Learn to Play and Sing Along with Yamaha's PSR K1

(Click for a close-up)

Yamaha Corporation of America unveiled a new concept with the Winter NAMM 2003 debut of the PSR K1 Portable Keyboard, available in July 2003 at a suggested MSRP of $599.95.

"It's not very often that a manufacturer brings out a new product that appeals to a whole new set of customers," states Jim Presley, marketing manager, Yamaha Portable Keyboards. "The Yamaha PSR K1 is an affordable keyboard that can be used and enjoyed by everyone that wants to play, as well as everyone who wants to sing. It's educational with its ability to display and play sheet music, and expandable with its ability to accept new music from a SmartMedia card or the Internet."

The PSR K1 features 61 piano-sized, touch sensitive keys that emulate the tactile characteristics of an acoustic grand, 32 notes of polyphony, and a selection of some of the best voices available today--including 480 realistic instrument voices, 100 accompaniment styles and 12 drum kits--with a generous 4MB Wave ROM to add even more realism.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of the Yamaha PSR K1 is its function as a comprehensive Karaoke system. Features include an integrated microphone input, plus vocal reverb and echo. In addition, song lyrics and music notation will scroll across the large bit-mapped LCD screen in time to the music.

The PSR K1 also functions as a self-teaching keyboard with the built-in Yamaha Education Suite (YES II), containing exercises, a chord directory, over 100 songs to learn and other interactive features. YES II will count down the beat and even offer feedback, just as a teacher would.

Using the USB connection and a home computer, users can have an instant music production studio. Bundled Scorch/XF software allows digital interactive sheet music scores to be downloaded from a PC to the keyboard and saved to SmartMedia storage. In addition, up to five original songs (with six tracks each) may be recorded by using the integrated sequencer.

A new innovation, Magic Performer, allows anyone to play chords to either the built-in songs or any song with chord information. With the onboard Music Database, simply select from over 200 song titles, and the entire keyboard will set itself up for that song. The Multi-Fingering Auto Accompaniment function will automatically recognize either a single finger or full chords.

The Yamaha PSR K1 can be played through headphones or through the 20W/side speaker system with bass ports, adding the ambience of a concert hall to any performance.