4 KEYBOARD PLAYER ISSUE 307
IN-DEPTH
REVIEW
Andrew Gilbert gets his hands on the first Yamaha
PSR-S500 keyboard in the country and finds that
it has a great deal to offer for its price tag of £499
O
VER the past few
years, most of the
Yamaha keyboards
that I've written about
in my reviews have
either been at the entry level, like the
current PSR-E303 and E403, or at
the top end, like the PSR3000 and
Tyros 2. To be honest, there hasn't
been much change in the mid-range
instruments for a while. A little
cosmetic dusting, a new colour
scheme and a sprinkling of new
voices helped perhaps, but the
'workhorse' PSR550 was beginning
to look rather long in the tooth.
Well, that's all about to change
with the launch of the PSR-S500, a
brand new model that, according to
Yamaha, has taken some of its cues
from the Tyros2. I was sent the only
one in the country, so that I could
bring you the news about it here
first.
I'll state at the outset that the
YAMAHA PSR-S500
review instrument, as is often the
case with absolutely new
keyboards, was a pre-production
model that didn't even have a serial
number, so one or two of the
features hadn't been finalised.
Nevertheless, the specifications
were pretty much a 'done deal', so
Yamaha was happy to let me put it
under the microscope.
Of course, there was no
owners' manual or brochure as they
hadn't been finished either, so
carrying out this review was akin to
'flying by the seat of one's pants'! I
actually enjoy doing this sort of
thing, but it does mean that there's a
possibility that some less obvious
features might be missed. Anyway, I
did my level best to explore
everything and here's what I found.
The appearance of the PSR-
S500 is quite angular, following the
pattern set by the Tyros and the
Motif series of synths. The use of
that straight-edged ruler is coming
to the fore in many current Yamaha
keyboard designs, it would seem.
It's silver (of course) and the layout
is distinctly uncluttered.
Song and Style controls are to
the left of the blue backlit LCD
display, with the data wheel,
Function and Voice controls to the
right. Most of the controls are quite
small, but still finger-sized, dark
grey buttons, but the Style variations
and controls, the Registration
Memories and Voice function
controls are operated by much
larger, translucent buttons. These
illuminate red (or red and green as
appropriate) when in use. The LCD
is a medium resolution screen, the
same type as is fitted to instruments
like the DGX620 piano. All in all, I
think that the overall look is very
neat indeed.
No music desk was supplied
with this particular review model but,

from the look of the slots for it at the
rear of the keyboard, it should be a
new design too. As is the case with
its bigger brothers, the power
adaptor for the PSR-S500 is a floor-
mounted 'block' rather than the
usual adaptor plug variety.
I'll start with the voicing of the
keyboard and it's clear from the
outset that this goes way beyond the
old mid-range models. The voices
are selected by pressing one of 15
category buttons and then using the
data wheel or +/- buttons to choose
the voice.
There are some corkers here,
including old favourites in the Live,
Sweet and Cool varieties as well as
some great-sounding newcomers.
Things kick off with the excellent
Live Grand Piano and Live Warm
Grand, moving through Cool electric
and electronic piano voicings like
Galaxy Piano and Suitcase Piano.
Organs abound, with plenty of
Cool voices here too. Cool Rotor is a
great 16', 2' and 1' type drawbar
sound, with a fizzy fast Leslie. Tibia
16+4 and Full Tibia are more
electronic organ than pipe, perhaps,
and they benefit from a superb
rotary speaker DSP effect.
Strings are well represented
with Live Strings and Live
Orchestra, as well as a zingy Sweet
Violin. Alas, there's no soft violin, but
you could always fake this using the
Cello played an octave higher! The
Choirs are perhaps not the
keyboard's strongest sound group,
and lack a really good 'Aah' and
'Ooh' pair. Old favourites like Gothic
Vox are, I'm pleased to say, still
there.
