttons are NOT LEVEL. (unlike all others). The A-E buttons are HIGHER (elevated) on the left side of button.....slanted or sloped towards the screen, and the F-J buttons the HIGHER (elevated) side is on the right side of button....slanted towards the screen. In other words NOT the same.

I believe that they are designed this way in order to facilitate faster and less effort for their function(s). Most people tend to push a button in as close to center as they can. THIS DOES NOT always "work" especially with modern electronics. I'll explain later !!

Firstly: There are many ways in which to use a push button regarding pressure,velocity, angle of incidence,etc. Do you firmly push, moderately press, gently touch (like tablets), quick jab, or hurriedly stab at a button ? . Many people I find tend to use the ball of the finger, while others use finger tips One young lady I watched used her purple fingernails and literally stabbed the poor switch to death,leaving cuts and abrasions  on the rubber buttons.

When you use the ball of your finger, you are actually "rolling" your finger around the top(X Y Z axis) of the button,(not realizing of course) and eventually finding the "sweet spot" of the button. Some are better at consistency than others and a tad quicker.


I have several reasons why I think Yamaha made these rubber buttons as they did.

A: leverage.....a downward force on the high side is to your advantage (unlike rolling the ball of your finger around the center) think tetter-totter !!
B: less pressure  in smaller area so the switch has a better useable "life" (not to mention your fingers).
C: you "feel" for elevated high spot ......good for subdued lighting conditions (black on black is NOT ideal) !!!

My Own Proof:

This morning I spent 4 hrs changing voices/styles (went through all of them) and not once did I have a misinterpreted "double push" or "missed push" using MY method HIGH end of button. Then I reverted back to center push and 3 out of 10 pushes caused problems.
BTW either version of firmware caused buttons to act the same. This afternoon I went to music store and tried it on 2 other KB. (770,970) and same results. I don't know about  the Tyros(s), as I've never even seen one in real life, but have been told about them.

I truly hope this works for you, so please try using the high spot of rubber buttons just once and see if it solves your problems.

best regards Terry

[textbook]

Well Terry,  when I read your post I was a little sceptical,  but not being one to knock something unless I've tried it myself,  that's exactly what I did, in fact I'd not even noticed that those black buttons around the display had a sloping top.   Anyway I have to admit, that when I tried pressing the outside of the buttons ie. on the raised side I experienced no missed presses either,  they certainly work better   

When I reverted back to pressing in the centre of the button I started getting the odd missed press again,  so a big thanks for that observation Terry and for passing it on, because users always tend to press the centre.   It certainly appears that pressing in the middle as one naturally would aim to do produces more missed key presses than on the outside highest point of the top of the button AYS.

In reality of course if the button was well designed, it shouldn't matter where you press it,  and one should not need to find workaround solutions to fix it,  but there's no doubt with these buttons on my own 970 it does matter where you press it and pressing on the outside (highest point) as you suggest does indeed seem to help   

Thank you Terry, for a most interesting and constructive post indeed,   it's obvious some of these button panels do have issues, as not everyone has this problem.   One should not need to press a button in exactly the right spot to make it work...lol   yes of course it helps to have a workaround,  but in well over 50yrs of playing keyboard instruments I've never needed to press a key on any instrument a certain way to make it work,  they just worked.

Thanks again my friend, your post was most helpful indeed, and much appreciated. 

Regards...Cameron

[Bill H]

Well, now, this is bizarre! I never noticed the higher outer edge of the buttons. They kinda blend in to the sloped bezel. Thanks for pointing that out, Terry!

Have to admit, pressing the outer end of the button sure seems to work better than a press in the center! I would conjecture that the higher outer edge allows more travel to the button press (even if it is off-center), thereby allowing the switch mechanism to operate more reliably.

