Yamaha PSRE213 Portable Keyboard Review

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(More customer reviews)It really does not look like a professional keyboard but it could be a beautiful present for a beginner. Got it for [...] so its well worth the money. I would recommend the starter kit that comes separate for [...] more. It includes a headphone,footswitch,an adapter and a DVD.

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Yamaha YPT210AD Portable Keyboard with Adapter Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm a guy in my late 30s who's never learned to play any musical instruments or learned to read music or had any kind of musical training. I've always wanted to learn piano, though. So when my toddler son got a kid's keyboard from his grandmother for Christmas, it rekindled my interest and I started looking around Amazon.com to see if I could find something that'd work for me (hey, I'd cheerfully have co-opted my son's keyboard--goodness knows he got enough loot for Christmas--but the keys were too small/narrow for my hand; it's a kid's keyboard, after all).
I came across this Yamaha YPT-210 keyboard, and the price really surprised me. I didn't know full-sized keyboards from a reputable company could be gotten so affordably. It was also on a Friday sale, so that helped even more. So I went ahead and bought it.
Now, keep in mind that I'm pretty much an ignoramus when it comes to music, or portable keyboards, or quality of voices and songs and instruments and all that fancy stuff I'm just learning. All I can say is this: WOW. This thing sounds great. The Grand Piano mode sounds just like, well, a grand piano. Now, I'm sure Ms. Mitsuko Uchida (hey, I may be a musical ignoramus, but I do like to listen to classical music and have a decent collection) or even the music teacher at the local high school down the road will have no problem distinguishing this from a "real" piano, but it sounds great to me, and for my first keyboard, I'm just astonished by the quality of the sound coming out of the stereo speakers.
Then there are a multitude of instruments, sound effects, voice clips, noises. The variety feels a bit overwhelming to me, but I understand that this is one of the most basic portable keyboards Yamaha makes and the fancier models have even more. Yikes.
It comes with over 100 songs built in, all of which is available via the built-in Yamaha Education Suite (YES) 5 tutorial for you to try to learn to play. The YES works like this: 1. You listen to the song and get a feel for it; 2) you work on the tempo and try to press the right key at the right time; 3) then you actually play the piece, to the accompaniment of background beat and supporting music. The way step 3 works is that the keyboard waits for you to press the right key in right sequence. This is harder to explain than it actually is to do in real life. Say a song calls for "do-re-mi" sequence. If you press "do-do-re-re-do-mi," then only the first do, and first re, and first mi will play and sound. Of course your pressing all the other keys throw your tempo out of whack, and at the end of the piece, you get a rudimentary grade of how you did (OK/Good/Very Good/Excellent--Yamaha apparently believes in positive reinforcements only). Like I said, it sounds cumbersome explaining it with words, but in practice, it works surprisingly well. I was able to get a passable (for me) rendition of "Oh Susanna" going after only a few tries.
This is how Yamaha explains the YES feature on their website:
*********************************************************
Yamaha Education Suite(tm) (Y.E.S.): Learn How To Play Now!
The YPT-210 has 102 built-in songs for you to learn to play, using the Yamaha Education Suite. The songs are separated into left and right hand parts, providing 7 levels of lessons plus a convenient chord dictionary.
Three keyboard lessons for each hand:
* Lesson One - LISTEN & LEARN the melody or rhythm of a selected song
* Lesson Two - TIMING mode allows you to play the melody or chord by pressing any key using the correct timing
* Lesson Three: WAITING mode stops the playback of a song until you find the correct note and then continues
* Lesson Grading - monitors your progress as you practice each lessons two and three and gives you a grade.
* Chord Dictionary - shows you how to play chords and tells you which chords you are playing by displaying the notes and chord name on the LCD screen.
*********************************************************
You can either use six AA sized batteries or the supplied AC adapter. Be careful to make sure that the YPT-210 you're getting comes with an adapter; apparently there are versions of the YPT-210 that does not include the adapter. The manual recommends alkaline batteries, and warns that using rechargeable batteries may result in sudden loss of power when the charge becomes low (as opposed to alkalines, where the power loss would be gradual). I've tested it at home using six 1.2V NiMH AA batteries (the ubiquitous type used for digital cameras), and the keyboard worked fine. As long as, say, you're not performing in front of a crowd, I'd imagine using rechargeable batteries would be fine, especially if you don't have a ready power outlet near where the keyboard is.
The keyboard has connections for headphones, a foot sustain pedal, and computer MIDI interface, but the latter two are far, far down the road for me. I have found the headphone plug to be very useful, as I like to do most of my practicing late at night after the family's gone to bed.
Not having any experience with a regular piano, I can't really compare how the keys on this keyboard feels compare to a piano. All I can say is it feels good to me. The keys are firmly responsive when you press down on them. Again, I'm sorry I can't offer any meaningful contrasts; it feels comfortable and good to me as someone who's just starting out with it.
You can go to the Yamaha website to download the full manual in PDF format, and also see the specifications for the keyboard.
The only gripe I have so far is the volume control. It resets itself to a default volume every time you turn it off! The default volume happens to be fairly loud, and I do most of my piano practice (sounds fancy already!) late at night, so I've often found myself wishing for a volume control memory. If you hold down the "- Volume" button while powering the keyboard on, then it starts at a lower volume, but it's not as convenient as having it remember the volume setting. One way to get around this that involves a bit of equipment is to connect the keyboard to a receiver or tabletop stereo that has line-in for audio. Then the keyboard volume will always stay at the default (loud) setting, but you can control the volume on the receiver/stereo end.
Also, what this keyboard isn't: Keeping in mind that this is one of the most basic/affordable keyboards that Yamaha makes, I consider the fact that it doesn't include a sequencer (recording your playing) or strength-responsive keys (the keys sound the same, whether you press softly or forcefully) to not detract the overall value and performance of the keyboard.
All in all, I am very, very happy with this keyboard and look forward to learning to play piano/keyboard on it.

