social.noyu.me

i put my money where my mouth is!!! (re: https://social.noyu.me/@hikari/statuses/01JBXQS2VBA5Q92G4SW3BNHMNH) but also i've been lusting after this forever and finally had an excuse. Yamaha PSS-A50 let's go

‪you can't really see it in the photo and i can't take more photos rn but i have to say i am really impressed by how shiny and nice the packaging is, especially for something that costs this little. they really want to sell you on it. better than on more expensive yamaha products!‬

Yamaha CBX-K1XG (1995)
Yamaha PSS-A50 (2020)

product packaging

Yamaha CBX-K1XG (1995)
Yamaha PSS-A50 (2020)

the things as they are

‪oh man the build quality of this thing is so much more premium despite having a price something like three to five times less even without adjusting for inflation. and the keys are so much easier to play…‬

the keys feel soft. lush. gentle. premium more than anything

yeah they really made the right sacrifices to meet that price tag because i would gladly have paid twice as much for something this nice

I LOVE THE ELECTRIC PIANO ARE THEY TRYING TO HOOK ME AND MAKE ME WANT A REFACE CP BECAUSE it's working oh my god (the reface cp has the same keybed but is a dedicated high-quality e-piano mini-keyboard!!)

i am really not surprised that that jazz pianist/keyboardist i follow on youtube likes this thing so much it is so nice

(you should subscribe to Masataka Kono's youtube channel he is so lovely)

seriously how is this, which is by far the cheapest (at original MSRP) dedicated keyboard i own, the one with the best keybed. i know, i have refused to buy a modern midi controller and almost all the other stuff i own is like 1990's prosumer gear but Still. what

i'm really impressed by how much i like the single mono built-in speaker too. or rather impressed by how much i am not disliking it? i'm just not noticing it! i'm forgetting that i'm not wearing earphones and getting lost in the sounds. that's a very good thing

‪the jazz guitar tone and this lovely keybed are making me very very happy‬

‪this is going to sound like i've lost it but i'm having so much fun with this thing i can Feel my keyboard skill increasing just by playing it. it's just. particularly easy and satisfying to play. compared to all the other keyboards i have‬

‪lmao they categorised the saxophone as woodwind rather than brass. that certainly is a choice (probably to avoid you having to press the button too many times)‬

‪i don't think most of the orchestral stuff is much to write home about but i appreciate that it's there? and i appreciate that the synth leads reflect that society has moved beyond general midi and instead are relatively usable stuff (i say this as a known general midi defender!)‬

‪IT HAS A TR-808 COWBELL SAMPLE!!!!! VERY IMPORTANT‬

and it has a vibraphone and a marimba. so basically everything i could reasonably want tbh.

by the way, though it does not fully support General MIDI, it does map the things it does have in a GM and XG-compatible fashion!

‪i can tell i am going to have a lot of fun with the “arpeggio” (not exactly an arpeggiator but something more interesting) and “motion effect” features‬

this is the keyboard for you if you want to play funky jazztronica. like you put a jazz rhythm on the dance drumkit and do a jazzy thing on the jazz guitar and apply filter effects. in other words, this keyboard was made for me

i can already tell and i already knew from prior research that the many limitations of this thing's features (each of which gets precious few buttons) will annoy me. but it probably has the right limitations. i can always do fun stuff even if it's not always exactly what i want

and all the limitations really only matter if you aren't connecting it to a computer or other midi device! what a blessing

‪seriously these 37 mini keys are a real joy to play. thank you Yamaha for taking the Reface keybed and putting it in a $100 product without removing the MIDI out‬

‪ok so. the built-in sounds of the Yamaha PSS-A50‬

‪the good news is that they're the Yamaha PSR sounds, i think? definitely that piano is. that's also the bad news if they're not to your taste. but i love some of these and i'm beyond excited i can throw them in a backpack‬

i've had this problem for a while now where my biiiig old yamaha psr has my favourite piano tone but i haven't had access to it for half of this year, and i've been stuck with the CBX-K1XG that isn't a good substitute in that department. i wish i had gotten the PSS-A50 earlier!

