The Amazing Yamaha PSR-3000

The Amazing Yamaha PSR-3000

            The Yamaha PSR-3000 is an amazing digital keyboard for the money.  For around $2,000.00 USD the keyboard is packed with functions that are included in keyboards costing thousands of dollars more.  Some of the interesting options that come standard on the PSR-3000 are a USB to device connector port that allows you to connect to external hard drives, Flash Memory Sticks, floppy drives and Internet broadband connection capabilities.  There are In and Out MIDI ports, Main Out, Auxiliary Fixed Level Output, Auxiliary Input, Microphone/Line Input, Input volume knob, Video Out, Foot Pedal 1 and 2, USB to Host and Device and a LCD Contrast adjustment knob all located on the back of the keyboard.  This is just the back of the keyboard and it is just amazing!

            A musician’s dream that is what this keyboard is.  For a relatively small price you can have the capability of a full blown studio that you would pay hundreds of dollars per hour for a few years ago.  So how could that be?  Thanks to the advancement of digital audio technology, sounds, effects, sequencing, mixing and mastering can all be done on the PSR-3000 digital keyboard.  The Yamaha Corporation has come a long way since its inception on October 1^st, 1987.   On the front of the keyboard are multi-pads, buttons and dials that allow you to change the parameters of the keyboard. 

            Other features include a music holder that connects directly to the top back part of the keyboard so you can prop up sheet music in front of you while you play. Oh, and if you are into Karaoke then this is the keyboard for you.  You can “play” karaoke files via a USB flash drive or upload files from a memory card inserted into the front SmartMedia storage card slot located on the bottom of the keyboard.  You can store MIDI, STYLE, REGISTRATION and SYSTEM DUMP files on either flash memory medium.  The keyboard comes preloaded with USER files and you can create your own and store them to your memory media.  The keyboard can also act as a conduit that allows you to transfer files from one type of memory medium to another. 

            There is a large QVGA color screen located smack dab in the middle of the keyboard.  This is the Holy Grail; this is the control portal for all the functions of the PSR-3000 workstation.    You navigate the screen functions by pressing buttons surrounding the screen that interact with the graphic tabs displayed within the screen area.  There are many other silver colored buttons all over the top of the keyboard that control other keyboard workstation functions.  Along with these silver buttons there are brown rubber “multi-pads” that allow you to instantly setup and control the keyboard. For example, styles have 1 to 4 variations that you can switch to instantly using multi-pads on the left side of the keyboard.  On the right side, multi-pads control the setup of the keyboard instantly with a single touch. And let's not forget the Tap Tempo button that provides a method of tapping in the tempo speed.  You tap this large silver button four times and the keyboard will start the style or song tempo at a rate that equals an average of the time between the four taps.  Did you get that?  Moving right along, there are transport control buttons like those found on the front of a tape deck.  These allow you to stop, play, pause, and advance and reverse the status of song play. 

            The sounds in the keyboard are generated by a sophisticated AWM Tone Generation chip.  This keyboard can play 128 sounds at the same time (polyphonic) and comes with a set of 12cm and 4cm dome speakers built in.  It is capable of recording and playing 16 tracks simultaneously which can be “bounced down” to create an almost infinite number of virtual tracks.  The drum kits included with the keyboard are extensive, from jazz, hip-hop or trance any drum kit you can think of comes standard with the PSR-3000.  There is also a “Player Assist” function that helps to teach you how to play or sing.  For example there are special song files that will stop playing if you are off-key (remember the microphone can plug directly into the back of the keyboard) the PSR-3000 will wait for you to sing the proper note and continue playing once you have hit the right note.  

            You can show Karaoke words or sheet music scroll graphics on a TV with the video RCA connector located on the back of the keyboard.  Connect directly to the Internet and download content from the keyboard's web browser.  We can go on and on but this may be a good place to stop.  We can revisit the Yamaha PSR-3000 at a later date.  To describe all the nuances of the functions for this keyboard would take hundreds of pages; we will start here for now.  With all of these functions and then some, the PSR-3000 Digital Workstation Keyboard is truly amazing!