Yamaha PSR-S750 Arranger Workstation

So, Recently, i got a chance to try this amazing Machine, yeah!

The title says it all, recently, while ummmm…..exactly i don’t know what i was doing, but i came across this another offering from Yamaha, the PSR-S750 Arranger Workstation. True to it’s tradition,it offered an amazing sound feedback, crisp notes, and a loads and loads and loads of features. While i had just a week, or maybe a couple of days, but i truly was left with no words for what it was capable of doing!

This 61-key feature-packed music creation machine can handle everything from writing and arranging to recording and performing.It features hundreds of AWM (Advanced Wave Memory) stereo sampled voices, authentically capturing the sound and nuance of many different instruments. Additionally, this model have auto-accompaniment, integrated USB audio recorders, 4 Multi-Pad triggers, digital amplifiers and built-in speakers, and the list continues………

Yamaha PSR-S750 Arranger Workstation

Arriving at the official scene, the specifications as promised by the company are:

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– Keyboard: 61-Key organ-style w/ 5 levels of touch response
– Pitch Wheel: Yes
– Mod Wheel: Yes
– Multi Pads: 126 banks x 4 pads
– Display: 5.7″ B/W LCD w/ Contrast
– Languages: English, German, French,Spanish, Italian
– Sound Source: Tone Generating Technology with AWM Stereo Sampling
– Maximum Polyphony: 128 notes
– Voices: 678 Voices + 28 Drum/SFX Kits + 480 XG Voices + GM2 + GS
– Featured Voices: 38 Super Articulation Voices, 18 Mega Voices, 24 Sweet! Voices, 46 Cool! Voices, 29 Live! Voices, 10 Organ Flutes
– Voice Expansion Capacity: max. 64MB
– Voice Parts: Right 1, Right 2, Left
– Voice Compatibility: XG, XF, GS, GM, GM2
– Built-In Effects: Reverb, Chorus, Master EQ,Part EQ, DSP
– Accompaniment Styles Presets: 325
– Featured Styles: 295 Pro, 30 Session
– Fingering: Single Finger, Fingered, Fingered On Bass, Multi Finger, AI Fingered, Full Keyboard, AI Full Keyboard
– Style Control: 3 x Intro, 4 x Main Variation, 4 x Fill, Break, 3 x Ending
– File Format: Style File Format, Style File Format GE
– Preset Songs: 5
– Song Capacity: Unlimited with flash drive(s)
– Tracks: 16
– Data Capacity: approx. 300KB per song
– Recording Function: Quick Recording, Multi Recording,Step Recording
– Compatible Data Format: Playback: SMF (Format 0 & 1), XF Recording: SMF (Format 0)
– Registration: 8 presets per bank (unlimited banks with USB flash drive(s)
– Lesson/Guide: Performance Assistant Technology: Follow Lights, Any Key, Karao-Key,Your Tempo
– Demo/Help: Yes
– USB Audio Recorder: Playback: WAVRecording: WAV
– Metronome: Yes
– Tempo Range: 5 to 500 BPM, Tap Tempo
– Transpose: -12 to 0 to +12 semitones
– Tuning Calibration: 414.8 to 440 to 466.8 Hz
– Octave Button: Yes
– Scale Type: 9 presets
– Direct Access: Yes
– Text Display Function: Yes
– Voice Creator: Yes
– Style Creator: Yes
– Song Creator: Yes
– Score Display Function: Yes
– Lyrics Display Function: Yes
– Multi-Pad Creator: Yes
– Time Stretch: No
– Pitch Shift: No
– Vocal Cancel: No
– Internal Memory: approx. 1.9MB
– Compatible External Drives: USB flash drives
– Internal Memory for Expansion: approx. 64MB
– Main Outputs: 1 x 1/4″ TRS – L/Mono, 1 x 1/4″ TRS – R
– Headphone Output: 1 x 1/4″ TRS stereo
– Microphone Input: No
– Aux. Input: 1 x 1/8″ TRS stereo mini
– USB-A (to device): Yes
– USB-B (to host): Yes
– MIDI Ports: In / Out
– Foot Pedal: 2 x 1/4″
– Video Output: No
– Amplifiers: 2 x 15W
– Speakers: (2) 5.1 x 2″ (13 x 5 cm) speakers
– DC Input: 16V
– Power Supply: PA-300C or equivalent
– Power Consumption: 13W
– Auto Power Off Function: Yes
– Dimensions (W x H x D): 39.4 x 5.8 x 17.2 in.(1002 x 148 x 437 mm)
– Weight: 24.25 lb (11 kg)

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Whoa! That was a long……very long spec sheet! Impressive……….isn’t it??

