| I just bought a Yamaha PSR-520 from the new Guitar Center in Natick, MA.
It was kind of an impulse buy, although I've been thinking about getting a
keyboard for a while.
I do like most of the sounds a lot, and it has a lot of features, some of
which I'll probably never use. But one of the features it lacks is
non-volatile storage (I mean TRULY non-volatile, as in Flash memory or
EEPROM). The saleman led me to believe that the "Music Cartridges" that
plug into the unit can be used to store panel settings. This is not true.
It is an input-only device. There is "registration memory", which stores
128 user-defined panel settings, but the settings are lost unless the AC
adapter is plugged in or there are batteries in the thing (6 D-size). I do
not like this arrangement because I don't want to have to feed it batteries
for its lifetime. It's true that the batteries probably last a year or so,
and there is a low-battery warning, but if they die on me, or I have to do
a hardware initialization if the thing gets shocked by static electricity,
I've lost my settings and would have to re-create them.
My question is - are there keyboards in the $400-$500 range that have true
non-volatile memory in them for panel settings, or am I unlikely to find
this feature in anything priced near this range? I would consider a disk
drive-equipped unit, but I wouldn't expect to find one in this price range.
The Yamaha PSR-620 has a drive, but their website doesn't indicate that it
can store panel setups, only MIDI files. There is another model with a
disk drive that explicitly says you can store panel setups, but I don't
think it's in my price range.
Quick replies are appreciated since I have only 30 days to decide if I want
to return it :-)
BTW, features I am looking for in case anyone has suggestions of alternate
models (by any manufacturer) are: non-volatile panel setup storage, dual
voices, split keyboard, 61 keys, 1-note chords, good piano and organ
sounds, DSP effects like chorus, reverb, and Leslie emulation, built-in
speakers, MIDI connectors, under $600. I don't need auto-accompaniment and
song recording, but simple drum sounds would be nice.
thanks,
adam
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| If you have a midi hookup to a PC or MAC, perhaps you could use a
librarian to save the patches you set up.
FYI - I found a web site that looks like it may have a utility,
also pointers to other related sites. The address is:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4518/psr.html
I got quite a few hits in WWW.ALTAVISTA.COM searching for YAMAHA PSR.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Bill
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