Why is this 90s home keyboard still so valuable?
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- The Yamaha PSR 340 keeps popping up across subreddits and forums - people looking to sell theirs are astounded by the prices this early nineties entertainer/home keyboard still fetches. If you find one below 500EUR you are very lucky. This is very unusual for what is essentially a very middle of the road instrument from the early 90s. Threads full of speculation ensue: does it have a desirable retro sound? Special features? Is it even the next TR-808/303 and will see a further "to the moon" price hike? I ordered one and tried to find out why this seemingly underwhelming keyboard has so many fans willing to pay top dollar.
PRS is sold for 260EUR. Only time a video of mine dropped the price on an Instrument :-).
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FolkrockManiaPeru History:
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Shoutouts:
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• YAMAHA PSR 340 VS YAMA...
• PSR 340 VS PSR SX700 C...
• REY DE PAZ Demostració...
Tutorial for Folk Rock Sound Like Maximo Paitan:
• CÓMO CONFIGURAR BRASS ...
Forums:
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Sold! 260EUR Will go to the Red Cross. Probably the only time I dropped the price on an instrument :-).
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Das deutsche Rote Kreuz hat sich aber nicht so gut bewährt in den letzten Jahren, sehr zwielichtig. Wie wäre es mit einer Kita oder einem Kindergarten in Berlin, etwas für die Region ;)
Where is the link to the Minister's viral youtube?
Nice price! If I didn't already have too many 90s keyboards I might be tempted.
Rote Kreuz wirklich seltsame Wahl… Historisch wie auch aktuell betrachtet.
Great
Definitely a case of the lore and history of the device being much more fascinating than the device itself.
🐈😂😭wow,Hainbach hat es wieder aufgerissen wie ein Westpaket!
Da habe ich einen besseren Tipp.Hainbach muss ein Kawai Mini PHt50 holen.Da wird er super mit besten Stolen
Samples bedient.Meine Zugpferde sind E-mus E4X er mit Zip und Rom Libraries😮
You can say that again!
As much as I really dislike what I feel are the more "generic" sounds - but I absolutely LOVE that you share some of other cultural uses and expectations for electronic music that are not our go-to sounds. It helps us remember we aren't the end-all and be-all of what synths should be.
I used to use a DJ-X and DJ-X IIB, and those dorky "basic" sounds are actually really good through a little overdrive, or distortion, or a gate. Just a little special sauce makes a bland 80's sounding reverb touched shaker and it gets gritty and crunchy! I never leave any sound the way it starts, it's a compulsion!
Its a very similar story with the roland e16 in Pakistan. I remember about 2 years ago i worked for a international festival in Oslo as a stage technician and one of the Pakistani artist used the e16 and brought the biggest crowd of the whole festival (a truly massive crowd). Arranger keyboards are still some of the only keyboards to give you different tunings which of course is super important for alot of musicians in big countries like Pakistan and India where these tunings are important
True! That is one of the things I also see in "rare" keyboard search on eBay/classified.
@@MisterM950 its called the „Balkan Steuer“ - its what you pay extra for randy DX-11s and V50s because that one guy (Mica Nikolic) only used them 🙄 - kind of similar to the Hip Hop Tax you pay for old MPCs, SP1200s or S950s…
Unlike a Yamaha PSR a Casio CZ is an interesting piece of synth history though. Not many synths around that are built around phase distortion synthesis.
@@MisterM950 I repaired a severely fire and water damaged CZ-101. I patched plenty of corroded PCB traces, and the scorched case (that hat been coated in tons of adhesive browtape - yuck!) has very crooked keys, but the electronics still works and even the LCD had survived.
haha no way, when you were talking about this keyboard the other week i was thinking one of those weird arranger keyboards, not a literal school style one haha. amazing.
i just remembered i have one in my loft at my mums house. i gotta go see if its still there haha well good!
I forgot about the multi-channel recorder in the ctk series. My mom did have one of those, and one of my best friends who recently passed away programmed his entire discography on a torn up 10 channel one spray painted black. Descanse... The Shock Deformity and Amputee! 🌹
These are popular among Dungeon Synth artists, as many of these Yamahas were used in the works of early DS classics. That might be why you were compelled to make a DS track. Personally, with a few effects, these things make some of my favorite DS noises.
I was just thinking that one of the presets sounded very Dungeon Synth!
