Yamaha QY-700

When I first got this machine, I had no experience of sequencers. I'd only programmed a drum machine. Anyway, I found it straightforward to get some basic stuff done and I found out more as I went along. Nine years on, I still don't use all of it but that's me not the QY. All the patterns were OK but I like to program every note myself The QY has been a pleasure to use.

There's enough polyphony for pretty much everything I use it for. The built in keydoard is a tiny rubbery thing, that is only good for step recording. You'll need an external keyboard for live playing.
It has floppy disc save/store for songs and patterns and midi output.
As a sequencer I highly rate the QY700 it is flexible and very comprehensive. It's note max memory limits it for live gigs. But you can quickly download from the floppy, with more songs. I have gigged with it. It worked brilliantly.

The QY has a vast range of sounds. Many sound very good straight off, some need modifying, which is very easy. OK there are better sounds around but with skillful programming, editing and effects, you can get some great sound productions.
I've used this for backing and for full compositions. I don't use the patterns and have had some fantastic results.

Nine years and not one thing has gone wrong. It's a marvel.

Not needed.

This sequencer sound box has been the best music buy I have ever made. Still gets regular use, nine years on. There does not seem to be anything else out there, like it. May buy a second one, just in case.
I'm a basssist/guitarist, who dabbles on keyboard. I've used it for electric folk, space/prog rock and soundtracks. It has been nothing but a boon to me. Love it.

This is dead simple to use, the ability to move the patterns to one channel would be nice but it is easy

Memory is a huge issue if you want to use this for a complete set. The only limitation is the number of notes this thing can store, after I have loaded a few songs, the memory just max out

Yamaha is Yamaha. Always tin like and some what weak, no warmth or sounds that jump out at you, but that was not the point of this really. It was about having a scratch pad to put your ideas on.

I had a QY20 for 9 years and it was as reliable as a German Car, and this one appears to be no different.

Where are the patterns that Yamaha should have provided for this?

This is the bargain of a lifetime. Only #99 simply because everyone has gone the software sequencer way, so it was sold to me, without a single scratch, mark or defect. It was criminal that I got it so cheap. I was sure that the music store that I bought it from didn't know its' true worth, but I was honest and they said it had been there a while but no one wanted it, so I could have it for #99. If only I could dump some of my patterns from my QY20 onto it. Oh the days when I was learning to create jingles and grooves!!!!!!

I HAVE BEEN USING QY SEQUENCERS FOR A WHILE NOW SO USING THE QY 700 IS NO PROBLEM. IT'S MUCH BETTER THAN THE QY 70 FOR LIVE WORK AS IT HAS A BACKLIT DISPLAY WHICH SAVES ME USING A TORCH BETWEEN SONGS!

IF YOU WANT TO DIG DEEP THERE ARE PLENTY OF FEATURES TO KEEP YOU NOSE - DEEP IN THE EXCELLENT MANUAL. WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEE THE CHAIN PLAY FEATURE FROM THE QY 70 WHICH ALLOWS YOU TO RUN FILES ONE AFTER THE OTHER.

KEYBOARD NOT TOUCH-SENSITIVE SO FIDDLEY VELOCITY EDITING WOULD BE REQUIRED UNLESS YOU HAVE A PROPER KEYBOARD. SOUNDS ARE BETTER THAN OLD QY 70 ESPECIALLY THE XG SOUNDS BUT STILL A BIT " THICK AND MUDDY". I USE A ROLAND XV 5050 MODULE FOR SOUNDS LIVE BUT THE QY SOUNDS ARE OK FOR EDITING AND WRITING ETC. A COUPLE OF WHEELS CAN BE ASSIGNED FOR PITCH ETC WHICH IS A GOOD FEATURE.

I'VE HAD THIS UNIT FOR 4 YEARS AND IT BROKE DOWN ONCE ie IT WOULDN'T LOAD FILES AND KEPT TURNING ITSELF ON AND OFF. ONCE REPAIRED IT HAS BEEN FINE. *** IMPORTANT! *** REPLACE THE POWER ADAPTER WITH SOMETHING BIGGER ( I'VE GOT A 12V 1.25 A REPLACEMENT ) THE ORIGINAL IS NOT POWERFUL ENOUGH!!!

GOOD DOWNLOADS ON THE YAMAHA WEBSITE (STYLES, ORIGINAL DISK STUFF)

I WOULD GET ANOTHER PROBABLY BECAUSE I KNOW MY WAY AROUND IT PRETTY WELL, ALTHOUGH IF I FOUND SOMETHING WITH HARD-DISK STORAGE AND GREAT SOUNDS I MIGHT BE TEMPTED...

