I'm the original owner of a PSS-270. My girlfriend at the time bought it for me and paid around $110.00. It still works like a charm and I hope to pass it on to one of my two grandkids. Thanks for the work you do on "the you tubes"!

"It also has a headphone jack" unlike some other new technology

@RetroPCUser

7 жыл бұрын

Nageek Gamer **cough** Apple **cough**

@famicom_guy

7 жыл бұрын

Nageek Gamer GBA SP?

@famicom_guy

5 жыл бұрын

But the GBA SP doesn't have a headphone jack either though

@venetrix8698

5 жыл бұрын

This isnt the year 2k. :/

@seankelly3142

5 жыл бұрын

made me laugh

While the piano definetaly doesn't sound like a piano, it does sound cool!

@loonkingdom4552

3 жыл бұрын

i might release my own album fully with the yamaha pss 270 soon

@baddogproductions9722

2 жыл бұрын

@@loonkingdom4552 have you released it yet?

@wouterdeheus3626

2 жыл бұрын

The flute and harpsichord don't sound like a flute and harpsichord either. And the tuba...

I can't play, and I have no real interest in music, but man I love this channel! I'm always fascinated by these old gadgets.

@namenamename390

7 жыл бұрын

Michael Adams same... I am probably the worst musician in the world, but I love this channel and the videos...

"Do not buy one of these, with the impression that you are going to make beautiful piano music." And then he proceeds the next 3 minutes making beautiful piano music.

@hifijohn

5 жыл бұрын

Yes this thing sounds pretty damn good!

@ChristopherSobieniak

5 жыл бұрын

@@hifijohn I suppose if you were looking for a specific sound, it'll float your boat.

@thompi8

4 жыл бұрын

i pay for thiw one now

@marlahicks2109

3 жыл бұрын

It has great sounds (I have mine with me now), just nothing that sounds like the instrument it is supposed to be. There are 3 "human voice" sounds that are absolutely hilarious. I love this keyboard. It is great for adding in quirky effects that are hard to find anywhere else.

@KevlarX2

3 жыл бұрын

I have one of these. It hadn't worked in 30 years, but my brother who is good with electronics tinkered with it, and now it plays like new.

I love how the instrument emulation brought new timbre, color, and brand new sounds to explore and exploit. Thats why im in love with sound design and synthesis

Woah! 43-Strings is straight out of an epic 80s movie!

This was my third (ish) keyboard when I was a kid, and hearing the sounds brought back a lot of memories. I remember improv'ing a lot of fantasy sounding music with it. I also remembering liking the synth tom sound (95), which was reminiscent of cheezy techno Jan Hammer-esque music of the time.

The PSS-270 is an absolute banging classic. I remember when we got our first keyboard lab at school, populated with about 20 of these babies.

Brilliant.... I'm 65, recovering from a stroke and have decided to teach myself how to play a little music. I picked up one of these for £5 and I'm very happy to have just found some of the features you've demonstrated here. I only wanted a 'toy' to teach myself some fingering techniques and have a bit of fun trying to play tutorials I find on KZread. As far as I am concerned this is great value and loads of fun. I used to have the old Miracle Piano Teach System for the early Apple Mac, but I kept losing access to the Mac, so I didn't make nearly as much progress as I had hoped - but I loved that thing. I wish I could find an equivalent, because it was a great learning aid. Thank you very much for your demonstration.

@RightD2112

4 ай бұрын

Hey !! I know that the post is 3 years old but I hope that you are doing well. I'm 57 and had a stroke 2 years ago. I lost being able to play guitar. I can still play a kick ass bass though. 😁I'm looking for a midi sound module. What self respecting bass player who worships Rush doesn't want to dabble with synths ? LOL. If this synth has midi and 1/4 outputs I'd give this a shot.

I found this baby at the swapmeet this Saturday afternoon , best 10 bucks i have ever spent lol

@ChristopherSobieniak

5 жыл бұрын

Nice!

