Yamaha P90

Turn on and play. The only difficult thing is to set up the different settings, but usually you don't need to change it, and anyway the user guide is clear enough.

The keyboard action is near perfect for me. It's a little stronger than on a true piano, but with the "light pressure" setting, it is perfect for me.
The effects are a little useless except for the electric piano 2, where the chorus and phaser are great.
The MIDI is complete, and a key aftertouch is sent when you release the note (not just a noteoff). I bought it a bit for that, and I'm not disappointed.
The onboard sequencer is fun, but neat useless. It would have been great to get a MIDI output when we playback, to record it on a computer. But no MIDI output is provided, and the sequence you recorded IS and WILL STAY in the piano.

Piano 1 and Electric Piano 2 !!! That's all I can say. Oh, and I like the upright bass with the hi-hat in split mode. Combine it with the electric piano 2 on the right hand, and you can jam for hours !
I have a little problem though, and as I can see I'm not the only one : when you play hard the middle C and the middle C#, you can hear a kind of metal ring or a loose washer... It's kind of disturbing at the beggining, but I'm now used to it. Same problem with the second Bb. A was a little disappointed when I bought it, but now I don't regret since it's the best electric piano for now.

It's a tank, man ! It will NEVER break !

No nead yet.

If it would be stolen or lost, I would buy EXACTLY the same electric piano. I have it since one year and I still love it.

Easy to use. My only complaint is that when you go to layer sounds, you have to be careful not to trigger a variation on one of the sounds. This is because you need to hold down the two buttons in order to get a layer; you need to push a button for a sound twice in order to get a variation. Yamaha made a dedicated "Variation" button so that should be the only way to change variations, in my opinion. Small gripe, but in a professional setting you need to be able to get a sound or layer within seconds. Other than that, it is very easy to use. For me, the portability is one of its strongest attributes. At 37 lbs (40 in the soft Yamaha gig bag) it's easy to carry with one hand.

Features have been covered elsewhere. Check out Yamaha's site for a full list.
Suffice to say that it does not have a large library of sounds; rather, it has several piano sounds, pipe and tonewheel organ, guitar, clav, harpsichord, strings, choir, acoustic and electric bass, vibes. The most useful and useable are, of course, the pianos/E. pianos, the harpsichord, and the strings. I would like to call out a glaring mistake made by several reviewers who criticized the organs for not being velocity-sensitive: Have you ever played a pipe or tonewheel organ? THEY AREN'T SENSITIVE TO TOUCH!!! You control the volume of these instruments via stop/drawbar management and swell pedals. Some of these reviewers on HC don't know jack and they invalidate their reviews by comments like that. Being an organist, I'm not a fan of the organ sounds on this board nor do I like using weighted keys to trigger those types of sounds. That being the case, the organs are decent. I would have liked a harp sound on this board. Every sound is well-done, although I wouldn't really use the acoustic guitar. I have better clav sounds on other synths.
I love the action: A little on the heavy side, but very responsive. Far better than anything else I've tried (Roland, Korg, Kurzweil, Casios) although I must say I've never tried the Kawais, and I hear a lot of good things about them.
Effects are limited but sound good. Reverb, delay, phaser, chorus, tremolo.
The AC adapter is a drag, especially on gigs.

The main weapon on this instrument is the first piano sound. It sounds like a (surprise) well-sampled Yamaha grand and is extraordinarily expressive, especially with the excellent action on this instrument. No, it won't replace an acoustic piano, but it's a very good practice/gig instrument when a piano is not available. The variation on this sound is a darker, rounder grand, maybe a Steinway?
The second piano sound is a very bright, tacky piano. It would definately cut through in a mix, but it's not my cup of tea. I play jazz and classical, and I'm into warm, dark sounds. That being said, I can see this sound working real well in a live rock band.

There are four e.pianos on this unit. One is a Dx-7 style, 80's pop FM piano, one is a horridly cheesy synth-EP. The other two are more vintage in nature: A nice wurly and a great rhodes. The Rhodes is really killer and responds really well to touch.

