The PSR-9000 is rather old news now. However, I wrote a pretty comprehensive review about it, which is also published on Epinions.com. If you like to read more of my reviews, please sign up with Epinions.com and gimme some ratings.

Here comes the review:

The PSR-9000 is imho the perfection of the all-in-one arranger keyboard. I have never seen or heard about another keyboard that would offer the enormous feature set and sound capacity of this unit (except for the Pro version). I can say that because I have owned (and still own some) comparable boards and modules.

My first Yamaha keyboard was an Electone organ with accompaniment system and built-in rotary speaker, which had already an incredible sound for the time. This was long before the MIDI standard had been developed. Yamaha has a long history in the field of both home and portable organs and arranger keyboards, always being among the top choices. Their PSR models are a world wide top seller today, the PSR-9000 being the flagship of the fleet. Although Yamaha has been making all kinds of keyboards, which have not been all that successful, their arranger keyboards have never been out of sync with the market.

The PSR-9000 comes loaded with a considerable set of features, which covers all standard requirements and then adds some more. See the Specification section at the end of this review for all the details!


What you get

- PSR-9000 keyboard
- Music Stand
- Floppy Disk
- AC Power Cord
- Owner's Manual


Voices

Most important in any keyboard is naturally the sound. This is one of many strengths of this one. Not only does it provide a startling array of realistic 16-bit sounds, it also boasts an outstanding true 126-note polyphony. Yamaha came up with some special labels for their new sounds: there are now “LIVE!”, “COOL!” And “Sweet” sounds besides the regular ones. They really did put some extra effort into the reproduction of the original instruments. Compared to previous models, the sounds have a broader frequency spectrum, sound more natural and cover the entire note range equally realistic, although there are some exceptions.

The 331 voices are grouped into 13 categories plus the XG sound set, the custom voices and the flute/organ sounds. The last one deserves a closer look, because it allows the player to use the 9000 like a drawbar organ with 9 registers, ranging from 16’ to 1’, plus lots of additional parameters like reverb, chorus, vibrato and a special DSP effect for Leslie simulation. The organ/flute section comes in addition to the 27 pre-programmed organ sounds, which are quite impressive by themselves.

The one category that disappoints me quite a bit is the piano section. There are 10 selections including Harpsichord, CP80 and HonkyTonk, with rather lean samples. The Grand Piano doesn’t sound grand at all to me, the decay is cheesy and sounds horrible in pieces with lots of pedal use. At least there is a second category for E-Pianos, which contains some very nice multi-layered Rhodes/Wurlitzer reproductions, many of them using the same samples with different effect and sound parameter settings, though.

The 9000 shines in the guitar section with incredibly realistic selections, just as in the strings and horns sections.

I haven’t been able to try out all sounds of all 14 drum kits, but I love the “LIVE!” kits, which use a lot of multi-layered samples, giving you different sounds depending on the applied velocity. Most kits vary only in the main sounds like bass, snare, toms, etc., all other samples are shared with other kits. What I don’t understand is, why there are two SFX-kits using only about 10 notes each.

Well, overall I can’t complain about the variety. It’s all there. Some people use this one keyboard for 2-hour on-stage performances, without using anything else. I even read about a recording artist, having produced a dual-CD album using only the PSR-9000!


Harmonizer

More and more entertainment keyboards are coming with a built-in harmonizer board. I have used the Ketron X1 and the Korg I40M, both offering pretty nifty vocal harmonizers. If you consider that a stand-alone harmonizer by itself costs you about 300-400 bucks, this is a valuable add-on. The 9000’s harmonizer gives you probably the user-friendliest version: the 70 presets (incl. 11 user presets) can be selected like any of the instruments from the vocal Harmony page. From here you also get to the programming page, which shows all available parameters on one screen. The global mic/harmony settings are in the mic setup menu, also all to be viewed and changed on one screen.

Besides the vocal harmony, there is also a vocoder function. Both features are easy and fun to use.


Board and Buttons

Aah, the board! First of all, I just like the look of it: The design is appealing, functional and well structured. After I got it and put it on the stand, it didn’t take me longer than 3 minutes to play my first song, using the main functions, without ever looking at the manual. The huge display (only beaten by the Technics KN6000) offers an intuitive user interface, leaving not much else to wish for. There is instant access to styles, voices and variations. The 61-key touch-sensitive keyboard lets you immediately get a feel for the aftertouch capabilities. All this can NOT be said about most of the competitors.

The 4 multi-pad buttons were a surprise to me. First I thought: what’s the big deal with having some sound effects on a few buttons? Then I tried it out and found not only the quite respectable number of 60 (!) banks, but also a connection to the music database. Now I got the ability to configure my own hands-off intros and add-ons during play, synchronized to the actual timing – a thing I had never dreamed of! Just listening to the pre-programmed configurations gives you great new ideas and opens a big can of worms for a much more creative design of your performance. Four buttons – thousands of possibilities.

