COMPATIBLE WITH TYROS 2
When the original Regi-Stick concept was devised, our aim was to give Tyros2 owners instant access to many of the most requested registrations, and to some of our favourite sounds as well. In many cases, we ‘moulded’ and ‘shaped’ our favourite existing sounds to suit the new software. For Regi-Stick Plus, however, all of that has changed…
Many years ago, when software was being created for the EL Electone series, the basic instrument had only five preset (built-in) registrations. All five were, er, ‘uninspiring’ to say the very least so the new software (created for the instrument mostly by professional players in the UK) was new and exciting. Today it’s a different matter entirely. In fact we’ve become so used to instruments having hundreds of great quality presets that we're in danger of being a little blasé about the craft of registration programming. Certainly the Tyros2's existing factory-set One Touch Settings offer pretty much everything you should need - all at great quality. This makes it very difficult for us to create anything that sounds truly fresh - as the 'signature' sound of each new instrument is pretty much defined by its One Touch Settings. With this in mind, we’ve taken a completely different approach to the creation of our new Regi-Stick Plus…
The Registration Menu...
I took the decision to re-introduce one of the most popular Yamaha features ever to appear on a home keyboard instrument - the Registration Menu. Players of EL and AR organs will certainly be familiar with this. In fact, the Registration Menu was really the very ‘heart’ of the AR series - just choose a setting from the menu and play. We always used this feature when demonstrating the instrument - and often when playing it just for fun too - and it was its simplicity and ease of use that made the AR organ so hugely popular with the home player. Indeed, I know that many of you still enjoy playing these instruments to this day.
With Regi-Stick Plus I’ve tried to bring this same level of 'push and play' simplicity to Tyros2. Ignoring the preset OTS we treated the Tyros2 as a ‘blank canvas’ (in much the same way as we used to set about work on an Electone) and created some great new registrations, completely from scratch, which I hope you'll love as much as we do. And we went still further - by approaching Tyros2 as a wholly different instrument…
Registrations that are designed for keyboards are generally made with a very different style of playing in mind from those created for, say, Clavinovas or organs. This is understandable because each type of instrument has slightly different characteristics. You'll find a much greater emphasis on acoustic and electric piano voicings, for example, in the One Touch Settings of a CVP Clavinova than on, say, the Registration Menu of an EL900 Electone. With the original Regi-Stick we introduced the possibility of adding a MIDI bass pedalboard and, maybe, a second keyboard - thus turning the Tyros2 into what we could call a 'virtual' organ. This works really well, but even with the Regi-Stick ‘Classic’ (as we're now calling the original stick), it's not quite as easy as I'd like. So, and here's the important bit, we began to create Regi-Stick Plus by setting the instrument up as an organ, together with bass pedals. Then we made all the registration settings using the instrument like this - with ‘organ’ style play in mind. In effect, we created a brand new organ, using all the sound technology of the Tyros2 - which I think is what the majority of organ fans have been waiting for.
We even used plenty of ‘organ’ registration techniques, such as adding tibias and flutes into orchestral settings to produce a warmer, richer and generally lusher sound. We painstakingly edited, re-voiced, and re-mixed styles to make them work with this different style of playing. And to make sure that everyone feels at home, we even kept the same Registration Menu categories as the AR100 - and many of the same registration names and concepts too.
The AR series organs have become renowned, and deservedly so, both for their ease of operation and for the superb quality of their organ sounds - notably in the theatre and classical departments. These are the sounds, so often requested by customers, that are clearly fundamental to our playing enjoyment. These are the sounds that produce the ‘smile factor’ - always evident in the faces of an audience when any of us played the AR's theatre organ presets. It's the audio equivalent of sitting down in a big comfy chair with a nice cup of tea! Somehow these sounds just make you feel all warm and fuzzy… No other Yamaha instrument before (or since) has ever captured that sound as accurately as the AR100 but I really wanted to get something approaching this with Tyros2 - the gauntlet was thrown down!
Yamaha has always been proud of the quality of its service and technical backup. The company has some of the best engineers in the business - and its service department is a veritable Aladdin’s Cave. A quick call, therefore, to service manager John Bailey revealed that both an AR80 and AR100 were still in stock, not for sale of course but as service test-beds, used to rigorously test electronic components and to help with fault finding on customers’ own instruments.
