The SX900 has been great for me so far. I have one issue that I don’t see many other users complaining about. When I occasionally want to play the keyboard “piano style”(accompaniment turned off) the single or layered voices in the two lowest octaves sound quite muddy & bassy to me. This is not an issue with the concert grand piano voice because I suspect Yamaha has worked hard to make that patch playable without accompaniment. I am also not concerned with the solo instruments such as sax, trumpet, flutes, as they do work fine as RH only instruments. I am specifically referring to sustaining voices, such as choir, strings, brass pads & some organs when I play something Classical or orchestral. Sure I can turn on an Ethereal Movie or Cinema style in the LH and it sounds great, but once in a while I want to play without it.
My comparison here is to a MODX synth, which I previously owned. Some of you may not be aware that Yamaha arrangers and MODX/Montage share many of the same or similar waveforms, yet MODX right out of the box handles these voices better without the muddiness and bass in the lower octaves, or shrill screams in the higher registers. Obviously Yamaha has done something to optimize its arranger voices for RH playing vs. their MODX voices which sound better across the whole keyboard.
Regarding fixes to this issue. I spent several hours changing low and high EQ settings in the mixer or voice edit without much difference. Going one octave up, or transposing the whole key helps in the lower octaves but is too high in the upper octaves. Assigning a duplicate voice to the LH part works (Yamaha seems to automatically makes this voice one octave higher than RH) however it’s not a rich combo sound and it of course splits the keyboard, which I don’t want.
Would a particular insert effect help? Any other thoughts?
Rich