Keyboard/Synthesizer Timeline

My first adventure in music started out when I was probably about 10 years old. A friend in class (let's call'm Rob H.) had brought his keyboard over for show & tell and as an eager prepubescent nerd I was super excited to see all the sounds & songs he was able to extract out of this table-top instrument. I had to have one! After an appropriate amount of begging etc my parents (who actually did value musical education which helped) got me a basic Yamaha Model. I had to do some major digging online and only vaguely remember what it looked like but at this point I'm sure it was the Yamaha PortaSound PSS-360 or PSS-460. They both are very similar and had the green 'synth' sliders on top and even share the same manual . I'm leaning towards the 360 because I THINK it only had the 1 speaker




Yamaha PortaSound PSS 360

Yamaha PortaSound PSS 460

Either way it was a great little keyboard. I even remember taking it on vacations with me and just playing it whenever I could.


Yamaha DSR-2000
After a few year I needed something a bit 'bigger' the 49 keys were getting to be a little too small. As it happens there was a keyboard crazy going on at the time (anyone remember those 'Synthesizer Greatest' Tapes & CDs?) and there was actually even a 'Special Sales Event' that came to town for like 3 days selling keyboards & synthesizers ( Cheap Prices & they took trade-ins = done deal!). I remember being very interested in either a bigger Yamaha being the DSR-1000 / DSR-2000 or some kind of Technics Synthesizer they had. (Googling reveals AX5/AX7 being the most likely competitor). I ended up going with the Yamaha since it just 'clicked' better. It also had this cool 'fold up' button & display area. It even came with it's own multi-track mini-sequencer which I remember making a ton of songs on. If you google some videos you can hear the cheezy FM sounds this wonder produced  (but hey it was awesome at the time!) - Google search produced this fine image:

I was able to also find the manual for the DSR-2000: Part 1 & Part 2


Yamaha SY-77
Move forward a few years and I had picked up some guitar playing, but figured what they heck I should take a few lessons. The instructor I found (lets call him Fred S. ) was actually a keyboard player who knew a bit about guitar, so I figured well I can sorta get lessons in both & alternate if I want. He was selling his Yamaha SY-77 workstation because he switched to a Roland (JV-30 I believe). Having tried out anything I could get my hands on over time, I came to realize I was basically a Yamaha Guy, so this super sleek looking Synthesizer had my name written all over it!

It had a sequencer, could read/write to/from floppy disc & memory cards, 77 keys of great action and the sounds were fantastic. I spent a ridiculous amount of time on this thing doing all kinds of fun projects (like painstakingly sequencing some Tubular Bells II (by Mike Oldfield) tracks on it ) & still have fond memories of this synthesizer. This was THE synthesizer to have at the time... so much so that a while after I bought it my guitar/keyboard instructor wanted to TRADE me back for his new Roland since he missed the sounds & versatility when he played with his band. I tried it out for a week so he could do an important gig with it, but I was already hooked and the Roland just did NOT click with me AT ALL, so No Dice buddy! (especially after telling me I'd never be able to play guitar decently because I have 'fat-fingers'... yeah thanks.. I think I'm done with the lessons.... LOL) Vintage Synth has a nice writeup on the SY-77 with a demo video here and the manual can be found here.



Yamaha MO-8
I had been without a synthesizer basically for quite a few years (probably 5+) and I was itching to get something like the SY77 back again, yet I was also leaning towards perhaps even a digital piano. I glanced over the pages in various catalogs and online sites and of course only Yamaha caught my eye with a few of their models, especially their MOTIF XS series. Down-side was that they were ridiculously expensive!

I still wasn't quite sure what I wanted and was going back & forth between a 77key and 88 key. The MM6 looked like a 'fun' 61 key setup based off the MOTIF family and very affordable, but the 61 keys just didn't do it for me. (MM8 hadn't been released yet). After some more research I basically had it narrowed down between a Yamaha S90-ES or a Yamaha MO8. The S90 looked super sleek and the Piano sounded FANTASTIC.. The MO8 though was more of a 'workstation' like I was looking for, and still had great piano sounds etc, but it was 'silver' instead of my usual black. In the end though the feature set of the MO8 won out over the S90 and I went ahead and with some help from the birthday fund got me one of these beautiful synthesizers

It plays and sounds absolutely fantastic and I'm sure I'll enjoy it for quite a few more years to come. If anything it'll be quite some time before I've gone through the manual sufficient amounts of time before I can memorize on how to do everything!



Looking back at all of these I find it interesting that without any real 'outside' influence as far as I recall I've been totally loyal to Yamaha products. To me the sound, the feel, options & user Interface they present as a complete package just clicks with me. I've tried Roland products & other brands but to me they always feel 'off' for one reason or another... I guess this is very similar to one of those Fender vs Gibson things, where it doesn't need to make sense, there doesn't even need to be a reason, but people instinctively like one better than the other... And for me, when it comes to Keyboards & Synthesizers,  it'll always be Yamaha.