Yamaha P140

64 note polyphony... I have yet to notice any drops/cut-offs during long runs.
The action is truly comfortable, much like the real thing (and I've played many real pianos over 32 years) and expression/response is natural and fluid. The three 'Touch' settings are well calibrated, and each occupies the right range of expression, so that there is no level of 'playability' left out of the equation, so to speak.
To my knowledge, there is no way to expand the polyphony or patches on this board. It is a stage piano with some extra features and as such, hardly needs anything added. The sequencer is fun to play with, and easy-easy to use, but isn't terribly necessary given the niche this keyboard is trying to fill; if you need a board delivering real sequencing, you won't be in the market for this piano anyway!
Simple MIDI I/O is onboard, but I have yet to utilize it.

I love the 1st and 3rd pianos on this board!
The 1st piano, with the 'Normal' or 'Mellow' variants, is great for jazz solos in a combo, and with 'Bright' selected it cuts through for rock and country beautifully.
The 3rd piano with 'Bright' or 'Normal' is very smooth and creamy, excellent for solo piano work!
The 2nd piano is a bit brittle to me, but would do wonders in a loud playing situation where you need to cut over the top of the band. Again, a good country piano, perhaps, but I don't use it.
The Electric Piano sounds are perfectly suitable for what they are intended to be. My favorite is the 2nd Elec. sound, very Rhodes-like, and when setting the Phaser effect atop it, really shines. A very expressive, warm and worthy patch, I use it often!
The 1st Elec. sound is a perfect DX7 sound, and I have no need for it but it's exactly 'that' sound. For an 80's cover band it would be perfect.
The strings/piano patch works well live if mixed in subtly, but the strings sound is pretty thin for my likes. But I must say, using a split with the lefthand on Bass/Ride Cymbal, and the right on Piano/Strings, on ballads it is quite effective. If you can mix in some low end in your audio system, it works even better.
The Chorus, Phaser, Tremolo and Rotary SP effects are very nicely done, and can be added to any patch, or deselected altogether. Rhodes and Phaser are excellent together, as are the Jazz Organ and Rotary PS... very fun, very big sounding, quite worthy.

So far, so good. Lots of gigging, lugging around (and at a little less than 40lb., it is far more portable/totable than any other board with as good or better patches, trust me!), and no need to call the dealer yet.
I have no reason yet to have a back-up board while using this one.
It seems very well built, everything tight and smooth, no creaks, cracks, jiggles or rattles to be seen or heard.
But just because mine is in good shape, does not mean that there may be quality control variance from unit to unit, so I give it an 8.

No dealings yet with this instrument, but I have dealt with Yamaha's CS a few times for other things, and while problems always work out right in the end, it takes for bleeeeeeeediiiiiiiiing eveeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr unless you can get to the Head Office in person!
I am not a fan of huge corporation phone banks, but once you DO get to someone, they tend to be very helpful.

I needed a stage piano, basically, which had a handful of features most often required by the types of gigs I get, such as split bass/cymbal with piano, realistic action/response, and so on.
One which didn't weigh six tons and needed to be dragged in with a towtruck.
I had been playing a P250 for a few months and was getting spoiled on the sounds, and now I cannot tell any meaningful difference from that board to this, for the sounds *I* needed. In the P140, I now get the same four or five sounds I was using most with the 250, the same action I was used to, PLUS half the weight and cost, and I couldn't be more pleased.
I'd buy this baby again in a second. The ability to fill a room with clean, warm tones sold me right away, and I have been getting nothing but compliments from my guests and customers.
It can go from pop to jazz to classical to country in a few button pushes.
It MAKES you want to play it.
I would like to see a real 1/4" output with variable gain out, but the RCA outs/Fixed Gain aren't a real hassle, just get an RCA to 1/4" adapter for a few bucks.
If you're a singer who accompanies yourself on keys, you can't go wrong.

Followup to my previous review

Here's my tragedy.