I'm a little disappointed in Yamaha deploying a switch with such tight tolerances. It's a performance keyboard, for crying out loud. The musician should be able to finger-pop a button any which way and have a reasonable expectation that it will operate. Having to hit a button on one edge or the other to make sure it works is ridiculous in a $2K instrument. ****, my $350 Casio has better buttons than this!

I really like the sounds and other features, but pushbuttons? C'mon, Yamaha. Folks been makin' reliable pushbuttons for a looong time, now...

[Volkmin]

I tried it on my S770. Everything is normal. I do not understand why it happens to some arranger.

Volkmin

 

[textbook]

Yamaha will replace keyboards that have the problem of missed key presses,  some were fitted with a batch of iffy keyboard panels, they are aware of the problem.

[Slarty42]

Hi Cameron

OH   GOODY ! GOODY ! GOODY ! thanks for the info and informing Yamaha

A whole brand new S770, that's wonderful as mine is getting old now (5 weeks)
I've already made room under my Christmas tree for the new one. I wonder if Yamaha will wrap it up in pretty paper and ribbons
in time for Xmas morning (ya..very wishful thinking !).

I guess I'd better register mine now with Yamaha Canada,as well as my dealer(they have serial #), so they can inform me when\how\where to exchange kb's.

regards; Terry

[milesmusic]

Hi,

I eventually got around to checking my S770 and found that the fault exists, usually reverting back to main screen after the 6th button press. I have sent an email to Yamaha advising them. Should I advise my supplier?

Best wishes,

Brian

[Joe H]

Now that I've had my S970 set up for about a week, I'm noticing some erratic behaviour with those buttons along the screen.  Seems they are overly sensitive to the touch.  I've seen my board leave the arp screen and go back to the last screen... in my case the Panel Voice page where I had selected a particular Voice.

I think most of the time this happens is when I'm navigating fast.  I agree with the comment above that the buttons should be flat and not tapered.  Maybe Yamaha intended these buttons to work like a small rocker switch (IE; pressing them on the high side of the button.  I don't know.   

If I can establish a pattern, I'll report it to Yamaha.  If they have a hardware problem (switches)... it could be like the S900 (screen going out) all over again.

Joe H

[Chronos1976]

Hi everyone,

I just received PSR s970 keyboard number 3 and still had the same fault, except when pressing the extreme right hand edge of the button which seem to work :-(

I wonder why these keyboards don't share the same type of buttons as the Tyros 5 (but black :-) because I tested one of those whilst out shopping and it worked perfectly.

Oh well, I suspect keyboard number 4 will be arriving sometime early next year.

Seasonal greetings,

Paul.

[textbook]

Sorry to hear that Paul.      I've been putting off sending mine back,  though the dealer did offer to replace it without any issue at all.  I haven't' done anything because it works most of the time, and AYS the buttons work more reliably when pressed on the outer raised edge.

I also sometimes need to press the right 1&2 button a second time if I failed to press firm enough the first time.  I already tried pressing them on the sides just to see if that made a difference but sadly not,  they work 9 times out of 10, but that one time is annoying.
What I can't understand is, they fitted better buttons to the S670,  I know because I had one for a short while, although albeit they were a bit clicky,  but at least they worked every single time and had a positive click to them, and I didn't need to press them in a certain way to make them work... only thing I disliked was the way you could hear the audible click when playing at low volume, but they worked.

I bought myself a 88key Casio Piano for Xmas, and before the wife insisted it gets wrapped up for Xmas day,  I did give it a try out just to make sure it was working okay, and remember thinking how good the buttons felt compared to the one's on my 970 and that was half the price.
The 970 can produce some nice sounds and it looks great,  but I really think Yamaha's penny pinching has gone a bit too far this time by fitting these pathetically poor black button switches....  I have  a cheap £120 Midi/Controller keyboard here from Gear4Music and even the switch buttons on that work and feel much better than these cheap black rubbery things on my 970.