It isn't that hard to work with, the interface could have been a bit more user friendly.

Has loads of feature, but no sampler, which would have made it a real killer bit of hardware

Like all have said before me, not really on par with Kurzweil is it, but it wasn't designed to be the best sounding box ever made? I like natural sounds (even for my RnB) and keyboard (piano, rhodes, tines, organs, clavs etc) are so important to me and this is where the QY fails.
Strings are OK, but either not rich enough or not sharp enough, Brass are not fat enough or edgy enough (for rifting or falling) and Basses just not smooth enough to create my grooves but usuable. Leads and pads are as my 11 year old QY20???????????

Effect are OK, but I didn't buy it for effects I wanted to write with it.

It seems to be OK, but it has the odd crash.

Yamaha are like all large corporations in the world, not interested in you or your problems, they just need you to buy their gear

I have had a QY20 for years and the display died, so I bought QY700 and I found that I wasn't as excited about the QY700 as I was about getting my QY20 all those years ago. Am I missing something here? A good bit of kit, that would have been a killer, with a sampler and a more user friendly interface

Really, you gotta be a cretin or something if you can't figure this one out. It's a piece of cake.

This is simply the best you can get in a hardware sequencer, still a few more advanced options would be nice.

It's an XG tone generator. *yawn* Think of this a sequencer, with a module tossed in for free. I never use the internal sounds

It's a rock. The "ergonomics" & OS are superb. If you write loop music, try an RM1x or something. For the rest, the QY excels.

Yamaha kick rolands ass so bad in this catagory it isn't funny.

Overall, yes, I'd replace it. It would be nice if it had a few other bells & whistles (moving CLP for example) but it is really a great design. Ergonomics are supeb.

I've worked (that's *worked* as in getting paid for it) in music for nearly 20 years, and have used just about every hardware sequencer. The QY, minor faults aside, is the tops. It is a bit pricey, though.

I've read through the reviews and there's a consistency in the poor responses. Those that found the unit difficult to use either seemed to want it to have the same interface as their old one or they hadn't read the manual. Once you have read the manual and practiced using the unit it becomes straight forward to use.

As a non-musician I rely heavily on the ability to record tracks in "step" mode rather than playing them. I also extensively use the patterns (the ones from Yamaha UK are much better than the ones that come with the unit) and the end result sounds professional enough to let others hear it.

I do find some sounds aren't as good as I would like but the patterns are able to create wonderful sounds so I think I need to learn how to use the voice filter better. Many sounds do sound fine right out of the box.

Absolutely

It's never broken down.

To be able to work on site with everything you need in one box is fantastic. So far I've seen nothing better for the job.

I wanna answer it this way...I was able to operate QY700 even without manual(coz my stuff is a second hand and the manual was not given to me). User friendly!!!(Its big screen have lots of things to say...)I curse small screens

Polyphony?...Yamaha is honest with what they have written in their manual...no more no less!!!
I was able to have and demo and end up with an album with Ivory Records(Philippines). There are ways to change the quality of all the instrument inside QY700...In a very short time of studying this product after my 1st album, my second album sounds great than the first.
Kb action? its so useful...but if you're not comfortable with it have some synth attached to it.
Effects are so easy to use! Its so damn easy!!!
it doesnt accept cards and memory. If you want more memory..remove the presets.
Its flexible ...yes, so easy to use than any other brands...
QY can do more tricks than any other sequencer in the universe.

Its not so realistic but you gona get all the way inside it to make it sound real. I am damn crazy and thankful to this product coz my career was boosted by this.

I tried using it a lot of times. They have lots of options to create what a synth programmer wants.

They're true to thier work...Friendly...I am using it for almost 4 years already...I dont have problem with it. I just hope they would feature more Drums, guitars, bass sounds...I wants more options for a sound of a close or open hats...there's a way to cure it but my mind is looking for such a real one(more options like in real stuff of instrument

If it will b lost I wud buy another one
95% over all... tnx...m getting lazy answering all of these

Found it incredibly UNintuitive to use at first. The internal sound mixer is really confusing, especially when you are combining internal and external midi tracks. The manual is good, although seemed to miss the stuff i was stuck on. The presets sound like a pc soundcard GM soundset, although they are very tweakable. Difficult to learn, but this is offset by how powerful it is overall.

Polyphony was never an issue, because 32 notes, means 32 different sounds unlike many modern synths. Timing is SUPERB, even over midi. I've never heard such rock solid timing from any pc based midi sequencer.

