yamaha portasound pss-11, greek chorus ed.

This keyboard was a local thrift store find (all the good ones are, right?). In terms of bend-ability, it was no SK-1; it took considerable probing and patience to conceptualize this piece. The housing, however, was a bender’s dream! So much room. I could easily have installed a full patchbay, but alas, there just wasn’t a bank of connections that would’ve made sense, at least that I found. So, the pictures above are the finished piece.

• The six switches on the left (or the bottom, if you’re looking at the pictures literally) are what I call the “Greek Chorus.” They trigger a rapid, chorus-like playing of keys. These switches work on most instrument sounds, but not all. They can be used in combination to create a luscious soundscape, full of texture and movement.
• The potentiometer (10k) next to the chorus produces another interesting effect, though strangely, its subtlety was lost when I put everything together. So it is essentially a switch, though it works really well.
• The switch above the pot is a nice little glitch as well.
• Next is the green button. I considered whether or not I should install this switch…it’s what I’ll call a “fatal” glitch; it’s unstable and you’ll have to reset the keyboard every time you use it. Yet I chose to install it because some of the glitches it caused were so crazy. This wouldn’t be a good switch to play with live, obviously, as some of the glitches are quite loud and abrasive. I plan to do some sampling with those glitches for some tracks I’m working on now.
• Because of the troublesome “fatal glitch,” I installed the reset switch (black) just above. You’ll need it, in other words…

This isn’t the most stable bend I’ve completed, yet I sacrificed some stability for some really rich textures. I played the piece for less than 30 minutes and I’ve got a handle on what will be troublesome and what will work well together.

The PSS-11, opened up. Pretty simple, easily accessed.

Here’s the circuit board where you’ll find these bends:

The six chorus switches come from the group of pins below the black IC. The leftmost connection doesn’t work, it will kill the circuit. These six points are connected to the 5th-10th points down in the long column of connections to the right.

The 10k pot (I’d recommend a switch, actually, though at first prod this pot yielded interesting results) is connected to the 4th pin down in the long column of connections and the point (poorly) labeled “4” with the red wire.

The other switch is connected to the the 3rd pin down in the long column of connections and any ground connection.

The fatal glitch is connected to the 13th pin down in the long column of connections (labeled with a large circle) and any ground connection.

Because the PSS-11 has a 1/8″ aux/headphone out, I skipped the 1/4″ output, though I could easily install that. I usually work with 1/8″ to RCA cables into a mixer anyway, so this output makes it easier.