...Once upon a time I owned P80. But I liked P200. Alas, I did not buy P200 because it was too heavy. Then P90 and P120 came out and I liked them. But I did not buy P90 and P120 because P250 sounded much better. But P250 was too heavy. Then I saw P140, I knew I like it enough to buy instead of the P250, which was still TOO DAMN HEAVY...
(Hello, YAMAHA CEO, engeneers/managers &staff :)

A very important piece of advice: unlike older Yamahas, P140 sounds so well, that usual amplifier/speakers (onboard ones, in particular) don't even touch the surface of how well the instrument actually sounds. After playing P140 with a pair of Sennheizers HD280 for a few days, I cannot stand the sound that comes of my internal or my external loudspeakers, so cheasy it seems. Do I need a few more thousand $ for a pair of Genelecs to match the quality of P140?? Looks like it.

My previous Yamaha P80 sounded more or less good through my current loudspeakers - there were simply no frequencies that were hard to reproduce, you see :)

Now when I owned P140 for a week, it was time to go back to the store and make an educated comparison with P250.
After extensively checking them out side by side with a pair of Sennheizer HD280, it looked like P250 and P140 feature a completely diffent sample set. Yet, it was hard to tell, wheter P250 plays better. Of course, P250 has strig resonance that P140 doesn't (that is, if you "open the string" by pressing a key slowly and hit a key an octave above, only P250 will start ringing the other key due to resonance - like real piano). A smallest amount of reverb washes this effect away (it does!) and normally, string resonance adds only a minute difference, if at all. Bigger difference of P250 from other P-series apparently comes from the samples themselves.

One other difference - it seems like P140 uses one sample per 3 half-tones, whereas P250 may have each half-tone sampled individually. That is, NOT EVERY key on P140 is sampled. So, P250 sounds a bit wider ...and, a bit more "loose". Strangely enough, after playing P250 for half an hour, it's a pleasure to switch and play the P140. So the verdict - both digital pianos are fine, and it's hard to tell which one I totally prefer :) Well, great job on the P140, Yamaha.


On a side note.
Often you hear that Yamaha P-series have "only three sample layers", "only 20MB" ROM, "my GigaPack has Gigabite sized piano sample", or "multigigabite" piano, and "8 layers, not 3", "every note sampled".

In short - does it make sense to pay $1000+ to get yamaha's 20MB 3-layer piano, when you could pay $200 and get gigabite 5 or 8-layer piano for a soft sampler? Hell YES :).

If you
*played a real piano enough times in your life,
*played several of those humangous "ultimate" "perfect" sampled multigigapianos
*played Yamaha P140/P250

You may very well agree with me on that ;)

By comparison to Roland JV/XV synths, it's a no-brainer : )

This is a digital piano, and I don't include anything but piano in the score. This instrument has no other features to speak of, period. But piano is full-featured, you see :)

Polyphony 64. I you want to, you may make it run out of notes. But not in a typical playing situation.

As it was years ago, Yamaha still makes the best digital painos on market today.

P140 has a very nice look.
It looks great! Inspiring! Good job, Yamaha.
As for sounds - except for piano, all other instruments are well below average, IMO. Not worth looking at, so I don't look at them. Consider them as "free add on".

As for piano - it's a serious upgrade from the P80. Expressiveness and the dynamic range are noticeably better. Sound clarity is obvious.
The P140 recreates the authentic piano feel *much* better than the older pianos, such as P80. I feel more like I am playing the real piano now. At the same time, the mechanical action of the keyboard is still much like that of the P80, not improved over the six years. Looks like they improved the electroncs-sensor parts, not keybed. Well, except P140 keyboard is less "clicky" than the P80, which is nice.

*The new half-pedal effect is FANTASTIC. It is not as a minor of an upgrade, as it may seem. Thanks to that, P140 feels like digital pianos never felt before. You can re-create the effect of slowly putting the damper on strings; nice.