It features 678 Voices, including 38 Super Articulation Voices, 18 Mega Voices, 24 Sweet! Voices, 46 Cool! Voices, 29 Live! Voices and 10 Organ Flutes. If you’re not already impressed with the possibilities, Yamaha offers Voice and Style Expansion packs, allowing you to add sampled instruments from all over the world. The PSR-S750’s dual 15-watt stereo speaker system amplifies these sounds beautifully, but you can also plug into to an amp or directly to the house PA via stereo 1/4-inch outputs. PSR-S750 features over 300 pre-loaded styles complete with intros, thematic variations, fill types, breaks, and outros. A range of dedicated controls makes directing your virtual band easier. The powerful Music Finder tool sets a Style, tempo, and variation settings when you select the title of a popular song you want to play. Yeah, not forgetting it also gives along with it, the flexibility to the user to compose his very own, unique backing tracks with realistic and sensational sounds. Another feature to woo you is iPhone, iPod, and iPad connectivity with Yamaha’s i-MX1 interface. Awesome……isn’t it?

To wrap up, The Yamaha PSR-S750 is packed with amazing Voices, Styles and comprehensive features to help you create, arrange, perform and record your music in any genre.
Additionally, the built-in FlashROM lets you load new Voices and Style Expansions (VSE) from around the world..

Yamaha PSR-S750 Arranger Workstation

The user help Display at its best

The various ports by Yamaha on this awesome machine

Digital Audio Workstations (DAW) : What are they?

In today’s World, who doesn’t likes music?

Alright, I didn’t knew how to phrase it until now, Today, amidst daily hectic routine and busy schedule, no matter how busy we are, still there’s always some time for music. (If you haven’t been listening to music, hit up! you aren’t leading a life) But very frankly, those awesome compositions you listen to aren’t composed off by making individual artist sit in studio, play the instruments and record respectively. I mean just imagine, that digital scratch! Do you really think that a man there is sitting there scratching and spinning up disks? No for sure!

This is when, these Digital Audio Workstations alias. DAW come into use! sounds interesting……don’t they? A complex and complicated name which sounds cool….a plenty of drivers and awesome graphics, certainly cool but what are they actually?

If you had been lately searching for some stuff on like “What the hell are DAW?…….or How they manage to produce music digitally??” you have hit right….go on reading!

A digital audio workstation (or DAW) is a computer program that is exclusively designed for the recording, editing and playing of digital audio files. A DAW allows you to edit and mix multiple audio sources simultaneously on a musical timing grid and to visually see how they line up over time. It also makes it easy to synchronize audio clips with each other based on a common tempo, meter, and beat.

whoa….that was the brief definition of a DAW, but…..Technically, a DAW is more than just the software running on your computer. It’s also the hardware: the computer running the software along with any special interfaces routing audio or other signals into and out of the computer….However for simplicity, let us just refer to it as software!

In professional recording studios and in home laptop-based studios, DAWs are the main software being used today…If you have seen any software such as garageband, Renoise, or FL Studio….you have already seen a DAW! :p

Within a DAW, it’s possible to apply effects to audio and control how these effects change over time. It ‘s also simple to remove any previously-applied effect from an audio clip. When you add and change effects in a DAW, it is done non-destructively. In other words, the original audio file on your disk is never changed: only the resulting sound in the DAW.

With today’s DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), they come standard with plugins that can make George Benson sound like Eddie Van Halen without needing to change genres! There are also third party plugins you can try before you buy to see if they do the trick for you. They are usually called “LE” for “Light Edition” that can be downloaded and installed without having to deplete your cash reserves or run up your credit card. So let’s plug that guitar into an audio interface connected to your computer and launch an amp simulator. Finally you have the wall of sound you could have never achieved in the past while mic’ing up an amp. As you tweak the plugin interface, switching out amps, cabinets and effects, you will come to learn something important.  It sounds like a digital amp simulator. Which may be what you are after, but I want to tell you there is another way to get that fat, warm, luscious, creamy, crunchy.

The advantage to recording this way is that you are recording your instrument dry, with only the color and tone of the tube pre being printed.  This will let you track the perfect take, but you are not stuck with the chosen amp simulator sound.  Once you blend your new recorded track in the mix you can now switch amps, effects and adjust gains, equalizer, and compressors. If further into the day, If the guitar appears to thin or to dark sounding, its a quick fix and you do not have to re-track the perfect take. This is called Re-Amping.

The introduction of Digital Audio Workstations certainly revolutionized the way music is produced. Not only it allows you to add effects, re-amp, change and blend your music the way you desire, but also requires minimal installation unlike Big studio’s thousand’s and thousand’s of buck…..

