Yamaha P90

About as straightforward as you can get for a keyboard.

It does what it's supposed to do. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that other keyboards do, but as a digital piano it feels and sounds awesome!

No complaints here, I never thought I'd be able to give up a traditional baby grand. The P90 sure changed that. Feel and sound are the P90's true strength.

No problems yet.

The sustain pedal that came with my P90 was very squeaky. I contacted them (via e-mail, then they had me call a specific person) about fixing this, and they simply sent me a replacement one. I'd give them an A for this one.

I purchased the P90 for my apartment after growing up with a baby grand. It is a great solution to space and noise (headphones) issues. I tried other products in stores, but after researching reviews and my own trials - the P90 had the feel I was looking for at a price most couldn't match.

After reading some of the below reviews i must clear up some of the incorrect statements. First the below review said you lose your recorded sequence at shut down... that is incorrect, the sequence will stay in the system for up to 14 days unless you power up before that. In other words if turn off the board for 6 months, yes your sequence will be gone. Second, 2 posts below a review stated that there is no available balance adjustment if you split the voice or dual voice... that is also incorrect, there is balance adjustment between the dual or split voices. People need to read the manual. Even tho it is a very simple board to use, why not read the manual and understand every feature available... get your moneys worth...

The keybed action is the reason i bought the unit. effects a easily accessable. Its a very basic keyboard 24 sounds in all not much flashyness... bottom line, it for piano players.

the piano 1 sound is fantastic. sometimes i just listen to the preset songs in amazement... the only reason you will buy this is for the piano sound or as a controller

its yamaha quality... same same same

have never dealt with them... but i asked for stickers and sent me about a million of them in the mail :P

The piano sounds are very good.
The electric piano are not so bad.
The organ sound is excellent.
Church organ is nice.
String are so-so.
Drums are... Oops, there are no drums!

The keyboard action is very good, altought it is definitely
NOT realistic. Who cares? Somewhat unrealistic but still excellent!
Who said that the real piano action is the best one?
The sequencer is a shame: only 2 tracks and to power-off backup! If you swith the unit off, your fantastic sequence is lost forever!

Piano sound is very nice and usable. 4 different acoustic pianos.
My favourite one is the Piano2 without variation. It is so sweeeeeet.
A real joy to play.
Velocity is okay. You can play either smooth and hard! The unit
reaction is always accurate.

Seems to be a solid unit.
I think (but i'm not sure) I've found a bug... The sound
got kind of hazy. I then had
to reset the machine to get the sound clear! But maybe it is my
fault...

I hope i'll never call them.

Perfect portable piano.
Solid. Good sounds. Very good action.
And... A cheap price.

There are only 24 presets as it is a digital piano. The main piano sound is amazing and among the very best ever sampled. The electric pianos are also very, very good. The choir and harpsichord sounds are useable and sound as expected. The other sounds are very vanilla and aren?t going to blow anyone away. You can do some editing and make some changes to the sounds. For the most part though, what you hear is what you get. My primary use for this is piano and EP?s so in this respect it?s perfect for me. The manual is actually pretty well laid out and easy to use, but you really won?t need to refer to that much if at all. Everything is very easy to figure out and I have rarely had to use mine.

The P90 has 64 notes of polyphony. It handles long and complex runs very well and without the sound cutting off which was important to me. Most of the Roland and Korg digital pianos I tried (with 64 polyphony) all cut off during the runs I played. There are no expansion options which shouldn?t be a big deal. If you want expansion options, step up to the P250 which is made for that. The effects are limited but designed with the pianist in mind. You have basic effects and can change the sound to match your playing environment. So whether you?re playing inside, outside, in a small or large venue you can adjust your setting to best suite the environment your playing in. The P90 is midi compatible and works as you would expect it to in a midi environment. It has a simple two track sequencer which is good for remembering ideas or laying down a rhythm and then soloing on top of it. You have two tracks to work with in any way you see fit.

For piano, nothing compares in this price range for realisism other than the P120. The piano sound is very fluid and very realistic and works well with anything you?d expect to use a piano sound with. The EP?s also are very useable and work well when combined with the piano sound. The effects are limited but do what you?d expect and want. The reaction to my playing and feel of the P90 closed the deal for me. It feels as genuine as they come. The reaction to my playing is exactly what I hoped for and expected. When I want to increase the velocity through my playing, I can and get incredible results for a digital piano. The P90 reacts to me as a player, I don?t feel I have to alter my style to make it fit me. I can?t tell you how important that is when you?re playing live. When I auditioned other instruments, I felt the feel and reaction of other boards was a huge disappointment for me. Yamaha seems to have figured this out.

