Yamaha RY9 Rhythm Programmer

The Yamaha RY9 is a great little piece of work, and I wish I had had one of these little beauties back in the 60's and 70's. It's one of the best gizmos that I have ever used to get practice with, and I wouldn't like to be without it now that I have acquainted myself with it.

It is very easy to program it with whatever chord sequences and rhythm patterns you want. And what have you got at the end of the programming? You've got a ready made group with which you can get hours of practice, and they never get tired, and they never get grouchy if you make mistakes or play a bum note or two. I learned how to program it within half an hour from the manual that comes with the RY9 - or as it is also known Big Jam.

There are loads of patterns that you can use to create songs on the RY9 for R&R. heavy rock, ballads and such. However, if you want to keep your creations that you have programmed into the RY9 then it's a good idea to run it on batteries, that way there is always a feed of juice to keep the memories intact.

A very nice feature of the RY9 is that you can plug a pair of headphones in so you don't disturb anyone, and there is an input that allows you to plug in a guitar and practice with the programmed backing and hear the whole performance in the headphones - you could rock all night long and your neighbours would never know - or you could plug it into your amp, crank it up, and your neighbours could end up believing that you've got one of the best groups around.

There is no end to what you can do with this super little gizmo.