Topic: SX 900 Expansion Packs - Best Options for 3rd party

[Pijeon]

Hi there,

First Post, but have been reading a while

I have recently got my sx 900 and I am amazed how much arranger keyboards have came on since I last had a Tyros 1 back in 2002!


That said, it is such a shame the sx 900 does not have the SA2 voices etc and as a composer that is going to be studying Writing for Video games, I plan to use the SX  900 for quick ideas / song writing in various genres.

With that in mind , could some one please point me to what are regarded as the Best Quality Expansion packs for sx 900 ?

I have done some googling, but it is hard to find different sites and I wondered if perhaps people here could help point me in the right direction.

I am looking for extra styles / multi pads and even high quality voices ; and If someone has been able to reprogram some of the Older Styles still in the SX 900, with newer sounds - that would be excellent too

Really well programmed Guitar Loops / Voices would be good, as well as some amazing Orchestral sounds and styles. 

In terms of Genre, some "Video game" type styles would be good, or atmospheric and sound design-ish

I have already downloaded all the Yamaha ones that are now free., but am wondering which 3rd party sellers are rated highly for the sx900.

Sorry , I hope I am making sense, quite new to this world.   I do have the option of buying a Genos, but being x 2.5 the price, and now 5 years old, it is hard to justify when the SX900 is 90% there already.  Though my perfectionist streak is wondering what if ..... 

I am just  trying to plan out the best use of the 1 GB memory of the SX 900 for my use .   

I think it would be handy, even if there was a sticky thread to all the 3rd party sellers , all in one place - as a lot of the sites are hard to find

Nice meeting you all and I hope my request is not too vague - The more suggestions (to 3rd party sellers) the better.

Cheers PJ

[danand]

Check this YouTube Video Channel.
Not many acoustic instrument sounds (except some acoustic pianos) but many interesting synth sounds from Classic synthesizers of the past (mainly the 80's). 

[Pijeon]

Thanks I will check that out.

Is there a consensus on the best way to use the 1gb of expansion Memory on the sx 900 ?

I am looking for more Video game type styles / Movie theme styles .  I have already downloaded the extra Genos ones.

Was tempted by the Genos in the first place, but I feel it cant be that long until Genos 2 appears

Would be great if the forum had a list of trusted 3rd Party Sellers. 

Soundwonderland I have purchased from and they seem good quality.

So any suggestions for Video Game / Atmospheric /World type styles as well as high quality Voices would be excellent.
 

[p$manK32]

I was not not able to get Genos packs on the Yamaha site to load into the SX900.

I too was looking for more orchestral packs and did not find much. Website sites of people offering them are scattered and some look amateurish and frankly not inviting to lay down a credit card. There does need to be a comprehensive list of 3rd party expansion sources that offer quality SX products.

I am not that impressed with all those free packs Yamaha offers. They seem quite narrow in focus with instruments and styles from Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia, unless one is looking for those specifically. If you want World styles these might be for you. The Christmas & Church pack and the Russian pack are OK, though I feel the sound quality of the voices are just average and inferior to the S.A. presets on the SX900. The Styles from these two packs are good.

Though I have not tried their packs, I think Dynamix-Audio's website looks great https://dynamix-audio.com. they have a nice selection, I would try them. Second, I have heard good things about CMS Sound Design https://www.cms-sounddesign.com and they also have a freeware section and made a nice effort to have English translations on the site, as the company is located in Germany I believe.

Another company I would look at is EasySounds. https://easysoundsshop.de/en/yamaha-electronic-keyboards/yamaha-psr-sx900700/
I did buy their "Dreamscapes" pack for about $73 and would recommend it for its cool atmospheric/new age/chill/ambient beat kind of styles, voices, registrations, & multi-pads. They say half of the styles in this pack are based off of a few of the existing styles in the SX900, most coming from page 9 of the Dance styles category I suspect. I was expecting a bit more usable voices from this pack, as most seem to be sound effect type pads and ambient effects, which work better as part of the styles than for solo playing.

You mentioned Soundwonderland. I have not tried them yet. I just wish they would be more clear in what they are selling. They need to re-design their website. I want quality voices and styles, and I want to hear what they sound like. I am not interested in sounds or styles inspired by certain songs, if that's what they are selling. Perhaps if they see this thread they can help explain, because I am interested if they have some good stuff.

My suspicion is that there are not going to be a lot of great expansion packs for the SX line, as Yamaha does offer a lot of voices and styles in the SX presets and they did make effort to make most of them sound really good. As for orchestral sounds, I don't see much but again Dynamix and CMS has some selection. Same was true when I had my MODX (returned it). However MODX/Montage have the free Soundmondo resource where you can download other people's styles and voice patches all for free. PSR does not have this type of resource.

Regarding best way to manage 1GB expansion, I think best bet is to combine your favorites using Yamaha Expansion Manager on your computer. It appears you cannot add packs directly to the keyboard without wiping out the other expansions already in there, so this seems to be the only way. I am also hearing it may be possible to play styles off of the USB stick directly. I am a newbie with this instrument so someone else may have better advice.

Let us know if you come across any other good packs.

[lmederos]

I like the Yamaha CFX pianos from playsonds

https://playsoundsusa.wixsite.com/playsounds-store/products

[Ed B]

Hi
You could take a look at some of the collections of styles on the main site for this forum:
https://psrtutorial.com/sty/collections/onacimus2.html
There may be some of interest.
Regards
Ed B