The Yamaha PortaSound PSS-470, a toy keyboard released in 1986 was based on the same Yamaha YM3812 (aka OPL2) FM synthesizer IC used in first generation IBM PC sound cards. It has 9 voice polyphony or 6 voices with 5 drum sounds.[1][2]

Editable sounds

The PSS-470 is more versatile than most toy keyboards in that it has simple manual editing using six sliders for shaping the FM sounds.[3]

  • Wave selects the sound colour.
  • Spectrum adjusts the pitch of the sound selected by the Wave setting. Reducing this will enable deeper bass sounds.
  • Modulation adjusts the sound brightness.
  • Attack adjusts the time a note takes to reach its peak volume.
  • Decay adjusts the time a note takes to become inaudible.
  • Volume controls the output level of the synthesizer section.

References

  1. ^ Yamaha PortaSound PSS-470, Vintage Synth Explorer
  2. ^ Keyboard: Yamaha PSS-460/PSS-470, The 8-Bit Guy
  3. ^ "PortaSound PSS-470 owners guide" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-11-16. Retrieved 2017-10-11.

External links