@@PossiblyNic I feel like Dungeon Synth wouldn’t be the same without the earlier albums made with the presets on these synths.
Yes your right I used to use one and the Yamaha DJx for dungeon synth tracks . Because u can just use the keyboard and nothing else as there's little 6 tracks
Great sounds, full size keys, velocity sensitive, built in MIDI. Pretty much everything you need to get started! And *somewhat* built to last!!
💯 - I had a similar model (PSR 225) I got new for 99.00 new. I beat the crap out of it for years live (usually as a controller) and it still works perfectly. It’s a workhorse- Best 99 bucks I ever spent.
I have a Yamaha PSR-500m that my wife's grandmother let me have. The nostalgia factor is huge given that these were EVERYWHERE in my school music rooms. Other than that, it is delightfully cheesy with some drums that actually sound pretty great in their own way. I like resampling the drums through the PO-33 K.O. for extra smoosh and crush. 😃
you can bend the drums with the pitchbend wheel as well, i bought my psr500 new and i still have it. the midi spec is impressive. lots of tracks
That’s the keyboard I had in college. You could slow down the preset licks and learn how to play them like the old-🎉timers did on player-pianos.
Let’s not forget Wesley Willis.
The folk preset evokes the timeless anthem of rock ‘n’ roll mc Donald’s. As well as countless lessor known hits, that defined an era. The early iPod years no doubt
Rock over London,
Rock on Chicago,
YAMAHA!!
Make waves.
That was on the technics kn5000, and also, he used a kn1000 what i have as well
I NEVER forget about Wesley Willis...
"Rock over London!
Rock on, Chicago!
Wheaties: Breakfast Of Champions!"
I had one before, luckily it was a cheap find for me at just £50, knowing how much they go for on eBay, I put it on eBay a couple of weeks later and it sold for £260 which was one of my most successful profits!
A few years back I bought an old Yamaha pss-390, It has an adjustable FM-Synth section that just sounds so good, instant lo-fi vibes. Best 20 Euro ever!!
I have a psr-36 and have enjoyed so much making and exploiting its features that I still am finding new ways to use it
Perhaps you simply misspoke in the video, but this keyboard is from the late 90s, 1999 to be exact! My parents have a PSR540 I believe, I've been pretty used to the Yamaha sound since my first PC had a YMF724 based soundcard, so I used to also enjoy loading random MIDI files from the internet into the keyboard to see how they sounded.
The demo song from ‚Titanic‘ may also have provided a clue.
Ah thanks for picking that up - I missed that in editing
The PSR540 was amazing- I remember when our school got one and it was leaps above the old FM-based PSR/PSS series instruments. I then got a DJXII so really grew up with those Yamaha XG soundfonts!
The PSR 340 was my second keyboard I got for my 10th birthday in 2000, (upgrade from my psr-190 in 1998).
Never would I thought in a billion years and multiple multi-universes I would see one the Hainbach channel haha.
I think I sold it for for £120 (€140 euros), the fact it's worth more now for such an obscure music genre is amazing.
I did miss the cheesey Yamaha sounds and bought a MX49 last year for nostalgia.
The Jam in the end is super cool btw.
Astonishingly interesting, I thoughts the sound pack presets are actually great to do some real retro stuff. And your sounds are great!
I still use my Yamaha DJX. It's incredibly versatile, and useful in the studio.
That’s the one to get.
I have one, some great sounds, the built in sampler is utter rubbish though
@@djhatstand7312 Yeah. I tried it once. Rubbish is right.
The DJX was my first cutoff knob. I still remember being excited about the Fat Man preset
the djx was my gateway into making techno on fourtracks. did so much w/that gem and a roland xv88, electribe es1 and kaoss pad and vs1680 later. that was the keyboard i used on my first official ambient recording as well. good to see it being talked about here. one of a kind funbox.
DJX is where it's at. Still a lot of fun even without pedals.
Interesting video and I love the song you cooked up with it!
