Yamaha RS-7000

It's very easy to use once you get used to it.. It's very straight forward actually. THe presets sounds good enough especially the drum kits.. THey are fat and includes everything you need to create dance/hip hop music. It's a great drum machine. Editing patches is simple..

The effects especially the reverb is top notch. The effects are my bread and butter to make the RS sound cool and professional..

The EQ per track is very good.

I wish the RS has more flexibility on the Arpreggio though. It's very limited..

It's perfect for old school electronic music stuff which I like.. It doesn't do glitch stuff thank God. If you want to make straight up synthpop/hip hop/electro dance stuff this would be it.. For Trance the sounds might be a little 90's. If your going for trance go with the computer.

I'm sure it's fine.

I came from the RM1X sequencer from 2000 - 2006 before moving to Ableton Live(the best audio sequencer ever). So I'm familiar with this unit. Easy to use indeed once you get used to it.

I did read the manual which took me a couple of days.. I know the unit inside out.

64 note, great delays, cool reverb as you gotta have reverb for this unit.. The effects are the only reason why your patches can sound valid. You gotta mask it.

I like the fact that this can be the center piece for your other synths just like Cubase, etc but hardware. But then you still have to record it to audio so you have to go back to your Pro Tools, Cubase, etc.

I take it outside my studio and use it as a sketch pad.

THE EFFECTS and EQ(per channel) is one of the highlites besides it's sequencer.

I haven't really sampled... I should cause I've been sampling single hits as oppose to loops.

Also, smart media cards are widely avail on the net.. I never done it but I heard you can edit on the computer, put it on the card and load it up on your RS.
This is perfect for synthpop music which I make.

I really want to like it sounds.. I really really really do.. I've had this thing for about 8 days now and in the beginning I had that wow factor.. The last two days I wanted to check out the banks and phrases and they do sound digital you have to mask it with a little delay and reverb..

Anyway, if you get this unit I'm sure you'll find sounds in it that could be your staple sound anyway.. I mean bands or producers use the same sounds.. Was I impress with the internal sounds? some of them.

The RM1X was definetely reliable but I didn't have to save on a smart card though.. I don't know why I have to save on a smart card on this one.. And on some I have load everytime I power up? I'm new to it..

Haven't talked to any of them.. I have talked to a Yamaha rep in their motorcyle department though... Does that count? he was pretty cool.

I traded this unit for my Micron. I wanted a new instrument that I can create music with one box(even sample).

I don't like the fact that I have to get an SCI hard drive or Zip.. I probably wont because I don't use big loops anyway. I can probably get by Smart Media cards and load them up with single hits like kicks, snares, bass, fx from my sampling collection. I won't be doing that soon.. All I want is to get the vibe, melody, by creating patterns and choose the ones I like so I can reproduce them on Ableton Live.. I will never leave Ableton Live and I will probably be doing hard disk recording .. I better.. THose UAD and TC cards rock.

Some Functions aren't mentioned at all in the manual..
..

Amazing

Fantastic

A Digital Brickstone..

..Some Key Features aren't mentioned in the manual..
Look up Rs7000.org for this,

This is the most slept-on Hardware Sampling/Synth Sequencer since..
Top sound,features and a solid unit all together.

There is nothing like it in terms of Hardware sequencing..

IT'S NOT THAT EASY TO USE BUT MOST EXPENSIVE MULTI FUNCTION EQUIPMENT IS. I WILL SAY IT IS WORTH IT TO LEARN HOW TO USE THIS BEAST.

IS HAS 16 TRACK SEQUENCER, 1000 SYNTH VOICES, MAD DRUM SOUNDS A SAMPLER WITH SLICE FUNCTIONS, EFFECTS, MIDI DELAY FUNCTION, EQ ON EACH TRACK.4 MEGS STANDARD MEMORY CAN UPGRADE TO 64MEGS CAN INSTALL 6 OUTPUT EXPANDER FOR TOTAL OF 8 OUTPUTS
2 VELOCITY PADS LIKE ON AN MPC.I HAVE RECORDED VOCALS INTO THE SAMPLER AND DONE FULL SONGS WITH THIS THING.

