Synth Site |  Yamaha |  PSR-70

I've got one that someone left in my house, and I wonder why I haven't taken a hammer to it yet. -KT

Kevin Steele
This is more intended as an update to the review you have already. Here Goes:

THe PSR-70 was the first really decent auto-accompaniment keyboard. Before it your only option if you wanted a reasonably passable-sounding drum machine and auto accompaniment, was to shell out for a $2000 Electone organ.

It incorporated a DX-7 derived sound source, which gave you 16 quite good basic tones, called "Orchestra" tones,to which you could add effects such as Sustain and what Yamaha called "Stereo Symphonic" On top of this there were another 16 tones classed as "Solo". These were monophonic, and most were pretty garbage on their own, but you could however layer any combination of ann "Orchestra" and a "Solo" tone together to create something more substantial.

You could assign the Orchestra tone to the left hand side of the keyboard split, which could be set at any one of three fixed locations. This allowed you to play, say, electric piano chords over the top of the accompaniment.

There were no numerical displays, just shedloads of LED's next to each of button. In fact, the PSR-70 sported the most LED's I have ever seen on one front panel.

The auto-accompaniment section was pretty primative; you got 16 basic drum patterns based on all the usual genres, such as Swing, Rhumba, Disco, etc. Each had two variations, giving you 32 styles in all. The accompaniment itself was pretty basic -- all you got was a rather thin bass line, overlaid by a feeble (and naff sounding) chord part. This was all done to the often overlively boom-chick-a-boom beat of the drum machine. It did all the usual auto-accompaniment stuff as well such as intro, ending, fill in, and single-fingered chords. There was even a "build your own accomapaniment" feature -- something which is omitted by some $1000 auto-accompamniment keyboards even today!!! A little sequence recorder was thrown in for good measure as well.

Despite its obvious faults in the sound department, the PSR-70 was a mighty impressive bit of kit by 1985 standards. Although primarly designed as a home-only synth, (you could even run it on batteries) it started the craze of the one-man band, going out to the local clubs for busking purposes. The familiar electronic pattering and horribly synthetic brass sound of the "Big Band" rhythm can still be heard coming from a dusty old PSR-70 abandoned in the corner cupboard of bowling clubs and old-folks homes up and down the nation.

Since the halcyon days of the PSR-70, its successors (revoltingly overpriced, occasionally) have not shone in the way that their '85 ancestor once did in its day. Ever since the 70 beat its way into our hearts, subsequent PSR's have always seemed to be playing catch-up with the likes of the Roland E-Series, the Technics KN-range, and more recently, by Korg's i-series interactive workstations.

Good Points

Nice sounding Orchestra sounds, portability, ease of use, general purpose sounds. Primitive multitimbral ability. Versatile range of features. Some basic MIDI capability. Surprising sounds can come out of it with a bit of fiddling.

Bad Points

Cheap-sounding accompaniments, Solo section sounds garbage. Myriad of sliding volume controls get troublesome with old age. You need a power supply to run it off the wall socket. Down-market image.

Rating:

4 out of 5