 

Guitar: Types

So, now we know what are guitars (again lame, but we do need to sum up ) , and basically, a brief understanding of their working! So, the next thing is……How many types of guitar’s are there!?

Haha, you may say, “Oh dude, c’mon, acoustic and electric, that’s it….right?”

haha, actually yeah No! there are 10 types of known popular guitars, which are namely….

• Acoustic guitars
• Electric guitars (wait I know u know them! let me add more!)
• Electro-acoustic guitars
• Twelve string guitars
• Arch-top guitars
• Steel guitars
• Resonator guitars
• bass type guitars
• double neck guitar
• Classical Guitar

Actually, even i didn’t knew there are so many, hence referral is needed, (reference: wikibooks)

Now, although there are so many types, but most commonly available are namely few in many places, except for the fact that nation is highly music obsessed, so, we will be talking about acoustic, electric, electro-acoustic, classic

here we go!

Accoustic Guitar:

 

Certainly, the most common types of guitars, easy on wallet, great to ears…..These guitars are made out of thin wood and they have a hollow in between. These guitars can produce quite a bit of volume without any amplifiers. They are used in nearly all types of music.

Electric Guitar:

Hey, now that’s what looks more cool and more familiar, isn’t it?

clearly, electric guitar’s have found an in-dispensable part in today’s gen of music, looking cool, sounding great, a decent one would cost a bit on the higher side…There guitars are made out of a solid piece of wood and rely on electronic pick up systems and amplifiers for the volume….minimal effort is required while plucking however, precision matter’s now!

Electro – Acoustic Guitars :

These guitars have in built pickups so that they can be plugged into PA systems or amplifiers. Most of the guitars that you see on stage are acoustic-electric guitars.

 

Now, this sounds interesting! Yeah! they are uber cool and give out perfect notes! my personal favorite!

Classical Guitars:

These types of guitar’s have been in use since quite long, producing melodious sonics, these types of guitars are mainly used in classical and folk idioms. The strings of these guitars are made out of steel that produces a warm, gentle sound.

 

Yeap, they look pretty similar to the traditional acoustic guitars, but there goes the difference……..STRINGS!

Guitar’s : What are they and how they work ?

Guitar!

Whoa…..Want to get cool…..get a guitar, want to (ahem!) impress someone, get a guitar…..want a sweet melody to compose, play the guitar….want some really awesome thrash metal….lol wont repeat it again ’cause it may get annoying, but you know what was in the place!

so, well we all know what a guitar is (stupid question i know!) so, in case some of the nerds sitting out there having a change in mind, thinking of getting cool (well, i guess even they might know! 😮 no hard feeling guys) , A guitar is a musical instrument that makes sound by the playing of its (typically) six strings with the sound being projected either acoustically or through electrical amplification. Specially for you book lovers, The guitar is a type of chordophone. Hurry Google it! (lol kidding!)

Now, the next part how do they word actually?

i mean c’mon the strings are quite thin, and all and all questions arises, maybe reading further can help you…..

Now, there’s quite a lot of physics involved in it…(yeah right, somethings seem easy, but they aren’t), the reason why i mentioned nerds and book lovers right up there (again no hard feelings!).

so, lets begin this scientific and musical and amazing and confusing journey into opening up your favourite instrument to explore its working…..

Now, there is something called as wave, more specifically sound wave in this case, which is produced by vibrations/disturbance. The number of vibrations per second is called the frequency which is measured in cycles per second or Hertz (Hz). The pitch of a note is almost entirely determined by the frequency: high frequency for high pitch and low for low. For example, 110 vibrations per second (110 Hz) is the frequency of vibration of the A string on a guitar. The A above that (second fret on the G string) is 220 Hz. The next A (5th fret on top E string) is 440 Hz, which is the orchestral tuning A. So, that gives you a fair idea of why strings sound different even though they are tied between same two points…..now to the more interesting part,

The strings

The pitch of a vibrating string depends on four things.

• The mass of the string: more massive strings vibrate more slowly. On steel string guitars, the strings get thicker from high to low. On classical guitars, the size change is complicated by a change in density:
• The frequency can also be changed by changing the tension in the string using the tuning pegs: tighter gives higher pitch. This is what what you do when you tune up.
• The frequency also depends on the length of the string that is free to vibrate. In playing, you change this by holding the string firmly against the fingerboard with a finger of the left hand. Shortening the string (stopping it on a higher fret) gives higher pitch.
• Finally there is the mode of vibration, which is a whole interesting topic on its own, and i guess we must skip it now

The strings themselves make hardly any noise: they are thin and slip easily through the air without making much of disturbance – and a sound wave is a disturbance of the air.

