New Kid in Town

[chris45set]

Hello to all.
I bought a PSR-e453 as a Christmas gift to myself.
I used to play a Hammond Piper organ back in the 1970's, owned it up until 2001 when I sold it (still regret that).
The music bug bit recently, and I bought the Yamaha.
Found this site, and read what I could find on the "claw" method; very similar to how I played my old Hammond.
This new instrument is so completely different than what I bought in 1970, I find myself somewhat overwhelmed.
Where should I start to learn its capabilities and begin to tackle the learning curve it presents?
Are the Lessons collections sold here relevant to the 453, or only to the higher end instruments?
If I can get my 453 to "behave", I may have justification for something more expensive, and I assume most of what I learn on the 453 applies to other Yamaha keyboards.
Thanks for letting me ramble, and I hope to begin a long relationship with my new keyboard.

Chris

[jgriffin]

Hi Chris...let me be the first to welcome you to the forum!  I would answer your question if I could - but will leave that to others on the forum.  Believe me - after at least a decade with these wonderful machines I'm still learning.  It's the "yearning" that matters.  Answers will follow.

[Toril S]

Hello Chris! Congrats on your new keyboard! You will find all you need on this forum, and a lot of helpful people. Welcome😀

[Roger Brenizer]

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for becoming a member.  I'm sure you're going to learn a great deal about your new PSR-E453 keyboard here on the forum and will experience many pleasurable hours playing it.  Because you used to play the organ, you will soon be at home on your Yamaha keyboard.

You'll want to be sure to visit the Home page and check out some of the tutorials you will find links to there.  This link will take you to the Home page of the website: http://psrtutorial.com/

Should you later decide to become a supporting member, which will include lifetime membership, other forum boards will become available to you, as well as a wealth of additional musical knowledge; however, there is absolutely no obligation to do so.  You may also use the following link to discover the full benefit of becoming a Supporting Member of the PSR Tutorial.

http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,15536.0.html

You'll also gain access to an Excel Song Index database, made available to supporting members by our good friend Peter (XeeniX), which presently contains 45,000 plus song titles in over 700 indexed books.  This index is updated often.

In lieu of making a donation only, you may also order any of the websites resources, which can be found at the following link:

http://psrtutorial.com/cdrom/productsum.html

Joe Waters updated "Supporting the PSR Tutorial", on August 27, 2017, which can be found here:

https://psrtutorial.com/cdrom/index.html

Finally, if you would like to be included in our PSR Tutorial Member Map that will allow you to place your Pin on the map, which will disclose your location to other forum members, you'll find information at the following link:

https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,41022.msg321765/topicseen.html#msg321765

We're so glad you've decided to become a member and very happy you've decided to become a part of this great forum family.  If you have any questions, then please just ask.  There are many members here that are always very willing to help you.

[SeaGtGruff]

Welcome, Chris! I hope you enjoy your new Christmas present to yourself.

There's a good bit of difference-- and some similarities, of course-- between the PSR-E models and the other Yamaha models, so I'm not sure how applicable the lessons will be to your new PSR-E453. The basic functionalities are roughly similar, albeit much less sophisticated. But where you're really going to notice the differences is in the panel controls, menu functions, and screen display.

If you have questions specific to the PSR-E453, you can post them in the subforum for the PSR-E Series and someone-- myself or the other PSR-E owners-- will try to answer them as best we can. There are also subforums for more generic topics that apply to most all Yamaha models, such as style files, DAWs, etc., so you might want to browse through those subforums as well to see if anything you're wondering about or having difficulty with has already been discussed.

[chris45set]

Thanks to all of you.
Still trying to pick through a couple of songs to get my feet wet.
Did get playing a ballad with accompaniment.
I was wanting to purchase one of the downloads from the site but can't seem to figure out if they are relevant to my 453.
Will keep plugging and looking for music to keep things fresh.
Thanks again.

Chris

[Joe W]

Hi, Chris, and welcome to the PSR Tutorial.

There are thousands of styles available in our various style collections.  A good many of these are also available online and freely downloadable in zip files.  If you have questions about how anything might work on the E453, you can just download some styles and try them out.  Many of the PSR Performers also have sets of midi files that you can download if you want to try some midi files on your keyboard.  The structure of the E series is very different from the PSR, PSR-S, and Tyros models, so the lessons may be of only limited value.

[SeaGtGruff]

I was wanting to purchase one of the downloads from the site but can't seem to figure out if they are relevant to my 453.

There are two basic differences between styles for PSR-E models and styles for PSR-S models:

(1) The PSR-E models can play "SFF1" ("Style File Format 1") styles, but not "SFF2" ("Style File Format 2") styles. "SFF2" styles have more parameters and can use "Mega Voices." Fortunately, there are free utility programs which can convert "SFF2" styles into "SFF1" styles, so you can safely buy either type of style. You won't be able to use the "SFF2" styles as-is, but you can easily convert them into "SFF1" styles so that you can use them.

(2) The PSR-E models can play two variations per style ("A" and "B"), but not four ("A," "B," "C," and "D"). Fortunately, "SFF1" styles that have four variations can still be loaded into the PSR-E models-- unless they exceed the size limit (about 50K)-- so you can use their "A" and "B" variations; you just can't use the "C" and "D" variations. However, there are free utility programs which let you remove any unusable variations from files that exceed the size limit; and they also let you rearrange the variations so that you can choose which two variations you want to keep. Thus, you can safely buy styles that contain four variations and then split each one into two separate styles (i.e., variations "A" and "B" in one, and variations "C" and "D" in the other).

Another issue common to all models is that you'll often need to "revoice" a style for your particular keyboard. On the one hand, the original style might use some voices which your keyboard doesn't have. On the other hand, your keyboard might have some voices which sound better than the ones used in the style. There can also be differences as to which effects and other settings are available from one model to the next. For these reasons it's always best to inspect a new style to make sure it uses only voices which your keyboard can actually play-- not to mention the best-available voices-- and make any other tweaks to capitalize on your keyboard's capabilities and to compensate for its limitations. If you know the style was designed for your model, or has already been tweaked by someone else, then you can just use it as-is. And in many cases the style will still play and may sound fine even if it hasn't been optimized for your model-- but if you're serious about your styles (as many members are), then you'll eventually want to roll up your sleeves and start tinkering around with your collection of styles to get them sounding "just right." Again, there are free utilities for that.

So the bottom line is that you should be able to buy any of the style collections. If some of the styles won't play because they're "SFF2" files, you can easily and quickly convert all "SFF2" files into "SFF1" files for an entire folder. Most style files will work just fine after that. Then you can tweak them at your leisure to use your keyboard's best voices or to choose which variations you want to keep.