Please forgive my newbie'ness -- I've only been keyboarding for a few days now. I feel like the red-headed stepchild of Yamaha, however....

I consider myself lucky to have found a .PDF manual for my PSR-262. Nothing else is out there -- no Instrument Definition File, no forum, no pictures at the Yamaha site.

Is my problem one of perspective? Is it simply that the average purchaser of this "entry-level" keyboard uses it soley for their nephews birthday party music and that I won't find much company out here online? Or is there an other explenation I am not seeing?

I got the keyboard with one major goal, and one minor goal. Major - learn to play piano (enough envy already, just learn to play some nice piano pieces) and Minor - toy around with MIDI sequencing and a wide variety of sound fonts.

I think it will do just fine in both respects, but I'd still like to know where a PSR-262 owner can get some love online....

Thanks for any comments or ideas!

Hello
Your goals with your new Yamaha are good & worthwhile. I can tell you of a group of online friends (hundreds) dedicated to Yamaha PSR keyboards. They have talent and expertise beyond what you can imagine. You've only got one problem... the PSR you choose does not have a disk drive. This, in my opinion, is a big mistake on your part. You will miss out on the 1000's of free styles and MIDI songs available through the PSR group. If I were you, I would look toward a PSR 540, 740 or 2000 as soon as you can. And join the Yamaha-PSR-Styles and Yamaha-PSR-Songs groups.
Tom

TomTomSF --

Thanks for the info! Fortunately, the $180 I spent on the PSR-262 is not really significant at this point in my career. If I'm still keyboarding in 6 months I'll definately be looking into a nicer set of keys. (Heck, if I'm still keyboarding in 6 months I'll probably be ready to start assembling a real studio.)

-Shaz

Hi,

I also just bought a PSR-262 (used). I didn't get any manuals either, but I had previously downloaded the pdf manual (I guess the keyboard originally came with a songbook).

I am also a newbie, having bought it just to learn the basics of piano/keyboard play, etc. I was originally going to buy something cheaper, but I saw this on eBay and no one was bidding on it... So I'm just glad to have the "touch sensitive" keys, etc.

One thing I was puzzling over tonight - I was experimenting with the "one finger chord" function. The chord it plays is always sounding like an "organ" chord, even though I am playing the "grand piano" on the right hand keys. is this normal?? I was thinking that it should give me the chord in the same voice as what I was using on the rest of the keyboard?

Thanks for any help.

Eek. I wish I could help, but I ended up changing to a PSR-550, and then to a Motif 6. There's got to be a way to change the voice for the chording though, I'd think.... Anyone with a PSR recognize this issue?

-Shaz

The single fingered chords are really for the auto accompaniment and if that not on they tend to sound like organ chords.

Thanks for the reply. OK, I guess. So when I'm in piano mode, I should not expect the single finger chording to work, and should be doing chords the "regular" way. That's fine.

What's actually going on, on this unit, is that if auto accompaniment is off, then there is no single finger chording.

If it is on, then the left side will give me the organ tones, regardless of what "voice" I'm using on the right. Maybe it is defective and that is why it was sold on eBay. It was a demonstrator in a store. Or, more likely, I don't know how to use auto accompaniment correctly yet.

OK, I see after experimenting more that I was mistaken.

I was thinking that it did something simple, like giving me a way to avoid learning the fingering of the chords with the left hand, so that I could concentrate on the melody.

What one finger chording actually seems to be is to shift the chord of the accompaniment - which is a more powerful feature - and of more use to people who know more about this stuff than I do.

Thanks to all who replied.