Yamaha S-90

The S90 is easy to use and offer lots of options for a keyboard this price. I was impressed by the interface, not to cheesy, very pro looking. I didn?t like the Triton, or Roland XV stuff (other considerations) and will get more into that later. Editing patches is fairly straight forward. You have lots of control when editing sounds and with a little persistence you can get the perfect sounds. Most sounds are damn good without much if any editing but still its nice to have. Manual is easy to understand and there is tons of support out there for this keyboard.

The polyphony is 64 and not really an issue. Being a piano player, I was concerned about this but ironically I had more polyphony issues with the Roland RD 700 and Korg SP 500 which are both 128 polyphony. You?d think with that much polyphony; you would get a much better sound from the RD 700 and SP 500. Yamaha did a great job with the polyphony. It has many effects including an arpeggiator which makes this a fun keyboard to play around with and explore. It has 4 expansion slots and Yamaha has made plug in cards for the S90. There are many rumors about some exciting things in the future for S90 expansion. Of course the S90 is midi compatible and allows you to save with a smart media card instead of a disk drive. You get over 100 times more storage space. There is no on board sequencer as this is not a workstation. Since so many people use computers and they can do so much more than workstations, Yamaha made this for those types of people. According to the number of units sold and recent pools done these are the largest types of users in the keyboard market.

The sounds on the S90 are amazing. Most people buy a keyboard for its sounds. The sounds represent the greatest combination of useable sounds out there. The piano action is amazing on this machine and when I play my piano at work I don?t struggle. Action has always been a huge factor for me as have sounds. If these are important to you, you really need to check out the S90. The S90 has the most intuitive and dynamic touch of any synth out there. It is a tremendous mount of fun to play this machine.

I have never owned a Yamaha so I can't accurately answer this question. I have heard good things and stikll many DX7 out there which bodes well for reliability.

See above comments.

Being a purchaser for a globally recognized musicians association, we scrutinize our purchases very thoroughly. We factor in many requests into our final decision for purchases. There was a committee of five of us that had to agree on this purchase. We all went together and explored everything out there. We all had too many problems(which I won?t list because of the sheer volume that would take up) with the Korg, Roland, Kurzweil, and Alesis stuff. I understand that sound is different to each person but from what I?ve heard form other users, musicians, producers and studio execs, the S90 has a tremendous amount of credibility in the professional music industry. That wasn?t the case with many of the other keyboards out there. We demoed over 35 different machines some of which haven?t been released to the public yet. We rated them and amazingly in the end four of us had the S90 as number one. The other person had it number three. It was an easy decision with those types of number. If you need a complete keyboard with great sounds and without all the sloppy workstation features than the S90 should be your choice.

Very easy to use. I figured it out immediately and if your familiar with synths you can hook this up to a computer and get everythng going in no time. Considered getting a Triton but accoustical presets and piano sounds were far superior. The Patches as a whole are ther bets set out there. I spend the last 1.5 years playing everything out there, picking other keyboard users brains to see what they liked and didn't. It became apparent to me the S90 was a non brainer. Editing patches is starightforward and easy to do. Manual and support are straight forward. You cna get tons of help at www.sninety.com if you need it.

It has 64 polyphony which is expandable wit the addition of plug in cards. I have never had a polyphony issue with this keyboard. ( I just played the new Roland Fantom S and ran into poly issues several times :( The keyboard action is fantastic and this was a big issue for me since I have played the piano for the last few years. There is a playback sequencer with a smart media card set up. This is far better than a disk drive and gives you so much more storage space. Use a computer for a sequencer as most people do now days. As you use this system, you begin to see hwo workstations may one day be used very little like the FM synthesis stuff.

As with any keyboard, you have great sounds and sounds you won't use. The sounds as a whole are the best on nay synth in my opinion. I play a variety of music; ne wage, jazz, classical and rock and this works well with all of them. This is perfect for live gigging. The keyboard really reacts to your playing. You have a lot fo control when playing it.

Just got it so its hard to say. other S90 users haven' thad any problems though!

Yamaha tends to devote more time and effort to its higher end users. Many PSR users probably feel like their Customer service is horrible. They have been very good with me and I haven't had a problem

I would replace this in a heart beat. There's nothing better out there for sounds and live playing. If your a serious musician this is a must have. As sales show, ( best selling synth for 5 months straight and counting) many many people agree. People in other reviews will try to tell you its not that good. Don't take there word for it. Play it yourself and decide. The sales figures don't lie!! When I first began my search over a year ago, I thought the Roland XV series or Korg Triton would fit my needs and overcome my tryranical judgements. I wasn't even considering the S90. I took th etime to play everything and I mean everything out there. Over a year later and after very tough scrutiny, this was the only keyboard left standing.

