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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…
YAMAHA DEFAULT GRAND PIANO TONE MY BELOVED 🥺
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
long post about why i really like the PSS-A50's “arpeggios” system compared to other Yamaha “styles” systems
i am really enamoured with the PSS-A50's “arpeggios” feature. it feels like i finally found the version of Yamaha's “styles” system that actually really clicks with me. i've tried two other takes on this before, the PSR-350's auto-accompaniment and the QY70's pattern system…
the PSS-A50 arpeggios have two really important features:
- flexibility: i can take any of the 116 built-in patterns (intended for various instrument types!) and play them on any instrument with any chord in any octave
- immediacy: it responds instantly to the chord i am currently playing (and its notes' velocity!), so i can very naturally alternate chords or start and stop or whatever in real time
and then these round out the package:
- you can press a button that will “hold” an arpeggio, so it just loops in the background
- you can change out the pattern of a held arpeggio while it's playing
- you can record arpeggios into a phrase and loop it (separate from a held arpeggio)
on the PSS-A50, you only have those 116 patterns stored in ROM, and you can only layer two arpeggios at once in the way i described. that's pretty limiting! but it's just so easy to do stuff within those constraints…
on the other hand, while the QY70 may let you layer 24 things, both custom ones and built-in ones (and there's like, hundreds of patterns in ROM), it's so much clunkier. and then on the PSR style system, well, you don't even control what the individual layers are; Yamaha have picked a set of layers and instruments for you, all you get to pick is the chord. that's way less flexible! high-end PSRs do let you edit these but it's even clunkier ^^; (and i don't own a high-end one anyway)
so in the end, the system that wins for me, if i just want to get in the zone creatively and come up with ideas, is the one i can most directly “play” with in interesting ways, and the PSS-A50 is doing great at that :3
on its own i can't make a full song, but there's MIDI I/O…
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