Yamaha PLG150-PF

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This is my second review sent of this item. I'm the guy below who sent the negative review. After reading Mr Anonynous's comments, I thought I would reply.

I'm really getting bored with immature people who bash others who try to project an onjective opinion. All you're doing is wasting people's time. Are you sure you have a life?

I can assure you that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to pianos. As a matter of fact I'm a semi-professional piano player with 25 years of big and small stage experience. I've also done plenty of studio work. All I can tell you is that the piano card does NOT sound like pro quality in my S80 To me, it is not a replacement for a P80 or higher. It sounds OK and decays very unnaturallly. IMO, it is marginnaly better than the stock S80 piano. It sounds good in the mix (not great), but not solo. I've also had comments from vocalists and other musicians. I also have a Kurzweil PC88 in my living room and an Roland XV88/SRX - and I feel that they are in a different league.
I couldn't say how good the PLG sounds in your $3,000 keyboard. I do find it confusing that you say it's 'THE expansion card for solo piano performing' while you are using a 76-key SYNTH action keyboard - HARDLY an interface for expressive piano playing? Sounds like the difference of opinion between a real piano player and a synth player.

As well, could y'all please say what you're installing the PLG into? Maybe the results vary from different Yamaha products.

Mr Anonymous - Please try to express opinons that help people - not insult people. Everyone's entitled to their opinion - piano and synth players.
People - try BEFORE you buy - that's all I'm saying.

No problems

64 voices. nice.

I have read a lot of articles, threads, etc... for the last two years and have listened to everything imaginable. the piano on this chip is not only the best all around piano but the best that i have heard. Forget the rd-700. cheap sounds and all. kuezweil too $$$ and made like s**t. i have played for 30 years professionally and have recorded several albums.

it is a yamaha

I installed this in a Yamaha 9000 Pro - no sweat, no problems.

It has 64-note polyphony which is as much or more than many keyboards. That's great for my 9000 Pro because it added another 64-notes of polyphony on top of the 128 my keyboard already had. That's the main reason I bought it actually. The PLG150-PF can be played from the keyboard or from the internal or external sequencer. It has it's own effects also. It comes with an editor that only works with Yamaha's XG works seuqncer (no longer sold) and my biggest fault with this card is that Yamaha needs to get off their butts and make an OPT or free-standing voice editor for this card.

Wonderful! Some of you people that don't like this card's sounds need a life and a new pair of ears to go with it. I've owned and played Kurzweils for many years and the PLG150-PF compares very well with PC88's and PC2's that cost thousands of dollars. It's warm and full, particularly in the upper midrange where many keyboards thin out. As for soloing, I perform solo on my 9000 Pro five nights a week and this is THE expansion card for solo piano performing. It's studio-quality all the way, top to bottom. Nice velocity sensitivity too.

I've had my PLG150-PF for a couple of months - no problems and none are expected. Yamaha builds solid stuff.

Well I added the PLG150-PF to a $3000 keyboard and I think it improved it so that should tell you something. Not only does it sound great but since it has it's own effects and 64-note polyphony, it's bound to add a lot to any keyboard it is used in. If you aren't serious about piano, you don't need it - if you are then you shouldn't be without it. Now where's some new voice editors for this baby, Mr. Yamaha ?

I installed this board into my S80. Easy install but you need a computer. Editing patched is easy beaause you basically have no control over the preset patches on it. I give it 6 because you need a computer and midi interface to install the presets.

I give it very low marks for features because
- there is very limited control over editing the patches pre-progammed on the unit
- you cannot assign plg patches in amongst other user patches in the S80. This causes unneeded button pressing to select banks when playing live.
- you don't have access to all of the patches on the module...there are more patches on the PLG board than are assignable in a plg bank.

I give this very low marks because the sounds in it are really only marginally better than in the S80. It some ways they are worse because they are basically unprogrammable. The decay on the piano notes are very very unrealistic. The notes seem to stay bright and decay in a very unnatural way. The sounds are also very harsh and brittle This board is absolutely NO GOOD for solo piano work. I basically don't use the board because I have programmed better piano sounds using the S80 waveforms. Yamaha has produced very deceiving marketing about this unit.

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I am rating this product very low because it is basically of no incremental value to an S80 owner. If I had some other Yamaha product that had a weak piano sound, it may be of more use to me. But it doesn't even come close to the level of their P80 piano. I have a Roland XV-88 with the SRX piano which sounds very good. In fact, worlds ahead of the PLG board. I ordered the PLG-PF because I wanted to start not carrying around 2 heavy keyboards. I need the midi player in the S80, and a good piano sound. Guess what - I'm still carrying around 2 heavy keyboards! And, if I take only the S80, I use the better sounding patches I've made, not the PLG board. I'm VERY dissapointed. I feel like I got ripped off. Try BEFORE you buy.