@BRGRPAUL

4 жыл бұрын

got mine from a goodwill for 3 dollars lol

@ChristopherSobieniak

4 жыл бұрын

@@BRGRPAUL Excellent!

@Nordischsound

4 жыл бұрын

same here, best 10 € i've spent🍌

@marlahicks2109

3 жыл бұрын

Oh, that is awesome! Mine was my 8th or 9th birthday present and still sounds great after all these years!

The demos you make with these keyboards are one of the four main reasons I continue to watch.

The Flute+Harpsicord preset gives me goosebumps. I love your videos, we need more people like you on KZread!

@zenithquasar9623

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, that was amazing.

love these comprehensive review videos. i like them better than some other reviewers I've seen. it's the right level of nerdiness and good sounds. I scored this same keyboard at st vinny's for $5. the best part is that the plastic was still on the display part so it looks super shiny and new

I still have mine and it works just about perfectly, love it to death and back again!

I looove this channel so much. Thanks for videos!

I really love this channel. Very informative and you are really good at playing. + the sounds make my retro gaming brain jump in happiness from listening :) You're the man 8-bit!

I Love this Keyboard. I use mine pretty much every day. I've used it in so many songs in the last year. The second I played this keyboard I knew that it was special to me. I'm so happy you reviewed this keyboard!

I love your 8-BK shows, my friend!! Please keep doing these. He , you're a pretty decent player too. I have a big old upright piano and a 7 year old Kurzweil Keyboard I love to play with most every day.

@8BitKeys

8 жыл бұрын

+minnescanada Thanks. I hope to make many more.

@chriswheeler2912

8 жыл бұрын

+8-Bit Keys i love this video. god bless you. i have special needs

@rickyvinh2765

8 жыл бұрын

+minnescanada hey I have an upright too but its broken does yours work?

@minnescanada

8 жыл бұрын

Yes, mine is in excellent condition, I get it tuned now and then. Unless you have serious damage, old pianoes can be tuned up or restored... though some may not be worth it. I have a 1920s era upright that sounds really excellent when in tune.

@rickyvinh2765

8 жыл бұрын

As an upright it is almost perfect but I forgot to say it is a player piano but that bit needs fixing

Man, every 3 years i feel i need another heap of retro synth. And when i go to my local ebay-like site, i watch your videos. They are both entertaining and informative.

MY GOD A DOZEN MORE POSSIBLE EPISODES!? Keep em' coming! Seriously one of my favorite channels on youtube (if not my favorite!) My friend just found out his niece had a PSS 480 hiding around in her closet and I still haven't gotten a chance to play it! I just love the sound of these things.

@8BitKeys

8 жыл бұрын

+Ravaged Rob Glad you like this. I have some far more interesting stuff coming that I just bought.

Found one of these at Goodwill today for $20! Been playing it all day haha

I am sitting with this keyboard now, still a sentimental favorite. It was a present for my 8th or 9th birthday, I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. I didn't play piano (still don't), but I rehearsed the demo song "Just the Way You Are" by ear until I could play it all. (without the switching instruments each verse). That was my contribution to my 3rd grade talent show in 1987....good times. You are right about it being durable...I bet I spent hundreds of hours on it as a kid. It was fun to find it at home, then find the video here! Graduated from this to Casio CTK 611, that's still my best one. Before the PSS-270, I had an old 70s Magnus Organ...those are incredibly cool. Essentially an accordion on a table top. Played it till the fans broke. REALLY wish I still had that one. Anyway, cool video...awesome to see all it can do. After seeing these vids I want to expand my collection of old keyboards, too! 😊👍

Love your channel!I bought one of these today for $25.00 from a goodwill.I just played it through a Korg KP-3 and a Zoom MG50, I was surprised at how versatile it is, really cool vibe.

This is the same one I had growing up!!! Thank you David for so memories

I had one of these keyboards when I was a kid. It was a very fun and cool sounding FM keyboard! Very cool review!

