The Yamaha QS-300, my review and repair tips.
The Yamaha QS-300 is a great keyboard for performing or sequencing. Bought locally for £150, it was money well spent. It replaced my Korg X3, which was a bit dull in comparison. The QS-300 is normally a doddle to use, helped greatly by the large LCD screen and user friendly menus. The keyboard is a non weighted, synth action with velocity and after-touch sensitivity. I physically disconnected the after-touch strip as I find it an invasive annoyance. It has a good quality keybed which is almost responsive and expressive, but nowhere near as expressive as a weighted keybed. Most synths feel thoroughly underwhelming to me now, having converted to the weighted realm.
The QS-300 has a warm and rich sound, the patches are excellent for a 1994 rompler and they're arranged in banks of 128 patches. You get 32 note simultaneous polyphony, this could be swallowed up by a very elaborate sequenced song, but unlikely in reality. This keyboard is best at synthy sounds, leads, ambient and string pads and bass, perfect for making 90s euro dance pop. There are three separate multi-effect processors too. The acoustic pianos are far from great, one could even say appalling, this was normal in the nineties. The electric pianos aren't particularly exciting either.
I tried to overcome this weakness, I discovered that electric piano patches can be created using a group of 32 digi FM style waveforms within the waveform ROM.
There are 204 waveforms or elements available, a patch can contain upto 4 elements. It was like pissing into the wind, my efforts of electric piano patch creation were not epic, in fact - weak and feeble. It's still good for synthyness, strings, wind, etcetera..
The envelopes, filters and effects are highly effective and versatile, new patch creation is very easy after a bit of practice, patch parameters are displayed visually as a graph or sliders.
The QS-300 has a warm and rich sound, the patches are excellent for a 1994 rompler and they're arranged in banks of 128 patches. You get 32 note simultaneous polyphony, this could be swallowed up by a very elaborate sequenced song, but unlikely in reality. This keyboard is best at synthy sounds, leads, ambient and string pads and bass, perfect for making 90s euro dance pop. There are three separate multi-effect processors too. The acoustic pianos are far from great, one could even say appalling, this was normal in the nineties. The electric pianos aren't particularly exciting either.
I tried to overcome this weakness, I discovered that electric piano patches can be created using a group of 32 digi FM style waveforms within the waveform ROM.
There are 204 waveforms or elements available, a patch can contain upto 4 elements. It was like pissing into the wind, my efforts of electric piano patch creation were not epic, in fact - weak and feeble. It's still good for synthyness, strings, wind, etcetera..
The envelopes, filters and effects are highly effective and versatile, new patch creation is very easy after a bit of practice, patch parameters are displayed visually as a graph or sliders.
New creations can be stored in the user bank of 128 patches, there is also a bank of 128 presets, which are editable but must be saved in the user bank, a bank of special effects (SFX), a bank of drumkits and numerous GM banks, and it's XG MIDI compatible (extended general MIDI, for those who obtain pre-programmed MIDI song files.
Overall, the QS-300 is capable of very realistic and spacious acoustic and synth sounds, pads, FX, drums, everything you need to be in a workstation and easy to use or program, and it's built like a tank, mainly of steel construction with plastic end caps and an interesting metallic graphite paint job. I would recommend picking up one for upto £250.
I've found the 16 track sequencer to be very user-friendly if you stick to real-time recording. When you delve into step-time sequencing or editing individual notes and timings it's like keyhole surgery, most infuriating and perplexing. You can record real-time, apply quantize, set velocity and gate settings for each track, merge two tracks into one, add effects and panning, it's all in there, then dump your song onto 3.5 inch floppy disk. The QS-300 does not store song data once switched off, strange but true. It will store your user patch data though.
Having perused the interweb, I theorise that the QS-300 and the QY-300 utilise the same sequencer, in that the QY-300 is a QS-300 without the sounds and keyboard.
Bearing in mind that the QS-300 was made in 1994-95, they are over 25 years old.
The backlight will probably be dim or dead, a replacement EL panel (Electro-Luminescent) measuring 155mm x 43mm (157mm x 46mm maximum overall size) is easy enough to obtain and fit, the trickiest part is removing the old one as it is fixed with double sided tape to the PCB and sandwiched under the LCD screen. I wouldn't advise removing the LCD as it could easily end in disaster and never work properly again.
I probed the curved end of a thin 6 inch steel ruler between the EL panel and PCB to separate the tape, desolder the two connections and replace. There's no need to use new double sided tape. A job that is well worth doing.
Another 25 year old problem might be the keyboard contact strip, this is easy to replace, just unscrew the contact PCB and you have instant access to the contact strip, which is best cleaned with a baby wipe, not chemicals. This is currently an easy replacement part to find, Yamaha part number VF-83410R, available from Yamaha or Feebay for about £25, I bought one as a spare as it's worth keeping the QS-300 alive in the future.
The back-up battery is probably still OK, but it's worth noting that it is a CR2450, horizontal solder tagged coin cell, three legged, soldered into the PCB. Easy enough to remove and find a replacement and there's plenty of room to wire in a non standard battery if required. The Small Battery Company in London had the exact battery for a few British pounds.
The disk drive doesn't have a rubber drive belt like similar synths, so you don't need to worry about that horrendously sticky circumstance.
The disk drive doesn't have a rubber drive belt like similar synths, so you don't need to worry about that horrendously sticky circumstance.