The fact some users like Eileen and others say they have no issues would suggest these boards are obviously made in different factories around the world, or should I say different factories in China.    I've seen a couple poor 970 Keybeds in dealers showrooms too where keys were not aligned and spaced evenly,  yet my own keybed thankfully feels great and the alignment is smack on, which is why I find it hard to believe they all came out of the same factory.

Indeed having bought a entry level E443 for my granddaughter earlier in the year,  it's ridiculous that the buttons all worked fine on that E443 too yet they fit some that are much worse on the top model in their S range.... truly unbelievable.

[Slarty42]

Hi Everyone

Just a little update about my button problem

My "F" button is DEAD.....complete failure as in not working at all. I've wiggled it,pressed everywhere and let it sit overnight.I'm the one who pointed out the high side sloped button tops. I first noticed it last night after using it quite extensively,and thought in my haste,I'm missing the high side every now and then.

I have a work around, where I have to use the data wheel and Enter button to select voices or styles if they're positioned at the F button. However, I can't change my Function\Menu2\ Pack Installation button "F", and the wheel doesn't work in the function mode.
Just my luck...I had some silly little 100K file loaded (unimportant) and am stuck with it. for now

I'm not even going to mention my MONO button LED is not working.......ha ha !!
I'm still happy with my kb and try different functions every day.....I'm Not going to allow a few defects to ruin the fun.

My dealer doesn't expect another shipment of S770's until middle of Jan and isn't even aware of the problem in Canada

question:
Does anyone know if Yamaha will inform OWNERS about this problem (like auto recall notices)

regards Terry

[Bill Grosse]

Naw, if you don't complain to Yamaha directly, no action coming from them.

They do post OS upgrades on their site, but won't send you any notices.

If you have a problem, you need to let Yamaha know about it, just the way it is.

[textbook]

Oh dear...this does not inspire confidence,    as Bill states...yes it's a case of getting on to Yamaha or request your dealer change it which is likely easier as you probably stand  a better chance of getting a new replacement,  I found my dealer a little more sympathetic and positive than Yamaha, so your choice really.

One might now ask if pressing the high spot on these buttons is to be recommended doing ?  as I can imagine Yamaha now saying....ah but your supposed to press the buttons in the middle...lol

Anyway...sorry to hear this latest bad news Terry, at least your being very positive about it,   mines still working in a fashion, only thing that's stopped me returning it is the real possibility I may get one exactly the same with iffy button issue,  and I need to use it at the moment. Obviously if it quits altogether as in your case then there is no option but to get it replaced.

Hope you get it sorted.

Cameron

[Slarty42]

HI Cameron

Thank goodness I only use it for my entertainment purposes,as it helps to pass the time away in the Winter months. I will have
lots of time now to learn musical terms and play around with MIDI and DAW's.

I am of the same thinking as you, in that perhaps waiting a while will lessen the chance of getting a replacement with same
flaky buttons.Eventually all the new ones will be ok...they just have to filter down to the dealers.

It's probably a "blessing in disguise", as it will keep me from fooling around (as much) and actually concentrate on my playing

I don't think that pressing the high side of buttons will cause any great damage, put rather prolongs the time before complete failure occurs, as in my case.  These buttons with flakiness, most likely have a limited "working life" (MTBF) mean time before failure it's called.

In Canada my registration card states 2 Yr warranty, so no rush on my part

regards;  Terry
 

[milesmusic]

Hi,

I have now heard from Yamaha UK, who have advised me to contact them by phone with regard to having the keyboard collected and assesed by a Yamaha Authorised Service. I,m not to happy with this as it looks like I,m going to get a repair rather than a replacement , and not have a keyboard for some time. I notice that others who have the same problem have had replacements, or was this just in the USA?

I.ll ring them next week when normal working applies and see what they have to say.

Best wishes,

Brian

[EileenL]

Hi  Brian,
  I can understand Yamaha wanting to inspect a faulty keyboard for themselves so that they can report this directly back to Japan. They are very good at returning your keyboard as quickly as possible. So far I have not had any problems with my 950.