Not that I’m a frequent performer, but the PSR-9000 can make you one. Take those 8 registration buttons for example: there are 64 banks times 8 = 512 instantly accessible completely different registrations available in a split second.

The flexibility of this keyboard is beyond me. Using your registration buttons in combination with the screen selection allows you to choose from 3 lead voices, which can even be combined to play all at the same time. Naturally, it is also possible to play your 3 voices in perfect 3-voice “harmony” with the accompaniment voicings. And there are endless more combinations. There are also 4 “one-touch-setting” buttons to help you quickly switch from one 3-voice configuration to the next. It’s simply impossible to explain the complexity of your choices. Go, try it for yourself!


Music Database

The music database deserves an own section, because it is a unique feature which I haven’t seen on any other board except the KN6000. It gives us a useful selection of standard song configurations (a total of 616 is possible), instantly selectable, without ANY additional settings. A great idea!

There are 17 categories, each with a selection of sometimes over 50 different song configurations to choose from. It’s up to you to store more.


Speakers

Part of the 50 lbs of weight you are schlepping around when moving the PSR-9000 from one performance to another is the built-in amp and the speakers. I had always wished for a board that lets me listen to decent sound quality while practicing, without the need for plugging it into my home studio setup. The 2x26W internal speakers of the PSR-9000 give me that. There is even enough reserve power to mix your voice into it (including the harmonizer). Compared to the Ketron X1, the PSR-9000 sounds like heaven, even at the highest settings there is no distortion to be heard.

During a performance, the built-in speakers make great monitor speakers, but you got to watch out not to turn them up too high during the more silent songs.


Accompaniment

The quality of your performance is dependent on your choice of styles. Although the PSR-9000 has 125 high-quality Preset Styles for most standards (85 factory-set styles and an additional programmable 120 flash styles), the factory repertoire might not be quite enough for professional entertainment and for writing your own songs. For many other arranger keyboards, you will find a sufficient selection of 3rd-party styles to help covering your needs without having to program your own (which is certainly possible). Although I took a long look around, I just couldn’t find a selection even close to other boards (unless somebody would help me out here), which has most probably to be blamed on the fact that the 9000 has a more complex array of style parameters than any other arranger board.

The actual procedure to create styles isn’t too hard (it takes up only 12 pages in the manual), especially since it’s assisted by a very nice menu interface. However, most performers and home musicians aren’t necessarily interested in starting from scratch. Buying an arranger keyboard means that you are looking for simplicity, otherwise you could compose your entire performance and set it up on a sequencer.

All this is not to say that the 9000 doesn’t shine, when it comes to its accompaniment abilities:

7 accompaniment modes (!)
- “single” finger: not actually, because you still need up to 3 fingers to trigger the chords according to a sophisticated scheme, which prompts me to ask “why bother?”
- “fingered” also requiring at least a 3-fingered player, with limited chord choices
- “fingered pro” requiring regular “fingering”
- “on bass” same as “fingered”, with the bass note as the root, limited chord choices
- “on bass pro” full chords with bass on root note
- “full keyboard” advanced mode (I have yet to “finger” it out)

The timing of each style can be easily changed by using the 9000’s dial. There is also a “tapping” feature, which lets you determine the tempo by depressing a key 4 times according to the music you are following. .

More features: Per style there are 3 Intros, 4 Mains, 4 Fill-ins, 1 Break and 3 Endings. If that’s not enough, you can always play with the 4 multipads, which will add not only sound effects, but entire loops to your song, giving you quite something to deal with.

When you play the left side of the keyboard in auto-accompany mode, you are not just triggering fixed loops plus a pad (or whatever you like), but also playing an aftertouch-sensitive area with the instruments of your choice to sound when you so choose. For example there would be a string pad as a layer, your bass, choir, drums, and what not as the “band”, but also a Rhodes piano to allow for some velocity-sensitive additions with some bells for the after-touch. All this wouldn’t be possible, if there weren’t the 126-voice polyphony.


Sequencer

Yeah, of course there is also a 16-part sequencer for the creation of complete songs. Yamaha calls it a little over-emphasizing “Digital Recording”, which is kind of confusing, since there is no actual digital recording other than sampling with this unit.

It’s your choice wether you choose the easy or the hard way. The easy way could be to edit an existing song or to create a new one with the default parameters. The hard way will allow you to edit any single parameter.

Of course, the sequencer lets you use the board’s accompaniment features.

Since the PSR-9000 is fully MIDI equipped, it also allows you to use an external sequencer for recording and playing back any of its tracks. I use the 9000’s arranger from my master keyboard to trigger and record the arrangement, resulting in a MIDI sequence that allows me to re-assign the voices and to edit the resulting tracks. Works.


Compatibility

It was a surprising find to me that the PSR-9000 isn’t just an arranger keyboard, but also a MIDI file player and much more than even that. One night I was staring at all these little symbols on the right of the board, six of them: General MIDI, XG, VH for XG, XF, Disc Orchestra and StyleFile. I had never realized that they actually mean something. The meaning is pretty important, though, because I realized that I could put in just about whatever MIDI music into this unit and it would know exactly what to do with it.