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Yamaha DGX200 76-Key Electronic Keyboard Review

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(More customer reviews)I have plyed piano professionally and have a degree in music. i have a very expensive Yamaha Clavinova (as well as a real piano)
i bought this thinking of it as a toy for my 22 year old who suddenly wants to play. it has a fabulous piano sound (better than the expensive triton). the built in piano lessons are really helpful. my favorite part is when i taught piano, i could never get kids to practice one hand at a time. this keyboard will play the left hand for you as you play the right and vice versa. my daughter loved that it would record and play back what she had just played.

i always discoraged parents from having their kids practice on keyboards but the touch of these keys is very realistic. i would recommend it to someone starting out in piano not wanting to make that huge investment until they were sure they would continue.
but, as a keyboard (not a tiny piano) there are enough sounds and gimics for a beginner in keyboards but not for someone who really is into all the synthesizer effects.
But, what is this? no power cord? and no sustain pedal. the pedal i can understand but no power cord - that is just too cheap. they should at least put a huge notice on the front of the box that you're going to have to buy one separately.
still, i was shocked at the quality considering the price.

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Yamaha DGX230AD 76 Key Portable Grand with power Review

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(More customer reviews)I borrowed DGX230 from a friend and was pretty happy with it for a couple of months (till the end of the loan). Happy enough to order one, which turned out to be defective. The lowest "B"-key was much harder to press than its neighbors and took about twice as much pressure to go all the way down (yes, I did measure it with weights). It did "make a sound", that is why I put "(mechanically) defective" in the title.
I did like the first keyboard, though.
Its touch, though not weighted and softer than typical piano touch, might still sometimes remotely resemble piano touch for the following reason. When the key is being pressed, the point of "maximum resistance" occurs near the top position, then the key goes down more easily (sorry for this clumsy description). Of course, nonweighted keys do not have any noticeable inertia, but that hardly mattered to me when playing slowly. The touch was much better than in Casio's WK200 or WK500.
(By the way, the defective key on DGX-230 did not have this feature: I would have to press harder and harder as it went lower.)
Other than that, DGX-230 is light and good-looking, and there are some nice voices among roughly 500 XGlite patches.


