Your PSR can pretend to be a LOT of different instruments.  On first look, one might think of it as a small, portable, piano because it has keys that look like piano keys and, in fact, when you press those keys, a piano sound comes out of the speakers.  But you can also press those keys and here a guitar, or a trumpet, or a flute, or, for that matter, an entire orchestra.  And many of these various instruments sound incredibly realistic!  And so here you find one of the key features that distinguish one model keyboard from another -- the sounds that the keyboard can produce.  How good are those sounds, that is, how well can the keyboard imitate the sound of a real guitar, or piano, or saxophone?  And, how many different instruments, referred to as voices, can the keyboard emulate?

PSR Preset Voices

Yamaha marketing sites 835 voices on the PSR-2100. This is 52 more voices than a PSR-1100, but only 26 more voices than a PSR-2000 and 86 fewer voices than a Tyros. But simply counting the total number of voices is not necessarily the best way to compare keyboards. It is not the total number that counts as much as the number of voices you actually use and the quality of those voices. Table 1 below compares the number of "voices" available on the TYROS and the PSR-2x family of keyboards, by "type" of voice. Note that the 480 XG voices are included in each of these models, so they do not help distinguish one model from another. Note also that most models have the same number of Drum & SFX (special effects) kits, although the Tyros does have additional "Live" Drum and SFX kits.

Table 1. Comparison of Voices by Yamaha Keyboard and by Voice Type

A Comparison of Voices in the PSR-2100 and PSR-1100

52 More Voices - 7% Increase

The PSR-2100 has 835 voices (if you count the drum & sfx kits as voices).  The PSR-1100 boasts 783 total voices.  Now, 835 versus 783, a difference of 52 voices, represents a 6.6% increase.  That does not seem like much of a difference.  But let us examine those numbers in a little more detail.  Both instruments include 480 XG Voices.  The Yamaha XG Voices, which are an extension of the General MIDI (GM) voice specification, do sound very nice.  But all Yamaha keyboards have this identical set of 480 XG voices.  These voices are normally used in defining styles for your arranger.  That is why Yamaha styles can be freely interchanged among Yamaha keyboards.  The XG voices that are incorporated into the style are available on the low-end, midrange, and high-end keyboards.  Your PSR-2100 can play styles from the PSR-9000 or from the PSR-550 or even from the CVP-209 Clavinova series. It can also play styles from older Yamaha models like the PSR-620, PSR-740 or PSR-8000.

Panel Voices

Let us take those XG voices out of the comparison, and also take out the drum kits as well.  Both the PSR-2100 and the PSR-1100 include 13 drum kits and 3 SFX kits. That leaves us with what are known as panel voices.  These are the voices that make the instrument shine. They are produced from sample sounds of the real instruments.  The larger the sample, the more realistic the sound. This is how the Sweet!, Live!, and Cool! voices are produced.  But larger samples take up large amounts of limited internal  memory,  This means there is always a trade off between a few stunningly realistic high-quality voices and a larger number of less realistic voices.  As you spend more money on a Yamaha keyboard, or any arranger keyboard for that matter, the number and quality of these panel voices is one of the things you buy for the extra money.

52 More Voices - 18% Increase

The PSR-2100 has 339 panel voices whereas the PSR-1100 includes only 287 panel voices.  The difference is 52 voices.  Measuring just the panel voices, these additional 52 voices in the PSR-2100 represent an 18% increase over the number available in the PSR-1100.

Sweet!, Live!, and Cool! Voices - 200% Increase

Some of the best voices on the PSR are what Yamaha has labeled Sweet!, Live!, and Cool! voices.  The PSR-2100 includes 33 of these; while the PSR-1100 only has 11.   These are the solo voices that so many have marveled at.  The 22 additional Sweet/Live/Cool voices in the PSR-2100 represent a 200% increase over what is available in the PSR-1100. There are 20 other voices included in that 52 voice difference that are among my favorites on the PSR-2100 (NylonGuitar, AirTrumpet, GrowlSax, ModernHarp, RotorOrgan, NeoWarmPad, just to mention a few.)  If you had purchased the 1100, instead of the 2100, you would have missed out on a LOT of voice variety and quality.  I have included a page showing all of the PSR-2100 Panel Voices. Voices are listed by voice category (see below) and also indicate which particular panel voices are not included in the PSR-1100. A similar page is also available for the earlier PSR-2000/PSR-1000 models.

Voice Categories

Yamaha groups the available panel voices in a number of different categories. The available categories are shown via buttons right on the keyboard.  The VOICE buttons are located just to the right of the main screen. The individual voice pages here will show you exactly what voices are included under each category. However, while we are comparing various keyboards, the table below is provided to show you the total number of voices, by category, in the Tyros and PSR 2x series keyboards. Note that since the Tyros has so many more voices, it sometimes has two category buttons where the PSR-2100 combines both of those "categories" into a single category button.