Yamaha PSR-11 / PSR-12
- Year Produced: 1986/1987
- Synthesizer Chip: YM3812 (FM 2-operator)
- Polyphony: 9 Voices (or 6 voices with 5 drum sounds)
- Stereo: No
- Number of Keys: 49 full-sized keys
- Line Out: Mono RCA + headphone Jack
- MIDI: No
- Velocity Detection: No
- Number of built-in instruments: 16 (PSR-11) or 32 (PSR-12)
- Synthesizer Controls: None.
- Other controls: Sustain toggle switch
David’s Thoughts:
The PSR-11 and PSR-12 are identical except that the 12 has twice as many instruments. So the downside is that there are no synthesizer controls and you’re pretty much stuck with the 16 or 32 instruments that they give you. The good news is that they give you some decent instruments to work with and they actually sound almost identical to the instruments on the PSS-470 (one of my favorites). Now, you’d think that would be a no-brainer being it shares the same synth chip with several other Yamaha keyboards, but for some reason the PSR-31 / PSR-32 have totally different sounding instruments. It’s really all in the way it was programmed. I suspect the sustain toggle switch could be converted into a pedal with some soldering (a project I plan to undertake eventually)
For a keyboard with 49 full-sized keys, it is surprisingly small and compact, and this easy to carry around. These keyboards don’t seem to have any collectible value so they can be had for nearly nothing. I paid $20 for mine. It is well worth it being it has some great sounds.