PSR-300
PortaTone
Electronic Keyboard
The PSR-300 is an early 1990s Yamaha digital keyboard, featuring first-generation AWM (Advanced Wave Memory) waveform ROM. Notable characteristics of this accompaniment keyboard include 100 AWM voices, a polyphony of 28 notes, 50 auto-accompaniment styles, touch response, MIDI, stereo speakers, and 15 demo songs. Other nice features include split and fingered mode for the left hand, separate controls for accompaniment volume, transpose, and tempo, and a dedicated button for setting the split point. |
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The accompaniment controls consist of an "intro/fill in" button, a "synchro start on-off/ending" button, and the obligatory start/stop button. You can also layer two voices using the "Dual Voice" on-off button (great for improving/fattening the base sounds). Then there is the "sustain" button I was talking about earlier, and a "Harmony" control (adds harmonized parts to the right hands) - you can pick between Duet, Trio, Block, Country and Octave harmonized parts, very handy, especially with the jazz styles. A typical omission for keyboards of this era is the absence of an input for a sustain pedal - In its place, we find a "Sustain" on-off button on the front panel (I remember a similar setup on my very first digital keyboard, the Gem DSK-8). Even though the early sampling technology is a bit raw, certain tones are absolutely a joy to play, and several of them are very nice-sounding. Some of the synth string patches even exhibit a retro analog nature. |
14 WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS
Voice name with audio demo | My comments |
00 PIANO | A decent sampled piano tone. |
02 ELECTRIC PIANO 1 | A nice FM piano |
08 CELESTA | Very nice and sweet celesta patch. |
10 PIPE ORGAN 1 | Realistic and solemn organ. |
14 ELECTRIC ORGAN 3 | Cool, happy electric organ typical of the 1960s. |
17 ACCORDION | Very nice. |
22 JAZZ GUITAR | Clean jazz guitar patch. |
30 VIOLIN 1 | Ok |
41 MUTE TRUMPET 1 | Nice and brassy. |
51 CLARINET | Nice clarinet |
59 GLOCKEN | Sparkly glockenspiel |
61 CHORUS 1 | Curiously analog-sounding, ethereal choir patch |
63 SYNTH REED 1 | Ok |
71 SYNTH STRINGS 3 | Analog |
72 SYNTH STRINGS 4 | More analog strings |
75 SYNTH BRASS 1 | Classic 1980s syn-brass |
77 FANTASY 1 | Nice synthesizer tone. |
79 STAR LIGHT 1 | Beautiful, dreamy sound. |
85 WOOD BASS 1 | Surprisingly realistic jazz contrabass :-) |
89 SYNTH BASS 3 | Nice |
92 HARMONICA | Realistic |
95 ORCHESTRA HIT 1 | Typical orchestra stab |
97 VOICE BOX | Raw sampled vox |
99 DRUMS | Limited quantity offering, but good samples! |
Style name with audio demo | My comments |
00 DANCE 1 | Nice late '80s beat |
04 NEW JACK SWING 2 | Back then, New Jack Swing was popular. |
06 ROCK 1 | Classic retro rock. |
13 SHUFFLE | Cool "Roadhouse Blues style" beat. |
22 SWING 2 | Very nice jazzy feel. |
25 DIXIELAND | Superb! :-) |
31 SAMBA | Great marimba sound. |
37 REGGAE 1 | Nice |
45 COUNTRY & WESTERN | Nice fiddle and banjo action. |
46 HAWAIIAN | Relaxed |
Features at a glance | |
Year of release: | 1991 |
Polyphony: | 28-note |
Presets: | 100 voices |
Rhythms: | 50 rhythms |
Keyboard: | 61-note (5 octaves) |
Responds to velocity: | yes |
Responds to aftertouch: | no |
Sound generation method: | AWM |
MIDI: | in, out |
Sound expansion capabilities: | no |
Effects: | no |
Controls: | buttons |
Outputs: | aux/headphones single jack |
Display: | alphanumeric, two red digits |
Misc: |
available at www.yamaha.com
SITE | Type of resource | DESCRIPTION |
home page | ||
Yamaha PSR-300 review with audio demo