Comparison Casio CT-S200 vs Yamaha PSR-F51

— Unweighted. Keys with a very low pressing force, literally "failing" under the fingers. This option is well suited for inexpensive synthesizers with passive mechanics (see above), but is rarely used in active models — a small resistance force makes it difficult to choose the optimal pressing force.

— Semi- weighted. Medium-strength keys, not up to the hardness of a full-fledged piano, but showing noticeably more resistance than unweighted ones. This variant is most popular among instruments with active mechanics (see above) — the force on the keys provides adequate feedback and at the same time playing such an instrument does not cause any special difficulties even for those who previously dealt only with unweighted keyboards.

— Weighted. Keys with high actuation force, comparable to that of a classical piano. Used only in professional hammer action instruments (see above) — high rigidity is a must for such mechanics (more precisely, for the response that it must provide).

The polyphony supported by a synthesizer, in other words, is the number of “voices” (tone generators) that can simultaneously sound on it.

This parameter is often described as the number of notes that can be played simultaneously on the keyboard. However, this is not entirely true due to the fact that in many timbres one note can activate several tone generators. As a result, for example, to play a chord of 3 notes in a timbre with 4 tone generators per note, polyphony of at least 3 * 4=12 voices is required. In addition, Auto Accompaniment and Preset Songs (see related sections) also use tone generators, requiring even more voices to work effectively with these features.

The minimum value for a more or less functional modern synthesizer is polyphony for 32 voices — and even then such an instrument can be used mainly for initial training and simple melodies. For a more solid application, it is desirable to have at least 50 – 60 voices, and in professional models (in particular, workstations where you have to deal with several audio tracks at once), there are models with polyphony for 150 tone generators or more.

In general, a more advanced synthesizer is likely to have more extensive polyphony, however, it is only possible to evaluate the class of an instrument by this parameter very approximately — instruments with the same number of voices can differ greatly in level. The only exception to this rule are children's synthesizers (see "T...ype"), which support up to 20 voices.

The number of built-in sounds provided in the synthesizer.

The number of timbres is often described as the number of instruments that a given model can imitate. However, this is not entirely true — rather, this parameter can be called "the number of instruments and sound effects." For example, the same instrument — an electric guitar — with different "gadgets" (distortion, overdrive) will sound differently, and in the synthesizer each such gadget will be considered a separate timbre. The “drums” timbre usually combines different types of drums and other percussion instruments — in other words, it allows you to portray both the “bass drum” and the cymbals without switching settings, just by pressing the desired keys. And some timbres may not have analogues among real instruments at all.

The more built-in timbres, the more extensive the possibilities of the synthesizer, the more diverse the sounds that can be extracted from it. At the same time, in high-end models like workstations (see "Type"), this number can reach 1000 or even more.

The number of auto accompaniment styles (see above) originally provided in the synthesizer, in other words, the number of accompaniment options available to the user.

The more extensive this set, the higher the probability of finding among these melodies suitable options for a particular case. At the same time, the abundance of styles in itself is not yet a 100% guarantee that among them there will be a suitable one, especially since different synthesizer models can differ markedly in a specific set of melodies. So the list does not hurt to clarify before buying. Also note that the situation can be corrected by user styles (see below) — many synthesizers with auto accompaniment support them.

The range in which you can change the tempo of the programme played by the synthesizer — auto accompaniment, lesson tune (see above), metronome (see below), recorded sample, etc.

Pace is measured in beats per minute. Changing it allows you to adjust the speed of the synthesizer to the specifics of the situation — for example, slightly slow down the tutorial if it is too hard to master at the initial pace. The wider the range of tempo adjustment, the more options the musician has to choose from, especially in the area of very slow and very fast tempos.

Note that the traditional range of musical tempos covers values from 40 beats / min (“grave”, “very slowly”) to 208 beats / min (“prestissimo”, “very fast”), however, in synthesizers it can be more extensive — for example, 30 – 255 bpm.

The sequencer is a device that allows you to record music played on the instrument in real time. Recording is usually done in MIDI format. At the same time, the capabilities of the sequencer can include not only the recording and playback of the music being played, but also advanced options for editing it: sequential overlay of several parts, mixing of recorded tracks, changing the volume, tempo, timbre, key of the recorded compositions, quantization to eliminate tempo irregularities, etc. .P. The specific capabilities of the sequencer, usually, directly depend on the type (see above) and the price category of the synthesizer. However, anyway, this function can be an important help for both a novice musician and a professional.

Synthesizer support for reverb.

Initially, reverberation is the phenomenon of gradual attenuation of sound during its repeated reflections from walls or surrounding objects; in this case, it is meant to recreate this effect with the help of special processing of the audio signal. By changing the reverb settings, you can, in particular, imitate rooms with different acoustic properties — for example, a strong echo with a minimum delay creates the effect of being in a cave, a noticeable echo with a noticeable delay — being in a vast "boomy" room like a cathedral, etc. However, reverb can also achieve quite specific effects.

The presence of a chorus effect in the synthesizer.

The word "chorus" comes from chorus, "chorus", and the purpose of this function is quite consistent with the origin of its name — it creates the effect of the choral sound of several instruments. To do this, the original sound signal is copied (one or more times) and the copies are added to the overall sound with a small, up to 30 ms, time shift, and this shift is constantly changing. In this way, a small but noticeable difference in individual "voices", characteristic of a real choir, is imitated. However it is worth noting that a full-fledged resemblance to a choral performance with the help of a chorus cannot be achieved even on the most advanced synthesizer; however, this effect in itself sounds very interesting, thanks to which it does not lose its popularity.

The ability to fine-tune the synthesizer by sound frequencies. Often, such models also indicate the range in which such adjustment can be carried out.

The standard tuning, which is used by default in all synthesizers, is designated as “440 Hz” — this is the frequency of the “la” note of the first octave, as well as the standard frequency of the tuning fork, all other notes are tuned to it. With fine tuning, the musician can set a different base frequency, raising or lowering the overall tone of the synthesizer. At the same time, unlike the transposition described above, in this case the frequency does not change in steps (by tones-semitones), but smoothly, with an accuracy of a hertz or even a tenth of a hertz. Such an opportunity can be useful in some non-standard situations — for example, if you have to accompany a guitarist whose instrument is tuned slightly higher or lower than the standard, and for one reason or another it is impossible to change the guitar's tuning.