Yamaha DGX-505

This little board kicks for the buck. I use it in conjunction with other boards (Motif 8, Triton Extreme 76) and am surprised at how nice the sounds are for the buck. The drum machine is pretty easy to use if one wants and the headphone jack can me used to send the sound in sterio to an amp or board (may need a bit of tweeking). For the money, notice I qualify that, this board absolutely rocks. I mainly bought it so I had a little board that I could take to local jams, weighs very little and, for the cost, if it broke I wouldn't be heart broken and am surprised to find it's much better than anticipated.

Once again, for the cost, the action is descent. It's a long way off the action of a fully weighted board, yet as good as most other 76 key boards I find. The effects are hard to get to, yet the overall sounds are good enough, and if you want, you can tweek a few and save them. Once again, for the money, quite good.

Some of the patches are almost as good as what I find on my Motif which I just love playing. Horns have nice breath, and the pianos have a nice attack. I played a few of these lower end boards before buying and think the action is better than most. I also really like Yamaha's actions though, presonal preferance.

I'd take it to a gig in a flash

Yamaha has a location close to my home so have never had a problem with them. They completely replaced the action on my Motif when a key wore out. I like the customer support they afford me

If it were stolen, I'd absolutly buy another one. Because of the weight to key ratio (88 full keys, pretty cool), I regularly use it over my Triton Extreme 76. It actually weighs less and my last Triton repair cost me more than the whole cost of this one. I've been playing semi pro for 25 years and, value to dollar ratio, this is to date the best board I've ever bought, new or used. They have a new one out now that seems pretty much the same which would make it a great value as well .....

Happy Playing

During a gig, it is not easy to access preset voices from the menu quickly say, between numbers. The preset voices have too much reverb for live performances. Almost all my ???edited patches??? are stored dry. Developing and storing useful patches to gig with is a bit of a chore (see ???Sounds??? below) Once the ???edited patches??? are created and stored in register memory, they can be accessed readily. But, only 16 can be stored. Just about enough for most popular "vintage keys" sounds.

The light keyboard action is great for organ glisses and palm swipes, but really light for piano, if you???re imprecise like me. All those incidental keys that get bumped will speak. The keyboard has tons of hobby features I don???t use. I bought this primarily for the ???vintage keys??? features. I???ve used its onboard six track recorder. It is basically impossible to edit. Much easier and more versatile to record into a basic DAW like AUDACITY (free, and much easier than the keyboard).

Out of the box, the keyboard is a ???work in process???. It is an amazing instrument once it???s sorted. The integral speakers are not very good, but when played into an amp or into the board, it sounds fantastic.
The piano, flute and sax timbres are great! The Rhodes-style electric piano voice is great, but isn???t convincing without tremolo! So, I play electric piano voices through a Danelectro Tunamelt Tremolo unit to provide the real ???70???s sound. .

By themselves, the preset organ voices are pretty weak. Only ???Cool!Organ??? is worthy by itself. I play the organ voices through a Digitech RPM Leslie simulator. This provides ramp-up-and-down vibrato and warm tube preamp that knocks down the shrill highs that the Yamaha organ voices can have. I created eight all-purpose Hammond-like voices using dual voices, and stored them in the register memory for quick access. A few examples: 018 ???Cool!Organ??? at octave -1 combined with 182 ???16???+2 2/3?????? at octave +2 yields a nice Groove Holmes signature sound, with the icy upper partial. Jon Lord Deep Purple: 023 ???Rock Organ??? at octave -1 combined with 020 ???Jazz Organ 2??? at octave 0, with the Digitech ???Leslie???at chorale speed and a little extra overdrive on the drive control. A Barbara Dennerlein-type uber-percussion is 193 Rotary Organ at octave -1 combined with 116 Xylophone at octave +1, volume about ?? that of the main voice. Who says you can???t edit patches on this keyboard? Also, I play these through a Boss FV500L volume pedal. An organ without a volume pedal is pretty expressionless.

Totally dependable. In two years, no problems at all.