I have a CTK-601. I’m not sure what the time period is for either, but it seems like that CTK line is the superior Yamaha keyboard. It can do the same rhythmic and melodic combo thing, but it also allows for a form of basic synthesis, in that you could create your own preset sounds by combining two different existing preset sounds, then programming each sound based on pitch, ADSR envelope, timbre, tone, and basic LFO and waveform-esque capabilities … waveform and LFO in the sense that any of the existing preset parameters could be substituted for any other preset you are designing or programing (meaning some of the sounds have LFO like movement inherent in the patch, likewise for waveform). In other words, you could combine a basic sawtooth sound from the brass section, and combine it with a sine wave sound from the flute section … and then swap any parameter of those presets with any other if the 150ish sound parameters, and combine two of those newly made sounds together. So you could come up with some interesting original sounds. In the the example I just gave, you could pitch the flute sine wave sound down, then combine it with the saw-wave brass to add low-end. Then you could mess with any of the other parameters like envelope and tone and timbre to make your own sound.
If this keyboard can’t do the same as what I just described with my cheap CTK series keyboard, my $50-$100 Yamaha digital keyboard that I bought new in 1996ish is far superior. Yes, I’m bragging.
Awesome research Hainbach. Loved the video.
Thank you! ☺️
My choir room had one like this, was very silly to jam on in the practice room… great vid
Back in the early 2000s, local musician I knew named "No-Tech Audio" made weird industrial noise and loops with cheap Casio and Yamaha keyboards and ran them through a bunch of FX units and a sampler. Most of the time you couldn't tell what he was using it was so distorted, but he got it all to work and sound cool. Unfortunately he only did a couple live shows, sold a few CDs and then gave up the music scene.
I knew a man in the 90s who played everyone elses gear, and he was infamous at sears for putting the latest gear on layaway so other musicians couldnt buy them... this was to keep his edge at the local gig circuit. We called him "Layaway Steve". Unfortunately he never quit making music and is still hangin around the venues handing out flyers with clipart graphics and bumming smokes.
I wouldnt neccesarily call this valuable but a great example of how you can make anything sound good through the right effects. EVEN YOUR PHONE!
It's interesting to think about this since this keyboard, along with a select few others from yamaha came out during a time when they were transitioning between sound setes, and this actually has ssounds that are better sounding than most of the sounds on yamaha's home arranger offerings today, which just contain the same old xglight bank with very low quality presets in some cases that started being available in the late 90s or so.
If you ever get another keyboard with a floppy drive, you can replace it with a Gotek adapter in most cases. This will allow you to use SD cards instead.
Love it! I had a PSR 190 that I got a ton of mileage out of its drums. The instrument eventually died, but I have the samples. The Disco and Rap beats are especially excellent!
I had this keyboard, I think it’s selling now for more than I paid for it in 2001. Hearing the rhythms again gives me fond memories, the instrumental sounds not so much, guess they were good for the time. I still have the midi files from the floppy disk it came with saved somewhere. I traded it in after a few years towards a Yamaha EL 90 organ but I enjoyed the keyboard for what it was.
Yamaha had a good 90’s run, my favourite was the Yamaha DJX, what a legend!
I wanted that keyboard SO badly as a kid hahah! What an awesome bit of kit!
We had one of those in my band at the time. I keep thinking about grabbing one but they too are really expensive for what they are!
Back when I was still a rave DJ I used the DJX along with some others kit I had access to but not owned (Roland 303) to record some of my own stuff. Prior to the DJX I used a SH-101 and even a Casio SK-1. Sadly I have none of these in the studio today but however have been contemplating the DJX again for its ease of use!
Totally agree- my first ever bought instrument was the DJX 2 and i still have it. The best playground to explore music those days i could ask for.
@@neufena Got mine for 30€ with 2 missing knobs. Took only 3 years to find it for that price :) I love it. It's so much fun.
An excellent, entertaining and informative video - and yes, we often tend to "thing outside the box"...
Wonderful stuff as ever.
I have a PSR530. What i like about it is comprehensive screen and controls and sounds very similar to 4MB Yamaha VST or the DB50 card, a little more refined and less aliased than the VST. It sounds good i would say. MU80 also has a similar sound. There is a comprehensive internal effect unit with some (preset) routing capabilities as well, it can do a lot of neat things like overdrive or pingpong echo and i think even pitch warped echo if i'm not mistaken, with advanced effects applying to the lead instrument, besides the standard send reverb which just runs across everything, and it gives you slightly more than zero control over the effects unit.
What i don't like is that there is no floppy drive option, instead it uses mask ROM expansion cartridges which probably now largely exist in some Japanese landfill, except the 2 or 3 demo pack-in ones. I'm not necessarily feeling the built in styles so more options would be nice.