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Casio CTK2000 61 Key Personal Keyboard with MP3/iPod Connection Review

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(More customer reviews)After looking at several reviews and product informatiom of various priced keyboards, and wanting to stay in budget , we decided to purchase this one for our son for Christmas. He is 12 and a budding musician, he absolutely LOVES this keyboard. The only downfall is it did not come with it's own AC adapter, which may be common but would have been nice to know to have on hand Christmas morning (it takes a lot of batteries). Other than that it shipped super fast, great packing, good prduct, we are very pleased!

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Yamaha EZ-200 61 Full-Sized Touch Keyboard, Sensitive Keys with Lighted Key Teaching Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a 36 yo man, I've always wanted to learn piano so I thought I'd get this keyboard which I thought had built in lessons that would guide my learning to play the piano...
For all intents and purposes, doesn't the description seem to infer that? That with the Y.E.S.5 teaching system and all those built in songs you'd have a well thought out lesson plan built in. That was my misunderstanding:::
What it actually is is a nice keyboard that you can learn on, but it won't teach you- the emphasis is on getting out what you put in- you have to really stumble your way thru learning the built in songs that the keyboard lights up the correct keys you're supposed to strike- there is not a good fluid way to learn a little piece at a time (It does have an A-B feature but it's not so much a loop as it is a measure to measure cycle with a 2-4 bar intro, each time!) So its not like you can just sit there and play it over and over and over again until you and your fingers get it, its: play the 2 or so bars you select (A-B) and then at the end, it goes thru at least a 2 bar beat count and then resumes the 2 bars of the song you're trying to learn.... does that make sense?
There are not lesson plans. In the book it says to "Listen to and Learn" the song. My memory isn't that fantastic that I can learn the songs by listening to them and then just learning, I think it would be a vast improvement to have a real loop feature that you could use to select a portion, loop it ad infinitum until you learn it and them move on. Also, I was really thinking that with the latest Learning System (Y.E.S.5) that there would be beginner lessons on reading the sheet music, finger drills, scales, etc... all the stuff you learn when you're learning piano- this piano system is for prodigies and people who already know piano.
So while it is a nice keyboard, it is not the EZ piano that will teach you how to play, you will have to look elsewhere to learn, or teach yourself, but this keyboard with all its songs and such will not be a step by step tutor....

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Never played piano or keyboard before? The EZ-200 lighted keyboard from Yamaha will have you playing songs from the very first day. Just call up a song from the 100 songs built-in to the keyboard, select if you'd like to play the left or right hand part and hit "Start". The keyboard will light up the key that you're supposed to play, and in fact, the song will actually stop and wait for you to find the correct key! All of the tools you need are found in the keyboard, including how to play chords.

Expressive Touch like a piano If you're buying a keyboard having piano in mind, you'll want Yamaha's Touch Response feature. On an acoustic piano, striking a key harder will produce a louder sound, striking it softer will produce a softer sound. With Yamaha's "Touch Response" the EZ-200 keyboard responds like an acoustic piano.
Portable Grand: Industry's best piano You're never more than a button push away from the most realistic piano sound in portable keyboards today. One press of the Portable Grand button resets the entire keyboard to a stereo-sampled piano--perfect for when it's time to practice. Yamaha is known around the world for the quality of our acoustic pianos and this attention to detail is evident as you enjoy the warmth and clarity of the EZ-200 Portable Grand piano. And of course, the keyboard includes a Sustain Pedal jack on the back for practicing and playing piano pieces.
Yamaha Education Suite: Helps you learn to play The EZ-200 has 100 built-in songs for you to learn to play, using the Yamaha Education Suite. The songs are separated into left and right hand parts, providing 7 levels of lessons plus a convenient chord dictionary. In addition, the correct fingering is indicated in the LCD display.
Three keyboard lessons for each hand
Lesson One: LISTEN & LEARN the melody or rhythm of a selected song.
Lesson Two: TIMING mode allows you to play the melody or chord by pressing any key using the correct timing.
Lesson Three: WAITING mode stops the playback of a song until you find the correct note and then continues.

Lesson GradingMonitors your progress as you practice each lessons two and three and gives you a grade.
Chord DictionaryShows you how to play chords and tells you which chords you are playing by displaying the notes and chord name on the LCD screen.

