After using my RY30 for a couple of years, the bass and snare pads went from flaky to not working at all. Not surprising, since these pads are probably the most commonly used ones on this machine.

I finally figured out that to fix this, I needed to clean off the backs of the pads. I used isopropol alcohol and q-tips. The back of each pad has five little posts on it. I cleaned each one until the black crud stopped coming off. Put the machine back together - and Presto! Like new.

I picked up some cards (House) for the RY-30 a few years ago...it even had companion cardS for the Yamaha TG-77 and TG55.

More recently I aquired a Yahama CS6R -- another powerful unit -- escpecially for dance music. The CS6R's Mac-based voice editor also allows me to do some tricks with the RY-30..

I lost my RY-30 Manual -- anyone in here with a copy I can borrow or buy?

ciao,

CMG

Filter choices are 2 pole lowpass, 4 pole resonant lowpass, 2 pole highpass, 4 pole highpass -- the highpasses are great for hihats. Each sample of each voice gets its own filter. Volume, pitch, envelope, and filter cutoff can all be velocity sensitive, either positive or negative, so you can crossfade between samples based on velocity and other tricky stuff. One of the factory voices that doesn't suck crosses nicely from cymbal rim to bell as velocity changes.

Things I like: the modulation wheel rocks. Grab the tambourine sound, set the wheel to pitch, and drop the pitch 4 octaves with a flick of your finger. Fade from one sample in another in a voice. Adjust the filtering. Etc. The pattern sequencer is reasonable and allows velocity, pitch, decay, pan, filter, and sample balance to be tweaked for every note. Very cool for making patterns interesting, doing cool conga beats, etc. It's got a stereo out and two individual outs which I usually use for bass drum and snare so they can have their own mixer channel, effects, etc. The pads can be velocity sensitive.

Things I really don't like that make it hard to use: Although you can create over 100 voices, you can only access voices for editing and sequencing that are assigned to a bank (which might be called a kit or something on some other machines). You can't flip through different bass drum/snare/whatever voices while a pattern is playing to find one you like. You can't edit the voices while a sequence is playing so you can't hear how your edits sound in context. You can't set up kits and try playing patterns on different kits -- patterns always use explicit voices and not generic things like "bass drum from the current kit". I'm always wondering how something would sound on a techno/analog/rock/whatever kit. Maybe some of these problems could be solved by using a computer based patch editor. Dunno. And the sequencer is only 24ppq so timing control is pretty coarse compared to modern standards. More individual outs would be nice.

I figured out how to use almost every feature without having a manual, but it wasn't easy. Get a manual.