I HAVE HEARD BETTER HAVE HEARD WORSE JUST BRIGHTEN UP SOUNDS WITH EQ ADD EFFECTS SAMPLE RESAMPLE FILTER EDIT VOICES.THE KEYBOARD IT FLIMSY BUT I BABY MY EQUIPMENT SO IT IS OK.
I DO HIP HOP AND R AND B IT CAN WU TANG PETE ROCK TIMBERLAND J DILLA WITH NO PROBLEM IM AN OLD SCHOOL MARLEY MARL 80'S BABY IT IS USED BY MOST PEOPLE FOR TECHNO I DONT KNOW WHY MORE PEOPLE DONT USE IT. IT HAS A BIT OF A LEARNING CURVE THE TERMS USED PATTERN CHAIN CAN BE A ***** AND COPYING SECTIONS I JUSTDO DIFFERENT PATTERNS IN CHAIN INSTEAD OF DIFFERENT SECTIONS IN SAME PATTERN.MIDI SYNC IT TO 8 TRACK LAY VOCALS AND EDIT PATTERNS AROUND VOCALS MUTING OUT PARTS OF EACH TRACK TILL IT IS A HIT.

I BOUGHT GOOD MEMORY CHIPS AND OUTPUT EXPANDER GOT LATEST OS UPDATE AND HAVE NO PROBLEMS IF YOU HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF GOING ON AT 1 TIME SEQUENCER FARTS A BIT JUST TAKE SOME STUFF OUT. I HAD CHANCE TO GET AN MPC 2000XL FOR 391 OFF EBAY CHANGED MY MIND GOT THIS AND IM NOT MAD AT ALL
EVERYTHING IN 1 BOX I LOVE IT

HAD QUESTION ABOUT SAMPLE TIME MAX WITH MEMORY UPGRADE E MAILED YAMAHA THEY E MAILED ME BACK IN A WEEK . NO COMPLAINTS

IF LOST OR STOLEN SOMEBODY BETTER WATCH OUT I WANT ANOTHER ONE NOW.BEEN MAKING BEATS SINCE 1987 HAVE KORG ESX-1 GATHERING DUST(ITS SEQUENCER SUCKS) I HAVE USED AN MPC BEFORE AND YEAH IT'S EASY BUT IT'S JUST A SAMPLER EVERYTHING YOU CAN DO ON AN MPC I CAN DO ON THE RS 7000 I MEAN EVERYTHING AND MORE IT HAS MORE TO DO WITH YOUR SKILLS NOT YOUR GEAR YOU GOT BASS SYNTHS PIANOS DRUMS FX .

Version ? - the one with extra combined filters (LPF & BPF combined).

Very intuitive to use (tho' I did come from the QY100). The massive plus here is the real-time tweaking which include clock shifts, midi-delays, Octave switches, LFO, pitch, effects, filters...responsive and makes you feel like a musician rather than a programmer. Navigating menus and sequencing is easy, fast and ergonomic.

I always use the "Song" mode...great for live use and non-linear real-time track recording.

Can't really edit patches (the presets can and do sound a bit weak). One has to play with the various knobs and use your ears.

I have rarely referred to the manual but it seems well-written enough.

Forget the on-board keyboard (use it for certain basic percussive sequencing) and use a decent midi keyboard. I recommend one with a good velocity range (the Roland PC ranges are good, 5 octaves for abt ???130).

LOADS and LOADS of features, tasks, settings...a lot of them real-time controllable (with recording too). Tasks (or jobs) for almost anything you can think of...apart from pacth-editing or LFO programming (although there is a limited LFO-editor).

Built-in effects add a lot of meat, space and mystery to the neutral presets. Only being able to assign 3 effects in a whole song is limiting and one also can't choose a flange and distortion simultaneously. But the effects are fairly editable.

The on-board sequencer is the heart of the RS7000 and is flexible, powerful and easy to use. Might be weird for Yamaha newbies but I like it. Not a match for top-level Cubase or Logic sequencing tho'.

With a good midi controller you have the full velocity range of 1-127. The RS disappointments somewhat with its western real instruments sounds (guitars & pianos) but is better with ethnic patches. Some synths sound a bit washy and most all the drum-kits unexciting (as in standard) - again, one has to twiddle the knobs to personalise and excite the sounds. Example: for psy kick-drums select BEF filter with cut between -55 to -40 and resonance on minimum (-64).

Although it seems a lot of guitarring rock musicians use this for drum backing...and I gather hip-hoppers use it too, I use it for dance beats. On quality sound-systems and with an external hardware compressor (I used a Samson) I played some FAT sets with the RS reacting very well to live-jamming. In a techno club environment suddenly all your doubts about the RS-sound are blown away. RS also works well for non-linear ambient music.

