Yamaha PSR2100 Arranger Workstation Digital Keyboard

YAMAHA Updated: 2007-10-03
Yamaha PSR2100 Arranger Workstation Digital Keyboard

The PSR-2100 is the instrument of choice for many professional and semi-professional musicians, home hobbyists, singers and songwriters because this keyboard is all about sound. If you are familiar with other hi-end Arranger Workstations from Yamaha, you'll be amazed to find out that the PSR-2100 has 50% more wave ROM than the PSR9000 and 100% more than the PSR-2000 that it replaces and more wave ROM translates to better sound. It is also the first in the line to feature organ flutes with virtual drawbars and a vocal harmony unit that allows you to back up your singing performance with stunning 3-part harmony (including your original voice). And finally, you'll find a huge array of innovative features and functions tailored to the special needs of live and studio musicians including Quick Record, a large LCD with Score and Lyric capability, USB connectivity, 4 sections to each style, User memory for storing data, 32 channels of MIDI via USB and fixed level line-outs that make it easy to capture the creative moment.

Sound Value for your dollar
The PSR-2100 features a huge 32MB of wave ROM that is on par or higher than many professional synthesizers. And Yamaha puts this wave ROM to good use with an ample selection of over 800 voices, including 14 Sweet, 6 Cool! and 12 Live! Voices. Sweet Voices are special voices from Yamaha that reproduce all the natural expression and vibrato of their respective acoustic instruments. A couple of examples would be Sweet Flute, Harmonica, Flugel Horn and Muted Trumpet. Cool! Voices feature samples of electronically amplified instruments like Jazz Guitar and Electric Piano. Ultra expressive Live! Voices use stereo samples to ensure the most accurate reproduction of each instrument's natural presence, resonance and vibrato. Check out the Live Grand Piano, Strings, Hyper Brass, Gospel and Nylon Guitar. Whether you're looking for a keyboard to make demo songs, playing live gigs or simply looking for a lot of sound value for your dollar, you'll like what you hear from the 2100.

Virtual Drawbars – all of the sound, none of the weight!
OrganIf you are a fan of that vintage organ sound, then look no further than the PSR-2100 Organ Flutes. One press of the Sound Creator button calls up a visual representation of eight drawbars and assigns the increment/decrement buttons under the screen for controlling them.PSR2100 Draw Bar You can make adjustments in real time that include flute footage volume, rotary speaker speed and type, organ type, vibrato, percussive attack and length, response and EQ. Once you get it the way you like, then simply save the new voice and call it up any time you like. And because the PSR-2100 has 2 Foot Pedal jacks, you can assign one to control rotary speed for smooth, hands free operation.

Microphone input and Vocal Harmony for real time performances
This past couple of years has seen a resurgence in TV talent shows that is adding new talent and vitality to the music market and entertainment field. Whether you sing for fun or for a living, the PSR-2100 has features that help you sound great. The keyboard is equipped with a Microphone input (MIC not included) and a professional Vocal Harmony function, which transposes your voice in realtime, giving you 3-part harmony including your original voice.

Add a choir to provide more depth and emotion to a ballad or expand your singing range with the unique Gender function. The harmony function can be triggered in real time from 3 different sources; left hand chords, right hand notes or from a track in a MIDI file. There are literally thousands of song files available from many different sources on the Internet that contain lyric and harmony information (for example: see the XF section at yamahamusicsoft.com) that makes the whole process plug and play. Call up the song and follow the lyrics in the screen. The lyrics advance as the song does and the harmony will come and go at the appropriate times. Just think, you could be the next…

The first thing you notice is the huge LCD screen
PSR2100 Screen There are many advantages to having a larger screen. For one thing, it conveys a lot more information at one time. For example, the screen on the PSR-2100 is able to show you mixer settings at a glance, the chords you PSR2100 Scoreare playing, what sounds are on the right and left side of the keyboard, what Style or MIDI file is currently playing, score and lyrics. In fact, if you record a song into the PSR-2100 using the arranger features, it will not only display the notes you played, but the chords as well. The bottom line about having a bigger screen is that it's your window into how the music is being created – you might as well make it a big one.

Download music data from the Internet and play it on your keyboard
In the past, when you wanted to learn a new song, you would probably head off to your local music store where hopefully they had the piano sheet music for the song you eagerly were looking to play and sing. This music generally contained the left and right hand piano parts, chords and lyrics. Recently, Yamaha, Hal Leonard and Sebelius got together to create digital interactive sheet music. Here's how it works. Using your computer, go to yamahamusicsoft.com, find your favorite Scorch® song(s), purchase them and download them into your computer. At this point, if you like, you can change the key and print the music using your printer. But it doesn't stop there!

By connecting the PSR-2100 to your computer you can transfer the digital sheet music into your keyboard and it will play the song for you as the music and lyrics scroll by in the screen. If you would like to embellish the arrangement, the keyboard will actually "read" the chords in the song (that's called XF) and play a Style with backing tracks like bass, drums and guitar along with the piano music! You can try the song as a ballad, jazz, country or rock – or no backing tracks at all. Finally, go ahead and play the piano part, using any of the built-in features like transpose, metronome and tempo controls. With digital sheet music, you can play it your way!

A Keyboard with more Style
The PSR-2100 features Styles (accompaniment patterns) in a variety of different musical genres including Rock, Jazz, Latin, Country and Dance. All you have to do is play the chords with your left hand as you perform and the selected Style will automatically play along, instantly following the chords you play. This is live playing at it's best. For even greater diversity, this keyboard offers 4 sections to the built-in Styles. For example, you could use the A section for the Verse, B section for the Chorus, C for the Bridge and D for a Solo. In addition, each Style has 3 different Intros and Endings and will automatically fill, if you like, between sections.

Ease of operation
There are many tools in the keyboard that make it easy to be a power user from the first day you own the keyboard.

* Direct Access Button: Press this button and the function you would like to adjust, for example Pitch Bend, and the LCD screen instantly takes you there. Saves wading through menus and sub-menus.
* Music Finder: Complete keyboard setups by song title. The keyboard selects an appropriate voice for the right hand melody, the correct musical style and the correct tempo. Simply call up a song title and start playing.
* Quick Record: To record a song, just press the Record button. Recording starts as soon as you start playing the keyboard and will record everything you play – the Style, Left & Layer Voices and Multi pads or a single track.
* One Touch Setting (OTS): Provides you with a recommended voice with effects for each Section of each Style (4 per style). Can be set to change automatically or you can select one of the four buttons. For example, on a jazz style, one OTS might be piano, the next jazz guitar with a little echo, the third sax with reverb and the forth might be piano and vibes layered.
* Multi Pads: These four buttons change to match the genre of each Style (or you can change them yourself) and can be used to play a number of short pre-recorded rhythmic and melodic sequences that can be used to add impact and variety to your keyboard playing. Translation: MIDI-Loops.
* Built-in Help: Help messages give you explanations & descriptions of the main functions and features found in the keyboard. Language choices include English, Japanese, German, French, Spanish or Italian.
* Demo: In addition to the main demos showing some of the more advanced features found in the keyboard, there is also a short demo for every sound.
* Mixing Console: To change voices, adjust levels, panning, transpose, tuning, pitch bend and effects on various tracks or parts that you play, simply press the Mixing Console button and make adjustments using graphical representations of rotary pots and faders.
* Registration Memory: Set the keyboard up just the way you like and take a digital snapshot by memorizing it to one of the Registration buttons. Load and save banks of eight registrations to User memory or floppy. The eight Registration buttons are conveniently located just above the keyboard.