Yamaha Tyros 2 Keyboard Review

By: Hiram LeCedre—August 30, 2008 08:39AM
"Boundaries simply do not exist with the Yamaha Tyros 2 and that's what I love about it."
Yamaha Tyros 2

Product Summary

Pros

  • 500 unbelievable sounds.
  • 400 superb arrangements.
  • Hard disk recording
  • 16-track sequencer
  • Sophisticated effects processor
  • Total weight of 32 lbs. (14.5 kg.)
  • It's a songwriter's paradise

Cons

  • For all the money you'll spend it would have been nice to have an installed hard drive and 1 GB of memory included.
Yamaha Tyros 2

Introduction

My palms are sweating, heart pounding, and eyes are locked on to the biggest and baddest of all arranger workstations. I have to take a step back and clear my mind. Why? 'Cause it's the Yamaha Tyros 2.

First Impressions

The first impression I got when I saw the Tyros 2 was how Yamaha's latest line of Clavinova CVP's, the 400 series, incorporates the same LCD screen, and voices such as the highly popular Super Articulation and Mega voices (Tyros 2 came out before the CVP 400's; 2005 vs. 2007). However, like the original Tyros, the Tyros 2 has the AWM sound engine, 128 notes of polyphony, lots of great preset voices and accompaniments, and can accept an internal hard drive.

New Features

There are so many new features to the Yamaha Tyros 2. For starters, the new dramatically edgy, stealth fighter look—you'd swear the thing is ready to take off or something. You can now expand the Tyros 2's voice memory from the factory preset 4MB to 1GB with two 168-pin DIMM slots for more voices. There are over 500 preset voices including 42 Super Articulation Voices, 400 preset accompaniment styles and there's the new Style and Voice Creation Editors. However, what I was most excited about was the Tyros 2's ability to record up to 80-minutes of CD quality .wav audio from a mic, guitar, or any other instrument including its own internal sounds. The possibilities alone with this feature are mind-boggling.

Hard Disk Recording

This is such a cool feature that Yamaha added to the Tyros 2. With a hard drive and mic hooked to the Tyros 2, you can record up to 80 minutes of 44.1 kHz 16-bit .wav audio. Plus you can overdub and punch in and out additional audio if you like.

Sounds

The Super Articulation Voices that Yamaha introduced to the Yamaha Tyros 2 are truly unbelievable. There are 42 of them and they include concert strings, guitars and a saxophone just to name a few. These voices can do what the Mega Voices can do only now you can articulate all the nuances in real time using controllers such as aftertouch, pitch wheel, mod wheel, and foot pedals. Although the saxophone was impressive, the Concert Guitar voice blew me away. The Super Articulation Voices on the Tyros 2 have their own information screens letting you know of all the cool nuances you can play with.

Other Features

The Yamaha Tyros 2 also has a sophisticated multi effects processor capable of adding separate effects to your styles, keyboard parts, and, audio mic input! Plus, you can create any conceivable style you wish from scratch or by taking bits and pieces of existing styles and of course record sequences with the full-featured 16-track sequencer.

Lastly, Yamaha has made available optional equipment such as the 3-speaker TRS-MS02 audio system, and a host of foot switches, foot pedals, midi pedals, and keyboard stand to customize the Tyros 2 to your liking. The TRS-MS02 sound system which uses Yamaha's Advanced Active Servo technology sounds awesome when paired to the Tyros 2.

Conclusion

The Yamaha Tyros 2 is a crazy and phenomenally sophisticated arranger workstation keyboard. It has a steep learning curve; however, if you really want to learn how to use it well, it can be done. Boundaries simply do not exist with the Yamaha Tyros 2 and that's what I love about it.