When I got the unit home and hooked it up to my midi set-up, I could not believe what I had bought! 48 tracks of midi recording, a bank deposit of highly usuable phrases and patterns, the ability to run pattern sequences along side linear recordings, a full suite of editing options, two sets of midi ins and outs, rock solid timing, unfailing reliability! Jeez! What more could I want! Let me tell you, in '98 this thing was way ahead of its time, and even today, you would need a very good computer set up to match the stability of this sequencer. The fact that I still use the QY700 as my main studio sequencer says more about how I rate this machine that words can express.

After 8 years working with it, I think I know every nook and cranny. I don't use the internal sound module, since I have a very good set of outboard instruments (Prophet 5, Andromeda, Super Jupiter, Novation Supernova, Virus C,Korg z1, JP8000, to name but a very small few). The QY700 beats at the very heart of my set-up and have NEVER let me down. Not once!

The screen is just the right size for editing. I use a mixture of live and step recording, and then tend to do a lot of editing of all the major midi parameters to get my sound and tune right. I have never found the screen to be a hindrence.

Since I use the QY700 now solely for studio work, I have never found the 110,000 note capacity limit a problem. I slave the unit to my Roland VS2480 (so that it kicks in when I hit play/record on the VS), and I tend to record down tracks as I progress with a project.

My only criticism (and this has only become relevant since I have introduced a computer to my set-up, linking a AMD computer to my VS via two R-BUS cards), is that I wish the QY700 had the option to link to computer, either through a fire-wire or a USB port. If Yamaha re-released the QY700 with this feature, I would buy it instantly, no pissing about! An internal cd drive would be fantastic, too.

I love this machine. It is so good, even after 8 years of continuous use, that I have never even felt the urge to switch to a software option. If it ain't broke, why try to fix it? Nearly every track I have written and recorded over the past 8 years has been on this baby, and that includes re-writes of all the songs that I've written since 1977!

Nuff said!

Here are some tips that I discovered that will really help you get the most out of the QY700:

Points of confusion for me:

Q: How do I get measures on a track in song mode to stay in time?

Described: When I first recorded a track I always started recording in song mode. Then when I got my first track recorded, say for 4 bars, I would try to copy and paste the original 4 bars after the first 4 bars. I could never get the timing right. The copies either had a gap or started too soon.

A: Because song mode is the first thing that appears when the QY700 is powered on. It seems that this is where you start. I now record in PATTERN mode first. At first PATTERN mode seems unfamilar and mostly used for preset phrases and patterns. However, upon closer inspection, PATTERN mode is actually using CLIPS like in Cubase, Sonar, Logic etc. At first it doesn't seem so because Yamaha calls them phrases. Once I discovered this I realized that I was able to work like I did in SONAR. This allows me to hear if the end of the track will match up to the beginning right away. If so then I know if I can copy and paste the track so many bars and the time will be right on. If the timing is off I adjust the pattern legth, meter and beat shift (page 200 in manual) to get the looping to match. Once the PHRASE (clip) is done I copy them to a song and then add more tracks.

Q: How do I use Clock cycles (also known as ticks)?

Description: for the longest time I was confused on how to use CLOCK cycles in the QY700. Until I finally realized 480 cycles per beat meant.

A: First off this concept was poorly explained and very confusing. What Yamaha considers the number 480 to be is a quarter note. So for 1 quarter note there are 480 slices of time. So if your meter is 4/4 time per bar. One bar doesn't equal 480, like I had thought for a long time. I bar is 480 X 4 or 1920. To confuse things further Yamaha doesn't start the 480 count on 1, but on 0. So 0 is consider 1. Now a quarter note is still 480 clocks (ticks) except when we count from 0 you end on 479. The next quarter note starts on 480. So now 1 bar is 480 X 4 = 1919. So to move 1 bar ahead 2 bars at 4/4 time the math is (1920*2)-1 or 1920 X 2 = 3840 - 1 = 3839.

To confuse things even further in SONG or PATTERN edit mode. Each BEAT in a BAR starts at 0 again. So let's say I want to copy something at 3 BARS 2 BEATS 245 CLOCKS to another part of the song, how do I do this? First I refer to the SONG edit screen. I see the bars I want to copy however when looking at BAR 1 the first thing I see is BEAT 1 shows the clocks up to 479 (480). Then when I look at BEAT 2 I am expecting to see numbers from 480 through 959. However I see 0 through 479 again. So now in order to figure out how many clocks are in the 3 bars I need to do the math. 1 bars has 1920 clocks 2 bars (1920*2)-1 or 3839 the 3rd bar has a note that ends on Clock 245 to include this note in the copying we need to figure 1 BAR and 245 CLOCKS or (480+245)-1 = 724 then add in the other 2 bars or ((1920*2)+(480+245))-1 or 4564.

BAR BEAT CLOCK would have been so much easier

I've given it a 4 for the following reasons. Editing interface isn't as friendly as I would have liked.