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SciNote:
I definitely understand how you feel, as I am very similar.  Back around 1980-1981, I had a programmable calculator that had a whopping 80 bytes of program memory, along with memory for some variables.  I spent hours and hours with that thing trying -- and often succeeding -- in getting it to do things that it was not really designed to do.  As more advanced models came out and I got them, I didn't spend as much time programming them.  I guess, like you said, when everything is just provided for you, it can cause a loss of a feeling of creativity.

I am similar when it comes to keyboards.  I am no beginner -- while I currently do not play professionally, I have been playing keyboard for 43 years, and my main keyboard is a PSR-E433.  I've had it over 7 years, and I am still impressed with the sound, and while there are certain limitations and certain features that I wish Yamaha would add to the newer versions (see my PSR-E473 wish-list type threads for more information), I do not find this keyboard limiting for me at all.

You are correct about the memories -- or registrations -- that are available on the E400 series keyboards, and those do make a world of difference.  At the push of one or two buttons, you get an entirely new panel set-up, with a new main voice, dual voice, split voice, style (if desired), special effects, and knob assignment parameters, to name a few things.  It really allows you to orchestrate your playing "on the fly" while playing a song.  With me, I prefer not to store styles in the registrations.  I use the registrations mostly for storing the keyboard sounds, and most of them are not "song-specific", which is how I use 32 registrations to play a very wide variety of music.  The registrations are in 8 banks of 4 (and this is true for all the PSR-E400 series from the E433 to the E463).  So, I use one bank for sounds for rock songs.  Another one for orchestral sounds.  Another one for jazz.  Another one for 1960's-70's pop.  And so on.  And since I don't store styles in the registrations, I can have a background style going while playing a song, and the style won't suddenly change when I change sounds with the registration buttons.

And you are right in that it can be too easy to get caught up in all of the technology, that you forget to actually just sit down and play music.  That is something to look out for, and something that becomes more likely as you get a keyboard with more and more features.  But with what it looks like you are wanting to do, it does seem like a PSR-E433-E463 would be a good choice.  You can check out the new E373, which does have a lot of nice features, as well, but it still only has 9 registrations, instead of 32, which I would find quite limiting.  And of course, you may also want to wait to see if and when the E473 will be released and what features it will have.  If you get a used keyboard, I would personally avoid the older PSR-E403, E413, and E423, because I'm pretty sure those keyboards do not have the USB-to-device port, and they only have 2 registration buttons per bank, instead of 4 -- again, very limiting.

johan:
I also like the E433-E463 series very much. They are very portable and have decent voices. You not only have 32 registrations at your immediate disposal but on top of that, you can easily save and load these 32 registrations to USB stick without the need for a connection with your PC. You can also copy styles from USB to the device memory and you have buttons to select/deselect individual tracks of the style that is playing. All these things are missing on the E373 so I hope Yamaha brings out the E473 soon.

SciNote:
You're right.  I was thinking that they added the USB-to-device port on the E373, but I took a look at a picture of the back of the keyboard on Yamaha's website, and the only USB connection there is still the USB-to-host jack, so direct hook-up to a flash drive still would not be possible on the E373.

johnluke:
Hi all and thanks again for your comments.

I’ve purchased my new PSR-E463 yesterday and this weekend I will spend some time to discover the various ‘new’ features and explore it. The good is that it’s a very similar design of my old E333 so that it’s immediately usable for me... I did’t believe I could buy again a new keyboard 10+ years since my last purchase, reading all your comments on these pages was definitely a trigger for my decision  :)

I’m going to post a request in the forum styles section soon.
Good day you all!

SciNote:
Great!  I think you'll find the E463 a feature-packed keyboard that will easily meet your needs, and then some.  Always feel free to ask if you have any questions about it.

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