I'm using the board in a CS6R module, part of Yamaha's 'Modular Synthesis Plug-in System' like the CS6x, S80 and probably the Matrix stuff. 64 Yamaha patches derived from the presets can be loaded from the included floppy. These and any presets can be messed with and saved/stored in one of these same 64 patch locations. I don't believe owners of 'XG Plug-in System' devices have it as easy, it's worth looking into.

Ease of use has a lot to do with the host device. Editing with my CS6R is pretty straightforward. The included 'Pf Easy Editor'is a joke, editing from within my module offers more flexibility.

If you're not familiar with Yamaha terminology or you've been a long time away (as I have) you might have to read things a few times, but since there's nothing much to this manual (it's more like a booklet)it's pretty easy.

It's nice to know that there are many other acoustic piano sound source fanatics like me out there. My overall impression of this board is very positive even though the PLG150-PF is far from perfect.

Like many others, I consider good sounds other than acoustic piano a bonus, not crucial. Definitely some of the EP's, and maybe the Wurly, the Clav and the Harpsichord can be edited enough to be useful. There's a ton of useless garbage though.

In my opinion, Yamaha has the ONLY realistic sounding sampling technology for piano, in hardware form. Gigasampler/Gigastudio instruments are almost undoubtedly better, but carrying a cpu around on gigs is not for most of us... Yet.

There is one overall good acoustic piano patch on the card, and two somewhat useful ones. Even so, on that 'StrchRichP' patch there are several wonky notes between G5-A6 that have abrupt cutoffs (negligible sustain) and/or odd attacks. Also, if you play and sustain a two-handed chord within 2-2.5 octaves anywhere below C6 you'll hear a very unnatural and static sustain.

So why do I like this board? Well, because it's the best sounding, most realistic single choice now available for playing both live and in the home/studio (although the jury's out on the P120 right now). Very often I can forget it's shortcomings and immerse myself in playing- that's the ultimate measure of it's value to me.

It gets a 9 because it's the best, most realistic piano source available right now, warts and all. But there 'ain't nothing like the real thing'.

It's a circuit board, give me a break!

They'll get back to you. Clunky, but it works.

Unless I knew of something better I'd get it again.

Here's the part that kills me about this product. Installing it is one of the worst nightmares. I have a CS6x, so I have to install the card underneath the unit. Once you've opened the bottom, getting this delicate card into the four plastic thingees that hold it in place is a friggin' mystery, even with the instructions that came with my CS6x. I have another expansion card from Yammie that I installed months ago, and I had the same problem. There has to be an easier way to snap this puppy in and start playing, but Yammie hasn't quite figured it out. Anyway, look forward to sweating a while as you wonder how on earth you're going to secure this delicate board into the hard plastic holders without busting it. Once secured, it's fairly easy to operate and scroll through the preset sounds.

64 note polyphony. On board effects are just what you'd need (for piano, anyways--chorus, reverb, 2 band EQ)

Piano is amazing. Full-bodied and meaty in the mids, light and tinkly in the highs, thunderous in the lows. I swear, I woulda bought this card for the acoustic piano sound alone--beautiful. Another surprise was the clav sounds, especially the basic clav. I just got rid of a wonderful sounding Hohner E7 clavinet and I missed it--until I heard these samples. Ballsy and expressive, just like like on the Motif. As for the other sounds, the harpsicords are nice. However, there are about 30 or 40 ridiculous acoustic piano "variations"--you know the ones...where the piano is married to a synth pad or string sound. There are just a ton of uselessly tweaked acoustic piano sounds. And, unfortunately, the good, expressive ep's are few and far between. There are a handful of great DX pianos. There's, like, one mellow Rhodes sound that is a keeper. But the rest kinda bite. They are a good addition to my CS6x ep sounds (which I thought was kinda lacking), so I'm not disappointed there. I just don't recommend this board to anyone expecting a whole mess of stellar ep's. I'll give it a 10, however, for a ridiculously good piano and clavinet!

My fingers are crossed that it won't flake on me.

Don't know.

Well, it was kinda expensive, but I wanted an internal expansion to cut down on the MIDI spaghetti in my studio. It was worth it in that respect. Since I didn't expect a whole lot in the way of other sounds, I consider those a bonus. Highly recommended if you have a CS6x and miss having a decent piano sound. For those non-CS6x users out there, be warned: that keyboard has what has to be THE WORST piano sample ever, hands down. It's a great synth in other respects, but boy did they ever purposely cut corners on that sound! They knew that schmucks like you and me would have to run out and fit their board with a good acoustic piano. They were right. It was genius marketing. Those bastards.