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List Price: $1,299.00
Sale Price: $799.99
Today's Bonus: 38% Off
- PureCF-sampled piano: Sampled from Yamaha's acclaimed CFIIIS concert grand, no other digital piano brand at this price delivers recordings from such a high-end instrument.
- AUX line input: Connect any device with a line output like mobile devices, computers, mixers or even another keyboard and hear it through the internal speakers.
- 128-note polyphony: Provides enough horsepower for a dropout-free performance while layering two Voices and playing two-handed, sustained chords.
- 88-note, weighted GHS action: Heavier touch in the low end and lighter in the highs, just like an acoustic piano.
- "You Are The Artist" Series: Professionally-arranged, play-along songs matched with song books from Hal Leonard. Learn to play songs by artists like Elton John, Taylor Swift, Adele and more.
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I just picked up one of these for my daughter who is an avid piano-player. Up until now, we have only let her use a cheap "beginner" keyboard, but felt it was time to make an upgrade. My wife wanted a very simple traditional piano (either acoustic or very simple electronic piano with classic styling). My daughter and I wanted more in terms of sounds and features. While that top end of the spectrum has some great work-stations, these are really expensive and tend to not look as nice in a living-room setting.
This Yamaha is a great "compromise". It looks really nice, feels solid, and the keys are really great, with hammer-action, and simulated difference in pressing lower keys vs higher keys. It is possible to buy an add-on to get the more traditional 3-pedal setup, but for now, the one pedal they included will suffice.
Sound Quality is really excellent. The built-in speakers are good quality, and the piano-sound (the main sound in this instrument , accessible with its own key), while personally I am not a musician,it is certainly a night-and-day difference to her previous keyboard, and to my ears, it sounds very realistic. This is supposedly in part to using a good chunk of memory to store multiple samples PER NOTE of one of their flagship acoustic grand pianos.
There are loads of other voices, most of which also sound really good.
We haven't really gotten too far in exploring features yet, but some I know of;
-it can automatically pick a style (rhytm etc) based on what you are playing, if you like a "back up band".
-there is a one-finger chord feature where it will embellish the key you press for chords.
-you can record your songs, multi-track to midi, or usb stick. This means, you can for instance play a song using the piano voice, then go back and add on strings, rhytm etc all in different tracks, so they can be edited separately later. Update: Need to verify if the midi information can be transferred to pc via usb-stick or if it is only stored within the digital piano.
-it takes audio in which it can also save along with your piano-creation. Note that for mic, you probably need a mixer or mic-amp, which was my only slight disappointment with this unit. I do happen to have one laying around, so I am ok though.
-you can split the keyboard and have for instance bass-sounds on the keys on the left and piano on the right.
-you can layer two instruments, for instance strings and piano, to get a fuller sound.
-It can be used as USB midi controller, so provided you have a pc, the proper software and plugins, there are no limits to what you can do.
Overall, it also seems easy to use. We have not really read the manual yet, but watched a couple (of the only) videos on youtube that were really helpful.
What you do not get with this piano (and remember it IS a digital piano..), is stuff like arpeggiators, sampling, vocoders and stuff. Then you should look at the keyboards/synths/workstations. On the other hand, if all you want to do is play piano, and have no interest in other sounds, recording and effects, for the money you should consider buying a second hand piano and get it professionally tuned. I am sure there are people that will say there is no contest in feel and sound.
However, if you are like me and my daughter, and enjoys these extra features, and ability to play different sounds, this is an incredible digital-piano for the price!
Buy Yamaha DGX650B Digital Piano Now
I wanted to buy a good digital piano for my daughter so she can practice at home. Also, when time permits, I could play for fun. As the experts say all the time, touch and tone are most important for any digital piano and my budget was to find a good compromise under a thousand dollars. There are many brands and models in this price range but Yamaha has the most brand reliability. Other brands I had considered were Kawai, Roland and Kurzweil. They're all good with their own pluses and minuses so it boiled down to the basics touch and tone.
The DGX 650 is a new model and replaces the older 640. This model has the PureCF sound engine and sounds very good (lots of samples for each key from a real Yamaha grand piano). As for touch, it's a weighted keyboard (not fully or heavily weighted) which Yamaha calls GHS (Graded Hammer Standard) it's definitely weighted when you compare with entry level Casio keyboards but not quite Yamaha's GH. However, for the price range and the purpose (to use for practice from beginner to intermediate) it's plenty. As for sensitivity levels, I could not decipher from specifications but I think it's got atleast 3 levels. So, it is good enough.
Now, there are plenty of styles and songs. So many in fact, that it might take a very long time to explore them all. You can do dual (split), layer, etc. A single button is dedicated to go right back to the Grand Piano voice so it is very helpful for my daughter who only wants to focus on the Piano unlike me who likes to play with different sounds and styles. So, this is first and foremost a digital piano and then all the extra bells and whistles! There are many more features which I'm sure I will forget (smart chord, learn to play, etc, etc) and I can't vouch for them since I haven't yet gotten to play with those.
Recording via USB is supported to MIDI or WAV format. WAV is good but I wish it was MP3!! As for connectivity options, you have both USB to host and USB to device. For techies, I have been told you can connect iPad using the USB connector to this piano and discover a world of options and use it for learning, playing music, etc., but again, I'm yet to try it out myself and don't know how well it works. There is a single headphone connector which my daughter uses to practice without disturbing anyone else. However, a cool feature is that you could activate the speakers also when connected to the headphones. Recording to Garage Band or other software using this feature is very, very useful since you can record your music along with the built in songs/styles (which we already paid for when we bought the DGX 650) and you can get MP3 (how's that for a workaround to get MP3?) !!
When my daughter is ready for more Piano, I will buy a professionally tuned, used upright or baby grand Piano in good condition. The DGX 650 can always be there complementing the real Piano with all those songs/styles/features and when we want to play at midnight silently wearing headphones which we could never do on a real piano :)
Last but not the least, don't be misled to believe that more expensive digital pianos are good furniture. Most of them are just compressed wood and if you're really looking for a good Piano which is also good furniture, nothing beats the real thing. I bought mine from my local Guitar Center and they always have hidden coupons which bring down their price by 15 or 20 percent (please ask them) which worked out cheaper than many online prices for me.
Full disclosure: I don't work for Amazon, Guitar Center, Yamaha or any other retailer, manufacturer or music company. I'm also not a Piano, keyboard or music expert so please take that into account as you read my review.
Read Best Reviews of Yamaha DGX650B Digital Piano Here
The only bad thing I find is that although tough in sight and feel, there are times when I hear a creak and squeek like plastic pieces are not tight in the frame of the keyboard unit itself. Hoping this goes away.