Computer Connectivity: General MIDI (GM) and XGlite compatible The music pathway to your computer and the Internet is MIDI. It's the way that keyboards communicate with computers. And because the EZ-200 is both General MIDI (GM) and XGlite compatible, you have access to thousands of MIDI song files on the Internet.
367 Voices and the One-Touch Setting The EZ-200 has 367 Voices for you to choose from. For example, there are pianos, electric pianos, harpsichord, guitars, drums, bass, violins, brass and synthesizer voices. Pretty much every instrument in the orchestra is at your fingertips. And if you don't know which sound goes with what style of music, the keyboard can select an appropriate sound for you using the convenient One-Touch Setting.
Sound Quality: Real stereo (Not just 2 Speakers) Some keyboards have two speakers but aren't stereo. Don't be fooled. Just because a keyboard has two speakers doesn't mean that it's truly stereo with two separate amplifiers. All Yamaha Portable Keyboards feature stereo-sampling technology.
32 Note Polyphony and 16 Part Multi Timbrel In electronic keyboards, the more sounds made at the same time--polyphony--the more memory is needed. Obviously, more is always better, because too little polyphony can cause dropouts in dense passages of music. Some keyboards at this price point have only 12-note polyphony. The EZ-200 has 32 notes of polyphony and will play back 16 different parts or sounds at once (16-part multi timbrel); enough for the most demanding needs.
Reverb Yamaha has long been a world leader in digital signal processing technology. In fact, Yamaha professional audio products are found in most professional recording studios around the world. The EZ-200 takes full advantage of this know-how, giving you an extensive range of nine, top-quality reverb effects that simulate playing in everything from a small room to a large spacious concert hall; a first in this price range.
Metronome Just what the teacher ordered! A fully adjustable metronome is just a button push away.
Strike up the Band--Keyboard Styles In addition to the 100 songs found in the EZ-200, there are 100 Styles that allow you to play any song you like. It's just like having a built-in band. Call up your favorite style of music like Rock, Big Band or Country, press a chord or play Single Finger mode, and the EZ-200 will follow you through a piece of music, providing all of the drums, bass, piano, guitar, horn and string parts for you. With this instrument, you can make great sounding music with little more than 2 fingers, however as you learn to play, the EZ-200 will adapt to your new skills and automatically switch between single finger mode and fingered mode where you play all the notes of the chord.
Connectivity The EZ-200 features MIDI In/Out, Sustain Pedal jack and a Headphone jack for private practice.
What's in the Box EZ-200 Keybaord, Music Rest, Owner's Manual, Song Book

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Casio CTK-3000 61 Key Digital Keyboard Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a very nice keyboard for home use, even more so as the price is right. The digital readout is easy to see, with nice big black letters and numbers for the important information. The sound is crisp and clear. There are many voices and rhythms to choose from. I especially like the "teach yourself to play" system with so many playalong tunes and a nice fat songbook. The folk and classical rhythms and accompaniments are WONDERFUL and not found on other keyboards. I like the piano voices in my CT640 better though. Maybe one day I will have this set up as a MIDI and can download those better voices from the Casio website into this keyboard. It's really a very nice instrument, with a headphone jack that works well, putting out a similar sound to what comes through the speakers. Because the piano voices are not the greatest, I recommend adding a sustain pedal when ordering as well as the power adapter, and, if your earphones have the little pin plugs, you will need a stereo phone plug to stereo pin plug adapter.

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Yamaha DGX230 76 Full-Sized Piano Style Keys, 489 Instrument Voices Review

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(More customer reviews)I now own two these. One I leave at my band's practice site, the other I keep at home and then take with me for performances. At $200 there's no sense hauling the practice instrument back and forth. Of course, it's not a professional keyboard and will rate sneers from real keyboardists. But for my purposes providing chording and some embellishments for a couple of local bands, it works just fine . . . especially great sound for the "rock organ" setting . . . and I also use the violin voice for country songs and the various saxophone voices on occasion. I have no idea about the other features of the keyboard as a learning device . . . but for an inexpensive, good-sounding, sturdy and dependable keyboard, it's great.

