Heyyyy welcome to Legowelt.org I got a bunch of records coming up to be released: LEGOWELT - THE SAD LIFE OF AN INSTAGRAM DJ EP on Selvamancer records should be out soon as well as the LEGOWELT - LIKE A SONG FROM YOUR DREAM LP on L.I.E.S records more info about that soon!!!!!! Some upcoming shows: 31 March SALON DES AMATEURS DUSSELDORF 13 April UTRECHT at Kabulagogo *** 20 April LONDON Evolutionary Arts Hackney EartH *** 10-11 May IFM FESTIVAL THE HAGUE HOLLAND *** 25 May WARSAW POLAND at Smolna more gigs TBA soon :)

Thursday 3 January 2018

Synth Stuff Yamaha PSS480 Music Station

Its been a while since I did one of these synth stuff items but since I got a Yamaha PSS 480 under the xmas tree and made a few tracks with it last night its time to dork out again! The Yamaha PSS480 is a 2 operator digital FM keyboard synth ‘music station’ from 1988 sort of similar to the PSS380 (which I used to have and was given away as the 1st prize in the 2016 drawing competition). It seems a littlebit more advanced then the 380, the 480 having memory for own programmed patches, quite advanced MIDI implementation, polyphonic (!!!) portamento and some more sequencing capabilities. The sound is a littebit less rough and more delicate…thats probably because it uses a different FM chip (the YM7129 OPK2). It doesn’t have sliders like the 380 but programming is still very easy with just a few function buttons and using up and down keys under the LED display to alter the parameter values. A cool thing is that there are lots of ‘secret’ sound programming functions that you can access via MIDI (with the CTRL PSS480 programmer for example). Overal its quite a useful warm sounding snazzy little keyboard synth that can bring a smile to any lover of FM synthesis…excellent for vaporous digital artefact ambient.

Here are some demos/improvs with some Chinese cheap MOoeR shimverb pedal and chorus pedal connected to the PSS480 through a Signature edition Soundcraft mixer…the PSS480 really sparkles with some chorus effect over it:

SnazzyJazz
The few drum sounds available are rather nice

Majestic synths & Panflute patch
The PSS480 has the best pan flute patch on any synth – its so perfect, especially when with portamento…

FloatingLikeABalloon
Floating like a balloon with Strawberry Mousse with mellow FM tones

FMbrassBlissssss
perfect FM brass sweet spots

TweakingParameters
Tweaking the parameters while its being sequenced with MIDI

Moody Rainy Spy Soundtracks
cloudy Cold War FM pastels

Download all the mp3’s in a zip here 

The multi platform universal MIDI CTLR editor is available here and the PSS480 panel is available here. I just discovered that CTLR program it seems pretty darn cool might dive into it and make some cool editors for synths that don’t have one widely available (EMU Vintage Pro or Roland D10!?!!)