The strings are nice, and work best when coupled with a piano sound. I like the variation which is the same sound but with a slower attack time. The problem here is that the sustain pedal does not seem to hold the strings.

The acoustic bass is extremely useful in that it's variation is a bass with a ride cymbal. By setting up a split with piano in the right hand and the bass/ride in the left hand I can do a gig solo or with a horn player and create the illusion of a larger band. At the very least, it's cool to have.

The only other sound I use is the harpsichord, which I really like.

As far as the main piano sound goes, I haven't heard better on a hardware keyboard. If you want pianos suitable for pop and dance, however, the Rolands and Korgs may suit you more. I respect Yamaha for their no-BS no-frills sounds. Just beautifully sampled instruments.

I've gigged with it for awhile now, and it's so portable and easy to use. It's helped me make a lot of money :)

Never dealt with them, never needed it.

I depend on this keyboard and use it for the majority of my piano practicing and gigging. It's definately a major component in my keyboard rig, which also consists of a mini Voyager, Korg Triton, Nord Electro 2. The Triton's classical piano is laughable. If you are a serious player looking for a good 88-note keyboard with a great traditional piano tone, look no further.

Manual is good (probably written from scratch in English rather than translated). You don't need to even look at it though.

I grew up playing piano and I loved the action on the p90 from the first time I played it. Absolutely realistic piano, great e-piano, the rest I could live without (or another way to say it would be if you actually need these sounds you'd get them from somewhere else).

Metronome is a nice touch but other features are only OK.

I really loved the piano when I played it in the store - then I read about all the metalic overtones so I went back and could hear what people were talking about but all the overtones are is just the sound of a real piano. I think everyone is forgetting piano's are big chunks of metal and wood and make all manner of overtones.

Best part about the piano (and the reason I brought the P90 rather than a Kurzweil, Korg, Kawai, Roland) was the way the sound changes as you play from p to fff. If you need a more 'static' sound for recording (rock/dance etc.) the 2nd piano sound is a pretty good sample but for just kicking back and playing for your own enjoyment you need this 1st piano sound.

Don't know yet, only had it for a week or so - feels pretty solid.

Love it - just put the touch on soft, take off the reverb and play the Grand Piano 1. If you don't like it I have a feeling you didn't grow up playing real piano's

The presets are generally very good. I spent a lot of time comparing every digital piano in the $500 - $1200 price range and felt that the two standout boards were the P90 and P120. Frankly all of the boards (Casio, Roland, Suzuki, Korg, etc.) were acceptable, but the sound and keybed of the P90/P120 are superior.

And though this is heresy, I could not tell much if any difference between the P90 and P120. I compared them through power amps, keyboard amps, and headphones, and the differences were so minimal to not be a deciding factor.

I also paid particular attention to the "ringing" in the top register notes. As some have mentioned, you will hear the same ringing on any grand piano since the top register strings are not damped. HOWEVER, in defense of those who complain about it, I believe the ringing can be annoying and does not decay as quickly as you would expect on a traditional piano. Is the ringing a problem: NO. Is it there: YES.

No patch editing.

Manual is good.

Lots of demo songs and audition capability for each preset.

64 note poly, fine for my needs. Frankly 32-note poly is probably find for a digital piano since you are not going to use it as a sophisticated midi controller, assigning this and that.

Tremolo, reverb, delay, and chorus effects are fine, it not perhaps a bit understated. More than adequate for a digital piano. I run my P90 and Yam S03 through a Behringer mixer with a Behringer DSP setup in the aux mix so I am covered effects wise.

No expansion to my knowledge.

Midi is sparse. I use the P90 to drive the S03 synth and a myriad of soft synths. Works great. However, as a midi controller--well it is not a midi controller. No dedicated buttons for midi functions etc. If you got to have midi controller, by the P90 and a cheap midi controller just for its buttons.