So... a few days later, the AR100 was transported to a temporary new home in our Regi-Stick programming room where it provided us with a direct reference by which to compare the new sounds we were producing from Tyros2. Richard Bower and I set about reliving, and recreating the great sounds of this brilliant instrument.
I'm proud to say that we achieved all our objectives - and the new Regi-Stick Plus organ settings provide the familiar warm organ sounds that helped the AR become a best seller. In fact it's hard to remember that you're playing a keyboard... These really are the best organ registrations ever from any Yamaha keyboard instrument - and it's a testament to the innate quality of Tyros2 that it can hold its head high next to a £12,000 Electone and still deliver the goods.
Having completed the ‘Organ Preset Menu’ we set about re-constructing the ‘Orchestral Preset Menu’ - from Symphony Orchestra through to Soul, Country through to Latin Carnival and everything in between - and our smiles grew wider as the programming session went on.
And... you don’t have to add bass pedals...
Although we began by recreating the Registration Menu for an Electone style setup - with bass pedals - we then went through every individual registration setting, re-voicing, re-mixing and editing, to ensure that the registrations will work just as well for those who choose to use automatic accompaniment instead of bass pedals.
In addition there's a whole set of special rotary speaker settings too - for those of you that want to add the Leslie 21 series speaker for the ultimate organ sound.
Regi-Stick Plus has really changed the way that I view Tyros2. It almost feels like I have a brand new instrument to play with. For weeks every spare minute at the office has been filled with the thought, “I’ll just go play the Tyros2 for ten minutes” - something that was driven home to me when, at 8pm one evening, a company security guard poked his head round the door to ask what time I was thinking of going home!
Introducing... Melody Maker
Much has changed in the world of software production since the days when customers bought a collection of accompaniment styles on a disk - and were then left to create the melody sounds to go with them.
Today there are literally thousands of styles available via the Internet. Of course Yamaha's own ‘Internet Direct Connection’ service forms part of this, but where Yamaha's own styles score higher marks than most is that they also provide high-quality One Touch Settings - programmed to the same standards as the in-built styles. Most styles from other sources offer either poor OTS or, worse, none at all.
Customers often tell us that they experience difficulty in mixing sounds and effects to create pleasing registration settings. Well, Regi-Stick Plus introduces a new feature which will make all of this a thing of the past… Enter ‘Melody Maker’.
Melody Maker provides a selection of our favourite right-hand melody setups that you can use with any style - whether it’s a preset accompaniment pattern, a style downloaded from IDC, or one your own style creations. Even styles that have been converted from other manufacturers' instruments can be used with Melody Maker. Melody Maker setups are accessed via the Registration Memory buttons in the normal way - but effectively converts the Registration Memory into an 'extra' bank of One Touch Settings. These setups don't affect anything to do with your style selection - so you can choose the style, select a Melody Maker setting and play - in the same way as with factory OTS. This means that you now have up to twelve complete right-hand setups available on the panel at any one time (four in OTS, eight in Melody Maker). It's brilliantly simple - and simply brilliant. This new feature really will make it much easier for all of us to enjoy even more of the great sounds of Tyros2.
To complete the Regi-Stick Plus, we've included a great new background for your Tyros2 main display screen, with a humble nod of gratitude to the AR series…
The stick itself looks pretty nifty too - made of polished wood and embossed with the Regi-Stick Plus logo, and featuring a magnetic lid and leather neckstrap. You won't lose the top of this one! And to go with this new classier image, we've even designed a special storage case featuring the Tyros2 logo.
So, what happens to the original Regi-Stick (or ‘Regi-Stick Classic’)? Well, of course, you can continue to use the first Regi-Stick and still enjoy all of these new features from Regi-Stick Plus. The way the stick works is very similar so you'll feel at home with the new Regi-Stick Plus straight away. If you don't have the Regi-Stick Classic yet - you don't know what you're missing!
Note: Regi-Stick are now supplied on Yamaha Club branded USB 'key' style stick.