Much less intuitive than the Triton stuff. Patch editor did not load properly for Windows XP, can't use it -- what bullshit! Really don't feel like spending an hour on the phone w/Yamaha but I guess I have to, no choice! This might be the easiest Yamaha to use, but it's still way to hard, they never get it right!

The action is great. The triple strike piano is too muddy, the high velocity strike too bright (bad cross-fade), really dissapointing. Organs only fair (Triton blows them away), Brass questionable (filter open too much), strings awful (vibrato in all samples!), Clavs ok but not enough of them, analog pads and leads suck, Rhodes/Wurlis very good. Strangely, the S80 has better presets for brass, guitars, piano w/pad, maybe even epianos than the S90. Why???

Sounds have good "realism", but somehow are not very exciting, don't sit well in a live situation. After playing a Triton Pro-X professionally for almost 4 years, I have to say that this keyboard is a real dissapointment, couldn't find more than a couple of sounds that were any good. Very loungy sounding, great if you like the DX7 sound, but IMHO really lame. What a letdown!!

Don't know

Don't know

Wow, what a letdown. Everything I need, plus everything I don't? Don't think so Yamaha! This keyboard doesn't have enough of anything. Pianos a real drag, not enough Clavs, Organs useless, Strings have vibrato in the sample, Analog pads lame, Guitars not as good as the S80 (huh?), only the Rhodes sounds good. Sold a Triton Pro-X to get this keyboard, completely dissapointed! I'll be going back to Korg. What a mistake!!!

Hate to break it to you folks but the Rhodes and Wurli patches in the S80 are far better than the Motif 8 or the new S90 (since the S90 is just a compilation of Motif sounds) They didn't use the same Rhodes samples and the new ones are much thinner and not as responsive. Yet one more example of how things get worse as a product line progresses. The synthesizer industry is just like the car industry. In order to have the best you have to search for that one model and one year that had the killer engine in it that the model from the "improved" following year didn't have. Absolutely ridiculous. Gear head techy folklore anyone?

I found that S90 is really easy either to do just a "plug'n'play" or to carry them in a gig, cause the "master" feature (where you can program the sounds you're going to use in order) is really an aid. The bad thing is editing patches: I own also a Korg Trinity and there editing patches is really easy! But in S90 is a long process: connect to your pc via usb, edit the patch via Sound Editor, then push the sound into the keyboard.. BTW you can find it more easy than me..

The keys action is really great!! S90 has the best action i ever played (and I'm a classically trained piano player..)! The polyphony could be better (try using piano+strings with sustain and it will run out very soon), but is normal.. The S90 has great expansion capabilities (from the DX7 engine, to the Prophet 5 one..)

Here Yamaha did really an outstanding work..
Bright S700 is the best piano on a workstation, the presets sounds great for every genre, from rock to pop, from funky to metal..
Working along with the Sound Editor will give you the possibility to get what you want from this beatutiful baby :-)

I used 2 times in gigs and it gave me no problem.. I'll continue using it..

I didn't have problems (fortunately!!!!)

If it were stolen and if I had enough money, i'd buy it again! :)
Working with an S90/Trinity setup is greaat! So I can use Trinity for lead sounds and S90 for all the rest !

To let you know in advance...For the last three years I've used a Triton Pro-X (Classic) for my gigs (about 320 a year). It's the best keyboard I've ever owned, but I decided to replace it with the S90, because it 1)is lighter and fits in a smaller case; 2) has better action 3) I can't see the touch screen on the Korg during outdoor gigs when the sun is shining; 4)everybody seems to think the S90 is the shit. So this is not so much a review, but a question for my fellow keyboardists (the real pros -- not the guys who have been playing for 5 years): did I do the right thing? I'm really torn, would appreciate any input. pastman@sbcglobal.com. I'll follow ther format here...The Yamaha is somewhat confusing to use edit, easy to call up sounds.

Polyphony standard (64). Action excellent, effects good, expandable but the boards are old school, nice Midi capability.

Can't decide. Very used to Triton sounds (heavily tweaked), sound of the Yamaha is different, somehow less compelling (but I haven't edited anything yet, and the stock Triton sounds needed lots of help). E Pianos are great, organs dissapointing, section brass unexpected pleasure, not enough clavs, ensemble strings much warmer than the Triton, but as noted before, why the vibrato on the solo string stuff -- awful! I don't agree with (sorry) others who have said the 3 layer piano is so great, to be honest I liked but did not love it. The hard strike sample is too brittle and strident, actually some of the 2 layer pianos sound better to me. But there is much more musical linkage between the action and the tone, i.e. dynamics, phrasing etc., as compared to the Triton Pro-X which feels like an old beat-up Fender Rhodes (not entirely a bad thing!).

