dezb1 wrote:Taking this thread back to it's roots I can now thoroughly recommend the Yamaha PSS 470 as a great "shitty synth" picked one up for £20 at a charity shop earlier this week... Like a ghetto DX.
I somehow missed this. I bought this very same synth at a yard sale for $5 back on page 1. I still love it! Very fun easy to tweak synth.
Since making this thread I have had some fun adventures in casio/yamaha land. I sold the DX-21 on reverb and broke even. Just way too clunky both weight/size and interface wise for me. In one yardsale saturday morning last fall I picked up a Casio PT-80 (monophonic synth that sounds very much like an original gameboy) for $12, a Casio MT-500 with damaged rhythm section (unfortunate since it's one of the best features, the contacts to the pads could probably be cleaned but I opened it up and there's a maze of circuit boards and a billion screws before you get to them), and a Yamaha PSR-225 (a standard late 90's/00's consumer grade keybaord) for FREE because the people thought it didn't work (it works!). The latter one is actually a lot of fun because the batteries last forever and it has so many different sounds. No it's not a MOTIF but it was also free so I can't argue.
This weekend I picked up a Yamaha PSS-140 for $15 at a yardsale, in the box with the manual, packaging sleeve, etc. The price points at which I pick these up is funny to me, I'll spend as much but no more than $20 on one, but usually the best ones are the cheapest and vice versa. This one looks a lot like my PSS-80, only it's 2OP FM presets instead of waveform. Also has drum pads. Some of the presets are really cool and glitchy, I think it would be fun to run through a looper and really fatten up some of the tones.
I think I may try to sell my Casio 202 and 701 in the near future.
Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 11:07 pm
by dezb1
Nick wrote:
dezb1 wrote:Taking this thread back to it's roots I can now thoroughly recommend the Yamaha PSS 470 as a great "shitty synth" picked one up for £20 at a charity shop earlier this week... Like a ghetto DX.
I somehow missed this. I bought this very same synth at a yard sale for $5 back on page 1. I still love it! Very fun easy to tweak synth.
Since making this thread I have had some fun adventures in casio/yamaha land. I sold the DX-21 on reverb and broke even. Just way too clunky both weight/size and interface wise for me. In one yardsale saturday morning last fall I picked up a Casio PT-80 (monophonic synth that sounds very much like an original gameboy) for $12, a Casio MT-500 with damaged rhythm section (unfortunate since it's one of the best features, the contacts to the pads could probably be cleaned but I opened it up and there's a maze of circuit boards and a billion screws before you get to them), and a Yamaha PSR-225 (a standard late 90's/00's consumer grade keybaord) for FREE because the people thought it didn't work (it works!). The latter one is actually a lot of fun because the batteries last forever and it has so many different sounds. No it's not a MOTIF but it was also free so I can't argue.
This weekend I picked up a Yamaha PSS-140 for $15 at a yardsale, in the box with the manual, packaging sleeve, etc. The price points at which I pick these up is funny to me, I'll spend as much but no more than $20 on one, but usually the best ones are the cheapest and vice versa. This one looks a lot like my PSS-80, only it's 2OP FM presets instead of waveform. Also has drum pads. Some of the presets are really cool and glitchy, I think it would be fun to run through a looper and really fatten up some of the tones.
I think I may try to sell my Casio 202 and 701 in the near future.
Does position 4 on the 'wave' slider work on yours on mine 3 and 4 sound pretty much identical all the others change the sound quite a bit.
Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 12:18 am
by dezb1
Getting into these dodgy wee synths have another on on the way... bought a replacement for my first sampler.
Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 10:51 pm
by dezb1
Well it arrived this morning and I Fucking love it been a while since I had so much fun of the bat with a new bit of kit.
Loads of stuff on it I had no idea about when I was a kid - the on-board sounds are a bit cheesy but you can import them directly into the sampler and really mess them up you can also layer them with sounds sampled from the Mic and assign them to different parts of the keyboard.
