H! Pls help this Complete newbie!!

[mrityunjay]

Hi All!
This is Mrityunjay Tripathi from Nagpur, India, and a complete newbie to keyboards and to this forum. Thanks for letting me in! I am sure I will be getting a lot of guidance and knowledge here.
But today I am writing for your guidance in helping me make a very crucial decision. Members from India, who understand a typical Indian middle class mentality and paying capacity will be able to help me better.
I purchased a Yamaha PSR e363 at a cost of Rs. 10,925.00 for my 10 yr old son and myself (48 yrs). After receiving it, I found the volume to be a little lacking. And now I am planning to exchange it for e463.
As I have almost zero knowledge of keyboards, the following factors are causing me confusion. Please help me make a decision.
(a) One view is that we learn from e363 and then when we are proficient, we move on to e463 or anything still higher. But as a typical Indian buyer, I would like to own something for long enough; let's say for 10 yrs. Will e463 be a better buy in this regard? Especially when e463 has features like pitch bend wheel and live control knobs, which should be there even in a fresher's keyboard.
(b) An e463 has far higher speaker volume. Is that really required or e363 should suffice? Even for a small party?
(c) IMPORTANT: e363 has learning function and e463 doesn't. Does this function make e363 better for a complete newbie? Or online resources and Android apps (preferably free) are better and learning function is more or less useless?
(d) VERY IMPORTANT: e363 has a far bigger music database. It has 158 songs vs 30 of e463. Is it very helpful for a newbie? Are these songs so important, to even make me prefer e363 over e463?
(e) A new e463 will cost me around Rs. 5,000 extra. Is it OK to pay that much extra, when I am completely new to keyboard playing?
I request all to please help me make a decision.
Thanks a lot in advance!!

[vbdx66]

Hi and welcome to the forum, 

I have moved your message to the part of the Forum which is specialized about the PSR E Series of keyboards. Hopefully more people will be able to answer your questions here.

Regards,

Vinciane

[SciNote]

In my opinion, if you can afford the extra cost of the PSR-E463, I would absolutely purchase that keyboard over the PSR-E363 if you are wanting something to grow with you and be useful for a long time.  I have one of the E463's predecessors, the PSR-E433, and I have been very happy with it for over six years (though it may have developed a defect -- I'll post about that in another thread), and I have been playing keyboard for over 40 years.

The live control knobs, and their related features such as filter, envelope generator, and DSP, give you synthesizer-type control over the sound with the ability to turn the preset sounds of the keyboard into completely new sounds that you can store in registrations, keeping the keyboard interesting year after year.  The E363 is a good keyboard, but this control over the sound gives you far more flexibility than what you would get in the E363.

The volume of the keyboard should be fine for a party in a house, but I would guess that larger venues might require an external amplifier and speakers.

I am pretty sure that the E463 has keyboard educational features, as I know my E433 does.  In fact, I believe the "E" in these model numbers refers to Educational.

As for the music database, I believe you are referring to the built-in demo songs, and I personally wouldn't put much emphasis on that.  These are just songs that the keyboard can automatically play to show off its styles and sounds.  Now, I believe the E463 does have a different feature that is actually called a music database that you can use to easily configure the sounds and styles of the keyboard to optimally play (in Yamaha's opinion) over 300 songs.  I know my E433 has it, but I haven't used it much.  I'm not sure if the E363 has it or not.

Another important difference is the number of registrations.  A registration is a memory that stores all of the main settings of the keyboard, including the sounds you have selected, any changes you have made to those sounds (octave, filter, envelope generator, etc.), and the style you selected.  Being able to store these settings in registrations allows you to easily and instantly completely change the sounds and settings of the keyboard while you're playing a song, making it easy to change the overall sound at the touch of a button, such as when going from a verse of a song to a chorus or any other time you'd want such a change.  Registrations are also very useful for quickly changing the sounds and settings between songs.  Imagine that you're playing live -- being able to quickly change the sound and style settings (using registrations) makes it easy to play one song after another without having to take a lot of time manually changing these features between songs, so that you have much less "dead air" between songs.  The E363 only has 10 registrations, whereas the E463 has 32, which is a significant difference.

I will finally point out that, based on how Yamaha has updated these keyboards over the years, I would expect new versions of the E363 and E463 in the not-too-distant future, but there has been no official announcement from Yamaha, and Yamaha does seem to be changing their product-updating schedule somewhat, so we don't have a precise guess as to when the next generation versions of these keyboards will be introduced.  I only mention this to point out that, if you are not in a hurry, you may want to wait a few months to see if there are any announcements.  But otherwise, the E463 is a fine, feature-packed keyboard -- especially for the price.

[mrityunjay]

Hi!
Thanks a lot for answering. I exchanged my 363 for 463 and I am very happy, as you expected!
Most of the points you mentioned are correct, but as updates, Yamaha has made certain changes.
It no longer has the educational suite and I am told that it is not to be missed. So, 'E' in case of 463, denotes the level of the user rather then that of the keyboard!
Volume is great for indoors and I will need at least 2 years to reach the level when I can play it outdoors and not get beaten up!
Just to freshen up 463 a little, they have added a couple of Genos sounds to it.
It is so so exciting that I don't miss buying anything else, even for a second.
Let us keep in touch.
I will be needing a lot of guidance from friends, gurus and mentors like you..
Thanks a lot!