12/20/2011

Yamaha S70XS Synthesizer, 76-Note Balanced Hammer-Weighted Action Review

Yamaha S70XS Synthesizer, 76-Note Balanced Hammer-Weighted Action
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
The s70xs and the s90xs are the same internally so what I write here applies to both.
I own this keyboard (s70xs). The much vaunted s6 piano sound suffers from awful harmonics on the C#1, D1 and D#1 keys. My previous keyboard (EX7) sounded fine through my Roland KC350 keyboard amp. The harmonics on these keys when played through the same amp sound terrible, totally unusable in a live situation in my opinion. Through headphones it sounds 'OK', not great but more bearable.
The piano sounds also sound dull and muffled in my (and many others) opinion.
It also drops notes like crazy when played reasonably fast, even with a single voice like a piano selected. It also drops drum hits as well if you have a drum track playing in the same situation. I don't think this is a polyphony issue, it simply does not work as it should (others have reported the same issue). Again, this makes is unusable in a live situation. It's not so great just playing at home either!
Small screen size is not that much of an issue but they way some information is not displayed when it would make sense to do so makes some aspects of using it more time consuming than it needs to be but otherwise it is usable.
Manuals are typical Yamaha which means pretty terrible as far as actually trying to use them to do anything 'real' but I suspect that issue is not limited to this keyboard, my EX7 manuals are just as bad.
Cannot use a modified voice in a performance without saving it first. Makes it harder to just 'try out' different settings in a mix.
Other than that the keyboard is great so it's a shame that the above issues with the harmonics and dropped notes make what should be a great keyboard into something that should be avoided.
My recommendation. Do not buy this keyboard.

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The new S Series combines the sounds of the Motif XS, a handcrafted S6 piano and the ease of use of a stage piano. Features like a Balanced Hammer action, combo input jack for adding vocals and guitars and USB record/playback make it perfect for stage or studio. The compact design of the 88 and 76 note weighted versions are portable and road ready.The S70 XS/S90 XS also lets you quickly create your own Performances, with the amazingly fast Performance Creator feature. With extensive Controller functions, it's also the perfect companion for your computer music production system.

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