I am a self-taught pianist of approximately 11 years. For many years I was sorely against buying any keyboard without 88 hammer-action keys. But recently I started getting a lot of ideas for music besides piano solo. 88 key workstations are a little pricey to say the least so I had to compromise losing the expressiveness and touch of a true hammer-action feel for more features, sounds, and multiple track recording. I shopped around on the internet and at local music stores and finally decided on the PSR-550.

Expressiveness/Sounds/Effects:
Although no comparison to hammer weighted keys, Yamaha's synth action becomes quite expressive once you get used to it. It has adjustable sensitivity from 0-127. The keyboard's expressiveness varies from instrument to instrument but is easily tapered to your preference. Has a single pitch bend wheel. Excellent for guitar expressiveness. Can be tuned from range 0-12. The sounds are excellent! Quality of sounds range from excellent to good. You can find at least a few from each category that have a convincing sound. Whenever people hear my compositions they admit it sounds professional and are actually taken aback at its quality and realistic performance. Reverb and effects are pretty basic and all can be tuned from 0-127. Hall, DSP, vibrato, etc. 713 sounds total so you have a lot of options and the ability to make unique sounds and compositions. Plenty of piano, electric piano, strings, synthesizers, basses, strings, flutes, many other odd sounds like sirens, phones, rain, whistles etc, the list goes on and on. You won't get bored! Also has on-board speakers with a pretty decent sound. Clear highs and responsive bass. The instrument quality is greatly improved with the use of speaker monitors or a better sound system. Especially the piano and strings!!!!

Ease of use/Manual:
The board is pretty straight forward. Dedicated buttons for transpose and tempo. Voice change can be entered by number, plus and minus, or speed dial. These buttons also increase or decrease your levels of reverb and other multiple functions. The record mode is very simple. Just takes a quick look at the manual and you really don't have to refer to it afterwards. Disk is frustrating at times when making corrections. Increasingly slow the more parts you add. Manual takes you step by step through each function. There's really no room for error.

Recording/Editing:
Pretty basic recording. You can make your own drum beats with the available drum kits and also add any other sound on the keyboard with a few "PAD" or "Bass" tracks (accompaniment). It will record up to 3 "styles" per disc. I would say that the keyboard will pretty much compose the drum beat you have in mind if you experiment with it enough. A total of 16 tracks can be individually recorded. You can also punch in at any desired measure and correct/edit any track for mistakes or change in melody, composition etc. This comes in very handy. A true lifesaver. At any time, during or after recording a song, you can use the on-board mixer to get just the right sound. You can increase or decrease your reverb or change each voice entirely. You can playback the recording, select a track, and change the instrument sound while it plays. Very good feature. During real-time recording you will more than likely make a timing mistake. This can be corrected with the quantize function on the 550. Timing can be adjusted to a 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/12, 1/16, 1/24, 1/32 note or beat. This tightens up your harmonies and perfects your drum beats, giving your material a polished, professional sound. However, I have one problem with the recording. Very complex songs that require a lot of polyphony sometimes will not record to an exact rhythm. For example the drums will be slightly off beat at some of the more complex parts of a song. A second quantize may or may not fix the problem. Another thing concerning this is part of your harmonies will be eliminated because of the limited polyphony. And with only 32 notes polyphony you have to be very careful in your keyboard arrangements. The only way to fix this is to eliminate a complex track and play the harmonies using fewer notes. So you may not get the true sound you want by having to deviate from the harmonies you have in mind.

Features:
This is the category where this keyboard shines! Like I mentioned above, 16 tracks recording plus editing features. 713 voices and in depth variation for each voice. Floppy disk, various utility functions. Full midi capabilities! Multicolor backlit display. 112 accompaniment styles. 14 drum kits. Various computer usages. I don't have enough space here to list everything.

Dependability:
Very dependable. Never had any problems with it except for the polyphony issue. Keyboard is put together firmly. Keys and buttons still at optimum level. I don't gig or anything it pretty much stays at home 95% of the time.

Expansion:
You can always add a module to get more sounds or better quality sounds. There are multiple style files available for the PSR keyboards. I am looking forward to hooking up the 550 to my computer once I get some recording software like Cakewalk Sonar 2, or Emagic Platinum. This will eliminate my problems with polyphony and disk save times. And in turn increase my options for reverb and effects.

Excellent keyboard! I would recommend this board to just about anyone. I am very discriminative when it comes to keyboard quality and sounds. When it boils down to how much cash you have to spend, you could not find a better way to spend 500 bucks!! Go and get this keyboard! You'll be pleasantly surprised!


Recommended: Yes