There's plenty of Brass on offer,
from ensembles like Live French
Horns to solo evergreens like Sweet
Trumpet and the Jazz and Solo
Trumpets too. In winds, there are
Sweet versions of all the Saxes, a
Sweet Flute and Pan Flute, but the
other solo woodwinds do seem a bit
on the tame side; a good Sweet
Oboe wouldn't have gone amiss.
You have no less than 42
guitars to choose from, starting with
the super Dynamic Nylon.
Newcomers here include Cool
Stratsphere, Cool Clean (think
House Of The Rising Sun!), Cool
Blues and Cool Vintage. There's
even Sweet Mandolin, sampled
being played in proper tremolando
style.
Even the bass division gets a
couple of Cool voicings in the shape
of Cool Fingered and Cool Fretless.
The Percussion section, in contrast,
doesn't get any of the Cool voices at
all, but worry not, as every one in
this section is an excellent sound
anyway!
It seems you can't make a
keyboard these days without putting
on a good selection of Accordions,
and the PSR-S500 is no exception
to this rule, having everything from a
Bandoneon to Musette and Tutti
varieties, as well as a couple of very
convincing Harmonicas.
Bringing up the rear are the two
Synth sections, with a good mixture
of some very moody pads like Wave
2001 and Neo Warm Pad, and
potent leads including Oxygen and
Firewire.
You can layer two right-hand
sounds together with the dedicated
Dual Voice button and you can add
in a Left voice. You can set the split
point for this and it will play even
when the styles are running, just as
on the larger keyboards in the
range. I couldn't find a 'Left Hold'
KEYBOARD PLAYER ISSUE 307 5
feature, though, so you'll have to
play your left-hand chords pretty
smoothly instead.
The styles are a brand new
venture for Yamaha at this price
point. Each one has four variations,
three intros and three endings, just
like the Tyros. No firm information is
to hand as I write this but judging by
the sound of the styles, and the fact
that the 16-track sequencer will let
you make eight overdubs on top of
the style, I think these may be eight-
part arrangements. It's something
worth checking with your dealer (or
your ears!). They're grouped in 12
categories and selected in the same
manner as the voices.
Again, there are old favourites
here but, in most cases, it's just the
name that's the same. These styles
definitely have much more in
common with the larger PSR
keyboards and the two Tyros
models than instruments like the
PSR-E403 and DGX620. I
auditioned them all and there are far
too many on my 'must mention' list
to actually mention here! So, in no
order whatsoever, here are just a
few that caught my ear: Acoustic
Rock, Orchestral Big Band, Chillout,
Blues Rock, Vintage Guitar Pop,
Jump Jive, Irish Dance, Country
Hits, Sci-Fi March, Organ Samba,
Quickstep and Foxtrot, Easy Ballad
and Hoedown.
There's space for User Styles,
too and, while there's no facility for
style editing or creation, you can
load in pre-prepared styles from
Yamaha and third parties like
Carrillon Studios and Style Disk
Warehouse.
There are four One Touch
Settings that will instantly register
the keyboard's sounds to match the
6 KEYBOARD PLAYER ISSUE 307
style and, if you want some more
help, there's always Yamaha's tried-
and-tested Music Database. I'm
pleased to say that there are some
500 titles on board and that the
Yamaha designers haven't lost their
sometimes quirky sense of humour
when it comes to naming the
pseudo-songs.
Some are simple name
reversals, like Sally Mustang or
Ride Ticket. Others are
straightforward, such as Lane of
Pennies, but then they get creative
with Let's Sue Peggy, I'm A Pola and
Don't Want Milk (Okay, I'll give you
that one, No Milk Today, by
Herman's Hermits). Dee Eye S C
Oh! is now joined by Why Am See
A?, but my favourite cryptic clue has
to be Noisy Old Car. Baffled? It's
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
I'm over the moon to see that
there are no less than eight
Registration Memory buttons,
located right in the centre of the
instrument, where they can be
reached with either hand while
playing. What's more, they
illuminate as per the Tyros: green
showing that a button has a
registration stored in it, and red to
show that the preset is active.