The keyboard, i don't mind it. It uses the key plastic itself for key return, so it's not going to give you a lot of feel especially if well worn. The velocity estimation however is absolutely top notch (if not abused to death), so if you just trust it, it's very playable.
I feel like this one you're showing uses the lower end ROMset with flatter sounds. It's not doing much for me i don't think. And it just looks very cut down from the UX perspective, very limited.
I think the first digit is the model rank in the lineup, with 3 being a very low end unit and 5 being more midrange. And the second digit is generation, so mine would be one generation older than the one you tested and 2 ranks nicer. I don't think anyone should be paying more than $80 for an instrument like the psr340.
The 530 is the one I played at Circuit City back in 1997 and I even asked the sales floor guy if I could record my song from it to my QY20 to at least get the beats and some of the bass and chord accompaniment patterns into my QY20 so I could have that any time I wanted. The PSR530 was $600 back then. I have tons of synths and keyboards and I still do not own a PSR530/540 and it is 2024! So the value has held unfortunately.. for broke me lol
I have a PSR S500.
It uses USB and it records midi information onto a USB flash disk. I thought it was the coolest midi keyboard/workstation 19 years ago. It has "DSP" effects, Layering, and an 8 track recorder. It's not a bad machine for its age. I put in new speakers, and fixed it up. It doesn't sound too bad, it has a nice range of Instruments, after touch, velocity sensitivity, and memory banks to load "presets for gigs"
The screen on mine died. That part is a hard find.. and about 300 bucks. The sounds and rhythm sections have independent buttons to access them, and the jog wheel works.
I have a Casio wk6600 work station now.
You definitely turned that old keyboard into a usable synth with the pedals. I do that with my old keyboards too. Pedals and effect boxes really make these old machines stand out and give them a second life.
Great video as always.
Thanks! My very first band keyboard was an even older Yamaha that I ran into a Boss Overdrive. It is just a good thing to do with these.
I have known a lot of pianos that are somewhat similar, but in my Peruvian country we call them organs, not for the body or for use in the church, it is for the electric piano that was used to play cumbias tropical or northern, therefore, they were also used to play rumbera or romantic salsas, but there are times when pianos were used in prayers of praise in the case of evangelical.
In the case of the electric piano or organ, I have known it from different popular brands that have already been used by Yamaha, Casio, Korg, etc., I am a witness to seeing all this, and because I tell you this, It's because I'm Peruvian, good luck for your Germany 😁🇵🇪❤️🇩🇪
It just takes one person to do something surprising with an old budget bit of kit to suddenly drive its resale price through the roof...
My Yamaha DJX II probably has all those sounds, features, and lots more (no disk drive though!), yet I got it for $8 at a thrift store. Score!
whenever Hainbach demos the sounds of presets on gear its so funny the motifs he chooses, like the spooky sound here.
I have psr 540! Got it at goodwill outlet for 15 bucks! Over 700 presets. Good video!
Stumbled across this as a new piano player and you could probably read my shopping list and make it interesting. Had to subscribe
Sample and Layer. I had a Casio like that when I started out and it found a second life as food for my Emax II sampler. The sounds were so thin, they were great for layering into something bigger. Also, the buggy sound editing controls would sometimes make it sound very weird and glitchy.
For sure, a lot of the older Casio stuff has real magic to it!
I found a psr540 under some stairs that nobody wanted, and a mate donated a 340 to my project. They are really great machines that I never tire of. Excellent brass sounds for digital dub.
The Maximo Paitan music video is one of the best I've seen in a while!
That track is a real banger, but does he sing about the internet in the chorus? Was looking for an english translation.
I think the thing that really makes it interesting is that I think I saw you can segment the keyboard to be set to different instruments.
i love 90s GM rompler stuff and i love my PSR-290 but i would never put these home keyboards in the X0X tier lol, great video Hainbach
Yeah most of the synthesizer gear enthusiast community seems unaware of the niche of composers using such things for vintage VG and media music inspired stuff or that just like utilizing the particular character of them in a cool way.
I have a HUGE 90's early 00's GM/Rompler collection 😎.