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Yamaha DGX-530 Keyboard, 88 Full-Sized Lightly Weighted Piano Style Keys Review

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(More customer reviews)Tried this instrument out in the store and could not figure out what the difference was between this one and the 520 I previously reviewed on amazon. Sound qualities, voices, layout, display, and software all seemed identical to me to the 520. Finally, after a direct inquiry to Yamaha, I was told that the only difference between this model and the 520 was that the 530 contained 10 more rhythm sequences.
So, if you're one of those who would use this instrument heavily for recording and composition, and just could never find the right rhythmic background, you can try this one and see if one of their ten extra sequences works for you.
If you're like me, however, who use the keyboard mostly for performance purposes and only occasional composition and recording, it really isn't worth upgrading. If you're diligent enough and have the software (pretty much any layered music recording sequence will do; I happen to use Cakewalk 4), you can make and save your own rhythms anyway on either keyboard.
For a more detailed review of other features this keyboard has, check my review out on the DGX-520...aside from the extra rhythms, it's exactly the same.

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Yamaha's DGX530 Portable Grand Piano features 88 piano-style keys with Graded Soft Touch, a matching stand, a sustain pedal, USB storage, backlit LCD displays, notation and lyrics, and plenty more.

Piano-Centric Features The Yamaha Portable Grand, DGX530 has an easy to use panel, a wealth of piano-centric features including 88 piano-style keys, Graded Soft Touch (GST) action with different levels of resistance, and high-resolution stereo piano samples. Included are an attractive matching stand and sustain pedal.
USB Connectivity The DGX530 has 2 USB ports on the back, each with a different use. "USB TO HOST" is plug-and-play connection for recording and playing back MIDI files, as well as transferring data to and from your computer.
"USB TO DEVICE" is for connecting peripheral USB storage devices such as hard drives or portable thumb drives. You can save user songs and settings, or transfer song data downloaded from the Internet to the instrument, where it can be used with the performance assistant and Yamaha Education Suite features.
Lyric, Chord and Notation Display Have you ever played a song and wondered what it would look like as sheet music? The DGX530 can display the score to a song whether it comes from the Internet, the internal selections those you record yourself. Pages scroll automatically when a song is played back--no more page turning! For singers, the screen also displays chords and lyrics to XF compatible songs.
Easy to Use The DGX530 is a breeze to use. Dive right in with convenient tools and features:
Expandable Music Database: Complete keyboard setups by song title. The keyboard selects an appropriate voice for the right hand melody, the correct musical style and the correct tempo. Simply call up a song title and start playing.
One Touch Setting (OTS): Provides you with a recommended voice with effects for each Style. For example, on a jazz style OTS might be piano, for a Latin style it might be acoustic guitar, or for a rock style it might be a guitar with overdrive.
Registration Memory: Set the keyboard up just the way you like and take a digital snapshot for instant recall. Load and save up to 16 Registrations to User memory. The Registration buttons are conveniently located just above the keyboard.
Performance Assistant Technology: Performance assistant technology is a feature from Yamaha that guarantees that you can't play a wrong melody note or chord. Here's how it works. Select a song, press the Performance Assistant button Chord Mode and play the keyboard--any notes you like. Every note you play will fit the music!

Yamaha Education Suite: Helps you learn to play The DGX530 has 30 built-in songs (plus 70 more on the included CD-ROM) for you to learn to play using the Yamaha Education Suite. The songs are separated into left and right hand parts, providing 7 levels of lessons plus a convenient chord dictionary.
Three keyboard lessons for each hand:
Waiting Mode--Stops the playback of a song until you find the correct note and then continues.
Your Tempo Mode--Learn to play the correct notes with the correct timing. Song playback tempo will vary to match the speed you are playing at. The song will slow down when you play wrong notes, so you can learn at your own pace.
Minus One Mode--Here's where you can perfect your technique. The song will play at the normal tempo, minus the part you have chosen to play. Play along while listening to the song.

Lesson Grading--Monitors your progress as you practice each lesson and gives you a grade.
Repeat and Learn--The song location will move back four measures from the point at which you pressed the button, and playback will begin after a one measure count-in. This section will repeat allowing you to practice until perfect!
Chord Dictionary--Shows you how to play chords and tells you which chords you are playing by displaying the notes and chord names on the LCD screen.