I?ve had it for 9 months now and I haven?t had any issues yet. Seems to be built very well and has survived the gigging experiences I?ve put it through.

Customer support was helpful when I contacted them after my purchase. I got transferred to a tech support person, left a message and got a call back and my question answered about 3 hours later.

I?ve played piano for 20 years and I?ve played many different pianos and keyboards in that time. While everything has pluses and minuses, I?ve learned to take my time when making a new purchase and get what?s right for me. The P90 is exactly what I need without all the other things I don?t. In my opinion it was the best stage digital piano out there. The sound is near perfect and the feel and reaction is beyond what I expected. I took over eight months to make decision and played many digital pianos, workstations and other keyboards in that time. I found that for my needs the P90 was the best thing for me. Its important to clarify that I am considering a new workstation to complete my set up which is why I auditioned such a wide variety of things. I played digital pianos by Korg, Roland, Kurzweil, Gem, Casio, Yamaha and Kawaii. I got it down to the Kurzweil SP88 and the P90. The SP88 didn?t sound as real to me and the action was a big turn off as it didn?t even compare to the Yamaha. I demoed these two for one week each and used them live during shows so I could get to know them. The more I got to know them, the more obvious it was the P90 stood out as the better stage piano. Another big difference was when I recorded a couple of songs in different music style formats and was surprised how much better the P90 sounded in a recording process. My band members even commented on the songs sounding better with the P90. I also listened to many sampled piano sounds and played them through a midi controller. In the end, Yamaha as a whole had the best sound and feel, bar none. Ironically I went into this thinking about a Roland RD700 or one of the Roland FP digital pianos. The Roland digital pianos really disappointed me as a whole. They don?t sound realisitic and the action is missing something to make it feel like piano like. After really taking my time, doing research and playing the hell out of over 25 digital pianos and 10 workstations, nothing was in the same league as the Yamaha digital pianos.

For the money, the P90 is the way to go, especially if you?re gigging live and in need of a great piano sound. The bonus of it sounding great live as well as in a recording in studio was a huge plus for me. The P90 sets the standard in its category and it will be interesting to watch the other manufactures play catch up. I understand so much of this process is personal preference. I liked the Kawaii and Kurzweil piano samples but just preferred the Yamaha sound and especially the action. The Korg and Roland piano sounds need to go back to the drawing board with their sampled piano sound and keyboard action.

Use is very simple. It's a digital piano, not many buttons as a synth, and the manual is for dummies (however you won't use it, the instrument is intuitive).

Very good polyphony, 64 is the minimum for a digital piano, and mininum doesn't mean a limit for this instrument. I played Chopin, Bach and Liszt on it and worked very well. Keyboard action is very near to piano, a bit tough (but you know Yamaha builds in this way all his digi-pianos), legato could work better. A tough keyboard is much better than a flabby one, like the synths have, because for a pianist practicing on a soft keyboard means great loss of touch on a real acoustic piano (and on a tough keyboard your touch will become stronger). The sustain pedal works very well, considering the difficulty of making it digital. There are also some effects (chorus, phaser, delay, tremolo), not bad, but i don't use them. Ah, there's also a 2 tracks midi sequencer, a bonus from Yamaha (but I don't think I'll use it, I'm not interested in midi registering on a digital piano). I couldn't ask more from a digi-piano (maybe less :-)).

The 2 main things on a digital piano are the sound and touch (they must be as near as possible to the acoustic piano). Touch works well, and sound also better; There are 4 pianos, the grand piano 2 and 2 var1 are too bright, and don't work well on high and low octaves, but grand piano 1 is very very good, makes worth the cash spent, grand piano var1's not bad. Only a problem, I use very good headphones from AKG and I heared the first time i played a little metallic noise in the background of Grand piano 1 (the BEST piano of P90, VERY good), but setting the volume and brightness ok this problem disappeared. I bought a digi-piano for practicing (I study classical music and jazz) at night with headphones, and P90 for me does the job. However, P90 doesn't reach perfection, but I don't know how much an acoustic piano can be "copied" perfectly on digital. I tried 2 digi-pianos of Korg and Kurzweil, and the sound wasn't good (and Korg built a keyboard too soft, very bad for practicing classical).
Yamaha put in also some instruments as organ, choir, vibes... and now the question: it's a digi-piano, don't buy it if you want a synth, half of addictional sounds here are bad. The sounds included are:
4 pianos (Grand piano 1 IS P90)
4 e. pianos (1 is bad, 1 var1 is very bad, 2 is good, 2 var2 so and so)
1 clavi (not bad)
1 harpsichord (good)
1 vibes (VERY bad)
1 acoustic guitar (VERY bad)
2 church organs (good in my opinion, the first overall, maybe because is a baroque organ)
2 jazz organs (not bad, the sounds are good, but velocity...)
1 strings (VERY bad)
1 choir (very good, good sounds, and very useful to me, i'm studying classical harmony and writing chorals)
1 acoustic bass (VERY bad)
2 e. basses (not bad, but how much they're useful?)