The first board went back immediately; it had a gristly mechanical squeak in the keys. The replacement has been flawless. The retailer handled the exchange.

This keyboard is an amazing value. Because of the price, I have to give it a ???10??? overall! I bought it for playing locally, rock & blues, mainly for its ???vintage??? voices. Also, the drum tracks for home recording. For my needs, it has 85% of the features of a high end 88 at 25% the price. Zero snob appeal; it???s not RED!. Like ANY keyboard, it needs more stuff to be a complete package. For me, it's Leslie simulator, good amp, decent stage stand (OnStage Pro Platform); case (Musician???s Friend generic gig bag); decent sustain pedal (Yamaha FC-4), volume pedal... I wish it had a few more good organ voices and a few more register memory locations. I was originally a college music major, but bailed for mechanical engineering. I???ve been playing a long time. First gigged in 1967. I still have the Wurlitzer Electric Piano I bought exactly 40 years ago.

When performing, it is not easy to access preset voices from the menu quickly say, between numbers. The preset voices have too much reverb for live performances. Almost all my ???edited patches??? are stored dry. Developing and storing useful patches to gig with is a bit of a chore (see ???Sounds??? below) Once the ???edited patches??? are created and stored in register memory, they can be accessed readily. But, only 16 can be stored.

The light keyboard action is great for organ glisses and palm swipes, but really light for piano, if you???re imprecise like me. All those incidental keys that get bumped will speak. The keyboard has tons of hobby features I don???t use. I bought this primarily for the ???vintage keys??? voices. I???ve used its onboard six track recorder. It is basically impossible to edit. Much easier and more versatile to record into a DAW. AUDACITY, for example, is free, versatile and easy compared to the keyboard's on-board recording.

Out of the box, the keyboard is a ???work in process???. It is an amazing instrument once it???s sorted. The integral speakers are not very good, but when played into an amp or into the board, it sounds fantastic.
The piano, flute and sax timbres are great! The Rhodes-style electric piano voice is realistic; the harder the keys are stricken, the more the tines distort. But electric piano isn???t complete without tremolo! So, I play EP through a Danelectro Tunamelt Tremolo unit to provide the real ???70???s sound.
By themselves, the preset organ voices are pretty weak. Only ???Cool!Organ??? is worthy by itself. I play the organ voices through a Digitech RPM Leslie simulator. This provides wind-up-and-down vibrato and warm tube preamp that knocks down the shrill highs that the Yamaha organ voices can have. I created eight all-purpose Hammond-like voices using "Dual", combining complementary voices at different octaves, then stored in the register memory for quick access. A few examples: 018 ???Cool!Organ??? at octave -1 combined with 182 ???16???+2 2/3?????? at octave +2 yields a nice Groove Holmes signature sound, with the icy upper partial. Jon Lord Deep Purple: 023 ???Rock Organ??? at octave -1 combined with 020 ???Jazz Organ 2??? at octave 0, with the Digitech ???Leslie???at chorale speed and a little extra overdrive on the drive control. A Barbara Dennerlein-type uber-percussion is 193 Rotary Organ at octave -1 combined with 116 Xylophone at octave +1, volume about ?? that of the main voice. Who says you can???t edit patches on this keyboard? Also, I play these through a Boss FV500L volume pedal. An organ without a volume pedal is pretty expressionless.

Totally dependable. In two years, no problems at all.

The first board went back immediately; it had a gristly mechanical squeak in the keys. The replacement has been flawless. The retailer handled the exchange.

This keyboard is an amazing value. Because of the price, I have to give it a ???10??? overall! I bought it for playing locally, rock & blues, mainly for its ???vintage??? voices. Also, the drum tracks for home recording. It has 85% of the features of a high end 88 at 25% the price. Zero snob appeal though, it???s not RED!. Like any keyboard, it needs more stuff to be a complete package: Leslie simulator, good amp, decent stage stand (OnStage Pro Platform) case (Musician???s Friend generic gig bag), decent sustain pedal (Yamaha FC-4), volume pedal...
I wish it had a few more good organ voices and a few more register memory locations. I was originally a college music major-turned-engineer, I???ve been playing a long time. First gigged in 1967. I have a Wurlitzer Electric Piano I bought exactly 40 years ago.

