Yamaha PSS series keyboards.

[MAGTIG]

^^^ Thanks again guys! I've got another one for everybody:

PSS-680 drumpads

I got my second 680 in the mail today and it has the exact same problem as the first: very unresponsive drumpads (and I asked the seller about it specifically before winning the auction GRRR!). Short of completely rewiring the pads up to new switches, is there anything I can do to make them playable?

[MAGTIG]

Ok, so after further experimentation I've found that it's the pads themselves, not the circuit board. sensors. The pads are made of thick heavy blue rubber squares with 5 black dots per pad (they all hit the same trigger).

It might be fun to rewire the pads to a Tiger Lite 3 I have, which has a red and green LED for each button. Only problem with that is I don't know how (I've been fiddling with it for the last hour with no results).

[Orangery]

Computer at sea, you mentioned connecting pins 29 and 31 on the large chip of the PSS-11.  Depending on the orientation of the keyboard and start point those pins could be any one of four permutations.  I'm assuming you read left to right (starting top left) with the keyboard face down and piano keys closest you?

Orangery.

[computer at sea]

It's been an awful long time since I bent that guy!  I usually have the keys facing me and I do read from the top left corner of the chip.  As I recall the keyboard was oriented so the chip in concern was closer to the left of the board than the right.

[computer at sea]

Ugh.



So I'm doing the data line mod on a PSS 270 and I can't tell what the hell is wrong.  I've looked it over a bunch of times and checked everything with a multimeter for unintentional connections and it all looks good.  However, there's something awry.  It behaves a lot like some of the data lines are open, but everything looks ship shape.  Most keys don't play, but some will rumble a little when it's set with the one of the accompaniment features.

Could I have fried the YM2314 or the CPU?  I've done this mod on a couple of 140's in the past and my technique has gotten tighter since then, so my solder joints are all done pretty fast and on the green side of the board.  I guess I have a hotter iron now (I'm using a WLC100) so maybe that's the culprit?  I thought that the YM2314 chips were somewhat rugged, so maybe its the CPU? 

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[computer at sea]

Well it was, of course, something much simpler, but a problem I'd never run into before.

I've been using salvaged printer cable for wire for about the last year, since it's small and multicolored and I hadn't had any problems before.  Turns out what was going on was that one of my wires was broken inside the heat-shrink.  There was no visible evidence on the outside of the wire, but it was cut inside.  I replaced it and now the 270 is up and running.

[ne7]

Fixing drum pads --- if you ever get a toy or keyboard with unresponsive drum pads its normally just a case of opening it up - and checking how the drum pads actually function -

If they are connected to little piezo type pads check the solder points on these for loose connections (and the board) i

If they are connected as on the pss series keyboard to black dots or other contact points grab yourself some isopropyl alcohol and give each of the pads on the underside of the rubber pads a good clean with some cotton swabs/cotton buds then move onto the board and clean the corresponding contacts - you'll soon have functioning drumpads again

most poor drum pads / buttons are due to kids having grubby fingers and dirt getting into the keyboard and caking the board and contacts with crap - always have a good go at cleaning them it always makes a difference

hope that helps!

[MAGTIG]

These are really large, heavy pads, all connected to each other than run across the bottom of the keyboard. By design they're able to keep out any outside dirt from grubby fingers, but I'm going to try that when I get a chance just the same, so thanks!!

If that doesn't work I was think about cutting thick heavy watercolor paper in thin strips and gluing it to the circuit board to slightly elevate the pads. They really seem like they're just resting on the contacts and the lack of space is the reason for the unresponsiveness. I'm always too damn busy to monkey with it though. 

[epicentre]

Hey guys, sorry for the threadomancy, but there's no point in starting a new topic just for this question 

I just bought a PSS-580 (not for bending, I like it as it is ) and I'm wondering - If I connect a MIDI keyboard to control it will it recognize the velocity sensitive keys and/or the pitch wheel?

[SearchAndRescue]

I've been working on a PSS 6 for a bit and am wondering if anyone else out there has found anything on it that I haven't yet.