@@kenzieprice6745 i have a PSR-290, a Kawai GMega, a Korg NS5R, when i get a Yamaha TG-300 and a Roland SC-88pro ill be done (i also have an M3R and i want more non GM romplers but thats a tangent for another day)
@summerlaverdure I love the GMega! That's cool you have one, it flies under the radar for everyone. I really try more of the Korg stuff. The Roland SC stuff probably inspired me the most and I love challenging myself with the confines of the single pallet of one module and seeing what I make.
You gotta get some Casio stuff!
@@kenzieprice6745 if i get anything Casio GM it will be the CT-S500 i think
My dad bought the bigger brother of the 340, the PSR-540 brand new in the late 90s. Interesting to hear the sonic difference between the two, the 540 had much more sounds, a bit more styles, a reverb and a DSP. The latter could do distortion, chorus, Leslie emulation including a slow/fast switch, etc.
I used it quite a bit, even along my other “proper” synths and sold it in 2018 for 200€ with a Gotek drive instead of the original FDD.
I passed up one of these when I bought a PSR-410 which I love. Now I'm kicking myself because the price was only $30 at a thrift store. I don't know what the differences are but the 410 is able to layer two sounds and some of the combinations sound fantastic.
The 410 is just awesome,
PSR-270 has the same exact sounds and should be somewhat cheaper. Both of these models have step sequencer (but only PSR-340 have FDD drive - sometimes replaced with USB emulator) and are competitive to PSRs from the recent couple of years. From e333-e363 they mainly differ by the lack of multilayered sounds like Cool! and Live! and older DSP chip. A couple of years ago I gave away mine (I had since childhood) for free (back then pried at around 50$, now 2x-3x that price) and it's still being used to this day. When I hear these sounds I get nostalgic, and I'm thinking about getting one of these again.
I had the Yamaha PSR D1 or the DJX keyboard. That thing had some amazing sounds and it had beefy speakers that kicked. Sequencer, sampler, cutoff and resonance knobs, effects, arpeggiator, ribbon controller and more. I've seen it priced between $150 up to $450 on eBay. I loved that thing! ... J
Reminds me of Wesley Willis.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago, Winn Dixie we’re the beef people!
INSURE ONE, IT'S THE INSURANCE SUPER STORE!
When you you first started playing the preset rhythms it intermediately reminded my of some South American bands like Virus, Los Prisioneros and Estados Alterados. ❤
I had the Yamaha PSR-75, even nostalgia can't make me say it was good in any way, but it was cheap and got me going!
Hainbach: "this instrument puts food on the table"
Viewer: Wait. What?
this machine sounds a lot like the 16 bit consoles from the same era. really got that timbre / vibe goin on
I'm fond of saying that music is in the ear of the beholder. For someone like me or you, adding effects or bending those sounds is the way to go.
I myself have a psr-225 gm and what i find myself doing in the rare occasions when i plug it into my interface is turning off the horrible built in reverb and instead running it through valhalla supermassive with some added delay on the brass and organs. You'd be suprised how nice these things sound with some chorus as well, but thats only really with effects, otherwise I'm only using it exclusively as a midi controller right now.
It's got a version of the Take Off! demo song that is somewhat popular in the demo song / midi music community but never has been recorded or extracted as a demo song for whatever reason.
I had keyboard lessons on this psr-340 in the late 90s. I remember I used to play midi files on it with the disk drive.
I hear something of Leonard Cohen's music in this thing... the internet doesn't seem to say that he had one but who knows.
Really enjoyed your frank and honest review and the superb pedal mitigations at the end. Whoever wins this one on eBay will be blessed with a Hainbach original... and the curse of turning it on and off 6 times.
Yamaha's PSR-x40 line came out in '99. I bought the 740 just when they were being discontinued. I ended up with the floor model. Strangely enough, I still have it. I mostly only use it as either a MIDI controller or just to play casually since it's the only one in my setup with built in speakers.
for me the same with the PSR e403... it is still my main midi keyboard for production... and I still love to play randomly some piano tunes if mood kicks in :-) a bit of reverb and other fx and the piano sounds good enough to have some fun exploring new melodies. Actually back in the days (somewhen around 2000) I even learned a lot of songs to play with this keyboard - it has some classical tunes stored inside and the display even shows you the playbacked keys in realtime (and you can slow the bpm down to learn better)... for me it was my gateway into music production when I started to grew up... after quitting piano lessons (as a child)
Thanks for clearing up this mystery 🤣. Actually you can see I asked this question myself some time ago because @0:17 there is my question in the bottom left of the screen :-) My 'kid' brother-in-law is not so young now and has kids of his own. They still have my PSR-340 and amazingly the display is as bright as it was when new, and the floppy drive still works. I think I need to get it back and sell it before they realize its value, or before this 'bubble bursts' !! 😆
This isn’t a matter of facts, it’s a matter of what the markets and trends dictates 🤯
I have been collecting a few PSR models in the hope that this exact craziness might just happen 😆🤘
Newly subbed 🎧✨☺️
I like the yamaha PSS-480 (and similar) series FM synths more. For DSP Yamahas the DJ-X was built cheaply but had an iconic sound.