I want: more adventurous presets, the ability to choose more effects for one song.

I like: massive editing functions to make those presets sound better and much more interesting.

Well...I have had it for about 5 years and played dozens of squat parties, gigs and partook in many more bedroom jams. It's also crossed the north sea successfully. The whole time I only ever wrapped it in a soft suit bag with towels wrapped round it! It has a few scars but and two real defects:

1) the master volume control is iffy, possibly due to a knock or spilt liquid.
2) sometimes a song will become stunted and start farting and playing out of time...I know of no other solution than to give up on the song.

Seen as it has been in some quite harsh environments I judge this to be a strong, robust baby.

never had to.

I would miss it if it were gone. I can make a complete techno song from a blank song within 10 minutes and real-time jam away for hours thereafter! That live aspect I would miss.

Other gear have more been accompaniments to the RS: Zoom RFX2000, Samson S-COM, Roland PC midi-keyboard, some battered old mixer, mics/guitars and other instruments (not played by me), TC Electronics FX-box, Darkstar synth (hardly used).

I rinsed the RS a long time ago but can still have fun with it. I briefly played the Roland 909 and 505 but they somehow left me cold (granted, I didn't spend too much time on them). I started playing music with the Yamaha DJX in 1999, progressed to the QY100, then the RS in early 2002. Nowadays I jam with the RS but also play around with software (not as fun).

The thing I hate most about the RS:

a) that bloody bug which stunts the song (see "Reliability section). I think this might just affect me as I haven't come across any mentions of it elsewhere.
b) after 5 years rinsing this baby...sometimes I feel sick of any sound it offers, effected or no...and curse its pretend claims to proper sounds (a banging gig is a good cure for this).

Thing I love: Well...lots of stuff as already mentioned. The fact that I have easily spent over 2000 hours playing on it since purchase mean it has achieved "Legend" status for me.

Interested people can check out:

www.myspace.com/elseedydeutschland

for some unmastered, unadultered, straight-out-da-box RS action!

i've got it running thru the motu ultralite via G5 MCintosh.
second OS I suppose, wrote to yamaha with a smart media card, sent back me loaded with the new OS. the grid functions are over upped, and a few filters added. all the most you can punch in when recording...really a thing that lacked when i bought it

don't give a fuck about all those polyphony things, all you have to do is get the groove.. really has it. i've trIed all lot of pieces of gear, MC303 AN200 DX200 JX305 QUASIMIDI REVOLUTION, also vintage stuff as SH101 JUNO106

might try to get the multi out expansion, certainly expanses the capabilities of the thing

who's telling the sounds on this board are dull ?? have you ever been in the analog thing? just sweep the knobs, get crazy and be patient. Really great sounds if you seek for them

in my opinion always get it running with the multi compression effect ... really boosts the sound in a good way

seems to be be quite sturdy.... if twikkled the filter knob so much the paint on the board has got white. I like yamaha stuff because of the quality. i've go the HS 80M monitors that have such a powerful sound!!!! who cares, just rely on the long twikkling thing...after a few years you know who you can rely on

quite good, sent me back the new os on smart media

the best machine ever. get sequencing and knob twiddling. i'm a guitarist and often play with the thing without even knowing my fellow musician is a robot.

i love drum&bass, electronca, jazz, blues (really a blues guitar player, with a good old strat and mesa boogie).

the best thing in the area.. really

I use it with a 72knob analog tone generator drum machine the DRM1mk2 made by Vermona,AN200,DX200,roland mc303 and Ihave it all running through a 16 channel mixer,cd scsi burner,this allows me to make any sound I want just recording through soundforge,I can snap my fingers
through a mic and when I save it to a data cd,I can downld it right into my RS.For those of you who think the sound sux...keep tweeking,When you turn it on to start it always has that dull sound,incorporate always!master efx is a must,also set your boost up in the mixer mode,set the velocity high and dont be shy,what I love is the lenghts,and the hands on ability it offers,I spent a good penny on it and I have been using it for 4 years.If you are having trouble with your RS and want to know all the simple tasks that you can incoporate with all your aggrivation night after night Joker101010@hotmail.com
I still learn more and more about the real real time control.In the beginning I felt dissappointed,but now everytime I glance at it,its just nice to know its on my side,during a performance the power wowed the audiance,open mic night with string pluckers live drummer bass player the whole bid RS7000 still sticks out as a front lead.RS7000..........thank you for being a friend,as for its companion....Thank you Vermona for working so well with the RS7000...with out you I would not have killer analog kiks.....Jason from the underground group home

10

* Latest OS whatever that is.
* Editing patches is a breeze.
* Its OK, once I learned a few simple things I almost didn't need it for anything after that since navigation on it is very intuitive.

