As an owner of the Yamaha Genos, amongst other keyboards (Yamaha MODX, Roland Integra 7, Behringer Poly D) and a long time user and fan of Yamaha arranger keyboards, I thought I'd post my latest experiences here.
I love my Yamaha Genos, having progressed over the years from a Yamaha PSR520, PSR730, PSR740, PSR2000, PSR9000, Tyros 1, Tyros 2... oh yes it's a long list! For many years I've also been performing in our local church folk group and the arranger keyboard has always been my go to instrument. For many years I used a Yamaha PSR-S900, eventually selling it when I got my Genos as I thought it made sense not to have two similar instruments.
For the last year or so I've been carrying the Genos in a quality padded case, a personal monitor speaker as well as my Yamaha PA system, stands and so on. However I've started to realise (probably ageing!) that carrying the Genos about is not only a bit risky for such an expensive keyboard, it's bulky and heavy! Yep even in it's soft padded case, we are talking 20kg!
I decided I needed to get something a bit easier to take to church, but naturally I didn't want to spend a fortune. Keeping my Genos at home, after much reviewing of videos and articles I went for the Yamaha PSR-SX600.
At under £620 from a reputable music retailer, the price point of the SX600 was certainly attractive. However what has blown me away is the sound quality and features of the SX600! As I said I'm used to the Genos amongst other premium keyboards, all I can say is that Yamaha have really come a long way in the last few years with their PSR range! Now I'm sure the SX900 and SX700 are both also amazing, but the price jump to those boards and the extra weight was my reason to go for the SX600.
Albeit it lacks a few features, but none of them are things I need for performing in church. Off the bat I am extremely impressed at the built in speaker system of the SX600. I really was not expecting a lot out of just 2 single drivers, but wow the sound is really impressive, plenty of mid and top range and a great bass response (thanks to the solid MDF base plate and reflex ports). Secondly, whilst the display on the SX600 is smaller than it's elder brothers and is not a touch screen, it's superb quality. Very bright, sharp, high resolution (similar to modern smartphones), crisp and vibrant. It is a pleasure to use and at no time have I found it too small. Whilst it's not a touch screen, Yamaha's innovative menu systems and proper tactile buttons made it a breeze to use and at no time have I wishes for touch.
Next and what blew me away is the fidelity and quality of the onboard sounds. Whilst the pianos and EPs for instance don't quite have the finnese and depth of those on the Genos, they all sound as good in terms of presence, fidelity, cripsness and dynamics. The standard pianos are superb, certainly good enough for what I need in church. The strings are also impressive, beautiful string pads and delivering a lovely warmth and lushness. Acoustic guitars, electric guitars, all bang on and as good as you would expect from any top end Yamaha keyboard. There's also quite a few sounds I don't have on the Genos, that was nice! And the legacy sounds offer lots more variety if you back out of the presets and explore them.
The controls are logical and easy to use, in some ways I do welcome button shortcuts now to the style and voice categories (something not present on the Genos for instance). Stylewise, they all sound fantastic and there's plenty of variety as well as lots of new ones not on my Genos. The multitrack recording works just as I expected having used previous top end Yamaha arrangers. Also worth pointing out how responsive and snappy the user interface and menus all are.
For me it's the lightweight portability of the SX600 that really shines. Just over 8kg, quite a relief even in a case as still under 10kg and of course more compact. It feels well constructed and I am really pleasantly surprised at how dynamic and comfortable the keyboard action feels. Coming from the FSX keys of the Genos, it still feels really good and similar to my MODX. Love the fact it has conventional modulation wheel and pitch bend rather than a joystick (again for my application I prefer these to be able to use the mod wheel to slowly fade or set the filter to varying degrees). The two assignable knobs are also a fantastic addition, although shame you can't control the level of the individual parts for R1 and R2 with them.
It's a really impressive keyboard for the price point. USB audio and midi, a bit of expansion memory - enough for me to load my favourite MKS 20 string pad sound I use on my genos and another generic pad sound - best of all, it even loads my old registrations from my PSR-S900! All my midi tracks previously done on the PSR-S900 play perfectly on the SX600, and there's an audio player for wav files for when I need it in church.
I can thoroughly recommend the SX600 to anyone who perhaps thinks £1K+ is a lot to spend on an arranger and doesn't need the bells and whistles of the higher end arrangers from Yamaha. The SX600 has enough I think to fulfil many users' needs, after all how many times have you use the vocal harmoniser, edited midi events in the sequencer, needed to plug in an external monitor or loads a few hundred MB of sounds? As a portable solution to taking quality sounds and midi tracks around with compatibility in the Yamaha arranger category, this is definitely worth considering.
Hope this proves useful to someone!
Many thanks
Simon
