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.


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.

 

Yamaha PSR-300 factory demo songs:

00 ORIGINAL THEME

01 SING

02 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

03 SPRING

04 CARMEN

05 GRANDFATHERS CLOCK

06 MINUET

07 SOMETHING

08 HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN

09 EDELWEISS

10 LA CUCARACHA

11 AMARYLIS

12 O, VRENELI

13 GREENSLEEVES

14 WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

Yamaha PSR-300 audio demos in mp3:

 

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:  

 

Yamaha PSR-300 pictures (click on thumbnails to enlarge)

   

Yamaha PSR-300 manual

available at www.yamaha.com

Links

 

SITE Type of resource DESCRIPTION
    home page
     

Yamaha PSR-300 review with audio demo