You get eight banks of eight
presets and it's very simple to store
and retrieve the settings you make.
This feature alone makes this
keyboard a solid choice for anyone
taking keyboard exams, and
therefore requiring several swift
sound changes in the course of just
one tune.
Making a direct comparison
with the older PSR550 for a
moment, it's a shame that there are
no Multi Pads on the PSR-S500.
Okay, I know that not a lot of people
made much use of them, and that
the control panel space has been
taken by the Registration Memory
buttons, but I (and indeed my
students) found them very handy for
adding in those extra sounds and
effects into a piece to give it a lift.
Earlier in the review I mentioned
the Tibia voicings, with their rotary
DSP effect, and it's worth pointing
out that there are three DSP units in
the keyboard. The first two, as
usual, handle reverb and chorus,
but the third is a full Multi-Effects unit
with over 170 types of DSP.
You have just about every type
of effect you can think of, with
various types of reverb, echo,
chorus and flanger, sitting side by
side with early reflections,
compressors and a whole heap of
Rotary speakers and Tremolo.
The Leslie simulations, though
they are strictly fast speed only,
leave those found on some organs
in the shade. Many of these are
multi effects in their own right, with
combinations such as rotary
speaker and overdrive, or chorus
and compressor. Each right-hand
voice will select the most
appropriate DSP effect and
automatically turn it on, but you can
change the selection or disable to
DSP entirely if you so wish.
The Song Player / SMF section
has been left pretty much as it was,
and you can record and store up to
five songs internally. As I mentioned
earlier, after recording a backing
track using the styles, you can then
add up to eight overdubs. There are
no complex mixing or editing
facilities on offer, but that would
have been asking a bit much of a
sub-£500 keyboard.
As usual, the Song Player also
takes care of playing the large
selection of on-board songs, and
can display the score (complete with
bouncing ball) or karaoke-style
lyrics on screen. It also handles
playback of SMF files and playback
quality was very good on those that I
tried out.
To the left of the display is a
group of dedicated buttons. These
include Up and Down Transpose
(hurrah!), and + and Tempo.
There's even a Tap Tempo button
and a simple on/off toggle for the
Metronome. Yamaha's decision to
have a neat, un-fussy panel layout
(especially when compared to the
PSR550, perhaps) means that quite
a few of the keyboard's other
functions have to be hidden in the
menu system.
However, common sense has
certainly prevailed with a dedicated
Function button giving access to
everything on offer. The Category
buttons now allow you to scroll
through the various functions and,
once you've found the one you
want, you can use the data wheel or
+/- buttons to set its value. It's easier
and faster to use than the PSR550,
even though that instrument had
more dedicated buttons.
Although there is no 'Direct
Access' button, as found on larger
Yamaha instruments, the 'press and
hold' feature for certain functions
has been reinstated. For example,
pressing the DSP button for a few
moments will take you straight to the
choice of DSP effects and their
associated parameters.
Returning to the subject of
dedicated buttons for a moment,
there are two buttons over at the
right-hand side of the panel that
offer instant up/down octave shifts
for right-hand sounds. Perfect for
when you're layering something like
strings and flute and quickly want to
take the flute up an octave to let its
melody shine through.
The PSR-S500 has both USB A
and B type sockets, so you can plug
in a memory stick for portable data
storage. The keyboard takes just a
few seconds to recognise the stick,
during which time the display shows
'Connecting'. As soon as this has
changed to 'Connected', you can
load and save Registration, Song
and Style File data to the stick. File
handling is both quick and easy.
Incidentally, if the card contains
SMF data, you don't actually need to
load it into the keyboard's memory
as you would with a Song. Instead,
you use the USB button in the Song
Player section to display the
contents of the stick. Simply choose
 KEYBOARD PLAYER ISSUE 307 7

the title you want to hear and press
the Play button. As everything is
solid-state, playback starts virtually
instantaneously.
