Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 14 hours ago
Just got this vintage 1986 FM Keyboard/Synth, the Yamaha PSS-270 2-Operator FM Keyboard. Very rare in my country (Indonesia). I have played with it for a while and had to say it has really great, signature, thick FM sounds even without adding external effects (it has stereo chorus built in), and I also like the audio connection of it (2 RCA, 1 3,5 jack). The sounds in the Yamaha PSS-270 are pure FM synthesized (2-operator) and there are some PCMs also (the Drum samples, Wave and Machine Gun voices notably, I can instantly tell if they're PCM or FM by ear).
I did a comparison of the PSS-270's really nice thick sounding Sine Wave (voice 68) versus a VST's sine wave (Best Service's Engine, Izotope Iris) and was really surprised that the PSS-270's waveform contains tons of extra harmonics that when amplified with EQs, sound really pleasant and musical. The VST's sine wave on the other hand is extremely sterile without any extra harmonics except one or two frequency spikes that only shows up when EQed. I tried to use two analog saturation plugins on the VST's sine wave to see how they compare with the plethora of harmonics in the PSS-270, of course the plugins gave some harmonics/distortions but they sound ugly when amplified by EQ. Last thing, it can run with batteries and is portable. :)
#vlog
#newgear
Just got this vintage 1986 FM Keyboard/Synth, the Yamaha PSS-270 2-Operator FM Keyboard. Very rare in my country (Indonesia). I have played with it for a while and had to say it has really great, signature, thick FM sounds even without adding external effects (it has stereo chorus built in), and I also like the audio connection of it (2 RCA, 1 3,5 jack). The sounds in the Yamaha PSS-270 are pure FM synthesized (2-operator) and there are some PCMs also (the Drum samples, Wave and Machine Gun voices notably, I can instantly tell if they're PCM or FM by ear).
I did a comparison of the PSS-270's really nice thick sounding Sine Wave (voice 68) versus a VST's sine wave (Best Service's Engine, Izotope Iris) and was really surprised that the PSS-270's waveform contains tons of extra harmonics that when amplified with EQs, sound really pleasant and musical. The VST's sine wave on the other hand is extremely sterile without any extra harmonics except one or two frequency spikes that only shows up when EQed. I tried to use two analog saturation plugins on the VST's sine wave to see how they compare with the plethora of harmonics in the PSS-270, of course the plugins gave some harmonics/distortions but they sound ugly when amplified by EQ. Last thing, it can run with batteries and is portable. :)
#vlog
#newgear
