Well, old friend, that PSR-3000 still sounds great, and from my perspective, it was truly a workhorse of an arranger keyboard, and for many of us, it still is. I never had a button failure with either of my 3000s, but had to replace nearly all of the rubber buttons on my S-950 within the past year. Fortunately, I have access to a great, factory authorized technician who makes house calls at no extra charge. He was able to replace the buttons within a hour, the parts were not at all expensive, and they now function as good as the day the keyboard came out of the factory.

Earl, hang on to that 3000. As you can see from my Russian friend's video, it still sounds great and probably will continue to sound great for the next decade. Granted, not as many bells and whistles, but it has all the sounds that anyone could wish for and as you could hear from the video, they still sound very realistic.

Now, Diki honestly believes that an arranger keyboard does not sound as good as a live instrument, but here's where we disagree. If you recall, about 5 years ago, DNJ posted a video of a 6-piece band performing on stage, and during that video, each and every member of the band stopped playing their instrument, but the music continued just as if they were still playing. Finally, when the last player stopped playing and walked off stage, a curtain opened and there was a guy playing his Yamaha arranger keyboard, just the same as the band was playing live. NO ONE in the audience knew the difference! NO ONE!

As far as the humanizing, well, when I was performing in a band and playing my Yamaha 12-string guitar, I hated it when one of the band members strayed from the tempo, or cranked up the volume on his or her instrument thereby bypassing the mixer, and the other band members had to follow those changes. Either you can maintain good timing, or you cannot - some folks just cannot do this. As far as I am concerned, it's their problem - not mine. This was among the many reasons I went solo and never looked back. Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed performing in a 5-piece group, we had lots of nite club jobs that paid little of next to nothing back then, and we managed to keep in touch until most of them passed away. Only two of the original band members is still alive other than myself and he just turned 90. Yes, I was the youngster in the band.

All the best, and thanks for posting that video,

Gary