At the back of the keyboard are
an assortment of connections,
including a headphone socket, the
USB ports, MIDI In and Out ports
and a jack socket for a sustain
pedal. There's no line output, so the
headphone socket will have to
double for this. I can't give you any
firm figures for the keyboard's audio
output, but it's on a par with the
recently reviewed DGX620 in terms
of volume and quality. In fact, it may
even be the same set of two-way,
bass ported amps and speakers as
the white-coned speakers appear to
be the same size.
Time to sum up then. There's no
doubt in my mind that the 'hole' in
the middle of the Yamaha keyboard
range will be well and truly plugged
by the introduction of the PSR-
S500. It's bang up to date, looks
good, and has some cracking
sounds, great styles and a good
selection of features. It handles well
too; in fact this is something of an
object lesson in how a mid-range
keyboard should work.
I wouldn't be so vain as to say
that the Yamaha designers have
done what I have personally
suggested they should, but it's
interesting to find that all the little
niggles I've had with some of the
smaller models (like no transpose
buttons, not enough registration
memories, no way of saving them,
etc) have been dealt with!
In short, I'm very impressed and
if you're after that second keyboard,
but aren't quite ready to make the
jump up to the £1,000 level
instruments, this instrument should
be very high upon your list.
CONTACT
Yamaha-Kemble, Sherbourne
Drive, Tilbrook, Milton Keynes,
Bucks., MK7 8BL. Tel: 01908
366700. Web: www.yamaha-
music.co.uk.

YAMAHA PSR-S500 - SPEC CHECK

Keyboard: 61 keys, Touch Responsive
Voice Polyphony: (max) 32
Sound Source: AWM Stereo Sampling
Sounds: 283 voices + 361 XGlite voices + 15 Drum /
SFX Kits; 10 Sweet! Voices, 16 Cool! Voices; 6 Live!
Voices; Voice Control Buttons: Left, Dual, Harmony,
Touch, Sustain, DSP
Effects: Reverb 25 types; Chorus 30 types; DSP 178
types; Master EQ: 5 Preset (Speaker x2/Line Out
x2/Headphone); Harmony / Echo 26 types
Accompaniments: Acc.Styles 150; User Style 1;
Sections: Intro/Ending x3, Main x4, Fill In x4;
Fingering: Multi, Full Keyboard; OTS (One Touch
Setting) 4 for Each Style; OTS Link
Music Database (MDB): 500 Songs
Registration Memory: 8 Buttons
Songs: 5 Preset Samples; Overview Demo;
Recording: Quick, Multi, Record Channels 8 + 1
Accomp.; 5 User Songs; User Song to SMF
Converter; Song Track On/Off; Score Display; Lyric
Display
Compatibility: XGlite/GM/XF/SFF
Overall Control: Tempo 11 to 280; Transpose -12 to
0, 0 to +12; Tuning 415.3 440 466.2 [Hz]; Pitch
Bend Range 1 to 12; Metronome
Storage: Flash Memory (Internal) 800KB; Optional
External Storage Device (via USB to Device)
Jacks: USB to Host; USB to Device terminal;
Phones/Output, Sustain Pedal, DC IN
Pitch Bender
LCD Display: Small QVGA Monochrome, 4.2 inch;
Back light; Contrast
Amplifiers: 12 watt x 2
Speakers: 2 (12 cm + 3 cm )
Power Supply: Adaptor PA-301 (or PA-300)
Speaker System: 2Way Bass reflex
Dimensions: (W x D x H) 946 x 402 x 130 mm
Weight: 7.5 kg
Included Accessories: Owner's Manual; Music
Rest; CD-ROM; AC Adaptor (Except Asia Pacific
area)
Optional Accessories: Headphones HPE-150/160;
Foot Switch FC4 / FC5; Floppy Disk Drive UD-FD01;
Keyboard Stand L-6