Two song sequencer works great BUT it is not tied into the MIDI implementation--it won't drive another keyboard/sound module.

All four pianos (two with two variations) sound great. No comparison in the $1,500 price range I was working with. PERIOD.

EPs are great. This bit about them not sounding as good as the P120 is a load of _________. First of all, how many different types of EPs are there in the world. The P90 EPs are fine. With that said, they sound very close to the XG EPs on my S03 synth.

Organs and variation are great. However, I swear the church organ is the XG patch from the yam synths.

Strings and choir are what they are. Good fill in use with the Piano/Organ presets. Realistic? NO. Useful? Absolutely.

The rest, fine I guess but I don't use them much.

The keybed is fantastic. Some say it has a heavy feel. Give me a break. It is a piano for heaven's sake. Feels just like the best piano out there. Very expressive, very dynamic. Provides three levels of control though I feel little difference between them.

Effects are fine: tremelo, reverb, delay, chorus.

Built like a tank.

Improved soft buttons compared to our CLP-130.

You can gig with it-however mine is dedicated for the basement recording.

Yam responded to my several emails within 2 days.

Got a great deal from Guitar Center. Definitely would replace it. There are lots of good to great digital pianos in the $500 to $1,500 price range. For my ears and needs, any of them would suffice. But the P90/P120 offers the best keyboard and true piano sounds in the price range. PERIOD. So I went with the P90.

I play the P90 through a behringer mixer-> Behringer DSP -> ART SL-1 power amp-> Kustom PA Speakers, or through a Kustom PA. Either way, sounds are crisp and clean.

Feel free to email me for questions.

Just plug it in and go... couldn't be any easier...

well.... if you're after a piano this is it... let's be realistic, if you're planning on writing a concerto you don't buy a p90... let logic pro do the recording for you and let the p90 take care of what it is supposed to be, a piano. makes me laugh when people say the action is not like a real piano, how navie... when they say real piano have they tried them all..? this is like a real piano, a real yamaha concert grand. if you're comparing it to your upright then it is not the same, then again, neither is a grand and an upright

once again, for a realistic piano nothing comes close, only the p120. i love gp1 and gp1 variation is great for classical, gp2 is much brighter, great for rock and pop. ep2 is a killer... great rhodes... and great aftertouch too, jazz organ is very good, strings are really nice, didn't get a 10 'cause of other samples, guitar..? why..? choir..why? someone else wrote on here why include bass but i disagree, spilt up the keyboard, have bass on the left - it's a great way to practice...

built like a brick - though i wouldn't recommend spilling the coffee over it!

never had to use them

if you want a stage piano buy this... you'll need a sound module though as this is limited...

by the way, a few people wrote on here there is a ringing sound in the high register... what???? there is suppose to be one, haven't these people ever heard a grand piano in the high register...???

Very useful bread-n-butter sounds on this board. You get grand pianos, electric pianos, harpsichord, clavinet, vibes, nylon string guitar, church pipe organ, jazz tonewheel organ, strings, choir, acoustic and electric bass.

The interface is easy and intuitive. FX and EQ are easy to set. Before I opened the manual I found out that you push two instrument buttons to get a layer - press the second button while holding the first. Pressing an instrument button twice cycles between variations. Simple and intuitive.

The manual is well written, no grammar or engrish problems.

I am a traditional piano player with exacting demand for authenticity in an electronic piano, both in feel of the action and the sounds. The P90 has very very good piano action but a little stiffer than a real Yamaha grand piano. My personal favorite remains to be the Kurzweil MIDIBoard for piano action, that is the one to beat. Roland and Korg actions are too stiff.

The effects include reverbs (room, hall, stage), chorus, phase, tremolo, and echo. To my ears they are optimized for the percussive sounds (pianos and clavs), I didn't hear one that worked with the pipe organ as it is missing a church reverb.

It has a limited on-board sequencer but I didn't buy it for that.

The sounds are fixed - I miss the ability to tweak them. No expansion capability either, just use a MIDI module.

