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(More customer reviews)When a master controller keyboard started to go flaky on me, I started looking for a replacement, and since I didn't REALLY need anything but a basic piano at this point (already having other keyboards that can serve this purpose), the focus was going to be on having 88 weighted keys, but being lightweight and portable. In the start of the 90s, stage pianos that remotely sounded like the real thing were becoming affordable, though hideously bulky and heavy. Let's just say they wouldn't fit in my car so easily, which leaves you reliant on the rest of the band for your transportation. End of the 90s, Korg was selling their 88 key Trinity keyboards, one of which I had the pleasure to lug around in my car for 10 years (it just barely fit!) but ultimately wore out because I couldn't get a case or even bag for it - it was just too big. It still works but gets unpredictable when I move it, so I had to make the call, and buy a replacement.
I checked out some of the lower end piano models, Korg's P250, Roland RD700s, and Yamaha's P85 not only sounded much better, but was jaw-droppingly cheap. I find Roland's sound sweet but a bit muddy or saturated, the action was not bad. Korg's P250 sounds nice but I find their samples are compressed too much and the decay sounds unnaturally fast. Yamaha hit the sweet spot with their piano samples, granted there's only two sets of samples for piano, but they both sound absolutely brilliant (especially considering the cost of the keyboard). The expressiveness you get out of this instrument is amazing - very careful attention to detail. (Compared to the 'honking' piano on the Korg Triton.) The key action is a bit heavier, I can see that I'll be doing scales for a month before I have the strength to really play that thing. That's ok, I'm still waiting for the stand anyways... Which brings me to :
(1) To incorporate built-in speakers, the bottom is not flat, it's basically a 'V'. It will not sit really stably in ANYTHING but the stand made for it. Handstands and other acrobatics are right out. So you basically are forced to buy the stand which sells for extra. Give me a break.
(2) There are no stage outs on this piano (if you want to use this piano in a band and hook it up to an amp and/or mixing board), you have to use the headphone jacks (!) VERY odd omission, instead of offering both analog and digital outs, Yamaha actually regresses and doesn't even have stage outs. Anyways, you have to get a cord that goes from stereo 1/4" (RTS) to two 1"4 jacks (very common cord BTW, your music store will have it), you can't just use a standard 1/4" jack because aspects of the piano signal are heavily panned and you get a weird phasey sound if you try to just take one side of the signal. And since it sticks out the front, you need a 1"4 right angle adapter to keep it out of harms way.
Apart from that, the piano sounds very crisp and convincing, some nice onboard effects to enhance this. But basically it's just a piano, not a workstation. Use it for one instrument at a time (you can layer the instruments but I couldn't find a single combination that sounded better than the individual instruments).
There are other sounds built into this, besides piano. There are two electric piano patches - the first is a Fender Rhodes sound, with a DX-ey tinge to it, sounds beautifully full, if a bit tine-y. The second patch, kind of a Wurlitzer or (I guess) Yamaha CP type patch, is almost worth the price of the keyboard itself. Sounds very like Supertramp's keyboard sound, very expressive to play.
The organs are the worst of the samples. Honestly - they couldn't find better organ patches than this, at least after the very high standard they established with the pianos? These sound like a circus calliope (E. Organ 1) and a bad Soundblaster pipe organ patch (E. Organ 2)! They are absolutely terrible, but if you really really need a calliope or pipe organ sound and not one of your instruments does that sound, you might use it.
The strings patch isn't bad, isn't noteworthy either. Definitely usable. I would have liked to be able to apply an (onboard) phaser effect to it for instance.
There are two harpsichord patches that are fairly high quality, better than the Korg Trinity's, anyways. Layering them sounds cheesy, but onboard compression might have helped. Workstations have me so spoiled...
The vibes patch is pretty good too, clear and bell-like. 'Tis purty.
All in all, this keyboard is an absolute steal at this price, once again the bar is raised in terms of quality and portability. You get bang-for-the-buck with this! It fits in the trunk of my car, just barely. Don't even have to put the back seats down! It loses 1/2 a star for the stand issue, the lack of even a proper set of analog outs, and the wretched organ samples.
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