Lets Get LoFi 7 - Yamaha Pss380 + Ps55

YouTube via ChrisLody | September 19, 2010

"The Yamaha pss380 is a FM synth home keyboard with some basic editing functions via 7 sliders, it matches the pss390 in all but its colours. I recently dug it out of the attic and began playing around with its synth edit functions and more or less randomly made up this string sound. The good thing about the pss380 is that some of its presets are stereo which is achieved by hard panning and detuning its voices. It retains this stereo effect even when editing so it can be very useful. It has the affect of reducing the polyphony to 4 from 8 on these presets.

To get this string sound on the pss380 do the following:
Select preset 41, turn off dual voice, turn on the digital synth feature, then set the sliders to Spec. 2, Mod. 7/8, Att. 4, Dec. 1, Rel. 1, Vib.7, Vol. 7

The Ps55 is being used again in this video. Here i'm using it mainly for it arpeggio feature which only has one sound and 2 variations but is still quite nice. Usefully you can fade the auto bass and drums down and just have the arp playing. Later on i play the Accordian and Fantasy sounds layered together. The Solo sounds on the Ps55 are monophonic and it always plays the top note so can behave a bit like a duophonic synth."