‪i think i was, genuinely, underestimating this thing because of how cheap it is. and i must underscore that is is cheap and this does come with limitations. but man do i like these particular limitations…‬

‪Yamaha PSS-A50 pro-tip: yeah the number of built-in drum “arpeggios” (drumbeats really) is pretty limited. but you can use any of the non-drum arpeggios on drums as well. with some creativity you can find interesting beats :3‬

i'm like one of those music producers in those annoying VST subscription ads who's like “oh man this is already giving me ideas” except it's true and i wasn't paid to say this

‪oh hell yes you can record a sequence of arpeggiated chords and loop the recording and then play ANOTHER arpeggio on top without it having to use the same arpeggio style or voice or chord. i was not expecting that to actually work this is So Good‬

this is a lean mean ideas machine. i say “ideas” because all the features offer myriad creative possibilities, but you can at best layer three different things at once, one of which is played live, and you'll need something external to record the idea into, but it's… So much fun

okay here's a real example of why i'm enjoying the Yamaha PSS-A50 so much. this $100 toy keyboard lets me:

• play three arpeggiated chords, record and loop this
• play another arpeggio and “hold” it on top
• play piano live on top
• apply a “motion effect”

kinda grooveboxy :3

recording notes:

• audio out is 2× unbalanced mono on a stereo jack. this means if you plug it into a mono input on an audio interface with a TRS (three ring) cable you'll get silence. you need a splitter-/Y-cable or a TS (two ring) cable
• noise floor's decent at max volume

girls will really look at a $100 toy keyboard from Yamaha with USB MIDI that "does not support the [General MIDI] format" and go "challenge accepted"

>:3

ehehehe i hooked up the PSS-A50 (37-key mini-keyboard, 2020) to my PC and then let the PC route the MIDI input to my PSR-350 (61-key mid-range home keyboard, 2001), and the drum loops sound exactly the same. it becomes a three-speaker setup which enhances the bass ehehehe

another cool thing about the PSS-A50 is if you put batteries in it you can use the phrase recorder to save a little musical idea whenever you stumble on it, then when you aren't busy with more important things you can connect it to your computer and record back the MIDI over USB

‪i am still in the honeymoon phase for this product but… maaaan i already feel like it's either my best or my 2nd best purchase out of all my music gear, and it's also the 2nd cheapest of all the things i've bought, it's ridiculous. i feel the barriers to creativity falling away‬

@hikari *nods* I'm glad a musician recognises the need for more cowbell

@hikari YES, 808 COWBELL!! :D

@hikari fun fact the saxophone actually is a woodwind! it's a reed instrument, like the clarinet

@hikari I have never seen a sax categorized as brass, only as woodwind. The fact that the body is brass is secondary to the fact it has a reed mouthpiece.

@hikari But even under General Midi, the Sax is grouped with the other Reed instruments (then followed by proper woodwinds under Pipe for GM1 and Wind for GM2) and isn't considered Brass

@hokaze but GM has a reed category!!

@hikari Sorry, this might be my brain being mush or me not understanding the particulars of how yamaha keyboards setup their instruments but I don't understand what you're getting at?

I may have also written my reply poorly with the implicit about brass = wrong not made explicit

Your toot: sax is listed as woodwind instead of brass lmao

My toot: it should be listed under Reed per the GM spec, but woodwind is also technically correct, a sax definitely isn't a brass instrument though (despite being made of Brass, that's not what actually defines it)

Your toot: but GM has a reed category

Me: ???

@hikari uhm that's because it is a woodwind, isn't it?

@hikari i got a reface CP a couple of months ago and it's really nice to just have something i can play casually while sitting on the sofa the same way i would a guitar. the sounds a very usable in a mix, quite good for doing demos (i plug mine into a zoom R12). it has that secret hidden stereo grand piano setting too which is handy. it would have been nice if they'd put in a secret hidden entire XG tone generator though, but maybe i'm being unreasonable

@jk yeahhhh i wish also, a girl can dream

@hikari i've played a lot of keyboards over the years and the reface is the only small-nonstandard keybed i've ever used that's actually remotely good?? in general i think 80s yamahas have very good action, i use a DX7 mk1 as my main controller despite it only outputting MIDI up to vel 100 (it almost predates MIDI and they misunderstood the standard) just because it's SO springy, which i love. mid-late-80s (DX7mkII/SY77 etc, the korgs after the buyout) are more normal but still very high quality

@hikari even the expensive rolands seem a bit hit and miss imo, they're about as good as the yamaha PSR type stuff i used to play on as a kid. some of the velocity-less synths can have a really good action, but most generally don't, and aren't that useful as a controller. a notable mention is a real fender rhodes, which is heavy but SO bouncy that you can play way faster than you'd think, the keys almost whack your fingers on the way back up. so much energy to it i've never seen on anything else

@hikari of the two steinway grand pianos i've played in my life both were so incredibly light and precise that i wish i hadn't. every keyboard i've touched since has lowkey made me feel like i was playing it with gloves on

@hikari do it, it's amazing!

@hikari highest honour a product can receive tbh