Yamaha PSR-S700 and PSR-S900

One knob - one orchestra. That's the feeling I had as I tested this two workstations by Yamaha.

On the first view, this two devices fits well for single musicians and entertainers - but this devices provides more than just playing on the next wedding party.





While I was visiting our local Yamaha store to get a new guitar, I've seen this two workstations - directly beside the Tyros - the flagship for music creation.

The PSR-S700 and the PSR-S900 becomes more interesting to me, because it's price is just the half of the Tyros and starts at about $999 for the S700 and $1599 for the S900.

So I started with turning on the S700 in assistance of the salesperson. The display is easy to read, starts up with the Yamaha logo and shows everything required in one window including tabs for further details.

So I started to try out the basic features: I need to become an entertainer now.

With selecting a style of music (there are 205 Styles in 11 Categories) the first and important step is finished. Automated selection of fitting instruments and drum patterns - the S700 starts it's life.

Now it's just needed to press one key in the right node, and the backing instruments starting with everything needed with high quality instruments. With one touch the leading instrument(s) could get changed and the jam starts.

The same procedure works with the S900 - from the built in speakers I could not hear any difference between them.

Ok, that's the part for entertainers. But what about me as musician - I'll play real guitar and need more flexible backings for my ideas.




This was the second part I tested with these two instruments. So I built up my home studio environment with my notebook, soundcard and a recorded drum & bass track.

Now it's easier as ever before. Simply selection of an instrument (the S700 includes in total 813 of them) and the jam starts. Recording every required instrument as single track makes fun and I couldn't stop doing that.

The quality of the sounds are pritty great - some of them also came out of the Tyros.

Based on this, I tried to find out where's the big difference between the S700 and S900 for this needs (simply using the instruments).

So the really big difference of this two devices is the integrated microphone support + vocal harmoniser at the S900. So the workstation could also get used for vocal performances in high quality.

In fact, this two devices are really great for a music production environment - professional and home recording. Compared with the double priced Tyros, the S700 provides a fair price and high quality environment - the S900 with about + $500 could help for high quality vocal recordings in addition (much lower than external equipment with same features could cost).