Yamaha PSS-580
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Yamaha PSS-580
Yamaha Portasound FM keyboards from circa 1989.

LIMES

Yamaha Portasound PSS-580 MusicStation keyboard (1989)

The PSS-580 is a relative of the 480, 680, and 780, with the same voices and most of the same features in common. The 680/780 boast a couple more features, but the editable FM synthesizer parameters are common to all these keyboards, with control from the front panel of the keyboard over attack, decay, frequency, feedback and modulation for 2 operators.

This track is from the ALF album...

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CUSTOM PATCHES

Download 41 patches that will work on all four related FM Portasounds: 480, 580, 680, and 780. You can transfer them to your Portasound using a MIDI cable and Martin Tarenskeen's excellent PSS-780 panel for Ctrlr (see bottom of this page for info).

Download patches

SYNTH-JAMS

Fairly fat FM bass from a Yamaha PSS-580 played live over an 8-bar drum pattern from the Yamaha RX11, with overdubs from the Casio HT700, making plenty of use of its resonant analogue lowpass filter. A Zoom MS-50G multi-effects stompbox was used for a reverb send during mixdown. 

Synth jam featuring a bass arpeggio recorded (slowly) in the Yamaha PSS-580 melody memory, then played-back at a higher tempo to tape, with occasional notes played live with another voice. The Casio HT-700 was used for the higher filtered synth riff and some classic filter-sweep chords. Effects were provided by a Boss DD7 digital delay and a Zoom MS-50G multi-effects stompbox.

These tracks are on an album called Straight To Tape, which was recorded to four-track tape on a Tascam Porta05 Ministudio.

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LINKS

The video guide above is based on the PSS-480, but it's the same process.