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#102674 - 07/24/06 08:24 AM
My opinion of the PSR E403
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Member
Registered: 06/10/00
Posts: 624
Loc: Allentown, PA, USA
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After looking around and trying to decide which "hold-me-over" board to buy I went with the new Yamaha E403. I am a keyboard hobbiest, not a pro. But I do have a fascination for keyboards, so in the past I have had all the major boards from Technics, Roland, and Yamaha. Right now, I have a 3 yr. old Roland digital piano (KR7), which I suppose, could be described as a full-blown 88-key VA5 in oak. I have no portable board at this time. I am waiting for the successor to the PSR3000.
All that to say I "needed" something cheap to cure my 'portable arranger keyboard withdrawal' after selling my PSR3000 to pay taxes (ouch). Hence, the purchase of the Yamaha E403 (paid $194 off the shelf, including a free power converter) This is in no way a pro board, but in my opinion, any pro could make this board sound great. It's got just enough good stuff on it to make it sound fabulous for the price. Here are some of the cool and useable features:
- 61 'Yamaha' keys w/touch response - Pitch bend - 116 panel voices, 12 drum kits, 361 XGlite voices, 15 arpeggio voices -"Sweet" Voices: tenor sax, sop sax, trumpet, flute, pan flute - "Cool" Voices: Galaxy el. piano, organ, rotor organ - Stereo sampled piano (PSR 2100 quality) - USB to PC - Arpeggiator! (50 patterns) - 2 real-time control knobs (reverb, chorus, filter cutoff, filter resonance, attack time, release time, style and arp tempo, style cutoff, style resonance) Yes, you can create and save changes. - dual, split voice, harmony - 155 styles (user styles, too) (one intro/ending, 2 variations, auto fill) - 6 track sequencer - 32 voice poly - 30 internal songs, user songs (up to 99) - Music Database (256 song setups) - Registration memory (8 banks, 2 types) - Performance assistant technology - Yamaha Education Suite - Outputs: phone/out, DC in, USB, Sustain - 2 two-way speakers (just OK) - cool blue backlit screen & orange-glow buttons - 15 lbs. (without the 6 D batteries)
Things I miss on this board: DSP, mixer, more intros & endings.
For the price, it is outstanding. I have mine connected to a 200 watt amp, 2 Samson Resolv65's, and my little Behringer 1202fx mixer and it sounds real fine.
This (under)$200 board, compared to the PSR3000, which cost nearly 8 times more, is really a bargain and a lot of fun.
Tim
_________________________
Tim Schaeffer
----------------------------------------------------------- YAMAHA CVP-509 / Korg Pa300
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#102675 - 07/24/06 08:33 AM
Re: My opinion of the PSR E403
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Senior Member
Registered: 10/08/00
Posts: 4715
Loc: West Virginia
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For the price I'd say you got a great deal. Especially on the XG end. If you had XG works, or another good computer sequencing progams it will open up so much more for that keyboard. I like that Yamaha includes that great sweet saprano sax on the lower models Squeak
_________________________
GEAR: Yamaha MOXF-6, Casio MZX-500, Roland Juno-Di, M-Audio Venom, Roland RS-70, Yamaha PSR S700, M-Audio Axiom Pro-61 (Midi Controller). SOFTWARE: Mixcraft-7, PowerTracks Pro Audio 2013, Beat Thang Virtual, Dimension Le.
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#102677 - 07/24/06 08:50 AM
Re: My opinion of the PSR E403
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Senior Member
Registered: 10/08/00
Posts: 4715
Loc: West Virginia
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Ya know the funny thing is that I've come close myself to buying a lower budget Yammie just to get that Sweet Saprano Sax In my opinion that is one of Yammie's BEST sweet voices to date. They nailed that one. I swear it's like Kenny G is singing to you through that voice ![](http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/smile.gif) Actually let me add one more voice to that. That Sweet Oboe is also very impressive. Personally I love the Oboe (I know it's not a favorite instrument, but there's something about the sound that I love) Squeak [This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 07-24-2006).]
_________________________
GEAR: Yamaha MOXF-6, Casio MZX-500, Roland Juno-Di, M-Audio Venom, Roland RS-70, Yamaha PSR S700, M-Audio Axiom Pro-61 (Midi Controller). SOFTWARE: Mixcraft-7, PowerTracks Pro Audio 2013, Beat Thang Virtual, Dimension Le.
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#102680 - 07/24/06 09:24 AM
Re: My opinion of the PSR E403
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Senior Member
Registered: 10/08/00
Posts: 4715
Loc: West Virginia
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That would be great if Yammie added an arpeggiator to the 3100. I know I've mentioned it in the past, but the only other arranger I can think of in the last eight years that Yamaha has made with an arpeggiator was the Original DJX. There were some preset arps on it, but you couldn't program your own--still they were useful.
If the 3100 has 76 keys--hell that alone will be worth it. Even though the 3000 didn't fit my needs for (more modern styles), if there were a 76 key version--I may have a closer look.