And remember, it's a digi-piano, it works on classical and jazz, for pop/rock you have to play a synth (and so, if you play that, buy a Korg synth)

Yamaha is reliability.

I bought it in a keyboards shop in Milan (i'm italian), support was ok. Prices very good.

I play classical and jazz, and I think that for playing a jazz concert or studying classical with phones, P90's Grand piano 1 works very well. It's obvious that a piano student hasn't to play only on a digital piano with phones, to play the piano you have to play the piano. So I think that a digital piano is useful only for concerts where there isn't a real piano and OVERALL for studying AT NIGHT with headphones (during the day the piano must be played, in my opinion).
P90 is a very good digi-piano, not much expensive (as the P250) and very transportable (also if it's 16 kg, don't miss).
P.s.
I'm italian, so I surely did some errors writing in english...

I was needing a piano for live performance without the bells and whistles of a workstation. the P90 was it.great weighted action,grand 1 was too mellow and grand 2 was too bright, but blend grand 1 and 2 with var. was perfect through the p.a..Just add the chorus and you get a real nice honky tonk for country flavor.In addition nice mellow blues like "riviera paradice" by stevie ray vaughn, add piano and organ together,you have organ for sustain and piano for attack when changing chords its awsome.For jazz or rock the organ is not like my c3,but it doesnt weigh 495lbs either.I bought it for a great 88 key piano with weighted keys and the yamaha P90 gets the job done.

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the lack of a second pedal jack is moronic.

most of the piano sounds (grand 1) are better than the '8' would imply; however, starting at about G5 on up there is a HUGELY ANNOYING, though subtle, metallic ring which continues to play on after the key is released. It is easily overlooked if notes in lower registers are playing, but it is still very apparent, and a complete pisser when you consider it's a thousand dollar board which was supposedly sampled off a grand. Also all notes in that register and higher have what I feel to be an inaccurate timber. They sound like you are hitting a rock tuned to a note with a little hammer, and don't sound accoustic in nature. The timber, however, is more accurately reflected in grand 2 which, unfortunately, brightens too much across the board for my particular musical taste. The only other noticeable issue is G2, I think it is, which sounds completely like a $99.00 Casio when played at any point softer than ff and stands out horribly in soft passages. All the other categories are described nicely by everyone else, but just wanted to get this out there. This is my own opinion obviously. Please make sure to listen to EVERY note individually before throwing down the cash.

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if it is to be a complete piano replacement for classical music players, listen very carefully.

This is about as easy as it gets. Of course, there aren't many features either. Just right for what it is - a stage piano.

Not many features, but it does what is supposed to do. No aftertouch. No controllers. No balance between layered sounds -- I wish they had this one.

9 - The pianos are near perfect! Other sounds are OK. I use this keyboard primarily in church gigs, for leading worship. Very responsive.

Build solid. I trust it without a backup. However for any multi-show thing I would bring a spare power supply along. A wall wart! Couldn't they use a line lump with a heavier cord? That's the one thing that I could easily see failing.

Yamaha is supposed to be great for service. I've never had to use them.

