Yamaha DGX-205 76-Key Portable Keyboard with MIDI and Built-In Song Sequencer

by Yamaha

Product Features

• 76-key portable keyboard with preloaded Yamaha Education Suite IV software
• General MIDI (GM) and XGlite capable for downloading MINI songs and styles
• 487 built-in voices, 10 drum kits, and 2 sound effect kits
• Built-in Flash ROM memory stores up to 99 songs
• 2-way stereo speaker system with digital signal processing

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 51.6 x 21.6 x 10.4 inches ; 45 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 42 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002KSQQ8
• Item model number: DGX-205
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,350 in Musical Instruments (See Top 100 in Musical Instruments)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Start aspiring musicians on the right track with the Yamaha DGX-205 76-key portable keyboard. Designed to accommodate both beginners and serious players, the keyboard is big enough to grow with a student's needs, and its beefed-up Yamaha Education Suite IV gives users a great learning foundation. The software suite includes a host of keyboard lessons and songs for one-hand learning, and then grades your development as you progress. It's easy to learn any of the 30 preloaded songs thank to the Your Tempo mode, which speeds or slows the pace of a song based on your learning speed, literally following you through the song. Once you get accustomed to the notes, you can set the keyboard to a fixed tempo. The DGX-205 also offers a Repeat and Learn button, which goes over a song section repeatedly until you feel comfortable. And to top it off, the Yamaha Education Suite works with standard MIDI files so you can learn the songs that you like. To add songs, simply connect the keyboard to your PC via the convenient USB jack, find the songs on the Internet, and transfer them back to the keyboard.

The Portable Grand function is vital to musicians who appreciate the rich, authentic sound of a well-tuned piano. A single dedicated button produces a great-sounding piano that's exceptionally responsive to your playing touch. The keyboard also includes a wealth of special piano-only styles, such as slow rock and stride, which deliver professional-sounding accompaniment that changes chords as you play the melody on top. Professional musicians will also delight in the professional pitch bend wheel, which allows users to play more expressive brass and string notes. Thankfully, the system doesn't disappoint on the overall audio front either, with a two-way speaker system, bass boost function, digital signal processing, and advanced wave memory all combining to deliver realistic stereo sound with impressive spatial depth.

The DGX-205 comes equipped with 487 voices, including such instruments as trumpet, flute, pan flute, soprano and tenor saxophones, organ, and electric piano, along with 10 drum kits and two sound effect kits. The voices are specially designed to reproduce the natural expression and vibrato of their respective acoustic instruments. The keyboard also includes 135 styles to play along with, providing all the drums, bass, guitar, and horn paths to accompany your rock, big band, and country forays.

Because of its ultra-compatible design, users find it easy to enhance the keyboard's functions. Both General MIDI (GM) and XGlite capable, the keyboard competently reproduces the thousands of MIDI song files available on the Internet. The keyboard also includes a PC button, which takes a snapshot of your MIDI settings so you can return to them in an instant, and a USB port for data transfer. Because the USB port acts as a MIDI interface, you don't need to purchase additional MIDI peripherals to use.

Whether you're a beginner looking to embark on a long keyboard journey or an intermediate player who needs a well-crafted, great-sounding keyboard for recording or performing purposes, the DGX-205 makes an ideal solution.

What's in the Box
DGX-205 keyboard, CD-ROM, music rest, songbook, user's manual.

