Hello Friends
This is probably the first Genos in Mexico. Upgrading from Tyros 5 to Genos. I am in the process. I basically traded a T4 and a T5 for Genos.
Just a couple of days playing with Genos.
To tell you the truth at first i thought about sending it back. !!!!
That is because i am so used to T5 and Genos is not entirely but somewhat different. Things are now in different places. Even after reading the user manual a couple of times, it was exasperating at first. Still is, but the exasperation level dropped to 2% now that i am more familiar with it and the two of us are getting to know each other much better.
I realized that i was expecting the new keyboard to adapt to me, that was not happening and it was so frustrating. After changing my mindset for me to adapt to the new keyboard is like the light turned on. Also, got a lot of help reading old posts on this forum and asking new questions. The members response is great and extremely valuable.
Sound is excellent. There are things that you can do easier/faster/better with Genos. There are other things that were easier on T5.
Genos is a bit larger than T5-61. A bit lighter too, not much but it is lighter. At least it is not heavier - that is an advantage. Color is not that important to me but it looks nice. (like everything that is new !!).
- Transferred all T5 registrations, external styles, external multipads, etc, to Genos. All registrations playing well so far. I have only tested about a hundred but so far so good. New keyboard is smart enough to play everything from old registrations, styles, etc. If old style/voice is not present, Genos is smart enough to automatically replace by a similar new style. But i can still copy the old style from T5 to Genos and reprogram my registration if desired. In some cases the new style sounds better. In other cases, i reprogrammed registrations with the old style.
- instruments/voices sound great and have more expression, my perception.
- Already Setup iPad with SongBook+ connected to Genos. I am telling you, this combination is by far much better now. In the past i was controlling SongBook PDF's with the T5 keyboard. Now, I use Songbook to call the keyboard registration from the iPad and display the PDF on the iPad. The linking is so easy now. No more midis are needed for this.
- Playlists, are a great feature in Genos. However, i do not need it because now that i control the registrations with SongBook, i create playlist in SongBook and control the gig from there. It is much easier. In the past with T5 i created my playlists manually in excel and then renamed the songs with a numeral prefix from 01 to 99 and copied to USB stick inserted in T5. No need for that anymore. So, I have not even explored the Playlist feature in Genos and probably will not for a long while.
I like the new touch screen, it is clear and readable, although for people like me with old tired vision, characters could have been just a bit larger, since the screen is big enough. (Yamaha engineers are probably youngish and did not have old folks in mind when designing the screen).
So much for the myth that Yamaha keyboards are for older people !!!
Need to explore and see if the size of fonts can be changed on main screen, probably no.
Also, the touch screen is not tilt-able, probably to diminish risk of damage to the screen.
I like the new location of registrations memory. Right below the touch screen. In front of player and easier to access.
I do not use OTS, so for me nothing to compare to.
- To be quite honest, IMO T5 is still a great excellent keyboard and not too distant from Genos in quality, etc. (really do not want to start a controversial topic).
IMO there are a few minor design flaws in Genos but so far I managed to find workarounds.
For example, the USB underneath the Genos keyboard was designed more like a car needing an oil change. You have to get underneath the keyboard. If the keyboard is on a flat surface, good luck. It is not designed for easy access. Perhaps that was the idea behind this and purposely placed there. The cover has a screw and you need a phillips screwdriver . . . really ?
This one could have been placed in an easier to access location like the back of the keyboard with a self-secured cover and it would have been much better and still secure, or keep the screw but change the location. Once i finish my setup i will install the USB stick there and place back the screw to try to never open it again.
On the other hand, i have not had any problems whatsoever with the naming of the USB sticks. I have been reading other posts where people complained about this. I have used all 3 USB locations.
The Genos main display does not show Transponse values when playing. However, i fixed that by bringing it into the main menu.
The Genos main display does not show Bar count. In some cases this is needed. I managed to find a workaround and display bar count now. (already discussed and reported in another post on this forum).
Hope you are having a wonderfull time and enjoy the festivities.
Greetings from Tijuana/San Diego Area.