Never used Yamaha gear. Proudly stuck to my Rhodes during the eighties, considered the DX7 e piano one of the most horrible sounds to ever grace the planet. Time has proven me right!! (needless to say, I didn't work much during the eighties...) Heard Yamaha is quite reliable.

It's hard to change. I hope I was right (although I'm not going to go Tritonless, just swicthing to the 61 key non-weighted to go with the S90) to make the switch. I'd love to know what y'all think.

Don't read the manual, it will confuse you. Actually I never read manuals, this time I tried but gave up after a few minutes...sorry, but it's much easier to learn the basics by doing. Presents sound great (see below) except too much vibrato on the strings

Believe me, I have tried out all available keyboards on the market that somehow could be used as a stagepiano...this one is by far the best! I was first into the Roland RD-700, but the S-90 really stands out and the Roland is at least soundwise not comparable. The Yamaha has got best Keyboard action on the market. A few ago,trying and testing, I thought about a masterkeyboard + modules: The Fatar keyboards are not as good as the one built into the S-90 and it's built so cheap, I would not take it to the road. The Doepfer Masterkeyboards are expensive and make too much noise from my point of view. All in all I don't like carrying to much stuff with me, therefore the S-90 was the choice. Don't need onboard sequenzer and sampler when I'm on stage, therefore I went for the S-90 and not for my other options (Motif and new Triton) I first thought about.

Outstanding Electric Pianos and Organs, that was all I needed for playing in my funk band. plus an acoustic piano which works very well, not as good as the Yamaga PF-P100, though. All the other wonderful synth sounds, really great drums etc. I only use at home in my studio (and I already have Sequenzer, Sampler..so no need for the motif) Soundwise the best you can get, much ore powerful and expressive than the Roland stuff and not as thin as the Korg Triton.

Did my first gig after I had it for 1,5 days and was not too sure about wether I would find the right sounds in time etc and brought other stuff with me. Carrying my old stuff was not worth it, not soundwise and not for backup reasons. Yamaha products work - they don't break, their Operating System won't give you a hard time. Believe me I know what I am talking about. I am a proud owner of a Ensoniq VFX, which is in regards to reliability the worst thing ever built. And my 16 year old Yamaha DX7 II never let me alone!!!

never needed any Customer Support, so cannot tell

I still own a lot of gear (Akai S2800i,Ensoniq VFX-SDII,DX-7II,MKS-70) even though I sold a few boards, now that I have the S-90. After playing around with Synths/Keyboards for more than 20 years now, there is one thing I can say. The best acoustic piano ever built into an electric keyboard is to be heard from the Yamaha PF-P100 /P-150 I once borrowed from a friend. Even their never stuff (P-80) does not have this wonderful acoustic Piano, I have no idea why they change it in every machine....Besides, the one in the S-90 is really really useful, probably second best. Every other sound especially the electric pianos, organs, drums, synths are a dream come true! I would definitely buy it again, no doubt!

OK its a synth but editing is a little bit tricky because if you want to store you have to overwrite a User-Voice, you can't change a Presetvoice so that it keeps your changes. On the other hand the control levers are very good organized, you can control with 4 gliders on 5 differnet levels. Voice category search is very good to use to keep an overview over all those patches.

Keyboard action is very well balanced for such a multi-instrument. Effects are everything you can have, expansion possibilities are nearly unlimites (except good pianovoices). Midi controlfunctions are great, USB included. No sequenzer, but Sequenzer software for your laptop.

Well, here comes the most tricky question. I think all the epianos, snth voices, performances are very good, just on top of the market. But: Yamaha wants to get Pianoplayers to buy this Synth, and I myself, who own a P80 am not contented with these often praised 3layerS700 pianopatches. There is the S700 bright, which comes close to a p80, but in a direct comparison it sounds muddy to me. So I didn't buy the S90 because of its Pinaosounds which sounds to me not rich and clear enough. But everybody who does not want to play Solopiano and classical stuff will be contented, because in a mix it sounds very well, and you have the choice between very different kinds of pianovoices.

I don't gig, but if I had to, it would be ok, not too heavy.

Yamaha had some delivery problems, especially with the S90, so I had to wait six weeks.

