YEM has one of the most pathological and difficult user interfaces I have ever encountered...
I totally agree. Although the interface reminds me visually on times of Windows 98, that's not the worst thing. It lack some very basic features and so I can hardly call it a "manager". For example: if I select some style inside pack, YEM should provide a info if some voice in the same pack (and which one) is used in that style. And there's more...
But what's really problematic, is voice/drum creation section. Here most setting parameters are using arbitrary numbers without any further explanation (not even inside manual). Yes, I know bigger numbers means "more", but in sound world we're dealing with known units (i.e. Hz, sec, msec, etc. or even percentage), so why not using them where appropriate?
For example: in YEM, Vibrato speed can have value -64..0..63 (I know where this range comes from), but what does the number we set mean? That 45 is more vibrato than 30? And how much vibrato is -25?
And then come freakin' setting sliders which are almost impossible to adjust precisely -the one for "Original Key" makes me thinking I have Parkinson's.
Is hard to believe: big shiny Yamaha provides such crappy software -yeah, good software must be paid accordingly.
New YEM version will for sure be released when new keyboard comes to market -it must be, for YEM to be able to recognize new keyboard. The question is, will it be totally new software? And that depends on next keyboard. That is, if Yamaha decides to stay compatible with previous keyboards, then I don't expect some big changes in software department.
Bogdan