Although I really like what you can do with the Yamaha PSR-S970 Arranger Workstation Keyboard, I was never that impressed by the actual physical keys of the system.
For me, they always felt too light to the touch and flimsy for daily practice. Following a re-jig I am now using the keys of my Nord Electro 3 to control the Yamaha, which I much prefer the feel of.
I achieved this on the Yamaha via FUNCTION -> MIDI -> All Parts -> EDIT -> RECEIVE -> Set CHANNEL PORT1 CH1’s PART to “KEYBOARD”. This works nicely and if you have ACMP turned on then you can supply chords via the Nord.
Intriguing things;
The home made double tier system slides together into itself to clear space on the desk when needed and there is a camera bracket (top left) made from 2 bits of wood, a clamp and an old tripod.
The Nord connects via MIDI to a Novation ZeRO SL MKII “in”. From here the signal is sent both to the Yamaha (via “thru”) and to a Computer/DAW via the “USB”. The Yamaha itself is also connected to the Computer/DAW via its own USB connection.
The Novation ZeRO SL MKII also acts as a controller for Ableton widgets. I use Ableton for most things DAW related BUT I couldn’t find an easy way to send SysEx to the Yamaha via Ableton, for example to change “STYLE CONTROL” automatically whilst playing. To achieve this I use Reaper in ReWire slave mode and havea parallel project which just deals with sending blocks of Sysex at the right time.
The speakers seen on each side are connected to the computer and used for Ableton Output.
The green Fender instrument cable attaches to the back of the Yamaha, which makes a pretty good digital amp for guitar practice, with lots of simulated effects available.
If I am recording audio I either; (a) Use the onboard USB recording on the Yamaha (cleanest recordings) or (b) Attach and use the Zoom H4n Handy Recorder (which is also quite good for guitar practice on the move) or (c) Send audio to the Line-In of the computer and record via Ableton. In the latter case I use a Havit Ground Loop Noise Isolator (HV-X2) to get a cleaner result (which is also useful in some other applications).
Here’s a simple example project;