I also have a Disklavier Grand Piano, which will play only particularly formatted Disklavier or DiskOrchestra music. I had bought an extra unit for it to also play regular MIDI files and accompaniments of the Yamaha PianoSoft category. It was to my great surprise to find, that the PSR-9000 can play all of them.

The PSR-9000 is a multi-format MIDI music reader and player, and you can even play along to any arrangement. Wow!


Sampling

I wouldn’t really believe it at first, but after reading the manual and experimenting a while, I have to admit it: The PSR-9000 is a sampler. Not only is it possible to use its audio inputs to record 16-bit sound at 44.1 into the sampling memory (up to 64 MB), but you can even edit the loop points, normalize, tune, and resample your waves. You will use the “sound creator” utility to map your sample(s) to the keys, which is easy enough to do. There is also a basic tool package to assemble your voices using 4 different filter types with rate and level settings, and 5 LFO parameters. Who would have thought?


Ins and Outs

The back of the PSR-9000 looks quite impressive, providing some I/O options not to find in any other arranger keyboard.:

1.PC Keyboard Terminal
2.Foot Pedal Switch 1
3.Foot Pedal Switch2
4.Foot Pedal Volume
5.MIDI IN A
6.MIDI Out A
7.MIDI In B
8.MIDI Out B 9.Host Select
10.To Host Terminal
11.Video Out[NTSC/PAL]
12.SCSI Terminal[SCSI 2]
13.Input Voltage Selector
[not available on models for certain countries]
14.AC Inlet
15.Sub Line Out2 16.Sub Line Out1
17.Main Out R
18.Main Out L/L+R
19.Aux In/Loop Return Trim
20.Aux In/Loop Return R
21.Aux In/Loop Return L/L+R
22.Loop Send R
23.Loop Send L/L+R

Particularly remarkable are the following:
- the MIDI “B: ports for more MIDI flexibility
- the “to HOST” terminal for direct connection to a PC
- the fast SCSI terminal
- the AUX busses


Specifications:

61 keys touch-sensitive with after-touch

32 MB of onboard samples
331 Original Voices
480 XG Voices
14 Drum Kits + 2 SFX Kits

126-notes polyphony (!)

Music Database with 616 Song Setups max.

125 Preset Styles (85 factory-set styles) +120 flash styles
Per style: 3 Intro, 4 Main, 4 Fill-in, 1 Break, 3 Endings

4 one-touch settings
Multi-Pads with 60 banks x 4 switches (fully customizable)

Song recording: Quick Record, Multi-Track Record
16 tracks, approx.38,000 notes max.
Disk Direct Playback
Ultra Quick Start function

Lyric Display

Registration Memory: 8 switches x 64 banks
Disk: 3.5" FDD (2DD/2HD),
supports SMF(format 1 and 0), XG, XF, DOC,
Yamaha Style File format and GM

Amplifier 56W(28W x 2)

Dimensions: 43.9" x 18.3" x 7.2"
Weight 50lbs.

Language display English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish

Auto Accompaniment:
- 15 sections x 8Parts
- Sync Start,Sync Stop

Effects:
- Reverb (29 preset + 3 user),
- Chorus (25 preset + 3 user),
- DSP for Styles (164 types),
- 4 x DSP for voices(164 preset + 10 user),
- DSP for Mic (84 preset + 10 user),
- 5-band Master EQ (2 preset + 2 user),
- 2-band EQ for 29 parts,
- Harmony (17 types)


Conclusions

In my experience, Yamaha has never given the “pro world” OR the consumer any breaks. Virtually no support, poorly written manuals and in many cases no second thoughts and upgrades for any of their products have led me to be very careful with buying their products. I bought a 27k Disklavier Grand Piano and had to wait over 9 months before I got them to fix my connection problem. Yamaha is like Korg: once you buy it, it’s your responsibility and they give a damn about you. This is equally valid for the PSR-9000 (except for the manual), because Yamaha insists on us depending on our dealers.

Fortunately, the entertainer world has its own support mechanisms. If it weren’t for the many people out there using the PSR-9000, I doubt very much we would get ANY support except from the dealer.

As far as the manual is concerned, Yamaha did a surprisingly good job in the case of the PSR-9000. The manual is well structured, easy enough to understand and comprehensive enough to make use of even the many hidden details of the board.

The entire design of the PSR-9000 accommodates the beginner as well as the advanced and professional musician by giving you direct access to most functions right on the board. As I said earlier, you don’t really need the manual to play. Only if you want to use the “advanced” features, you will have to refer to either the written or the also available online manual.

Looking at the many features of this board, it’s really an all-in-one instrument. It sounds fantastic, there just isn’t much else to wish for. It doesn’t come with an internal harddrive, but it gives you a SCSI connection to save whatever styles and songs you produce yourself (of course there is always the floppy disk).

If it weren’t for the poor support, I would give this instrument my total “Yes”.


Who knows best?
Gearfreak