The only thing negative here is the first initial use can be overwhelming when all you want to do is something simple, but ten minutes after learning what you want to know then there is no stopping, not even for a gasp of air.

* I believe its 64 note poly. which I have maxed out on occasion.

* It has a mini-keyboard style keyboard, and what makes it great is the keys are staggred like a real keyboard which helps for quickly programing chords and playing proper notes.

* Yes, it has built in effects, and yes easy to use, except they are not chainable.

* Yes, 64 meg memory, which is a must, and AIEB expansion which isn't all that necessary and probably only needed for a few specific purposes where it could be really helpfull. My understanding is that with it, it can seperates out some tracks to some added extra outputs, say like for seperating drums from the synth parts so you can send those off for extra effects processing, or not. Otherwise, I wish it had more expansion capabilites, so say you could put an AN board in it, but it don't, your stuck with just the AWM2.

* MIDI is fully featured, pressure sensive pads if needed.

* The on-board sequencer is simply the best out there, when used properly it makes this unit the ultimate pattern looping/chaining and linear song produceing beast. It is just missing the ease of use in sequencing transposes as what made part of the QY series special. If you didn't use it, you won't miss it and their are work arounds for just about everything else that might be missed.

* By default most everything is set to sound fairly dry and neutral. Spending some time learning patch editing on it will result in some of the deepist, distorted, and sticky sounds you've ever heard come out of single voice patches. It doesn't excel at realistic sounds since it only has one voice per patch, but in my opinion its more true to the feel of modular editing on classic synths then most of the newer synths out today, and there are many little tips & trick you can do to fatten or thin the sucker out. Overall it has a great midrange sound which don't seem to clash and works well with most other gear.

* It has a master effect which is eaily confused with its regular effects. The 6 or so master effect isn't all that usefull in my opinion except for resampling them and Master Compression. While you have a choice of up to 64 various effects that can be added incramentally per track ontop of the normal delay/reverbs, they are not chainable, meaning only one at a time but some have more than one sometimes up to a whopping two effects added together if that makes any sense. They are still great and I love the distortion & amp ones the most, however they tend to drown down the original tone a tad and therefore usually have to be amplifed again in its EQ area.

* Industrial, Drum & Bass, trance, house, experimental. Probably great for anything except maybe being the more organic or natural types of music.

* It reacts, don't let it sit there, it begs to be tweaked, and will add new dimensions to playing and mixing live for shows.

* If you want velocity and aftertouch sensitivity, it has it, but you'll need to use its pads or an external keyboard, otherwise its set at what you set it at.

* You have to tweak this thing while its doing its thing, otherwise you might as well go back to DJing other peoples music. It has plenty of knobs to draw your attention.

* Its a fairly tough bastid, have had it for 5+ years, only scratches and wear marks thankfully. However, don't look to yamaha for OS updates any time, they have saddly and apearently abondend one of the production and support of these, one of their greatest units.

* I've giged with it often, in fact if I was limited to one piece of gear with no backups to gig with then it would be the RS7000 with no hesitation.

* Yamaha does not support this unit at all. However, it has a decent sized online support community.

* Never needed upgradeing except to the latest OS, and never have needed to have anything repaired on it.

* Not only would I replace the thing, I'd probably get an extra one or two of them, or borrow one from a friend that I've made buy one too.

* 10 years playing. Yamaha RS7000, Roland MC505, Radikal Tech. Spectralis, Yamaha AN1X, Yamaha CS2X, Yamaha DX7s, Alesis Micron, Yamaha QY70, Roland tb-303, ARP Odyssey MkII.

* Love its its step sequencer and LFOs, hate that Yamaha treated it like it was their bastard child, but maybe that is part of the stigma that makes it such a sleeper unit.

Its most compareable to a rolland MC-909 and a Radikal Tech Spectralis in my opinion, and in my opinion I'd rather have two or more RS's over any other comparebale unit, or just any unit, I'd rather have an RS over anything.

* Wish it had multiple voices on single patches, more expansion capabilites to add extra sound engines. 16 more tracks. Multi sample pitch mode.