I have to laugh at the reviewers here who complained of the ringing notes above G5. Any of you ever play a REAL piano? The top 21 notes (starting at G5) are UNDAMPED. THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO RING!!! I am actually surprised how few boards go to this level of authenticity.

Grand Piano 1 is best for classical/jazz or solo settings. The bright timbre of Grand Piano 2 (variation) works best for rock-n-roll or R&B. The other two piano presets are in between. The timbre changes as you play harder on Grand Piano 1, but is constant on the others, and only the Grand Piano 1 preset has undamped high 21 notes.

Electric pianos are the vintage and FM variety. The vintage mimics the old Fender Rhodes pianos, the ones with a round tone. The tone varies from soft to a nice bark when you play hard. The FM electric piano is the (in)famous DX7 FM Piano, great with chorus.

I used to own a real Clavinet, and the preset is one of the more authentic sounding ones I've heard. There are so many poor Clavinet emulations but this one really works. You won't get the pickup/phase variations of the real thing but the preset is useful nonetheless.

Strings sound good but not very useful in popular music - but does sound nice when layered with piano. They are the gentle string variety, not at all aggressive. If you want that high singing string sound ala ARP String Ensemble or that dark bowed Kurzweil low string, it's not here.

Choirs sound good but are limited with no envelope or timbre editing. They do sound great as a layer with strings of piano.

Pipe organs are pretty good when mixed with effects. Best with Bach Fugues or with church hymns. A church reverb would make it complete.

Now for the dud sounds. The harpsichord misses the mark - you don't hear the plectrum and the tone isn't authentic. Might be useful for churches but I have no use for a harpsichord sound. I don't understand why boards with weighted action have jazz tonewheel organ presets - tonewheel organs have spring action with waterfall keys, the solo organ technique won't work on a piano action! Get a Hammond or Roland clonewheel, they're way more authentic. The acoustic basses don't have the life of my Kurzweil acoustic bass, and I have yet to hear a good sample of an electric bass (I play bass so I know my bass sounds).

I chose the P90 because I needed a compact low profile 88 key electronic piano with weighted action. I have looked at several other makes and at MIDI controllers and piano modules. In addition to the very compact case, I like the fact that the I/O is on the side not the rear of the P90, as this makes for efficient use of space in keyboard stacks. The controls on the panel are low profile which lets me maximize keyboard stacks, my Hammond XK3 can extend above the P90 case. A shame it uses a wall wart though.

The bread-n-butter sounds are good enough for many music situations. The P90 would be at home in schools, churches, community bands, small ensembles, and in the club. I have been playing popular music in the clubs since the 80s and the P90 does a good job.

While the P90 does miss out on organ, horn, and synth sounds, I have long ago accepted that no single keyboard or module is going to get every sound. You can't play rock organ on a weighted action. No single technology recreates every sound. Rapid staccato parts are best played on non-weighted actions. The P90 reflects this fact and does what is does well without trying to be something it isn't. The preset sounds are optimized for a weighted piano action (dismissing the jazz organ of course) and that is what my money is buying. I like the fact that I am not paying for features that I'll never use - too many keyboards have bells and whistles that are redundant (ANOTHER sequencer?) or are no use to me, I don't want all that junk!

To fill in those gaps, I am using the P90 with a Hammond XK3 and Alesis Andromeda for my stage rig, and this combination gets the maximum bang for the buck in a small footprint.

After failing to get what I wanted from Korg when it came to pianos, I decided to look at some of the budget Yamaha gear... being too poor for S90's and things like that, I was drawn towards the compact yet powerful P90. Less of an ugly brick than the other P's, and the music store pimped it up to high heaven! =) Overall I found it an impressive piece of kit for the price, but this is more of a first impressions review after playing with it in-store for a couple of days.

