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MGR/EDDY JAMES « Yamaha PSR-740 Keyboard »
Published on 02/07/03 at 15:00I picked up this Keyboard at Sam Ash Music in Columbus, Ohio for around $950. It seemed like good value for the money.
I think what Im most impressed with is the sound quality of the HORNS, STRINGS, AND ORGAN settings. The effects and editing are numerous, as many as you could find time to fool with. The 16 track recorder is very easy to use,and I like being able to record a part, then change the instrument at the click of a button to see how it would sound if a different instrument was playing the part. You can also mix your recording afterwards,and mute parts as well.It has 128
registration memory settings, 32 banks of 4 each. You can change the octaves 2 steps up or down and has individule voices for left hand bass as well as right hand 1 and right hand 2 for layering another instrument.
It has pitch bend and modulation wheels. The organ Flutes mode has digital draw bars to create your own Organ sounds. Effects have six rotary speaker types, as well as many,many reverbs, chourses,distortions,tremelos,echo,wha,compressor,and much more. It has around 600 sounds with about 100 more sound effects. The "Sweet" sounds like flute ,trumpet, and sax are very,very realistic,almost stunning.The multi pads store 32 short phrases. I like having the stero outputs on the back, as well as midi,and sustain.
I dont care for lots of the drum beats. I have heard better drum patterns in other Yamaha units, older as well as newer. And Ive heard better patterns in other brands too. The biggest dissapointment is the actual playing surface, the keys. They seem very cheap, mushy,and can break the contacts inside if you play hard like I do. I would rather they got rid of all the stupid stuff that you never use, like the auto accompainment feature and demo song stuff. Changing octaves is about a three step process,not just a button click like on the newer models. And changing voices changes current drum pattern and timing, a real negative.
Construction seems not real good, like the keyboard inparticular and the housing. The stereosampled sounds seem very good for the most part, and created sounds can be obtained that are far better than the presets. While the Grand Paino sounds are very realistic, Ive heard better on other brands,and feel they should have put more paino sounds in and done away with the sound effects altogether, there unusabe most of them for any serious musician,and just take up space that could be better used for other instruments.
At any rate, the bottom line on this keyboard is that it is a great home keyboard for recording, or in a studio, but not really designed for pro use as far as playing hard on the keyboard. It seems fragile in this area and Ive already had to fix a key on it,and thats like a $75 job, parts and labor. Different instruments you play different ways, and you play an organ differently than a paino. This feels much more like an organ than a paino. While it does have touch response, there is no weighted or semi weighted keys. So your playing is being suppressed by fear of breaking the thing. The plus side to this though is that it makes playing instruments like organ ,strings, flute,and horns sound more realistic because of not having weighted action,in my opinion. Espically Organ, which I use quite a bit.
I think its a pretty good instrument in that price range as far as new equiptment verses used, and seems to have a good supply of sounds and features.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com
I think what Im most impressed with is the sound quality of the HORNS, STRINGS, AND ORGAN settings. The effects and editing are numerous, as many as you could find time to fool with. The 16 track recorder is very easy to use,and I like being able to record a part, then change the instrument at the click of a button to see how it would sound if a different instrument was playing the part. You can also mix your recording afterwards,and mute parts as well.It has 128
registration memory settings, 32 banks of 4 each. You can change the octaves 2 steps up or down and has individule voices for left hand bass as well as right hand 1 and right hand 2 for layering another instrument.
It has pitch bend and modulation wheels. The organ Flutes mode has digital draw bars to create your own Organ sounds. Effects have six rotary speaker types, as well as many,many reverbs, chourses,distortions,tremelos,echo,wha,compressor,and much more. It has around 600 sounds with about 100 more sound effects. The "Sweet" sounds like flute ,trumpet, and sax are very,very realistic,almost stunning.The multi pads store 32 short phrases. I like having the stero outputs on the back, as well as midi,and sustain.
I dont care for lots of the drum beats. I have heard better drum patterns in other Yamaha units, older as well as newer. And Ive heard better patterns in other brands too. The biggest dissapointment is the actual playing surface, the keys. They seem very cheap, mushy,and can break the contacts inside if you play hard like I do. I would rather they got rid of all the stupid stuff that you never use, like the auto accompainment feature and demo song stuff. Changing octaves is about a three step process,not just a button click like on the newer models. And changing voices changes current drum pattern and timing, a real negative.
Construction seems not real good, like the keyboard inparticular and the housing. The stereosampled sounds seem very good for the most part, and created sounds can be obtained that are far better than the presets. While the Grand Paino sounds are very realistic, Ive heard better on other brands,and feel they should have put more paino sounds in and done away with the sound effects altogether, there unusabe most of them for any serious musician,and just take up space that could be better used for other instruments.
At any rate, the bottom line on this keyboard is that it is a great home keyboard for recording, or in a studio, but not really designed for pro use as far as playing hard on the keyboard. It seems fragile in this area and Ive already had to fix a key on it,and thats like a $75 job, parts and labor. Different instruments you play different ways, and you play an organ differently than a paino. This feels much more like an organ than a paino. While it does have touch response, there is no weighted or semi weighted keys. So your playing is being suppressed by fear of breaking the thing. The plus side to this though is that it makes playing instruments like organ ,strings, flute,and horns sound more realistic because of not having weighted action,in my opinion. Espically Organ, which I use quite a bit.
I think its a pretty good instrument in that price range as far as new equiptment verses used, and seems to have a good supply of sounds and features.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com