Yamaha RM1X

[Jay Vaughan]

> What about the QY 300 ? Anyone tried it ?

I tried them all, also the QY10 and SU10 combo, which in good hands can be amazing too.  The QY300 is a neat portable system, and is using the same core as the QY700 (same OS).. the onboard XG synth can be good for some things, for sure.  I just haven't needed such things in a long time, but to be honest there are some amazing XG tracks out there .. Magnus someone-someone had a bit of an XG archive that made a lot of hits available, if you do get a QY300, or something XG'ish, find those old 90's archives.  Some great stuff there, even to this day.

I really, really wish that the QY700's functions could be triggered by MIDI events, like .. send a MIDI msg to it to start recording on Pattern 3, track 2 .. this would be amazing.  It seems like an oversight, or maybe I'm missing something, but if the QY700 itself could be remotely controlled, better, over MIDI, it would make a significant contribution to its value.  It still runs my 19" rack, just fine, but I've gotten over the Stop/Start/Record/Start/Stop/.. mode of operation with my music these days; I like to push things into an existing structure, without having to stop the entire track, to do it.

I'm really, really enjoying the combination of GORF+Zira in sync with the Anushri+SH101.  Two little sequencer environments for different needs, in sync.  Its a long, long way from the pocket-calculator mode of the 90's that the RM1X, QY-series, et al., proffer .. but its a matter of pace and timing and desire.  I desire not to have to stop the song while I work on new parts, dynamically .. leaving drums running while booting up a new sequence, then seamlessly getting it all started without interruption, is the key.  Trackers offer a lot of this sort of functionality once the homework is done, and so do the above-mentioned sequencers too; they are quite fun once you've got everything loaded up.  Well, the QY700 is a thinkers sequencer, which you can then push over to the RM1X for performance needs, also, there is that factor as well to keep in mind ..