YAMAHA S03 61-KEY SYNTHESIZER

Introducing the newest and most portable member of Yamaha's S series synthesizers ? the S03. Whether you're an aspiring artist, a performing keyboardist, or you simply want to try your hand at making music, the S03 is just the keyboard for you. Bridging the gap between professional sound quality and affordability, it gives you over 700 incredible voices, including many sounds from Yamaha's top-of-the-line S80 synthesizer. It also features full XG/GM compatibility, 64 notes of polyphony, 16 multi parts, and complete synthesizer editing capability. There's even a "To Host" serial interface that lets you connect it directly to your Windows? or Macintosh? computer.

Never before has a keyboard this affordable offered so many high-quality sounds. Packed into the S03's huge waveform memory (equivalent to 25MB in linear 16-bit conversion) is a complete range of voices for virtually any style of music. All the essentials, including an exhaustive selection of stunning grand pianos, punchy basses, ultra expressive solo and ensemble strings and more, are included ? many of which have been taken from Yamaha's acclaimed S-80 and S-30 professional synthesizers. But that's not all. There's also a vast collection of breathtaking synthesizer textures and avant-garde sounds suitable for anything from movie soundtracks to dance music. And because the S03 features 64 notes of polyphony, you can play long sustaining passages and rich multi-layered chords without worrying about notes cutting off.

Although the S03 is loaded with hundreds of high-quality voices, finding the one you want is quick and easy. Simply press the Category Search button and select an instrument type, such piano, organ, bass or strings. The S03 will locate all the related factory voices, allowing you to browse through them one at a time. Perfect for when you need to quickly find a particular sound on stage, or for comparing the different voices within an instrument category.

General MIDI (GM) is a standardized set of synthesizer voices and MIDI parameters that allows song data to be exchanged with other GM-compatible devices, regardless of the manufacturer. Although quite useful, the GM standard has a relatively limited number of instruments and voice parameters, which in turn limits the expressiveness and variety of music that can be created with it. Yamaha's XG standard, however, addresses these shortcomings by providing more voices (480 + 12 drum kits), more effects, better dynamics, and greater control over MIDI parameters ? all this, while retaining full compatibility with the original GM standard. Because the S03 is fully XG compatible, you can be assured that GM MIDI song files will sound their absolute best.

Just as important as the waveforms themselves, a high-quality effects processor is an essential part of a synthesizer's voice architecture. And Yamaha ? a world leader in digital effects processing technology ? has equipped the S03 with rich reverb and chorus effects as well as a wide selection of variation effects such as delays and distortions. A total of 64 different effect types are available.

Unlike the small 2-line displays used in most competing keyboards, the S03's custom backlit LCD screen makes it easy to see the names of voices and other parameters at a glance.

With so many song-inspiring voices at your fingertips, chances are you'll want to get started making music right away. Combine the S03 with any of our Steinberg software products and enter the world of computer-based music production.

The S03 Voice Editor features an intuitive graphical user interface, making it a snap to edit the keyboard's onboard voices.