Yamaha P90 stage piano

[ahrho]

Am thinking of buying Yamaha p90 for rehearsals, anyone any experience of these? Seems sturdy enough? (i've seen a cautionary tale in another thread - but electronics is always electronics i guess)

Seems to have a pianolike decent action and to me better piano sounds than the Rolands. Not convinced by eps so much on either though. Gator hard case isn't too heavy, seems odd to me carrying electronics about on wheels but I guess everyone does it...

Any thoughts?

[funk5]

Well, I have plenty of experience with the P120 and thought it was great for acoustic piano. Rhodes wasn't bad and clav was surprisingly good.  It has the same graded hammer action.  I don't know for sure but I think the sounds are pretty much the same minus the speakers on the p90.  Go for it, but are you getting used, because if not I wouldn't pay the money for it new, find a used one and save some cash, or find a yamaha s90 or s90es (bulkier, but better action and you get great pianos, ep's plus a decent synth).

[The Real MC]

I own a P90, it's an excellent board and will meet your needs for rehearsals.  Excellent pianos and EPs.  Even the Hammond is passable.

[sea_king]

the P90 is an awesome piano! i have one except it doesnt work very well.

see my thread here: http://ep-forum.com/smf/index.php?topic=4809

Its strange though, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt, unfortunately i dont know anything about electronics so i cant try to fix it.

I think it will deffinitely suit your needs. In my opinion the acoustic piano sounds are STUNNING, and the EP sounds arent all that bad.

just make sure it works before you bring it home, haha!

[ahrho]

Thanks guys, really helpful info.

Well - i bought it, good condition second hand for a reasonable price at both ends, pleased. Picking it up later in week - looking forward to proper play.

I've got the right midi cable, any advice on getting it talking to Garageband and Cubase for mac? I gave up on an old PSR keyboard a while back which used the same 5 din lead, computer just ignored it totally!

Oh, and edit: what amps are you using? KC series? Or something cheaper just as good?

[The Real MC]

Barbetta 31c.  Sounds fantastic and a lot better than most keyboard combo amps.

[sea_king]

im using a Bheringer K450FX.

[pianotuner steveo]

What are the differences between a P85 and a P90?

I have a P85 and like it a lot...

[sean]

I have a Yamaha P80, and I absolutely adore it.  It is compact and light, and has a simple interface that anybody can use with zero training.  Guest musicians instantly find a voice they like, and change voices when they want, and they can kill the reverb or tremolo in the middle of a melody.  Zero frustration.  The action is awesome, but maybe heavier than most would prefer.

The piano sounds are wonderful, and the other sounds are generally good and useful.  The jazz organ may not be your favorite jazz organ sound, but it is useable.  The four Rhodes sounds cover a variety of playing situations, and I play one of them a lot.  (I wish it had a wurly sound, I wish it had a clav, oh well.)  

The leslie effect on the jazz organ has one awesome feature:  when you switch from the plain jazz organ sound by pushing the "variation" voice button, you can hear the leslie rotor speed up, and when you return to the plain non-vibrato jazz organ voice, you are treated to a delayed transition as the rotor slows down to a stop.  Pretty cool.

The P85 came out with a lower price, and still has 64-note polyphony, and adds built-in speakers!   The P85 has fewer voices (fewer piano varieties, it has vibes, but still TWO harpsichords?), the sequencer has only one track instead of two.  It looks like the P85 can't split the keyboard into two zones.  Can the P85 layer two voices if you push two buttons?  The P80 and P90 can split or layer two voices.

In addition to the midi in and out, the P80 has an interface intended to hook up to your home pc, does the P85 have that?  I have never used it on mine.

There may be other non-obvious cost-saving differences:
There is a subtle and mysterious difference in the language that Yamaha chooses to describe the action on the P85.  It differs from the P80 and P90, but I don't remember if I could tell the difference when I played them in the store.  There is also a slight difference in the description of the sampling technology used, but they all sound mostly identical to human ears.  Maybe the differences in marketing language is simply differences in japanese-english translation choices made by different translaters at different times.

After playing the Yamaha so much, I can't get comfortable playing the Roland actions, and I don't like the Roland piano sounds on their RD-series.

I haven't spent any serious time with a Kurzweil so I can't compare the P80 to their renouned beauties.


Oh, I do hate hate hate that damned wall-wart power supply that the P80 has.  That is the one thing that makes the P80 NOT road-worthy.

[ahrho]

First impressions of P90 - me like...  

A serious piano, action is really not so far off my Yamaha U3 upright (i mean ... not so far anyway). Strong piano sounds, easy interface, 2 track recorder, and cracking double bass was nice surprise.

Thanks SeaKing and The Real MC re amplication: looked into Barbetta 31c but not sure how easy to get over here in UK. Not wild on KCs much, see elsewhere people talking about using stage monitors - hmm, more research...