Yamaha has introduced the Mariachi and Norteño Voice and Style expansion pack for their PSR-S650 keyboard. The package, which also includes musical tools for playing TexMex style music, is now available, through the end of September, as a free download with the purchase of a Yamaha PSR-S650 arranger workstation keyboard.
The Mariachi and Norteño Voice and Style expansion pack includes signature sounds that, according to Yamaha, “make these genres come alive”:
- Mariachi: Real Vihuela, Guitarron, Mariachi trumpets and more;
- Norteño: Accordions and Bajo Sexto;
- TexMex: ‘Sophisticated’ harmonies and syncopated drums
The new expansion pack follows on the release of Yamaha’s Banda pack for the arranger keyboard. This new Mariachi-Norteno pack adds to these Mexican musical forms with a varied collection of Gritos (vocal exclamations), and Chifidos (or whistles) that add to the music. The new samples featured in this pack can be integrated into a variety of Mega Voices that can be used for programming Styles and creating playable Voices for performers to use in solos.
Here’s a video demo:
Pricing and Availability
The Mariachi and Norteño Voice and Style expansion pack for the Yamaha PSR-S650 arranger workstation keyboard is available now. Through the end of September, the pack is available as a free download with the purchase of the PSR-S650. For additional information and an audio demo, check the Yamaha PSR arranger keyboard webpage.
Is this still Synthtopia? Or a home keyboard blog??
seriously, its within our interest to blacklist anything Yamaha until they release a worthwhile synth that is not insulting to our intelligence. FS2R already!
Yamaha is a multinational corporation whose board doesn’t give a rat’s about “blacklisting.” You can’t hold them hostage at all, much less over a superior synthesizer that was too much for most potential buyers. The FS1R is an outstanding synth, but it *is* FM with a more robust waveform compliment, so programming it is no casual feat and too many failed to see how it really spoke when played in real-time, much like the E-Mu Morpheus. If “our” alleged intelligence was that prominent, we’d probably have versions 3 and 4 of both of those by now. I agree with you, because that’s one hell of a MANLY instrument, heh, but if Yam can sell 10,000 PSRs and 300 FS2Rs, you’ll never see a logo-t-shirt of the latter. I’d buy the synth and two of the shirts, myself, *sigh*.
Its easy to give lesser, starter-type keyboards the Stinkeye when you’re dreaming of a Prophet-12 or Pittsburgh modular. The thing is, the earliest days of crap Casios are basically gone. The game has changed for the better and while the lowest models can still sound like cheese, I’ve heard very credible sounds from mid-to-high entry synths. Its also fun to have someone sneer at your gear and then you play something so good that they shut their traps like a shot. That’s the real goal. I would not add a PSR to my rig now; it’d be a big step backwards when I’m using Logic as a DAW! However, for someone who is new and enthusiastic, its a good start that can lead to a proper stage piano or an FA-06 later. More people are newbies, pure hobbyists or praise banders than the next Erik Nordlander. Just remember that after a bad granny piano, a new PSR looks like a GX-1 to a kid. Gotta start somewhere!
I wouldn’t call a Yamaha PSR-S650 a ‘starter keyboard’ – it’s really a meat and potatoes performance workstation.
The focus is more on live performance and sequencing than on synthesis, but these things are surprisingly deep.
As noted in other comments, they run circles around most synths when it comes to doing non-western keyboard parts. A lot of synths don’t even support alternate tunings. Asia, Africa & South America are probably much faster growing markets than the US or Europe, so it makes sense to give them some love.
Also, when we talked with the Yamaha folks about the PSR series at NAMM this winter, we asked about what sort of customers actually buy these instruments. They told us that these keyboards are really popular with working musicians who play a lot of “smaller” (non concert) gigs: wedding receptions and quinceanera (sp?) parties, bars and restaurants, etc. These musicians don’t always have a huge backing band, so this kind of instrument lets the keyboardist do the work of several musicians, and keep the music going. The company makes sound packs that those musicians need to play the gigs for the customers who pay them. Yamaha also have developed similar sound packs for use in India, with the sounds of instruments used in popular music there, and for use in the Middle East, that have apparently sold pretty well, too.
I live in tx and because Ive worked on many tejano/norteno albums I found cats love old cheesy early 90s boards and their is a large market for them down here. To each their own. They dont want a modular or a P12 or anything like that they are looking for playing live and for basic piano and horn sounds as well as fx type sounds. personally I dont like norteno keyboards, but I like accordian and bajo all day which is the main driving force at least in norteno or tejano. mariachi is a totally different beast.
Imagine a motorbike site posting the latest news on accessories for a moped.
Synthopia… where’s the correlation between synthesis and PSR keyboards?
The correlation between “synthesis” and PSRs is simple. Synthesis is a process, not a fixed entity. You wouldn’t hand a total newbie a flagship instrument; you start smaller, until your understanding and capabilities call for a step up. I’d also add that a few pros stand by odd keyboards, like Bernie Worrell still using an early, toy-like Kawai. Merits are merits. Besides, I can program pretty well, but I’d be slowed to an insane crawl by an analog modular. Synthesis isn’t one thing. Its a fistful, like squares on a Rubik’s Cube.
I am from New Mexico. I am wondering why we don’t see any norteno/tejano programs in expensive drum machines or sequencers, or grito/chifido/bajo sexto sounds in big-ticket synth presets? Why is this $800 workstation keyboard the pioneer in programming sounds for ethnic music of the Americas, Africa, Eastern and Western Europe and the Orient, and not the major synth manufacturers? Just wondering……
I understand your frustration, but its a simple matter of marketing. Roland just released a mid-line “XPS-10” keyboard that allows for the tuning of each key with one-cent resolution. That’s clearly for Middle Eastern and Indian use above others. American pop rarely calls for quarter-tone trills! That’s why you probably won’t see it released domestically. Korg is good about releasing a few fringe “ethnic” keyboards,” or good patch sets for them. Remember, its about consumer electronics and synthesizers are a very small part of that.
Then there is the issue of access and repair. I see a precious few South American artists who own Everything and then rest seem like most of us: a couple of big-ticket synths and a string of lesser tools to supplement them. Someone in Paraguay with a suddenly-dead Korg Polysix seems way out of luck. So you have two options: buy this PSR as a module if the sound set is ideal for you, or explore the accessories, as with Korg. They even released an Oriental Wavedrum. Its the semi-modern world. Somewhere, there’s an ideal rig for pretty much everyone, but no, you probably can’t have one of those NOS Emerson Moogs. Those things are like the “2001” monoliths. OOoooo…..