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I’ve been hearing Rein Me In everywhere lately.
It’s one of those songs that just gets stuck in your head whether you want it to or not, and it’s clearly massively popular across the UK right now.
So naturally, I started wondering what would happen if I tried building an arrangement for it on a Yamaha PSR-SX920.
I’ve embedded the video below where I demonstrate the setup in action, but honestly, this project started more as an experiment than anything else. I wanted to see how well the PSR-SX920 could handle a modern track like this, especially one that relies quite heavily on atmosphere, groove and gradual build-up rather than flashy instrumentation.
As I mention in the video, I actually stumbled across a style on the keyboard called 70sPopShuffle which turned out to be almost ideal for the song. After tweaking the tempo and doing some revoicing work, it sat surprisingly well with the feel of the original track.
From there, it became a case of programming everything around it properly.
One thing that helped massively was Yamaha’s Chord Looper feature. Rein Me In repeats the same chord progression over and over for large sections of the song, so Chord Looper was perfect for this type of setup. In fairness, I probably only scratched the surface of what Chord Looper can really do, but even with fairly simple use, it made the whole thing much more fluid to play.
What surprised me most was how much variation I could still create despite the repeating chord structure. Between the Main Variation buttons, BREAK fills, layered voices and Multi Pads, it never really felt repetitive while playing.
I also spent a fair bit of time programming the registrations so the performance evolves naturally as the song progresses. There’s a bass intro section with guitar picking, synth lead sounds for the melody, piano layering to add texture, nylon guitar voicing in the second verse, plus more energetic variations for the bigger chorus sections.
One thing I would still quite like to do at some point is go deeper into Yamaha’s Multi Pad Creator and properly recreate Sam Fender’s signature guitar riff from the intro and verses. I think that could sound really good if programmed carefully, but that might end up becoming a separate project and video later on.
Anyway, the finished setup is now available as a completely free download if you’d like to try it on your own keyboard. I’ll leave the download link here.
Featured in this article
Overall, I genuinely think the PSR-SX920 handled this challenge brilliantly. Modern songs like this are actually really interesting tests for arranger keyboards because they rely so much on feel and production, and I came away impressed with how naturally Yamaha’s system adapted to it.
If you already own a Yamaha PSR-SX or Genos keyboard, hopefully this gives you a few ideas of what’s possible once you start experimenting a bit beyond the factory presets.
And if you’re currently thinking about upgrading your keyboard, we’re always happy to help with part exchange too. We’ve embedded our part exchange form below this article if you’d like to see what yours might be worth.
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