I found two bends that work with about a third of the presets and make a pretty nice mess out of the rhythms and jam tracks.  They're off the main chip in the first few pins on the top right, if my memory serves.  Kaseo has some similar bends on his [bEnt or diE] site.

I also found a pretty good low synthy buzz that works ok on a pot as well as some screechy body contacts.  The voltage drop crash mod works on this fella too, and though it isn't as flamboyant as on some other keyboards it's still worth adding.

If anyone has any more info on this model (or would like more specifics about what I found)  please let me know.

Hopefully you still have yours, because the PSS-6 is great. I keep reading about the 'voltage drop' mod, and maybe thats what I'm gonna describe. If so, sorry. When I got my PSS-6, I immediately lost the back battery cover. I was playing it one day and it fell off my lap. I grabbed the keyboard  in mid-air and when I did, one finger went into the battery area and separated two of the batteries, just for a moment. When I let go, a big rush of static and a marimba note pounded out of the little speaker at about 120 beats per minute. The bend stopped as soon as i turned the machine off. I kept trying my new discovery, which yielded either silent crash or one of many different random (but related and similar) loops as the first one. About a month went by and I was putting the keyboard through some heavy abuse, and the batteries were dying. As they lost power, the loops grew longer in length and more complex musically. I cut one of the battery holder wires and inserted a pot and normally-closed switch in the gap, and now the thing goes and goes. I recommend using a very small value pot (1K-5K). I wired mine up with a 50 and it's usable range is about 10 degrees. I hope that this is informative to everybody. I've never seen anybody else describe this.

[samspike]

Hey guys, sorry for the threadomancy, but there's no point in starting a new topic just for this question 

I just bought a PSS-580 (not for bending, I like it as it is ) and I'm wondering - If I connect a MIDI keyboard to control it will it recognize the velocity sensitive keys and/or the pitch wheel?

PSS-680 definitely responds to velocity, so I expect the 580 would too.

Google for "PSS-580 manual", and look in the MIDI implementation section to confirm

[samspike]

My curiosity got the better of me.

Page 45 of the manual (page 48 in the 50 page PDF):

Receives: Note on velocity, Pitch bend, Vibrato, Sustain

Sends: Vibrato, Sustain, Portmento

You can also get 1 octave higher via MIDI than you can thru the keyboard.

The rest you can read yourself.

[Timodon]

Thanks for posting this Samspike - you've indirectly helped me with my salvaged PSS keyboard project.

Well, you've helped me sack it off but at least that's one less thing to worry about and one less bit of clunky old gear lying around the house! 

[seaweedfactory]

Here's a work in progress and some documentation. The Yamaha PSS-270 is a FM keyboard with a multitude of cool presets and an analog chorus. Here's the first round of discoveries: an octave drop, chorus depth, chorus morph feedback, overdrive, and a sustain twister.

This is still a work in progress, so I'm not sure how these modifications will interact with each other. The connections are marked with colored circles, with an explanation of the provided for each color.

You can find the schematic at:

http://seaweedfactory.blogspot.com/2011/12/yamaha-pss-270-modifications.html

as it is too large to post here.

[davelybob]

Hey all, first post, been lurking a while and got some great tips for you guys.  Quick question, does anybody know where on the circuit board to solder in a rca for glitch video output on a PSS-140?  I've seen the solder points for that mod on a diagram for a PSS-80, and I have seen a video on YouTube that demonstrates the same mod on a PSS-140, so I know it is possible, just can't find the points for that model anywhere.  Trying not to blindly poke around on this one since i am bending it for a friend, and I already half burned out my own PSS-140 (I lost all rhythms, boo).  So if anybody has any pointers.  I already have the FM mods done and the buzzer (NICE trick there, thanks for the heads up), and will be doing the pitch shift mods and a feedback/distortion.  I've already successfully done FM mods to a PSS-270 and a PSR-11 (my favorite sounds of all three so far), and next in line for some trace cutting is my Sega Genesis.  LOOOOOOVE the FM mod so hard.