Really good for making ambient soundscapes for adding atmosphere
And the best feature is the auto sample when you sample thought the line in... did I mention I fucking love this thing
And to think I used to just sample my self swearing when I had my original one...
Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 2:01 pm
by BearBoy
dezb1 wrote:And to think I used to just sample my self swearing when I had my original one...
LOL. I remember Saturdays in Dixons getting the demo Casio SK-1 to say "fuck" or "bollocks" at a variety of different pitches whilst getting ready to leg it if one of the staff clocked us.
Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:06 pm
by stewart
first thing EVERYONE does on a SK-1 is sample themselves saying "fuck". i got mine when i was like, 29 and did exactly that.
Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:44 pm
by dezb1
Cool shit it can do (other than fuck and bollocks)
These are both vss 30's but the 200 does the same business
Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2017 1:36 am
by dezb1
Been messing around getting used to the inner workings
Well my cheap mini key synth fetish has struck again, was through a my mates setting up the gretsch he got from his local crack converters (posted pics ages ago) so I thought I'd pay a visit to said shop on the way home and ended up buying a Casio HT-700. My 3rd acquisition in the past month, while it's a much cheaper pastime than buying guitars (the 3 synths have cost me just over £70) they do take up a fair bit of space, need to put up some new studio shelving to house them ... I'll post some pics once I've cleaned it up it's currently on the bench in the garage.
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 6:16 am
by Fakir Mustache
dezb1 wrote:Been messing around getting used to the inner workings
Sounds pretty good, but I read that you have to put in pause and not have the sample start right away in order to emulate a real Mellotron.
You can't save them but I could add a pause, I'm not a fan of presets so not being able to save them isn't a big deal... although if you created a sound you loved you'd just gave to record a middle C then resample it when you wanted to use it.
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 12:13 pm
by dezb1
Pic of my 3rd acquisition the Mighty Casio HT-700
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 6:01 pm
by Freddy V-C
Not really even cool enough to be called a 'synth' but we've been using a Yamaha PSR-210 in Beige Palace for aaggeess. Love it so much that when ours shit the bed we scoured eBay for the exact same model, despite being donated a pretty similar shitty Yamaha by a friend (it just didn't sound the saame). At this point it's pretty much the backbone of all our heavier songs, for example: Don't Stall Your Car.
One of these fellas:
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:04 pm
by dezb1
Freddy V-C wrote:Not really even cool enough to be called a 'synth' but we've been using a Yamaha PSR-210 in Beige Palace for aaggeess. Love it so much that when ours shit the bed we scoured eBay for the exact same model, despite being donated a pretty similar shitty Yamaha by a friend (it just didn't sound the saame). At this point it's pretty much the backbone of all our heavier songs, for example: Don't Stall Your Car.
One of these fellas:
Cool sounds... full sized keys though, I only do teh Shortscales.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2017 2:48 pm
by stewart
i found a PSR in the bin on my street a while back, can't remember the model number though (currently out at my parents' house in the garage). cleaned it up, it works fine. it doesn't have midi though, so is zero use to me.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:21 pm
by dezb1
stewart wrote:i found a PSR in the bin on my street a while back, can't remember the model number though (currently out at my parents' house in the garage). cleaned it up, it works fine. it doesn't have midi though, so is zero use to me.
Two out of the 3 I bought don't have midi... but neither does my guitar... or my gran's piano.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:54 pm
by stewart
i don't mind no midi if it has useable sounds, but PSRs like that tend not to have any.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2017 6:07 pm
by dezb1
stewart wrote:i don't mind no midi if it has useable sounds, but PSRs like that tend not to have any.
Fair point... I quite like the fact that my wee VSS doesn't have midi and no save function forces you to just do something with it and commit.
Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 12:04 am
by Freddy V-C
We pretty much use the Baritone Sax sound and nothing else. But that one sounds ace.