* Its a music produceing mo-fo, it is in the way, the way to makeing a lot of great music. 95% of all my music is made using the RS, and its actually dificult to get away from it to learn anything else other than it.

* I bought mine a little after they came out if it seemed like I paid too much for it to you, but I didn't, and its was the best money I've ever spent on a piece of music gear.

Ok, I'm not going to say that it's easy to use, but once you learn basic stuff, you can fly with this thing. RS7 is something that I wanted for a while, since I can't afford a MPC2000xl, I got this instead. The presets on this thing stink, like New Orleans after Katrina, but that's ok, cause I got the sampler. I basically sample everything and it's a powerful sampler, people say it's even better than MPC. Editing patches is done in the same fashion as on RM1x, which I don't have anymore. Manual is very long, but you can get all the answers from RS7000.org ...

This thing has lots of features. Effects are ok, but not as good as on my old SP808, which I don't have anymore. The keyboard on this thing is the only pain in the ass, since the keys are not pressure sensitive and they wear out fairly quick ( not yet on my RS, but the same keys broke quickly on my RM1x and I had to sell it. ). I think the memory can be expanded to 32mb and it's a necessary for $30 of ebay. Midi works the same way as on RM1x and the engine is very similar to rm1x, but much better in my opinion. Better keys on this and it would have been a 10.

Patches can be edited, but you just won't get anything useful out of them, except for some drum sounds. Each patch can be edited with endless possibilities. This is good for any type of music, since it's a sampler, but I guess it was aimed for Trance, Techno, DnB crowd, but a lot of people make hiphop with it, since it's like a MPC. Effects are good, but I rarely use them, I only migh use delay once in a while or an enhancer. You can use midi keyboard with this and then you'll have your velocity and aftertouch. Sample some 909 drums into it and it's like having a real thing.

I can depend on it, but not so much the keys. After a while you'll realize that you'll need to press harder, and harder on them. I've heard some people gig with it, some guy even had 2 to gig with. I would get an MPC for gigs. But for a home studio, this thing is perfect in all aspects.

Used them to fix my rm1x and they did their job on time. Yamaha is huge, so I can only imagine they would provide the best of the best.

If it got lost or stolen, I would propably get an MPC2000xl cause it's just an industry standard and I love those pads on it. But for right now, it serves me just fine, it's a great learning tool and a professional sampler. Thanks to this, I got rid of my akai S2000 ( which was pain in the ass to edit ). This box has tons of features, which I don't even know about, it's an adventure every time you use it. It would propably take 1 year to fully understand it, but that's a good thing.

I used to own Rm1x, Mc505, Sp808, Dr202, ER-1 and I can say that this thing replaces them all, and look how much money I saved. I also got this paired with An200 and Korg Z1 and bunch of software, like Rebirth, Reason, Acid, Cubase, SoundForge. I do all my editing on a PC, export the sample to a zip drive and then to my RS. It's cool that this reads Wav files, it saves me lots of time, which I've wasted with that simple sp808. This is a truly proffessional piece of gear on a budget, if you want a good sampler, this is it. This is great for a drum machine, just export samples from Rebirth or Fruity Loops to your Zip disk and it's like having 10 synths in just 1. Very helpful to make music. Knobs are solid, only the keyboard aches me a little, but you can get used to it. Get it if you can, I did and haven't looked back since.

OS v1.22. I Like the presets, but I mainly use the percussion, I have a host of synths I use for non-percussion. This machine is simply awesome. Since getting it I have started making music rahter than messing around with technology. Today I added the AIEB2 and I can tell you that I am simply very happy with the setup, I wouldn't trade it, if you are deliberating about it, just get it. IMHO anyone who doesn't like this unit hasn't spent the time to get to know it. The AIEB2 is a must have to really make this unit useful, combined with a good mixer and you will be making great track in no time.

The effect are excellent, they take a little getting used to in terms of where they cut in and out, but that only comes with practice. One comment is that rather than gradually bringing in effects with the twist of a knob, some of them seem to be cliffs, where they are barely noticeable and with a small twist they are completely in your face. Effects are in two part, effects per voice applied to the internal synth, and then Master effects that can be used for internal sources and external ones too. The AIEB2 is the best option ever, my advice is expand and create. Sequencing is accurate and MIDI capabilities are good.

Effects rock

Can depend on it, and real fun too

Never used support, but have upgraded the box myself with no problems

Get it you won't regret it.