This show is so great. Keep up the fantastic, and informative, work!

@8BitKeys

8 жыл бұрын

+Gregory Miller - Thanks. Comments like this keep me motivated to make more.

I have one of these and a PSS-570 and they sound amazing, especially if you run it through an amp or the right effects. I’ve gotten some incredible electric piano sounds from it.

just found this channel and its fantastic! despite the negatives of this keyboard you've convinced me of a purchase keep up the awesome job

@VincentVisions

8 жыл бұрын

+Mr. Meeseeks also love the 80's aesthetic

The all-snare-drum key test sounded like a bunch of popping balloons.

love the videos , and the good keyboard playing!

I have the PSS 170, and it's my favorite 'low-pro' keyboard. The 270 seems very close as a keyboard, although I have never used one. Thanks for reviewing this!

I've owned this particular keyboard for 14 years (my mom gave it to me when I was a baby to toy around with), and I can say that it is not superb, but it still suits my needs for creating music on the fly. I just love the sound of the horns on this keyboard, especially with some sustain.

@marlahicks2109

3 жыл бұрын

That is exactly what I do as well. I have a Casio CTK-611 that is my primary for recording, but I usually start a melody on this one just because it is so much more portable. Then I come back to this one along with the Casio, to add in some of these great vintage sounds that the Casio (as cool as it is) just doesn't have.

@vitaharvey5332

2 жыл бұрын

Heck yeah! These things are great songwriting devices.

I had this keyboard as a kid. My favorite thing to do with it was let it play "Just the Way You Are" and swap the instruments manually while it was playing.

@cristianlescano4427

5 жыл бұрын

Me too!! 😂

@treforjones8369

5 жыл бұрын

Me too!

@emptyspotlight

5 жыл бұрын

yes. mine stopped working RIP

@exoticcar5482

4 жыл бұрын

Which Just The Way You Are?

@truedeth

4 жыл бұрын

thats what my brothers and I did as kids! when i first heard Just the Way You Are on the radio I exclaimed "ITS THE DEMO SONG" and i still think of it as the demo song.

3:55 - the iconic sound used in Laughing Stock (for Grandaddy fans looking to buy it)

I had it as a child. Nice to see and hear it again.

Wow the strings(43) sounds amazing !

@Dave_thenerd

8 жыл бұрын

+theChillChanneL Chimes(91) also sounds amazing !

@Dave_thenerd

8 жыл бұрын

+theChillChanneL Flute & Harpsichord (61) is also very impressive !

Metalic,string and lower comel and tuba are my favorite awesome sound effects.

Had this keyboard when I was young. Loved it! Thanks for the vid!

@roninofstag8245

4 жыл бұрын

Same! ,\m/

I actually miss the PSS-780 I used to have. Just had a lot of fun stuff.

This techno-track from 2015 is what people now call 'Synthwave'. And I for one would love to hear more like this. :-) Thank you very much for sharing, and have a wonderful week!

thanks for covering my old keyboard. this was my 8th grade graduation present. I will never let it go, I learned my first piano on it. need help getting power supply fixed. could use a suggestion on that.

I really need to keep an eye out for one of these soundblaster chip keyboards, so much nostalgia!

Mymom had this when she was a young teen and she still has it, the sounds still amaze me.

This is a great video, thanks for posting. I was given one of these PSS-270s for free. Sadly, the power jack is broken from the PCB but I tested it with batteries in and the keyboard works! I think it won't be that difficult to salvage, I'll get my soldering kit out and see if I can get power into her again. Overall it seems much more sturdier than a lot of keyboards I've seen recently, that would explain how it works well even after 30 years.

Very impressive instrument. Has some really awesome sound to many of its synths.

Omg I've had one in the garage for the last 20 yrs. And yes it works.

@MattGreerMusic

4 жыл бұрын

Yamahas never die.

My first keyboard... Feels very nostalgic to me!

Very interesting review. Thanks as always!

I think I will love this channel!

