It has a small-sized keyboard with 32 minikeys and a pitch-bend wheel, vibrato and sustain buttons, an internal Frequency modulation (usually referred to as FM) synthesizer offering 25 different voices with 6-note polyphony, two operators, and a very basic chord sequencer.

Although originally made for the consumer market, this keytar's MIDI out features are very powerful.

Its drum rhythms and accompaniment are transmitted on separate MIDI channels, so that an external drum machine, sampler, or other MIDI equipment can be programmed to play the backing parts.

MIDI start/stop and tempo sync are also transmitted so an external sequencer may be utilized as well.

A larger model, the Yamaha SHS-200, was released the following year, and came with 49 keys and dual stereo speakers.