*Notes off samples and soundboard resonsnce add to the score.

One of the problems: Forte samples sound great; but piano and mezzo-piano always sound a bit too harsh to mee, no matter what. P140, like P90 and P120, fail to produce the round, soft and transparent sound on low velocity strikes, but rather jump straight to more brittle and muddy sample. Oh well. My hopes to see digital pianos to "really develop" by 2006 failed along with the global economy that drags behind.

I looked at P250, P90, P120 over the past years. I liked P250 above all, but the size (!! are there bricks or micro chips inside?) of P250 is ridiculous for our time, so it was out of consideration (not even due to its insane price :)

P90 and P120 sound terrific, but were not as good as the P250. So, I did not buy anything, until P140 came out. To me it sounded noticeably better than the P90 and close enough o P250 to actually buy it.

Still, will have to wait until CP33 comes out - maybe it will be REALLY close to the only really really good digital piano of our time, P250?


My backgorund:
I practiced a real piano a lot, owned plenty of HW synths from Roland, Korg, Yamaha, EMU. And Yamaha P80, of course.
And, above all musical instruments, I love the real acoustic grand paino.

My previous Yamaha P80 was a nightmare! 15 keys broke in 3 years; all for the SAME REASON. Clearly, major major major flaw in design, or bad batch of plastic.

Will keep my fingers scrossed on that one...

haven't tried

nice. But I'd like to see more sample layers, or the price tag lowered to $700.

Simple to use. Manual is just fine.

Polyphony is 64 - not 32 as someone else erroneously listed in a review. Effects are sufficient.

I give this a 10 because piano 1 and 3 sound great and that is the main reason to get this keyboard. The rca outs have not been any problem for me. I have an rca to 1/4 inch cable. I hook it up to the mixer (I have a Yamaha and a behringer for live work) and it sounds great. Sounds better than the P120 I use to have. My wife who is a professional musician agrees with this as well.

Action, by the way, is the best.

The strings should be better. And there should have been a choir on this unit. But it gets a 10 for the great piano. Elec piano is Ok, not stunning, but usable.

Seems to be very reliable.

Yamaha has always been great to deal with, whether it is parts or support.

Get a good case for it. It is worth preserving.

Plug it in, plug in the sustain pedal, play. Pretty easy. If you hook it up to an external amp or PA, things get a little more complicated because of the fixed level rca outputs.

Preset pianos are great, other presets are not.

There's not a lot of editing capability. Making adjustments to various settings requires scrolling though a cryptic menu with the manual sitting in front of you so you'll know what such things as "F.1 Y/N" mean.

Manual is very good.

If you just want to play piano and like good presets that don't require adjustments, it's about as easy as it gets. If you want or need a midi controller or lots of sounds, forget it.

Polyphony is 32, which is usually adequate. Action is great. Built in effects are very easy to use, right on the front panel, and they sound great. Very little expansion capability, and limited midi functionality.

I will say the built in sequencer was fun, and not too hard to use.

It's a simple design, and not really meant to be a feature rich midi board. I think it does what it was designed to do very well.

The big thing missing as fas as features go are 1/4" outputs, and summing jack for mono. Makes me wonder if Yamaha is forgetting about the gigging musicians and concentrating on the home user..?

Sounds are great, but the built in speakers do not do them justice.

Works well for classical, jazz, pop, gospel..any type music that relies on traditional acoustic grand piano.

Good velocity response, and three different settings. On board effects are good.

For road use, get a road case. You really need a P250 for road use, but this is light and should work fine.

I'm still waiting on a inquiry I sent two days ago. I got an email back saying how important my question was, then nothing. Jury's still out, but two days is a little much, IMO.

I might look for a used P120 to get the 1/4" jacks, but this is the basic keyboard I was looking for. Yamaha sound and quality are hard to beat, and the price is good.