Basically if you can play a piano and work, say, a TV... then you can work this. You get some up/down buttons for altering transpose and other parameters, some voice and effect select buttons and a button for touch response (three levels). There's a slider for volume and brilliance and that's about all you need. There are no complicated sequences of combinations or button presses, everything does exactly what it says. If you can't figure this bit of kit out in 3 minutes you don't need a digital piano ;-)

Having not read a manual I couldn't really tell you what the exact spec is. You'll have to look it up online, I'm sure it's out there. You get the usual serving of voices: 2 grand and 2 electric pianos each with variation, clav/harpsichord (these are surprisingly nice! I love them) church and jazz organ with variation, strings, choir, and some nylon guitar/bass things you'll never use... More on these later. There's a 2 track recorder built in but I can't see the point in this really.

As for effects, you've got a few different kinds of reverb, and then on top of that some DSP like chorus, phaser etc. These are limited compared to synths but they do their job very well. Try the clav with the phaser slammed right the way up. Very cool. The only gripe I have is you only have one pedal jack. So... no soft pedal, no expression pedal. Damper only. There's a chance you could "attach" something like that via midi but I've not tried it.

I can't remember whether this uses balanced or graded hammer action or whatever... but at the time of playing around with it I was directly comparing it to a very expensive clavinova which used Yahama's new GH3 keyboard. And in all honesty I found the P90's action to be better. Maybe it's because I was brought up on synths and don't really care about ultra-realistic actions, but I found the P90 was just perfect for me. Just enough weight without being too clunky or spongey, and with the response set to "medium" it was just right for some really nice expressive piano playing. The piano sounds themselves, considering the price of the keyboard, are simply excellent. Plenty of balls in the bottom end without sounding "dead" like Roland's pianos, which are all bass and no real character. For me, it's the bottom end clarity and power which really sells the instrument, and the P90 certainly satisfies. Sure, there's better... but I've not found it for that price. Hardcore piano players will surely pick faults with the samples but I personally couldn't find anything majorly wrong with it.

I was also quite taken with the electric pianos and the clav/harpsichord. Especially the 80's cheese piano pad thing - E Piano 1's variation! The guy in store said he'd tried and failed to find a way to demonstrate this voice... obviously he's not heard a lot of Bon Jovi. The sound, to me, is very David Bryan, and I just can't quite get it to sound right on Korg gear. It's sheer rockage for power ballads. Overall, the sounds are great. Way better than most other things in it's class, I think.

The only thing which knocks points off is the string/choir samples. They're really not THAT bad but I doubt I'd use them for anything, especially as they do not respond to the sustain pedal as I believe they should. I have Korgs to deal with those sounds anyway. So not a huge problem. I also don't like playing organ sounds with weighted keys... but that's more to do with me being picky than a fault with the sounds themselves.

You should look at this model if you're on a strict budget, want a nice weighted controller board with more than decent built-in sounds. I think it would compliment the gear I already have really well and can't wait to get it on my rack.

Don't know... :-) will have a better idea when I buy it. One thing I will say though... is that this uses an external power adaptor. WHY!? If anything goes, it will be this. Is an onboard PSU too much to ask for? All kit should come with standard kettle plugs. Not least because if we lose the plug we can rob another one from most household appliances without fussing on the phone to yamaha for a replacement.

The thing is built like a brick, I wouldn't be overly worried about breaking it prematurely. Still, I'd take care not to drop it or spill stuff on it.

See above. I baby my stuff anyway... so chances of me breaking it are slim.

Don't know what else to say... I guess I can add the rest when I buy it. I've looked at many similar instruments and nothing satisfied quite like it.

Turn it on and play. Manual is a piece of cake to read, but you don't need it.

Not high on features, but I think that's by design - it's not a synth, it's a piano. That said, the features they did add don't distract from simple piano but add just enough.

I can hear the ringing, and if I focus on it it could annoy, but I don't.

Only had for a month.

It arrived broken from my seller - and they fixed it for me, but it took over a month for Yamaha to replace a part (a midi board I think).

