Yamaha PSS series keyboards.

pneaveill · May 06, 2009, 11:45:42 PM

Quote from: davethedoobie on May 06, 2009, 11:41:30 PM
i did fry my first one so tread carefully.

This, my friends, is what I am wanting to avoid and is clearly why I am taking my time on this.

Thanks

zoomtheline · May 26, 2009, 02:15:44 PM

Quote from: nochtanseenspecht on September 03, 2008, 10:48:55 PM
you're welcome
hope you find some fresh bends

Right I left this for quite a while as I needed fresh bending supplies but got back to bending at the weekend.
I opened up the 580 first as I didn't want to break the 390 because its good on its own, I found some nice bends in it but nothing crazy (still think there are more though) so I moved on to some other ones (Sa10 - suprisingly poor up to now)
was feeling a bit deflated so I thought why not open up the 390. I was expecting it to look similar to the 580 as they seem similar on the outside but...... chips galore! the first pins I touched sent the demo tune into a crazy spiral of doom! I was overwhelmed by the amount of bends there was and how quickly they were appearing. I didn't even need to look at you pics I printed out nochtan! ha
I have just checked and we have found the same areas to bend pretty much but I reckon I got a few more (I hope)
I have just made a box and put a ton of bolts through it (+ some switches) as alot of the bends respond to pressure and body contact as it can vary so much just on one bend.

once finished i'll let you know but I might actually be to excited and busy to come back! ha

thanks again nochtan...

deathbender · May 26, 2009, 06:28:00 PM

Quote from: zoomtheline on May 26, 2009, 02:15:44 PM
(Sa10 - suprisingly poor up to now)

And it won't get better... this one IS as poor as you assume...

nochtanseenspecht · May 27, 2009, 12:15:28 AM

hey Zoom,
thats great !
if it rains, it pours they say about this kind of keyboards

hehe, i imagine how you feel ; when i finished my 390, i spend long exciting nights exploring the thing..
to many strange noises

hope you post some pics and mp3's !

and dont forget to connect an antennea on the interesting points ,for the intergalactic fun

Orangery · July 20, 2009, 10:36:45 AM

davethedoobie,

Have you finished your Yam PSS-790 project?

I have borrowed one from a friend. I know of only three bends which I saw on www.Klangbureau.de. One of these produces outrageous avant-garde melodies... superb!

What should I stay clear of (apart from the chips that are covered)... do you have any examples, images and such like?

Orangery.

SineHacker · July 23, 2009, 05:41:52 PM

Quote from: Orangery on July 20, 2009, 10:36:45 AM
davethedoobie,

Have you finished your Yam PSS-790 project?

I have borrowed one from a friend. I know of only three bends which I saw on www.Klangbureau.de. One of these produces outrageous avant-garde melodies... superb!

What should I stay clear of (apart from the chips that are covered)... do you have any examples, images and such like?

Orangery.

Circuit Bent PSS 790 Drone

PSS 790 Glitchout Circuit Bent

i'm shit at describing this but basically there is a chip above one of the two square chips (if the circuit board is exposed, with the keys facing you) you can see it's legs exposed but the chip itself is on the flipside of the board, anyway you want to just try linking these legs to other points on the circuit board as well as linking them together to get a great range of results. - I remember on the left hand side of the board (with the keys facing you) there is a straight row of 6 - 8 pins and when i first starting making connections there i was triggering drum samples, but when I tried exploring this a little further it killed the keyboard and I nearly cried - but after a couple of minutes of cursing, poking and pulling the batteries out it did spring back to life.

Sorry I don't have any internal images, I'll take some when I open it up next so you can see where I've been fiddling - I have a little more I wish to do - if you find anything cool let me know - I would really like to put some pots/photo resistors on but haven't found anywhere decent enough yet.

I hope this helps a little at least

there is plenty of cool bends in there and this is a great keyboard as it stands, it's also great fun to play when you've modded it - my fav project to date

Orangery · July 25, 2009, 05:36:08 PM

Thanks for the info and video clips...do you mean the 16 pin chip? It looks like the same chip as in Klangbureau's diagram.

You might find this interesting if you scroll down... http://lemarchanddesable.blogspot.com/ The circuit board on this guy's machine is slightly different to mine in that his has two rows of 16 pin chips.

SineHacker · July 25, 2009, 11:36:14 PM

@orangery

That is very interesting

yeah, mine is the same I just have the one 16 pin chip and thats your bend g-spot! as mentioned above, I linked some of the pins together with swithches and got some really cool effects with that, mainly distortions but you tend to get really bizarre stuff when you switch more than one bend on at once. I opened it up again the other day but still found nothing new

I was disappointed i didn't get any variables in there.

what diagram are you referring to, is there anything good on it?

Orangery · July 26, 2009, 11:24:38 AM

Try this... http://www.klangbureau.de/PSS790_E.html

There are drones, chance compositions (easily my favourite), and arpeggio effects...

Orangery.

PS... the dog didn't seem that impressed.

SineHacker · July 26, 2009, 03:01:03 PM

Ok, cool yeah those are pretty much the points I found, I didn't care for the arpeggios that much - right then the pic isn't great but I couldn't really produce something much better, you see where the square chip is on the right, above that there is a line of 8 pins, these need to be avoided - i think, I was poking around there and it killed the keyboard for a short while (i think this means I discharged a capacitor as it did come back to life after a short duration) above those 8 pins there can you see the 3 fat solder points that bend around the screw? those are great for distorting and mashing up the drum sounds, again connected to the same chip

Quote from: Orangery on July 26, 2009, 11:24:38 AM

PS... the dog didn't seem that impressed.

what do you mean? he's an avant-garde genius!!

MAGTIG · August 09, 2009, 10:55:44 PM

I scored a (dirty as hell) PSS-470 at a yardsale yesterday for $11 (it sounds so fucking good!). When I got it home and opened it up to clean it I found this honkin' capacitor. Is this one of the ones that can throw my dumb ass across the room like a rag doll?

Circuitbenders · August 09, 2009, 11:29:00 PM

No, thats fine. If you were working on a valve amp or something the caps would be rated at more like 350v or so and that might make your eyes water, but 2200uF 16v isn't going to hurt you.

MAGTIG · August 09, 2009, 11:32:50 PM

Oh good, thanks. Do you think it would be a bad idea to use it as a test contact for bends?

Circuitbenders · August 09, 2009, 11:41:11 PM

I wouldn't mess with it, that looks like part of the power supply circuit and theres no point messing around with that. You won't get anything interesting happening and you might fry it.

Gordonjcp · August 10, 2009, 12:18:03 AM

Quote from: MAGTIG on August 09, 2009, 10:55:44 PM
Is this one of the ones that can throw my dumb ass across the room like a rag doll?

As Crustypaul says, no, that won't hurt you. You did the right thing by asking though.

If you're in any doubt - either for your own safety, the safety of others, or the safety of your equipment - STOP AND ASK!