Got a PSS 680 for nothing and it’s great fun. Also has midi and an actual synth onboard.
You did it! Hainbach made a video of an instrument that REMOVES my gas and makes me feel like listening to anything else fast 🤣😂🤣😂 happy New Year everybody 🙃
This is like the Roland DJ-70/DJ-70mkII. A totally hidden genre and culture around it. Took me years to rebuy one. It was my first sampler. So good.
Oh wow I looked that up and it’s a wonderful! Very tempted.
One of Mike Patton’s favorite weapons.⚡️
I like arranger keyboards. The sounds are pretty corny even on modern ones but they are great if you write music. The sounds are simple but they all work together with no mixing and they are organized in a way that lets you write quickly. Yamaha has always had the best live mode
Well I wouldn't say that something like Genos or Montage have corny sounds.
All things considered, it has very good sound quality. It makes me want to take a deep dive back into some of my old cheesy 90s keyboards.
hah my granny had one of these when I was a kid! this has unlocked some deep deep childhood memories of droning away into headphones on the bagpipe preset.
Idk if I'm alone here but I have such a strong passion for mid 80s to early 2000s digital sound. It's got a real unique charm, and arranged and mixed well can be really magical, where the sample quality hits that "not quite real, but not quite 100% fake either" vibe that feels dreamy and magical in it's own right.
I love the mid 80s to mid 90s rompers, then it cuts off for me
@@Hainbach I grew up on slightly later sound, mostly of the late 90s samples from emu, akai cds, etc in the pc games I played so a lot of that hits nostalgia for me. But aside from that, I stand by what I said. I have many libraries that would be considered outdated but can still sound impressive today, even right next to some of the latest kontakt libraries out there. And then there is again sound that isn't fooling anyone but I really love. One of my passions is sneaking in my mixes "that sound used in this soundtrack" or famous sounds like the D-50 Fantasia Bell or the JV-1080 Pan Pipes aha Or even better, the M1 Universe pad. Which! I actually "caught" friggin Joe Hisaishi using it in his soundtrack for children of the sea! (which really isn't surprising, dude has had a very prolific career in the 80s and 90s in electronic music. His album "Cinderella Labrinth" (which fortunately some people have found vinyl rips) is a real gem, it came the same year as nausicaa and is very much in the same style.
.... Sorry hope I didn't ramble too much? I tend to get very passionate about that stuff
Funny I have one in excellent condition and even with an original box. My father bought it new for my sister when it just came out. Always wondered why the prices of this model are so high and finally you gave me the answer. Thank you!
PS: Can sell, no lowballs, (now) I know what I have 😂
It is $200USD at a local thrift store right now and I think it is waaaay too expensive and frankly, I can not find any value for that price since I have so many of these kind of 90s home keyboards. The PSR540 is worth it though. It has some of the beats and arrangements I love. So ultimately value is personal.
Flip that shit. Lol I’m bout to start searching for these weekly. They look like $35 to most people.
@@danieldemayo6209 That is true, I could but for $200USD plus tax, I will be lucky if I can flip it and not get stuck with it. But you offer a good idea. Very compelling indeed lol. I will check if it is still there collecting dust.
I myself use a Yamaha Psr 540 (I’m not sure I spelled the name correctly) I use this self-playing synthesizer as a midi keyboard. My friend's father gave it to me; they wanted to throw this instrument away because the company it was in was changing offices. This synthesizer has been working for me for about 20 years, although now the key membrane will need to be replaced or repaired.
i have a psr 550, it looks the same. Interesting vlog it has the same presets i think , had it quit on me a few months ago gonna try it with the batterys
Cool video 🙂 You should give also the JVC KB-500 keyboard a try, that comes with analog sound generation. I think it would fit to your style 😊
I have that in storage for ages now. Maybe time to dig it up
@@Hainbach It is possible to carefully press more than one tone selector button for unwanted sounds ;-)
JVC KB-700 and KB-800 are very impressive semi-analogue keyboards with plenty of analogue knobs and really complex analogue PCBs inside. The only downside is that all parts are screwed to the keyboard assembly, thus for cleaning those contacts it needs to be dismantled completely. (Slightly pushing and sliding the silicone domes with a tool through a key gap may help to circumvent this.)
