I bought the Yamaha PSR-S710 with the intention of having a portable (non-bulky), fairly lightweight keyboard with as many realistic ‘voices,’ as possible. This product fulfilled all these requirements and more. I have just finished 2 different shows (roughly 25 performances and rehearsals) on this ‘workstation arranger’ keyboard and found it extremely playable despite not having fully weighted keys. Coming from a strictly acoustic piano background I am always a little weary of playing keyboards however found that the action across this product is very intuitive, and responsive to any of the faster runs that I needed to do.

Although initially sceptical that a synth would stick out amongst acoustic instruments, the many sounds I needed to use blended into the orchestra fairly seamlessly throughout the productions. With touch responsive keys and the amazing ability to control depth (and even vibrato!) of various instruments, some of the sounds I got to use even had the other musos sitting up and taking notice. As a woodwind player I was also impressed with the range of realistic orchestral to ‘ethnic’ instruments.

I haven’t even started to explore the recording and track layering capabilities of this instrument yet (or the fact that you can save straight to USB!) but from a player/performer’s perspective, I am really happy with my purchase.