As I said before, I didn't buy S90, because I would loose in the Grandpiano section the unbeatable P80 sounds. So I hope, Yamaha will bring out an Update of P80 with XG voices, voiceediting and insert effects (P250 is no alternative for Solopiano, it sounds too hard and agressive). But for all those who aren't into Pianomusic the S90 will be a fantastic Instrument.

This is my first real synth, but overall I've found it pretty easy to use and the controls well laid out. The presets sound great (especially the various keyboards and synth sounds) and there's plenty of scope for editing. Doing this is OK on the S90, but the bundled (very high quality) voice editor makes it a whole lot easier. Manual is fine for getting you up and running, but a lot of the crucial information is in tables, which can be hard to navigate. There's a lot of extra help on www.sninety.com though, which makes the learning process a lot quicker.

Polyphony is 64 notes, but this can be expanded with the plug in boards. Keyboard action is excellent, really beautiful, and encourages you to spend a lot of time playing. There are plenty of effects for what I do. I've not bought any expansion boards yet as I'm still finding my way round the basic S90, but am looking forward to being able to plug in whole different types of synth. MIDI capabilites are excellent - it works beautifully with the bundled SQ01 software and with Cubasis VST 3.0. No problems recording the various controllers such as the moudulation wheel and key aftertouch.

I love most of the sounds, especially the pianos, keyboards, organs and synths. Some of the string sounds and acoustic instruments are a little bit disappointing, but I'm finding ways to tweak these. Onboard effects are excellent. My playing is nowhere near the standard that the S90 deserves, but it puts up with me without complaint. I had an upright piano before and find the S90 more pleasurable to play.

Seems very rugged. I just use it at home so can't comment on live use. It's behaved flawlessly so far.

I've not had to deal with customer support but have heard good things about their UK support. The sninety.com web site is a great resource though, so I'll give it a 10 on that basis.

I'd definitely buy one again if it was stolen and think it's great value for money. I played the piano until about 12 years ago (until we moved into a smaller house) and then just messed about on the flute, guitar, etc. I nearly bought an electric pinao to get back into playing, but am really glad I got the S90 instead. What I most love about it is that it seems to be so many things - a great piano, a great synth and an excellent MIDI keyboard. What I most hate is the fact that I work full time, so can't spend enough time on it. I was very close to getting a Motif (I'd looked at the Triton and Fantom) until the S90 came out. But I'd got used to sequencing on the PC, so this seemed the ideal choice. The only thing I wish it had was some way to design and import your own arps, without having to own a Motif. Apart from trying to rediscover my keyboard skills, I use it for composition, and for learning synthesis, and it's perfect for this.

Depends on what you are accustomed to. For me... 10

64 polyphony. hmmm. you have to purchase the plg boards to increase in increments of 64 voices.
I have played keyboard, piano, synths... for 32 years. This is THE BEST overall keyboard feel that will be acceptable to all types of musicians regardless of their chops. For piano players it is a delight. No sequencer so to speak but comes with software that works flawlessly with anything out there. Does have smf 0 for those times you need it out there.

Sounds overall are the best you will find in one box. It will work for any type of muzic. Basically the motif engine with an additional triple spike piano. Drums and arppegiator are KILLER and aresecond to none. Strindgs are good but samples come with vibrato added. I thought lfo's were made for this? That is the only drawback that I can see. But you can work around it. Wow, it is not the perfect synth but what is? If you find it call me.

Yamaha. Total Quality
This thing is built like a tank and it isn't going to break your back like my 01/w pro x.(pass me the hernia belt honey...)

Never dealt with customer support so I can't give an honest comment.

If lost or stolen it would be replaced in a heartbeat. If you get this board get the plg-150 piano board.and vl synthesis. I know it should be onboard equipment but these engineers need job security(Kinda like the power comp. on Long Island NY) Thank god it doesn't have a sampler. That is what gigastudio and the like are for. Have not seen a good usable sampler yet attached to a synth. (maybe the E-synth though but you have to love E-mu though and pay $$$)I have listened and played everything out there over the last three years and if you are looking for a great all-around synth with great action this is it. The rd-700 is not built ewell and the piano is lacking severely. the RD-600 is far superior in that aspect.The XV series of Roland are ok, this is the best value for the money.The new Kurzweils are not worth the money not to mention the learning curve.
I have owned Kurzweil PX-1000, Korg DSS-1, 01/W Pro-X(still have),Roland FP-8(still one of the greatest great piano sound to this day)and my friend's Kurz 2500XS. This board is as good as it gets for this price and ease of use.