All sounds are preset. Easy enough to learn without the manual.

Poly I think is 64 more than enough.

I use this mainly for the piano sound for my rig. No onboard effects. \For having light weighted keys I like the action.

So far so good, have had it for about 2 years and have gigged with it. Got a nice GATOR Case for it and I don't bang it around, so I know it will last.

N/A So far.

If it were lost or stolen, I would get another one just because of the price. Been playing most of my life and like the portablility and the 88 keys. I wish it had MIDI In/Out.

This is a high-end portable so it's got a little more learning curve than say, their low-end PSR's. The manual pretty much explains everything.
There is no patch editing. This isn't a synth, and there's no effects other than reverb and chorus.
Piano sound is servicable..but remember, you always get what you pay for. Most patches are decent, but are not in my opinion sounds a pro would use.

The action is typical portable spring-loaded. You might hear it's "lightly weighted", but it's pretty much like their PSR's or other DGX's. It's pretty light as a result. Responds well to velocities though. Comes with a stand but I haven't used it.
This board is definitely marketed for the home user; pretty much for new players and especially kids. Evidence for that: no MIDI IN/OUT (I cannot believe that), and NO OUTPUTS for external speakers (pretty unbelievable). There is a USB out though. You have to use the internal speakers, or headphones.

The piano is OK for this price range--not as good as their P series, but I think it beats the P60 at least--that board has in my opinion a terrible grand piano sound. You gotta add some reverb to the piano and it sounds better here. It's typical Yamaha: good bass end, great upper end, but the wheels come off in the midrange. You know what I'm talking about if you've played just about any Yamaha. There's some of those LIVE! COOL! and SWEET! voices you hear about...but I wouldn't say to get that excited about them. Basically they allow for effects, like say Sax "shakes" etc....there's also some gimmicks like "performance assistant" which makes you play "better" by adding/taking out noted you play based on chord-scale relationships, and the usual rhythm stuff etc...you know the drill, and multi-track recorder for basic recording.
Other voices are servicable, but with no real editing I just can't see anyone using them much. Probably not for gigging or recording. This board once again would be good for a new player who wants 88 keys and maybe doesn't want weighted action. I keep seeing this mainly for children....with parents who don't want a casio LK-43. In this regard it is a decent board.
The lesson feature really saves this board though. The education suite 5 lets you "repeat and learn" any MIDI file using one hand or both, any tempo etc.(just make sure it's in SMF 0, and make sure you know what channel(s) the instrument you want to see shows up in the score/keyboard display. I had to use a (free) SMF converter program to convert to SMF 0, and a free karaoke program to figure out what channel the piano patch is on for certain songs(if you're new to MIDI, be aware the instruments can show up on any different channel--piano is not always channel 1). You then tell the keyboard what channel you want for the left hand and right, so if you're new to this, let's say a MIDI file has the piano on channel 3...make the keyboard LH and RH channel 3,(it's easy to do)and the piano part will show up in the music/display.
So once you do this you can repeat any number of measures and watch dots appear on the keyboard notes(on the screen, not lighted keys). Also the music score shows up. It's tough to see the small display though, but if you stick it out and crane your neck and eyes to follow it, you can practice ANY MIDI song and learn it. That's a nice feature--especially for hobbyists/new players/children.
You can also save songs as MIDI files to put on the web etc.

Seems reliable, no probs. Uses a line lump though.

Good luck getting help from Yamaha.

I only bought it because I wanted 88 non-weighted keys and didn't want to spend much. I wanted the lesson features, but the display is pretty small. I'd rather use sequencing software for that stuff. I've owned many other boards, P series, S series, Roland RS's, Korg SP's, Kurzweil SP's, modules etc..
If you're a parent looking for a board for you kids, this might be a good choice. Hobbyists might like it also...the lesson feature is really nice if you want to learn your own songs.