I don't know the model but my sax tutor (in the early 90s) had a keyboard that featured excellent auto-accompaniment. That meant we had something interesting to play over. He just had to hit the chords and we'd honk away!
Other great vintage Yamaha keyboards: PSS 480,580,680,780, PSR 36, DJX (even has a sampler built in), DSR series
And the VSS series, which are some of the best portable keyboards of all time imo
I bought a cheap late 80's / early 90's Kawai FS 750 with a couple broken keys for $15. I made a mold of the keys and cast them in resin. They were glued on kinda crooked, so I named it "Bucky"...as in buck teeth. It is a similar beginners model...but you can make midi tracks entirely on the keyboard though it is a but fussy. Some of the sounds / voices are honestly very pleasent. I would love to see someone cover the Kawai FS 750 or 780.
never thought I would see you playing my first keyboard. My grandfather bought it for me for Christmas in 2000? That piano sound is iconic and the instructional portion of the UI is so hilariously bad. The single note chord follow is basically what led to Wesley Willis entire career. I’m sure it’s still in an attic at my parents. Might be the next generations pt 1.
Oh, Hainbach, dear artist of melodic grace,
Thank you for injecting our lives with color and space,
With synths in hand, you've rescued us from strain,
Leaving the world a more interesting, vibrant domain.
He pressed those keys, a maestro so sly,
Creating sounds that made dull moments fly,
From funky basslines to soaring leads,
His synthesizers cast a magical, sonic seed.
Oh, Hainbach, the master of sound design,
Through the dullest days, you make us all shine,
With oscillators humming and filters that sweep,
You rescue us from a life that's just too cheap.
Each note he played came straight from his heart,
Melting our troubles, as if by some magical art,
His melodies danced and kissed the deepest soul,
Turning mundane moments into something whole.
With every chord, a new story would unfold,
Life's boring tremors he gracefully controlled,
Hainbach, the savior of our monotonous strife,
Spreading joy and groove, he infused into life.
So let the synthesizers sing their joyful tune,
As Hainbach serenades beneath the shining moon,
For with his friendly attitude and sonic might,
He'll guide us through our boring plight.
- Silke F -
How often do you start shooting before unboxing but the instrument is not usable/salvageable?
Every third attempt. I then have to have my tech fix it if its worth it.
Do you ever re-box them for a more exciting video?
Holy Hassenshizzgloffen, I found one about three years ago in a thrift shop. Payed $10 bucks cuz the case was cracked and one key was missing. I painted it brown and glued small gears on it to make it look steam-punk. It's Grand Cheese and very helpless! Love this vid dude!
I still have mine 😊 Had it since I was at school!
I had noticed the mad prices too! When I was 13 I had a 240. It sucked! MIDI was weird, I managed to use it as a controller before I got rid of it, but if anyone pressed the stupid DEMO button for the Star Wars demo, it completely scrambled the patches on the Roland SoundCanvas I had plugged into it
I have something similar, Roland EXR-3. When I play it, I visualize this one man band entertaining drunk people on a ferry between Sweden and Finland.
The patterns sound great for a keyboard from that time period. The sounds don't sound too bad but acheiveable with most freeware synths. But the patterns sound great, as I remember most patterns on keyboards back then being fairly cheesy. These sound like they really put their time into making some good patterns.
I always found every synth has some unique and useful sounds in them.
@@GaitaPontoa sampler?
@@GaitaPontobut want to play on keyboard
The Wesley Willis instrument of choice.
I learned Piano on a PSR-248, a version without the disk drive, and it had the Star Wars opener as its demo track. It has a broken power supply so I might try and get it working to use with pedals for fun!
I have the PSS480. Got it at a resale shop for 8.50$ US. Im not a musician,just a unapologetic noise maker. It makes all the noises I need!!! Howdy from Texas 🤘🤠🤘
I really love coming back to this channel over and over, each time i learn about things i never knew and i just cant express how happy that makes me. Hainbach you're such and amazing musical person to know and learn from, im soo happy i will always come back to this channel with a smile on my face.