The squidgy keyboard is wonderful to play with. It really does have a nice feel and is very responsive. It's much better for drums than and keyboard is. It's not velocity sensitive, but that's not too important, as most people will tweak using the (excellent) event editor.

The FX are standard Yammy XG type. So good standard 3 reverb, delay and mod fx, which can be routed between each other. The fx are crisp and useful, but more importantly sit well in a complete mix (which Yamaha seem particulary good at generally).

Songs are saved to floppy disk, which isn't ideal, but then I haven't once had a corrupt file whcih I have with other devices (including Yamaha). There's no way to dump the memory over MIDI which I found very disappointing, but, then the floppy format is pc, so you can backup your work to a PC disk anyway if you don't trust floppies.

The backlit LCD screen is lovely. I think it's 320x240 pixels, so you get generous graphical layouts of all fx, mixer settings etc which really helps.

Job functions are numerous and are processed quickly, so your quantize, velocity range, controller stip and copy command are all speedy and easy to use.

The sounds are very generic, BUT you can edit them into much more interesting patches. The filter is suprisingly effective, so you can turn a cheesy pad into a sub-bass type bass. Also, you can easily assign the mod wheel to the filter or any other parameter and record it into your patterns.

It's built like a brick. I think you can trust it. The memory is non-volatile, so you can switch on and play from your last session without loading anything.

No experience as yet, because it hasn't gone wrong.

I would not buy it again, beacuse it is now obsolete in my setup. If you want a poweful liniar track based sequencer, then I'd highly reccommend it. But if you want a pattern based sequencer, I'd say go with something else, as it's too full of preset patterns etc whcih just get in the way. The sounds can be very good when tweaked because of the good filters and fx. You can hear example tracks I did using just the QY700 and a Korg Electribe ER1 drum synth here: http://www.mp3.com/neuroport listen to 'The Man In The Black Suit; and 'Brief Encounter'.

It really looks the business too which was some of the appeal, but the inbuilt pads give it the edge over it's rivals.

Don't be fooled, you could replace your computer based sequencer with this baby, I just think it won't suit pattern based composers as much as linear musos.

Presets sound as Yamaha GX sounds... A bit week! Really EZ to use, extraordinary ergonomics!

Good polyphony, good effects very programmable, 32 tracks MIDI sequencer. Lots of memory, big-big screen, 2 outs... Lacks sth to connect an external screen!

A bit weak sounds, not really programmable (filter is a shit...). Sounds can be good as long as you do not expect too much from them!

Very, very reliable!!! Never breaks down

Really good as a MIDI hardware sequencer, not good as a synthetizer

The presets are generally good, yet with some patient editign can be made very good to great. The manual is excellent. I read it for 2 months before I even powered the unit up. Well worth the effort!

The polyphony internally is less than I would like in that effects and decay rates tend to overcome the polyphony quickly if I'm not careful. I like to work within the limitations though as they tend to make me more creative as opposed to having a 128 note candy store to paralyze me with choices.
The effects are very easy to use especially the reverbs which can be very nice with sufficient editing. There are no expansion capabilities except the floppy drive which I use extensively and the midi outs which can drive 32 additional notes via other tone generators. The little keypad, though not touch sensitive is very helpful in that I can just put this thing in laptop case with some headphones and do high level work anywhere. The sequencing is absolutely marvelous! The folks at Yamaha have pretty much thought of everything in the song jobs menus. The virtual mixer with realtime automation is my best friend. The sequencer is very easy to use, very intuitive.

Some instruments are very good such as the brite piano if you take the time to learn to edit it. The drums are very good except the cymbals which can be made excellent with extensive editing. I'm glad that Yamaha provided such an extensive editing capability. I rarely "play" the machine as I use it as a virtual "band". I have found it best for pop and ballad. The velocity response issue is one I solve by editing at the edit tables.

I have used it on gigs for the past two years with no backup and no problems. I am presently trying to find a used one for that purpose.

I had some questions early in my learning curve period and Yamaha was very helpful. So far no repairs needed.

I think I would be heartbroken if it were lost to me in any way as I have truly mastered this machine. I have read other reviews here and the ones that talked negatively about its use and ergonomics and electronics were simply not willing to learn to exploit its potential. It does require some work. It is totally worth the effort and I would buy and recommend it without reservation for anyone searching for a standalone unit of its ilk. I wish Yamaha had forgone some of the pattern data base memory for more polyphony and effects usage however. It definitely helps me to make music and I never have had it walk out on a practice session as some tempermental musicians I have worked with have in the past. It is a powerful musical companion and I truly enjoy digging into that nice bright screen everytime I get the chance.