ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (06/25/85)
Stopped by my favorite music shop and picked up two of the latest YAMAHA toys. Toy #1: Yamaha TX-7 Tone Generator. This is a single DX-7 synthesizer in a box, without keyboards or buttons (it has a few for things like MIDI channel, volume, etc) for $650. This is considerably less than the rack mount 8xDX-7 jobs which start for $1600 for the rack and 2 modules. It comes with a cassette interface for dumping/loading the DX-7 memories, pretty good since the YAMAHA RAM cartridges cost a small fortune. Works pretty good. Comes with 64 new voices for the DX-7. The piano is pretty good plus there's a couple of new "VOICES" voices. In addition, they give you a paper copy of the settings for all the voices. They are paired up so that you can use their suggestios to get some of their recommended combinations. It was well worth the money condsidering the number of times I have wished for just one more DX-7 voice module, and wasn't willing to pay $1600 for the first two additional. I was seriously considering buying the Roland Super Jupiter if I had to spend that much money. Toy #2: Yamaha KX-88 MIDI Keyboard. Up until I saw this the only 88 key weighted keyboard and that was the Roland. This one is slightly lighter (28 Kg) and smaller (depth wise) than the Roland. It allows you single, dual, and split modes. Unlike the Roland, it allows you to specify up different transpose/octave shifts for each side of the dual or split. There are however only five stored configurations. The keyboard has two wheels (one center return-pitch bend type and one straight DX-7 modulation wheel type), two push buttons, four slide pots, two footswitch inputs, two foot pedal inputs, a breath controller input, and after touch, each of which can be assigned to any MIDI function. The Roland has no aftertouch, and the modulation wheel function is a rather bizzare sideways switch movement on the pitch bender, the intensity and risetime are set on two little slide pots. Oh yes the price, $1250, which includes a foot pedal and another breath controller (sigh, I never use the one I bought for my DX-7, now I have two). -Ron