Anyways sorry to go off topic.
Tim thanks for your opinions on the E403--Can you post some demos of it in action for us?
Squeak
[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 07-24-2006).]
_________________________
GEAR: Yamaha MOXF-6, Casio MZX-500, Roland Juno-Di, M-Audio Venom, Roland RS-70, Yamaha PSR S700, M-Audio Axiom Pro-61 (Midi Controller). SOFTWARE: Mixcraft-7, PowerTracks Pro Audio 2013, Beat Thang Virtual, Dimension Le.
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#102685 - 07/24/06 10:05 AM
Re: My opinion of the PSR E403
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Senior Member
Registered: 10/08/00
Posts: 4715
Loc: West Virginia
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Actually I wasn't looking for anything specific. I thought other's may be interested in hearing the E403 (considering the price they go for--and what all it does). You can post anything you choose ![](http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/smile.gif) There are several ways you can post some samples. You can plug directly into your computers line in jack, if you have audio recording software on your computer you can use that, if you have an external recorder such as hard disk, or SM/CF card recorders--you can use those to record the audio then transfer to the PC for sharing. What I do is simple. I have a Fostex MR-8 digital recorder (CF card as recording medium). The unit records it at 44.1khz, and I can then use the Fostex to convert the file to a stereo wav file. I then take out the CF card, slide it into my 9 in 1 card reader on my computer. Drag the file to the desktop. Then use itunes to convert it to MP-3 (otherwise the actual wav. file turns out to be huge).. ![](http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/smile.gif) Then I use yousentit.com to share the file with the Zone. That's of course my method--as I don't have my own website, or web space for that matter. Squeak
_________________________
GEAR: Yamaha MOXF-6, Casio MZX-500, Roland Juno-Di, M-Audio Venom, Roland RS-70, Yamaha PSR S700, M-Audio Axiom Pro-61 (Midi Controller). SOFTWARE: Mixcraft-7, PowerTracks Pro Audio 2013, Beat Thang Virtual, Dimension Le.
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#102688 - 07/24/06 12:25 PM
Re: My opinion of the PSR E403
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Member
Registered: 06/10/00
Posts: 624
Loc: Allentown, PA, USA
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Rolandfan, The sweet sop voice sounds the same to me, as the one that's in the T2 and the one that was in the PSR3000. How does what compare to the E09? The sop. sax or the entire keyboard? Roland's sop. sax don't hold a candle to the Yammy's sweet sax. However, the E09 in general is a much more serious keyboard. Many of the best Roland voices live in the E09, including a fabulous stereo piano and beautiful stereo strings. It has a number of features not in the E403: 64 poly...multi-effects...16 track sequencer...L/R outs...MIDI in/out ports...more powerful speaker system to name a few. On the other hand, it costs almost 3x as much, too. Lacking on the E09 is USB, arpeggiator, and the ability to import files (styles and songs). That is my comparison from what I could gather and comprehend from internet info. Your experience may differ. ![](http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/smile.gif) Tim
_________________________
Tim Schaeffer
----------------------------------------------------------- YAMAHA CVP-509 / Korg Pa300
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#102704 - 08/02/06 01:16 AM
Re: My opinion of the PSR E403
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Senior Member
Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 6020
Loc: NSW,Australia
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Hi Scott, trying to use 2 arranger keyboards midied together is not easy, especially if you're expecting one to play the styles & the other to be the soundsource for those styles. OMB would be better suited to do that, but probably not much point using OMB with Tyros soundsource. You'd sort of be doubling up on the one kind of keyboard. If you had a Roland or Ketron etc , then omb gives you the option of having a defacto psr. If you have an inexpensive psr or dgx, OMB gives you functions not available on these less expensive keyboards, stuff like style editing etc. In my case, apart from using soundfounts as a soundsource for OMB, I also use my Yamaha Clavinova CLP170 as controller & soundsource. My Clav doesn't have styles, but using it with OMB gives me a defacto CVP. It does have a full xg soundset, so I don't need to do quite as much tweaking as I would if it only had GM sounds. I also use my Ketron SD1 with OMB. Rather than converting a psr style to Ketron format ( conversions don't always work), I use OMB as arranger & Ketron as soundsource. The drums require a bit more tweaking because they're GM. I sometimes use my Clavinova as controller & for piano melody (and use sd1 as soundsource for the omb styles. The program is very versatile. I think nearly any multi timbral, midi keyboard or synth can become a defacto psr. The amount of tweaking the styles will require depends on whether the keyboard/synth/soundmodule is GM or XG. Using a hardware soundsource isn't quite as complicated to get the hang of as a softsynth.. best wishes Rikki Originally posted by Scott Langholff: Rikki
That is a very interesting idea now that I am kind of playing around with soft arrangers.
I wonder if that would be any easier than when I tried to use a Technics KN2600 for styles and use the Tyros for its better sounds?
_________________________
best wishes Rikki 🧸
Korg PA5X 88 note SX900 Band in a Box 2022
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