I've been playing 40+ years. I own a P250 that I travel with, and the P140 is my home keyboard.

I love the light weight and small footprint, I hate the fixed level rca connectors.

I looked at the P60, P70, and Roland offerings. I got this one because it sounded better than the others.

I wish it had a mono out, and a variable out.

It definely lets me make music. I love being able to just turn in on and play.

This piano is very easy to use. Just select a preset sound/voice and play! You have to read the manual a bit if you want to change / or set some of the detailed settings, for example pitch or MIDI settings, but also that is pretty straightforward

The keyboard action is great. That's exactly why I bought this piano. I had some great piano samples from my synth, but wanted a good 88 piano action keyboard, and this is it! You can adjust the touch sensitivity (soft/medium/hard) to your playing style also.

The built in effects are very good in my opinion and are extremely easy to use (alls sounds have a default most logical effect already but you can change them if you want).

It does not have expansion capabilities, but I was not expecting this for this price, and also don't need them. I just want a good sounding piano with a good piano action, and this is what it delivers!.

The piano has a MIDI IN and OUT, and you can switch off undesired Program Changes is you wish so. Good, and all that I need, to layer it with my synth, or trigger my synth from it, or use it as a stand-alone piano

The piano sounds are incredibly good. I had some very good 40 Mb piano samples on my Kurzweil K2500, but these piano sounds - especially the 1st and 3rd voice - sound even better. You can even adjust them to your taste by using the bright-normal-mellow variation.

All piano's sound great, both the acoustic and the electric piano's. The piano & strings voice is very nice also.

I am less impressed by the church organ and the strings. The jazz organ and harpsi chord are nice. But honestly, I don't bother too much by having a church organ or strings on this piano. I have good sounds on other keyboards I use. They are useful if you have nothing yet. I bought this for the piano's and that's again what it delivers very well!

The only room for improvement are its 6Wx2 amplifiers. The piano sounds much greater if used with an external amp or with headphones. But then again I realize you cannot expect 30W or more for this price.

I can't really judge this, since I just have it 4 weeks now. It feels and looks solid, and I would have no hesitation to gig with it

Have never needed it sofar

This piano does what I was hoping it would do: great sounds on 88 great piano action keys. I basically bought it for my kids to learn piano on, instead on my semi-weighted synth keyboard, but I find myself sitting behind it even more. It layers beautifully with my synths, but in itself it sounds already fantastic. This thing is a joy to play. I can recommend it to anyone looking for a digital piano

The keybard action is one of the best on the market of digital piano and master keyboard. Yamaha Graded Hammer Action is a top! I sell my Roland XV88 (26Kg)with the SRX-11 piano expansion board and buy the Yamaha P140. NOW I have a top digital piano. The Roland is a good key/features synth but the piano samples (SRX expansion too) aren't good for global mix live or studio apps. The SRX-11 samples have a horny sound and ca play only classical solo performance, but, if you learn some samples aren't good and the sustain isn't good for all keyboard extention. The P140 have a sustain and a DSS sampling emulate the resonance of real piano (value at max). The only disappoint is the 6w x2 amply and the rca out with fixed out volume. I control the volume on my mixer.

Ac. Piano 1 is the standard wonderful piano: 10
Ac. Piano 2 is a simil ac.piano. A stage pop piano that sound good also with chorus: 8
Ac. Piano 3, the classical piano! 9
Piano&Strings: soundtrack scores! : 10
El Piano 1 is a simil DX el. piano. I play it in layer with ac.piano 1 that have a cristal pop ac.piano: 7
El Piano 2, wonderful Rhodes. With chorus or phaser is a must! : 10
Lyturgic Organ: you play and pray! : 10
Jazz Organ: 7
Strings: 8
Clavinet, Harpsychord, vibe, ac.bass, el.bass ...: 10

I would you buy it again! 18Kg of piano samples, key action, design ...etc...
If you need a digi piano with other samples, the P140 is for you.
I have owned a lot of instruments but now I'm very happy.