Just bought this and can't wait to add this to my collection ! Now I'm looking for a pss. 480

This keyboard is awesome and is a gem. Your being to hard on it dude. Love your vid. PSR 36 review please

Hello friend ! You are quite entertaining and educational Mr. ! I love your videos. I enjoy the fact that you are challenging those amateur keyboards to get the best out of them and thats so awesome, dude ! I buy them and do the same thing about them, but not as good as you do ! Your video details are so friendly and easy to learn, mostly I enjoy the way you teach things in a few short and sweet step by step method. Excellent ! !! Please keep up the good work. My best regards to you.

I still have mine and I agree its a fun one to see what can be done with it.

Nice job !! Your videos are very interresting like always ! :)

I inherited this keyboard from my grandma. I would play around with it in the early 90s when visiting. Very nostalgic tones. 😀

yamaha makes great keyboards. i own a psr 640 since 2001 and i still play it and use it for recording music.

Very Good review! I just bought one of these units and I already have the PSS-470. I like the 270 because it has tones that are easy to get to without having to fiddle around on it, like you would the 470.

I had this keyboard as a kid! I just had a wave of nostalgia seeing this.

The demo on this thing seriously brings on nostalgia.

The PSS-480 and 680 were amazing. That 2 operator synth could make some great sounds. These keyboards also had MIDI bulk dump. You could save synth sounds to a sequencer, then save them to cassette tape. Or you could use a MIDI data filer, such as the Yamaha MDF2.

Thanks for the vid. Came across one in the wild for $13, and this was an extremely helpfull guide

Love these reviews!

Great vid and demo, thanks!

oh! I was waiting for the demo bouton, one of my pref as a child!

It was my first keyboard, i was 8 in holidays in the USA, 10 dollars in a garage sale, now I'm a musician and producer working for television and big shows in Italy but as bassist and singer mostly. I'm impressed to see that my phone speakers are more detailed and deep than the original integrated ones of the original keyboard!

wow there's a lot of cool sounds in that little guy! Def gotta pick one up

Great episode,,I need one of these to play with..

3:20 Great work on the Enya, No Holly For Miss Quinn. I have the Yamaha PSS-170, PSS-50, and PS-55.

Wow nostalgia trip. No idea how i came to own it, but i had one of these growing up (i think it was my uncles and he gave it to me but im not sure). Got mine out and its really seen better days...

I picked one of these up for $10 in the box at a thrift store. Absolutely adore the thing.

This was my first keyboard and what I learned to play on....much nostalgia.

The PSS-170 was my second ever keyboard. Didn't even know there was a 270 lol

fun fact: In Ecuador this particular keyboard in called "chicherito" and it is an instrument pretty often used in folk music

Great video, I own a pss-270 and I love it. I also own an SK1 and many others. I sometimes circuit-bent some of my old keyboards but those ones are gold for me so I won't touch them. Please make more videos, your channel is so great, thanks

@8BitKeys

8 жыл бұрын

+Philippe Rmj - I've yet to understand the appeal of circuit bending. Every video I've watched so far it makes the keyboard sound terrible. I wouldn't mind circuit bending my speak & spell or something like that, if I could get it to produce different notes (hence, make it sing). But for a keyboard, I just don't get it.

OMG!!! I have one of these!! I dug her out of the closet a few minutes ago once I saw this video. She's been in storage since I was about 10 years old (I'm 37 now. She's also embarrassingly dirty and I think still works, but I will need to find batteries or my DC power power supply before I'll know for sure. Thank you for bringing back a piece of childhood Nostalgia. I'll have to do a full restoration and put her up on my channel.

@pablocontreras7113

5 жыл бұрын

They are female?

I had this keyboard in my closet for years. I do not remember where it came from. I took it out the closet for first time, cleaned it up, downloaded the user manual, got an adapter from my closet, and watched some videos. This keyboard came out when I was a Senior in high school (LOL). I can’t wait to play it. I’m going to use it in my new Home Music Studio, along with my new RockJam RJ761-SK Keyboard Synthesizer. This was made before MIDI was invented. It’s sold on Amazon for $200 (which cost more than my RockJam)

perfect review, thank you!

