bart_van_zon's Electronic Studio Setup

This was the second arranger keyboard I owned. I bought it right when it came out almost 20 years ago. It came out a year after their flagship arranger keyboard the Tyros one, and this is basically a more affordable stripped down version of the Tyros. They were very generous back in the day. The PSR-3000 has all of the best sounds of the Tyros, including all of the original Mega Voices. With later keyboards, they made sure the cheaper ones did not have all of the good sounds of the more expensive, so you had more reason to spend more money. The display is not as good as the one on the Tyros and not foldable, but it's good enough, and it has colour. Plenty of buttons. Build in speakers which the Tyros does not have, which can be useful. The keybed is good. Feels as good as my NI S61 and almost as good as my OB-X8, but with no after touch. It has a lot of sounds and supports many standards of midi files. It also has usb connectivity for midi data, but not the sound.

I used it a lot back then, but those were different times. It has a very overproduced in-your-face sound. High quality but very sterile, digital and lifeless. Not really my stile. As software got better I started to use more realistic samples like Kontakt libraries, virtual analogue synthesizers. Later I got hardware analogue instruments and guest musicians with real guitars and such. That sounds much more lively and realistic and is easier to mix.

It's hard to difficult use a PSR-3000 in a modern setup.. Too hifi and clean for retro sounds. Too fake and digital for modern sounds. You could still use the synth choirs which are beautiful. Or the digital drums which would make a punchy in your face drumcomputer sound. The mega voice basses and guitars are difficult to program, but if you get it right, you can record them clean and route them through some super fake early digital line6 amp or something. That would create an interesting powerful midi-instrument sound, as long as you can make it clear to your audience you're going for a 2000's digital sound instead of something realistic. Most won't understand...