Super simple to use. Good manual. This piano doesn't have a lot of fluff like other electric piano's but what it has is excellent for the price.

Great action, no tacky effects. It has exactly what I was looking for, some reverb, chorus, tremolo, even a rotary speaker setting. They can be applied to any voice and sound different with all of them.
The best feature on this piano is the Dual setting, which is basically just pushing 2 different voicings at the same time. The sounds of both blend to create 1 fuller sound and it's like having another 50 odd settings that are variations of the regular 13 voices.
It has all the sounds I was looking for, great acoustic piano and great electric piano.

I read many reviews in a bunch of different forums about this piano and it seems many people have a problem with it replacing the 120 model. I tried both, the 140 had more of what I was looking for. Not alot of useless fluff settings, and great sound.
1 issue that seemed to really bug people was that it has RCA stereo jacks on the back, instead of a typical 1/4" jack. I don't really get the big deal, all you need is a $6.00 RCA to 1/4" mono or stereo jack to run it through your amp.
I found one in the audio dept. of the store I bought it in, in about 12 seconds. They had every conceivable audio jack configuration / adapter. I assume any big music or electronic retailer would. I've been cranking it through an amp since I got it. The retailer even threw in the adapter for free.

This thing sounds awesome. Great touch and feel when playing.
I have found some great 70's style electric piano sounds.
I tried alot of different pianos before buying this, for the money it sounded best. Better than many for twice the price.

Seems very well built.

I really have nothing bad to say about this piano. I wanted a good piano to write and record on, and I'm very happy with this purchase.
I think the only thing they could have gotten rid of was the demo songs, which may have made more room for some internal unit recording.
I was looking for a very clean minimal electric piano with some great voicings and not too expensive. This is it.

LOVE THIS DIGITAL PIANO. I PLAYED WITH A TOY CASIO FOR YEARS AND WONDERED HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE THERE WAS IN SOUND. WELL I WAS BLOWN AWAY....NEVER HAD THE DOUGH TO BUY ONE THIS PRICEY BUT AFTER 3 DAYS OF CONSIDERATION I BOUGHT THE P140. PIANO SOUNDS VERY REAL TO ME AND STRINGS ARE A BIT SHALLOW BUT GREAT NONE THEE LESS..WISH IT HAD VOICE CHOIR...BUT I REALLY GOT IT FOR PIANO SOUNDS.. AND FOR TRAINING ON WEIGHTED KEYS WHICH IN MY OPINION I CANT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE HEAVY GRANDS AND THIS ONE. FEATURES ARE BASIC IF YOUR USED TO L.E.D DISPLAYS. BUT NOTHING TOO HARD ABOUT THIS KEYBOARD. WISH THE SPEAKERS WERE A BIT MORE POWERFUL ON THIS MODEL BUT GOOD LOUDNESS ANYWAY.

Grand Piano 1 and 3 excellent. Electric Piano 2 amusing. Harpsichord good. Manual excellent.

64 note. The keyboard action is very even and precise - nicer than any real piano I'd ever be able to afford. Built in reverb choices (minor differences) and four effects if you like that sort of thing. Touch control is handy (hard, medium, soft).

I love piano 3, with Variation set at "mellow", reverb at "hall1", no effect and with soft touch. I really don't use anythhing else!

Yes. But would need a good case and stand for a gig.

Yes, I would replace it without hesitation. I love the simplicity and the sound - I originally was looking for a P120 or P80 - but a couple of chords on this keyboard in the music store were all it took to convince me (and my wife) that this was the best sound around - in any make or price category. It also LOOKS good (Dark oak, black) - very restrained, no flash, barely even the Yamaha logo.
Curiously, when connected to the midi output from my notation program (Printmusic) it plays back choir "oohs", although these do not appear as a voice in its available choices. Very odd.
What a great machine.