Thank you for brightening my morning with this❤️
I still have this keyboard. Didn't realise they were selling for so much!
Not worth €600 no way. This dude got his ass ripped off 😂
I have one! the middle c is missing, and the lcd displays garbage (non readable it's just jumbled). If parts are available, or recommend WHERE i can replace these things, I'd love some ideas! I also have an Alesis QS8 and QS7, but those are not that special and what I call 'generic'. I have an emu 32 as well, missing some memory. Haha, a dusty collection of old stuff that people tossed but now suddenly people are interested! Old reel to reels, 8 tracks, 2" tape machine. I don't use any of it right now, but starting to figure out some space for it.
Personally, if people want these sounds, easy enough to emulate it as the keyboard is NOT that special, just rare now. Maybe Wesley Willis used it or something (he did all his songs on a keyboard with samples).
Honestly, I think the flat-ness of the sounds is appealing when implemented properly, and I have to say, I know mileage may vary but I don't think that sound at 2:05 is flat or lifeless AT ALL. That one is super rich. If I had money to burn I'd buy one just for that (or, you know, just use a sample of it like a sane person).
I used to own a PSR 550 which i used for 19 years. Best used in a Community Function setup, where people dont care about the most professional sound, just want to hear their favourite songs that they can sing to. In this case a single guy with an arranger keyboard is the most cost effectivre solution.
Lovely sounds. I wish I could play keyboard.
I have a Yamaha PSR 310 that I paid $20 CAD for from a used items store . They had no idea what they had. Online I see that used they still go for around 200 bucks CAD. I love it. It has a distinct sound and the 5 pin midi is a bonus, with a Roland UM1 attachment I convert the 5 pin midi into USB midi and plug it into my pc and Ableton and aaawwwaaaaaay weeee goooooo :D
Similarly the ensoniq ts10 is huge in Uzbekistan-lots of amazing sound sets and demo vids.
I have bought a PSR 310 over a year ago for EUR 40. It is 6-year more vintage and has also these styles. Not editable, rather for collectors purpose.
My PSR-550 is gathering dust - as you say the sounds are not too inspiring - mostly one sample covering the whole keyboard. But it was bought a long time ago. I did load in some MIDI files using the disk drive and play them - not sure I would bother with that again and the arranger feature never appealed to me. If only they'd stuck a sampler engine in there
OMG we have one at my parent's home! I used to play with it as a kid and it belongs to my brother!
Somehow I'm reminded of my PSR-320, which I'm not sure qualifies as an arranger keyboard versus a general-MIDI home keyboard. The one thing that made it worth quite a lot to me for a long time as a complete novice hobbyist, was that the drum sounds were surprisingly good. The plain acoustic rock kit was very good, the 808 and 909 were good, and it had this "electronic" gated reverb kit that sounded like nothing I've ever heard before or since with this amazing SMASH kind of sound. It did not sound like a gated reverb kit at all. It did not sound like an RX-whatever with the reverb cranked. It sounded like having your brain punched out of your skull. Also, it had these cartridges you could plug in with songs, and the one that came with mine had "All That She Wants" by Ace of Base. Or was it "The Sign"? Or both?
I still have mine up in the loft 😁
Sold my PSR 320 years ago. Was great fun, but those cartridges....
Some kids got into trouble for sticking PC floppy disks inside, I'm not sure if these keyboards could never read them (I know most keyboards had their own disk formats) or if the drives were just broken and never got fixed by the school. Either way, stuck disks became a recurring tribulation for the teachers.
It's funny, at first I thought I'd remembered wrongly about these being in my school because the speakers seemed smaller compared to the control panel than my memory. Like maybe they had a version with more octaves or something. But after seeing this board from a few different angles in the video, I think this was the one and everything must have just seemed bigger to 12 year old me :)
3.5'' diskettes were mechanically standardized. I doubt that it would damage anything to insert PC diskettes. Perhaps the keyboard crashes and needs reboot, but Yamaha at that time for sure expected this human error and prevented serious harm. The worst thing I imagine (I have no such keyboards) is that the keyboard thinks a PC or Amiga disk is unformatted and so starts to format it (erasing its previous content).