I would probably get another. Great keyboard action, good sounds, light weight for an 88, good price compared to the competition. What's not to like?

quite a simple interface, no aviation degree needed to figure this thing out - although somtimes 'simple' can be limiting as it doesnt give obssessive-compulsive tweakers like me lots of buttons and switches to play with, but then again this is a digital stage piano so it functions great as that. just power it on and start playing.

the best feature about this [and the one i purchased it for] is that it has the best feel of all the other digital keyboards that i tried at the local anonymous corporate music retailer. has 2 headphone outs and 2 line outs and MIDI capabilities, so it should be sufficient for most live and studio applications.

has a total of 4 different grand piano sounds, ranging from dark classical sound to really bright pop sound and everything in between. the first piano preset sound is the best piano sound ive heard from other digital pianos and some software ones as well. the other non-piano sounds are really weak [relative to the great acoustic grand piano sound]and might as well not even be there. even if this unit didnt have any other sounds than the piano i still would have bought it - i only wanted a digital PIANO anyways - if i wanted a wurly i would have bought a wurly instead !

seems to be built pretty solidly. ive only owned it for about 3 weeks and it hasnt left the studio, so i cant really say how it would actually function under the harsh conditions out on the road . . .

i didnt not have the recommended power adapter [it was not included] so i called yamaha [askinf to see if i could use another one instead] and the support was friendly and helpful and reseolved my problem quickly. good job.

overall, this item is definitely a welcome addition to my studio setup. before buying this item, i wanted:
-full sized 88-key REALISTIC graded-hammer action weighted keys piano feel
-excellent acoustic piano sounds
-portability
-can be used as MIDI controller

and the P90 delivers exactly what i wanted. i personjally think the yamah P## series digital pianos are the best all around.

The piano is very easy to use. Buttons are clear and feel good. The 'extra' functions, however, is a bit difficult to set up and cannot be adjusted while playing (well...as long as you don't need to change the pitch or string-resonans level that's no problem). They are shown on an LCD display but don't have names - only numbers like 6.1 etc. You must therefore know what every number stands for, but the manual is very simple and after using half an hour studying this and checking out the functions you're ready to go.

The inputs/outputs are on the side of the piano which might be a problem for some users. For me it's great, while you can have the piano by a wall and still easily plug in your headphones and so.

The polyphony is 64 (32 in stereo) and that's definitely enough.

I like the action very much!! The keys are quite heavy, but with the touch response setting you can easily change that and play even organ. It's not like a Steinway grand and not like my parents old light upright piano, but it's kind of that all. After getting used to these keys (after a few weeks) you can play on almost any keyboard. That's great!

The built-in effects work very well, but some are more usable than others. Personaly, I like the phaser mostly because you can add another value to the Rhodes, Wurlitzer, organ and even piano sound. But still the chorus is good, so is the tremolo (for Wurly) and the last one - the delay - is nice too.

I haven't used the midi capabilities, but apparently they work fine. In, out and "to host".

The sequencer works as it shall though it'd have been nice more than just one song. You have one song with two tracks which you can play separately. Good for practicing.

There's no built-in amplifiers, but instead it has to headphone outputs - for teacher and pupil and so on. The feeling, however, is not the same as with speakers. I bougth some Edirol MA-10A with the piano and they are tremendous for practicing. Only 10 watt each but a fantastic sound compared to the price (1200 dkr, $120 at Musician's Friend). For monitoring, I guess they are not loud enough (surely depends on what type of music you play...).

The piano sound is fantastic! Depth, roundness, attack and what say you. It's very realistic with 3 pressure samples, string resonans samples and lift-off samples. The Grand Piano 1 is the main sound and the best too. The GP 1/vari. is also good but different. GP 2 is okay for some genres. If you combine the GP 1 with the GP 2 you get a very good spanish/brazilian-sound which is very usable for those styles.

The EP 1 + vari. are bad. The EP 2 is synonumios Rhodes and it's very good!! If you set brilliance on mellow and the touch response to soft you get a very round sound. You may add the phaser effect for a new dimension. EP 2/vari. is Wurlitzer, but it's not very good. Playable with phaser and tremolo but you don't have very much control and the dynamic is missing.

The organ sound is actually surprisingly good! The variation adds a leslie effect which fade in/out when shifting while holding a note. Works well, but you don't have much control of the sound. Compared to other 'ordinary' stage pianos this organ sound is very good.

Clav. is okay combined with the EP2 and with a phaser effect.

Strings, choir and church organ are definitely usable, though they're not superb.

The basses are not very good, but the woodbass/vari. adds a ride cymbal, which is good for practicing.

Yamaha, man!

If this piano was stolen I would buy it again. No doubt.

Compared to the P120 I actually like this piano's sounds better. Perhaps not the Rhodes sound but the piano, organ and so are better. The P120 have speakers and 3 songs sequencer, which would definitely be good, but with my Edirol monitors it sounds a lot better than the P120's built-in.