Thank you for sharing this. There were numerous keyboards that were similar to this one that were on sale at a store in Dublin, Ohio called "Gadget Ease." I loved tinkering with these and playing older tunes (from the Ancients to the 1800s, no surprise if you view my channel) on these 1980s models. When I played, my collection of elizabethan dance tunes and madrigals sounded the best on these in my opinion. Later works from composers such as Mozart and Bach sounded too stilted to my ears when I played on these earlier Yamahas.

I picked one of these up at Good Will recently for $20 or so. I keep it in my office by my computer and pull it out every now and then. It's actually turned out to be useful. First it's relatively small, battery powered and has it's own speaker so I can just start playing without worrying about any wires. Whenever inspiration strikes I have a keyboard ready within a few seconds to play around with whatever tune has popped in my head. And when I'm trying to figure out a song it's great play along to a song or video while I figure it out. The piano sound is awful, but some of the sounds (especially the brass) have actually aged quite well and sounds pretty classy.

@UnitedPebbles

2 жыл бұрын

I got it for like 5 dollar foot long plus beaucoup many 5 cents. Lol

I love your introduction theme.

Great video thanks for posting.

The YM2413 was a pretty nice move when it comes to keyboards actually. It makes much more sense to pair it with a keyboard, rather than something like a midi module or a sound card, since you're only going to be using a single patch at any given time on a keyboard.

La escencia de sus sonidos ochenteros es lo que lo hace una maravilla este teclado de gama baja. 👍🏻

My grandfather has a piano like this. He and I don't use it anymore. It is still in good condition and the speakers sound good.

Lovely review!

In past i used Yamaha PSS-290, same sounds but more options. Great times.

the snare drum kinda sounded like cooking popcorn in a brass pan

@fsisrael9224

5 жыл бұрын

It sounded to me like touching the metal strings under a snare drum

@marlahicks2109

3 жыл бұрын

Right after snare gun is "machine gun" (you probably wouldn't find THAT today) and it is rapid fire snare drum on every key. And then "Ocean", some keys aren't bad, but the top register is so glitchy, it actually makes the sound even cooler. It's similar to the bottom register on tuba he plays in the video. This is still my absolute favorite to just sit and start writing a tune.

i ordered this on Ebay can't wait to get it.

Bought one.IT'S FANTASTIC

I still have this thing and it still works.

I had this keyboard as a kid. Never could play it but it was a fun toy.

I have this keyboard and it still works.

Just bought a pss 790 for £5.00 from a charity shop, nice sounds and it works perfectly, I’m loving the vector joystick on it .can get some incredible sounds out of it by blending between the four voices

This was my second keyboard, my first was a Casio VL-Tone VL1 both really good keyboards for the beginner back in the 80's :)

@marlahicks2109

3 жыл бұрын

I got this one after my 70's Magnus Organ blew an air fan (cried for days). I really want to find another Magnus. The PSS-270 is still going strong, though. I remember opening it as a birthday present and feeling like I'd just won a million bucks. Fun times....feeling nostalgic and a touch ancient seeing it again. 😊

I had one of these, and even recorded some songs with it. I was pretty fond of it. Definitely agree on the sounds being pretty good, y'know, for a toy.

I circuit bent one of these with switches to cutoff the data lines, which sort of glitches out or randomizes the sounds. It takes a lot of experimentation and patience, but you can end up with some pretty wild FM sounds! It alters the drum beats nicely too.

Would have loved to have one of those portamento features on my keyboard as a teenager, when I played one in a band.

Es un teclado hermoso. Lo tengo desde joven y aun funciona bien. Tiene sonidos magníficos y concuerdo con el 61, es mi preferido.

Just bought one of these for 26 bucks. Love these old keyboards.