6-Track Sequencer With the DGX530, you have the equivalent of a built-in multi-track recorder. Record one or multiple instrument parts at a time and assign each part to a different track. Six tracks are provided to accommodate sophisticated melodies, chord accompaniment and rhythm parts.
Quality Sound The DGX530 sounds as good as it plays. A two-way speaker system with separate woofers and tweeters delivers clear and lifelike instrument voices. Bass Boost ports add deeper low-end impact, and true stereo sound adds spatial depth and realism.
Realistic Sounding Voices The DGX530 comes equipped with 127 panel voices, 12 drum/SFX kits, plus 361 XGlite voices. Dual and Split modes allow you to combine sounds.
Full Keyboard Mode The DGX530 delivers on its piano theme with a special mode of fingering called Full Keyboard Mode. This allows the player to play the keyboard like a piano; for example a chord with the right hand and bass notes with the left. When using the accompaniment feature, the virtual band will follow these chords. Traditional portable keyboards normally require you to chord on the left side of the keyboard, in the bass section, which is foreign to most piano players. The DGX530 is also capable of this mode, for those who prefer it.
Digital Music Notebook Digital Music Notebook is a multimedia Internet service that enables you to preview, purchase, download and print learn-to-play music books and chart-topping sheet music. From scales to chords to your favorite riffs, Digital Music Notebook is jam-packed with all the secrets you need to master your instrument. Add accompaniments, record and mix yourself, sing karaoke with friends, learn new techniques while having a blast--Digital Music Notebook delivers everything you need to bring music alive! And it's included with the DGX530.
What's in the Box DGX530 Keyboard, Music Rest, Owner's Manual, Accessory CD-ROM, Keyboard Stand, Footswitch FC5, Power Adapter

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Yamaha NP30 Portable Grand Piano Review

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(More customer reviews)Before detailed remarks, here is my reference point. Having been spoiled with playing real pianos (I should say "acoustic", for PC :), I wanted a keyboard just to enjoy some classical music on my own, at my amateur level. I wanted it to be like a piano (in how it feels and sounds) but small and inexpensive.
PROS:
PORTABILITY - especially for an (almost) full-size keyboard. I really didn't want another piece of furniture. NP30 just lies on the table, which (to my own surprise) ended up as the deciding factor for me. YMMV.
SOUND. All the voices (including grand piano, organ, harpsichord) are well done and beautiful. (But see "CONS" below.)
KEY WEIGHTING. NP30's keys are something like "semi-weighted" and "touch sensitive" (but consult the official specs on this) and somewhat easy to press. But see "CONS" below. BTW I researched this "weighted" topic quite a bit and tried several options, but my practical conclusion is this. If you care about the feel, go more high-end or get the real thing (an acoustic piano, that is). Otherwise you will likely get used to what you have, even though it isn't perfect.
SIMPLICITY. The controls are few and quite intuitive.
PRICE. It's all relative, of course, but compared to other full-size keyboards out there, it's among the cheapest - $300 at Best Buys. (And that's without any sale discounds - Best Buys felt kinda thin on sales to me.)
CONS:
KEY WEIGHTING. While offering you an approximation of an acoustic piano's feel, NP30's keys are not quite there. First, they are hard to press if you place your fingers far from the edge of the key (i.e. towards the back of the keyboard) - I have never noticed this on an acoustic. Second, in some cases when I press several keys at once, NP30 doesn't sense one or two of them, whereas an acoustic piano would. I have to re-adjust the pressure to get NP30 to play them.
SOUND. While individual sounds are beautiful, their combinations may not parallel the richness of an acoustic piano's. This is probably because there is no is no resonating effect between the various strings. (Which is quite understandable at this price level.)
FEATURES (missing). The ones I cared about: additional voices (NP30 only got 10) and the 12 keys for the full-size 88-key keyboard. Again, it's all about a trade-off against portability and price.
ACCESSORIES (missing). Power adapter and the sustain pedal are not included, and Best Buys charges $25-30+ for each. This is a RIP-OFF, people. For power, look around; maybe you have a compatible one already (12V, 1500 mA, negative is outside) - or use rechargeable batteries. And maybe you are fine without the pedal (I am still to answer that question for myself).


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