My review is best suited for non-pro musicians. I've been playing piano and synths for almost 30 years, but I just jam with friends. Now that that's out of the way, the piano presets sound very convincing. Grand Piano 1 is great for deep, classical styled music. It's built from four separate samples - wow. As my tastes tend more toward rock, I find GP2 more realistic as a stage piano. If you're like me, you're gonna love GP1 and wanna play it, but you'll find GP2 more closely matches what you hear from Elton, Billy, Jackson Browne, etc.

The reviewer below mentioned something that bears repeating: there is definitely a ringing overtone that permeates the piano patches. At first I thought it was due to my amp, but it can be heard through headphones as well. It's obnoxious, but you'll learn to live with it the way computer users who use Sony Trinitron monitors learn to live with the two thin wires you can see going across the screen.

You can read in depth about the polyphony in other reviews, below. I've hooked the P90 up to my PC and recorded tunes to the hard drive using a MIDI patch cord running to my sound card.

I wish it had more sequencer tracks, but it's a piano after all. By the way, there seems to be confusion as to how long your tunes will be saved in the sequencer. The manual says you should power on the keyboard at least once a week to maintain your tracks. But I've left it turned off - BUT PLUGGED IN - for several weeks and not lost my patches. I think keeping it plugged in maintains memory.

The piano patches are VERY convincing, IMO. Yamaha is known for its audio technologies. Their surround receivers are tops, they are used in theaters, etc. You want true sounds, these guys know their stuff. But I'll agree with many, some of the patches are so-so. Not bad, just not "WOW." Slow strings are really beautiful. Choir sounds are nice too.

The piano feel is truly realistic, with graded weighting (lower keys require more force than uppers).

I've used it now for 6 months and it hasn't hiccuped even once. I'd definitely use it in a gig without backup, partly because I have no backup other than a synth. But I trust Yamaha's products fully. I'll give it a 9 instead of 10, only because I haven't tested it over the course of years yet.

Haven't experienced it.

First, I got a sweet deal on this piano. At the time of this writing, people have been paying at least $50 more. That alone makes me happy. Years ago, I had a small electric piano - a Jen - that seems now like a toy in comparison. I don't even remember what I did with it. Nowadays, I play the P90 almost exclusively, with my Yamaha and Juno 60 synths most often sitting quietly.

I purchased a soft shell Yamaha gig bag with the piano also. You'd be crazy to own something this nice without proper storage for moving it from place to place. Hey novices, it was maybe $80 - if you're spending close to a grand on an instrument, spring for the case. Get a good stand too. It's heavier than your small synths.

This piano weighs 37 pounds. Not heavy for a piano, but heavy nonetheless. If you're going to move it back and forth a lot, consider using a cart or dolly with pneumatic (air-filled) tires.

I've banged this board pretty hard so far -- mostly playing 80s and 90s rock and dance music -- it takes everything I throw at it. It feels solid as a rock. It's a gig piano but is perfect for studios too. Get out there and play one for a while, you won't be disappointed.

Very EZ to use for the basic stuff. A bit more complicated if you need to change volumes in splits, etc...

Nice for a basic Piano.

How does Yamaha get away with having a ringing overtone on the Grand Piano 1 patch. If you have one, try sounds in the upper middle of the keyboard. Atrocious!!!! This would be the best thing out there, but instead it sounds like you have a toy piano midi'd to it!!!!!! I've tried every P90 that I've ever seen and they all do this. I've talked to salesmen who denyed it, shown them, and then later they tell me, "Yeah, they all do that".

Mine was "B" stock and damaged, still works 100%

I haven't tried, but I'm getting annoyed enough to give them a call.

It's too expensive. It's too heavy. The ringing on the Grand Piano 1 patch is terrible. The piano feel is great. The Rhodes sound (E. Piano 2) is killer. I wouldn't buy it again. I might try a P80, or look for something new. I have tried (and bought) the Casio PX-300 and it's a nice piano for $600, but the Grand piano can't compete with this, warts and all.