The body

The body serves to transmit the vibration of the bridge into vibration of the air around it. For this it needs a relatively large surface area so that it can push a reasonable amount of air backwards and forwards. The top plate is made so that it can vibrate up and down relatively easily. It is usually made of spruce or another light, springy wood, . On the inside of the plate is a series of braces. These strengthen the plate. An important function is to keep the plate flat, despite the action of the strings. The braces also affect the way in which the top plate vibrates.. The sides of the guitar do not vibrate much in the direction perpendicular to their surface, and so do not radiate much sound.

The air inside

The air inside the body is quite important, especially for the low range on the instrument. It can vibrate a little like the air in a bottle when you blow across the top. This is called the Helmholtz resonance. Another way to hear the effect of this resonance is to play the open A string and, while it is sounding, move a piece of cardboard or paper back and forth across the soundhole. This stops the resonance (or shifts it to a lower frequency) and you will notice the loss of bass response when you close up the hole. The air inside is also coupled effectively to the lowest resonance of the top plate. Together they give a strong resonance at about an octave above the main air resonance. The air also couples the motion of the top and back plates to some extent.

That was the brief, most brief explanation of how this simple (seeming) instrument works, awesome, isn’t it?

so many things behind that pluck of A string!???? 😀

Yamaha PSR-550

keyboard front view

So…to start off….this keyboard is MASSIVE!

When connected to an amp…Can you believe sonic wise it is same! surely it has less voices or styles but it beats hell out of other professional keyboard costing 10 times in price of this machine.

oh….yeah coming over first to specifications….they are namely…

Keyboard: 61 Standard size keys (C1-C6) with Touch Response

Display: Large Backlit Black and White LCD (320 x 240 dots) displays notation, lyrics and chords

Voices:
– Total Number: 774 Voices+22 Drum Kits
– Compatibility: General MIDI (GM) & XGlite Compatible
– Piano Voice Quality: Stereo High Resolution
– Sweet! Voices, Cool! Voices, Live! Voices: Dedicated buttons
– Dual / Split: Yes / Left, Duel
– Drum Kits: 22 Drum Kits
– Polyphony: 64 Note

Auto Accompaniment:
– Styles: 176 styles
– Variations: 4- Variation A~D & Fill
– One Touch Settings: 4 per style
– Registration Memory: 8 x 8 Banks
– Music Database: 500 setups by song title

Digital Effects:
– Reverb: 36 types
– Chorus: 45 types
– DSP: 239 types
– Harmony: 26 types

Sequencer:
– 16 tracks to record your own songs (15 Melody + 1 Chord)
– 5 User songs +10,000 Notes

Real Time Control: Pitch Bend Wheel

Auxiliary Jack: Phones/Output, DC in 16V, USB to host (MIDI In/Out), USB to device (optional storage devices), Sustain

Amplifier: 12W + 12W

Speakers: 12cm x 2 + 3cm x 2

Dimensions (W x D x H): 37.2 x 15.8 x 5.1 in. (945 x 402 x 130 mm)

Weight: 16.5 lbs (7.5kg)

Power Supply: PA-300 Power Cord

Now….these specifications certainly looks exciting, but frankly speaking, if you are coming and buying a professional keyboard for the first time (yeah! professional keyboard), this may all look interesting, sound exciting, but what they actually mean?? Haha, and yeah, the reason i said professional was certainly because, for a beginner’s keyboard, even ones with basic config do, but now we are talking big….aren’t we?

So………This keyboard, with the same excitement and galore i started above, is MASSIVE. Provides you a 16 track ( 15 melody and 1 chord track) sequencer, which in simple language means that it allows more than 1 instrument to be recorded at once!

For those wanting to see lyrics and the sheet music that accompanies an artist’s song, or even your own, can now get what they want with the Backlit LCD Screen built into the PSR-S550 which displays lyrics, chords, and notation. This is a great way to learn how to read music, and since the pages scroll automatically, you don’t have to worry about flipping pages to sheet music any longer!

– There are many features of this arranger that make you a fall in love with it on the first day itself, these include:
– Music Database with 500 complete keyboard setups by song title
– One Touch Settings with factory recommended setups for each style in the keyboard
– Registration Memory with digital snapshots of all your keyboard settings

The Yamaha PSR-S550 is a 61 Key Arranger Workstation that gives you all the features and quality of a professional arranger you need, but for a price you can afford! That makes this arranger a great addition to any serious musician’s collection.

keyboard side view