Yamaha YPG625 88-Key Keyboard with Built-In Speakers Review

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(More customer reviews)Yamaha has an incredibly wide array of piano and other keyboard instruments to choose from, so how does one pick this one over another? It is challenging, and I think it comes down to usage, that is `How the instrument will be used'. For me, I wanted this to be our family piano for me and the kids to bang on and have fun. For this purpose, I think the Yamaha YPG-625 is perhaps the best piano for the money. You get so many features for so little money, it is incredible. And the sounds are terrific! It has about 300-something voices built in including many pianos, strings, woodwinds, brass, organs, synth-leads, complete drum kits, and fun sound effects for the kids to stay interested. We have had it for about six months and still play it almost everyday.
Pros:
- Nice keyboard feel. Not quite a Steinway grand, but not a plastic toy either. I recommend actually playing one at a local music store before you buy.
- Very short money for a very feature-rich instrument.
- USB to-host port (for connecting to PC - I didn't need to try this, but it's there, and Yamaha has extensive support for sheet music, lessons, et. al. on-line)
- USB to-device port to plug in additional storage for your own stored music (I had one memory stick that did not work, and another that did. If you save music off as SMF (standard Midi format?) - then they will play directly on Windoze Media Player).
- ~300-something built-in very high quality voices (There is actually 500 you can pick, but some sound pretty similar to each other, so I dropped the real number, but this is still a big plus compared with some Casios or Rolands that only have 10 or 20 voices.)
- You can record your songs, using a very simple 5 part multi-track recorder (5 built-in reserved song slots, many many more using external storage via USB)
- Displayed sheet music for playing along with built-in music, around 30 songs.
- More music available for download from Yamaha web site(s), sometimes for a fee :(
- Built-in accompaniment, just select the style (something like 100 styles built-in), which sounds pretty good when just reading lead sheets
- Easy to use keyboard split, dual voices, and `reset' back to regular grand piano
- Controls are well laid out and easy to read and use
- Large LCD display panel well lit and easy to read
- Internal amplifier / speakers get plenty loud enough
- Headphone jack doubles as stereo output to drive into external amps if wanted
- 96 note polyphony - you shouldn't notice notes ending early during long schmaltzy arpeggios

Cons:
-No midi ports, so you can't really use it as your go-to home studio controller
-Pitch bend wheel has a cheap feel to it
-No keyboard cover build-in
-Built-in lesson program somewhat useless (cursor waits for you to play right notes - it doesn't sound like music, OR keyboard `fixes' when you play a wrong note)
-Only one headphone port in the back, which is not easy to get at.
-Voices are not editable (but many voices sound great as is)
-Keys themselves can sound a little clunky (especially if you are trying to practice while your significant-other is sleeping)
-No way to expand voices (but I haven't needed or wanted to do this yet)
-Included FC5 foot-switch is a joke, go buy a foot-switch for $30
-I just noticed the YPG-635 announced at music.yamaha.com, but it looks like the new features are DSP effects, and an optional 3-pedal input (you probably need to buy the triple pedal), but they drop the polyphony to 64 notes.
Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you got something useful from my notes!!


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