Yamaha PSR-9000

Overall, the keyboard is very easy to use. There are a lot of submenus and submenus below those submenus if you want to get to some advanced features, but a majority of the options are one or two keypresses away.

With 126 voices, how could you want more? The keyboard has a weak aftertouch, but overall responds very well. You can expand the RAM to 65Mb, put an internal 8Gb hard drive, and up to 15 SCSI peripherals externally! The sequencer works well, and the vocal harmonizer is a technical wonder!

The Live and Sweet sounds are incredible. The other sounds are very good, but possibly not as good as other high-end keyboards. The effects are excellent, with many layerable DSP channels to work with.

I've had no problems whatsoever with my PSR-9000. I don't feel the need for having a backup keyboard. As on computers, I'm a bit wary of the reliability of the floppy disks themselves, so I copied the information to the internal hard drive.

I've never had to deal with Yamaha directly. Their American web site is weak; their Japanese web site works well and has upgrades and information easily accessible.

I would definitely buy another if this one was stolen. It's a little pricey, but the incredible features make it worth every penny. There are no other synthesizers on the market that do everything the PSR-9000 does. I will be posting a PSR-9000 site (http://homepage.mac.com/aarond12) shortly if you have questions.

The manual is easy to read and sounds are OK,,,live sounds are excellent!! Organ sounds are not very good.

It has pressure sensitive keys with very poor aftertouch and extra memory and hard drive can be added although extra added memory is just for sampling. Mic input for sampling is nice,all SCSI capabilities but no CDROM.

NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS~~~VERY UNRELIABLE!! And PLEASE MAKE sure this is what you want because IT HAS MANY PROBLEMS and known B-U-G-S!! Beginning with assertion failures,notes hanging on, instrument going of key, non use of custom voices, and reduced style and voice allocation other than specified(flash memory too small and gives "out of memory" errors).

Unfortunately I bought one of these(big sucker!!) because I wanted the newest keyboard available with all the bells and whistles and I also figured because it was priced higher(3495.00) than all the other ones it was better.....WRONG!!. It was a total nightmare with all the bugs and then after trying to get help from Yamaha after I called over 5 times and they never bothered to even call back was like a holocaust!! After finally reading all the other peoples complaints,same as mine, on the Unofficial PSR 9000 website I was convinced I bought a lemon keyboard. I finally took the keyboard back to the dealer and traded it for a KORG i30 which was cheaper and has better sounds and is as easy to use with touchscreen. TO make matters even worse while waiting for Yamaha to try and resolve my problem, I had the keyboard longer than the dealer return policy so because I paid in cash I had to take a $900. loss on the 9000 just to trade it back in for the Korg. Thanks YAMAHA!!!

If you still want to buy one of these then.. Good Luck!!! YOU'LL DEFINITELY BE NEEDING IT!! Try comparing it to a Korg i30 and you will definitely see the Korg is a much better keyboard for the money. Korg has better and more sounds,touchscreen and is easier to use. 9000 has mic sampling which the Korg doesnt....I wish I would have comparitive shopped before buying the Yamaha, as I would have saved $900 and a lot of headaches.