Yamaha PSR-185 (Or similar)

[Tyler1144]

This is one of those sentimental toys that you grow up with and play all the time, and suddenly you learn to bend and make it even cooler
Played this since i was 5

There are lots of models of this keyboard, some have elevated speakers, some dont have headphone jacks, some dont have both sides with speakers, some only have a speaker on the LEFT side. The thing is, they all have the same circuitry.

I have 2 cousins that have these. One cousin gave it to me and i broke it accidentally, the second one lol.....

I went to his house one day and bent it when he was out (opened, searched, found, soldered, mounted)

He came back and freaked out and thought it was pretty cool
I have 3 switches on it. Switch 1: Light distortion on some drums
2: Complete swapping/mutilation/glitching/randomization of ALL DRUMS and SOME instruments. (One replaces the snare with a train horn with static and then a loud beep and then a wiggly UFO sound lol)

Switch 3 is similar to 2, except rather than changing all drums and some synths, it COMPLETELY CHANGES EVERY SINGLE INSTRUMENT ON THE WHOLE KEYBOARD!. The piano becomes random crickets and pops, the french horn becomes a UFO, the bass becomes a grumble and then loud explosion,  and one even sounds like a choo choo train lol.

Has anyone tried bending one before? I can post a drawn schematic.



Did i mention it has over 100 instruments?




Heres a crappy schematic i drew, ill have to get pics of the real one soon

[dimefan90]

looks pretty sweet. what are the instruments like. PCM, FM, MIDI?

[Tyler1144]

Nah, too old to have midi, its from 94

[Circuitbenders]

too old to have midi? It been around since about 1980 or so!

You kids today don't even use midi do you?   

[SineHacker]

It uses AWM i think, AWM = glitch bliss :-)

[Tyler1144]

too old to have midi? It been around since about 1980 or so!

You kids today don't even use midi do you?   

Only for fl studio

[Tyler1144]

looks pretty sweet. what are the instruments like. PCM, FM, MIDI?

Well i dont know if its FM, but it picks up fm radio if you flip the distortion switch and listen closely with max volume lol

[SineHacker]

looks pretty sweet. what are the instruments like. PCM, FM, MIDI?

Well i dont know if its FM, but it picks up fm radio if you flip the distortion switch and listen closely with max volume lol

It uses AWM, (Advanced Wave Modeling) it probably says so on the front of the keyboard - this means that the synthesis uses short samples to generate the sounds, usually layering a number of samples - the bends you are getting basically mangle up the envelopes and mix-layers of the sounds - sometimes you can change the direction the samples play as well!

there are like three of these in my local cash generator at the moment and they're selling for a steal! i have no spare cash though

[Tyler1144]

I definately reccommend getting one, but only expirement on the IC, any other points will crash it instantly or fry it for good, i learned the hard way with the first one

The smaller higher ic seems to be controlling the keypresses and lights or something, because i touched every possible 2x pin combination on it, no crashes at all. But it did make some cool key glitches(hits a random section of keys 100 times per second)

The bottom ic is really sensitive, so try experimenting with the top 3 pins on the right side with the rest of the IC, some were cool but i only had 3 switches

[Tyler1144]

Its still alive, these bends are very nice. I flip them rapidly and randomly and mercilessly and not one sign of damage or heating up yet

[SineHacker]

v i d e o ?

[Tyler1144]

There is one on youtube but my camera is so crappy you wouldnt be able to hear it or see it

[iwillbeacircuitbender]

Here is a Yamaha PSR-300 circuit board

Can anyone tell me about some good points to connect to get good results? These all use AWM, so I'll bet whatever glitches I get will most likely sound very similar