I got a surprise phone message earlier in the week while I was in Toronto. My local Yamaha dealer confirmed that half my order came in and I got my Genos early. Wonderful, I get to briefly try it out before Christmas while I must use my Tyros 5 for the coming season. I was quite busy this week, but there was a keyboard slot left empty on my home studio 2 tier stand while my backup Tyros 5 was tucked in my gigging bag, so I couldn't wait to hook it up.
Firstly, I was surprised on how light this new 76 note board was and lifted easily onto my top keyboard stand. Beautifully designed board with both the generously sized touch screen and music rest moved forward for easier viewing compared to the Tyros series. Yes, the keybed is slightly heavier, but super high quality and wonderful feel of the Tyros series. Familiar button layout and I easily navigated the touch screen menus and functions with no issues at all. Most likely because I studied the manuals and followed many of the excellent posts in our forum here.
I was struck immediately to the higher quality sound and realism of the voices on the Genos compared to the Tyros 5. It confirmed my more prudent decision to order two Geno boards at a time to replace my Tyros 5s and save a few more hundred. This was based on my assumption that even if I spent time to rework my Tyros 5 to sound like the Genos, I could perhaps make my Tyros 5 sound about 75% the same as a Genos, but that 25% difference was still worth the upgrade to me. My estimate was drastically incorrect. The Genos is easily 50% newer and better in every category. Even Genos styles of the same name and most of the same voices are not even close to the Tyros 5 versions. This keyboard exceeded my expectations...can't wait to delve deeper after the Christmas rush into the coming weeks.
Just the default style and voices at startup are clearly upgraded from any voice on the Tyros 5. The default SkyPop style, Left (70sSuitcaseClean), Right1 (CFX ConcertGrand), Right2 (KinoStrings), and Right3 (SteelAcousticFinger) voices easily outperformed any Tyros 5 voices. My favorite Tyros 5 acoustic guitar for realism and great SA effects is the ConcertGuitar. Even the first default Genos acoustic guitar that pops up sounds more authentic than my best Tyros 5 guitar. I am just blown away by this board.
The new Real Reverb+ DSP is outstanding, even higher quality than the Tyros 5 Real Reverb. I immediately used the Utility Parameter Lock to lock the new Real Reverb+ DSP into the default Reverb Block in the Genos Mixing Console. This made all my transferred Tyros 5 Voice Bank registrations sound even more sonically authentic, even before tweaking and upgrade to some of the new Genos voices. The new Revo kits are best I have heard and particularly like the Revo JazzStickKit and the JazzBrushExpanded kits.
I haven't checked out the Arps feature yet or the changes to the VH2, but my bracket for my external Roland VP-7 Vocal Harmony processor fits perfectly into the similar speaker mount holes. Ironically, my Roland VP-7 unit sits nicely above that blank Genos panel area on the top right side. I can shorten the bracket down quite a bit since no buttons are near to be covered up as on my Tyros 5. Time will tell, if the Genos VH2 can totally replace the VP-7 unit. Thank you Yamaha for the early delivery, kept the price even below a Tyros 5-76, and produced a super quality arranger that I can't wait to dig in.
Marcus