Product Description

Start aspiring musicians on the right track with the Yamaha DGX-205 76-key portable keyboard. Designed to accommodate both beginners and serious players, the keyboard is big enough to grow with a student's needs, and its beefed-up Yamaha Education Suite IV gives users a great learning foundation. The software suite includes a host of keyboard lessons and songs for one-hand learning, and then grades your development as you progress. It's easy to learn any of the 30 preloaded songs thank to the Your Tempo mode, which speeds or slows the pace of a song based on your learning speed, literally following you through the song. Once you get accustomed to the notes, you can set the keyboard to a fixed tempo. The DGX-205 also offers a Repeat and Learn button, which goes over a song section repeatedly until you feel comfortable. And to top it off, the Yamaha Education Suite works with standard MIDI files so you can learn the songs that you like. To add songs, simply connect the keyboard to your PC via the convenient USB jack, find the songs on the Internet, and transfer them back to the keyboard. The Portable Grand function is vital to musicians who appreciate the rich, authentic sound of a well-tuned piano. A single dedicated button produces a great-sounding piano that's exceptionally responsive to your playing touch. The keyboard also includes a wealth of special piano-only styles, such as slow rock and stride, which deliver professional-sounding accompaniment that changes chords as you play the melody on top. Professional musicians will also delight in the professional pitch bend wheel, which allows users to play more expressive brass and string notes. Thankfully, the system doesn't disappoint on the overall audio front either, with a two-way speaker system, bass boost function, digital signal processing, and advanced wave memory all combining to deliver realistic stereo sound with impressive spatial depth. The DGX-205 comes equipped with 487 voices, including such instruments as trumpet, flute, pan flute, soprano and tenor saxophones, organ, and electric piano, along with 10 drum kits and two sound effect kits. The voices are specially designed to reproduce the natural expression and vibrato of their respective acoustic instruments. The keyboard also includes 135 styles to play along with, providing all the drums, bass, guitar, and horn paths to accompany your rock, big band, and country forays.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Keyboard for beginner and intermediate player, January 16, 2006

By 

T. Sang (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Yamaha DGX-205 76-Key Portable Keyboard with MIDI and Built-In Song Sequencer (Electronics)

I bought this keyboard a month ago for the sole purpose learning piano. I was not aware, at that time, tons of other features that pleasantly surprised me.

This is a "Portable Grand" keybooard, and as the name implies, the piano sound is excellence! It is so realistic my jaw dropped. Even my friends who have played piano before admits the sound is extraordinary (key is touch sensitive for expressive playing too). I plugged (you have to buy the cable yourself tho) it in to my home theatre system (good power 6.1 system). Lo and behold, the low sound like it is coming from the real thing and the high is crystal clear. I can almost hear the sound of the wood hammer on the steel string.

One of the special voices features in the voice database is called "sweet" voices. There are only a few choices available, namely, flute, tenor and soprano sax. These are the ultra realistic, blow your socks off kinda sound. For example, in the sweet soprano sax, if you hold the key down, the sound will become louder as if the sax player is blowing more air into it. You can actually hear the sound of the air rushing through the tube too. The sweet soprano sax actually sound like Kenny G's playing. Yamaha might model the sound after Kenny's. It never fail to amaze me. For the sweet flute sound, the way you play it fast, hard, or light on the keyboard actually give you a different sound and feel.

The cons are the the keyboard does not come with anything. Not even the dang battery charger or USB cable. It does come with a very helpful DVD that features a real Yamaha instructor doing some amazing demonstration on the keyboard. The DVD will cover most of the important features like, voice, style, song and metronome of the keyboard. You will learn and be amazed at the same time. It also come with a CD with driver and sample midi for you to connect the keyboard to the PC.

For less than $300, this is a really good deal for the quality and money. I highly recommended it to anybody who is picking up the hobby.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yamaha makes great keyboards., October 29, 2006

By 

Sara-s (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Yamaha DGX-205 76-Key Portable Keyboard with MIDI and Built-In Song Sequencer (Electronics)

This is a replacement for a 61-key Yamaha keyboard. The other keyboard was such a great starter that I practiced constantly, improving my skills to the point of needing an upgrade.

I bought this model because it is touch-sensitive and has more keys. These features make it possible to play more complex pieces with greater expression. (If you haven't played a touch sensitive keyboard or acoustic piano before, this takes some getting used to, but it's worth it.)

Here are some of the things I love about it;

1) Stereo speakers with separate woofers and tweeters give a rich, realistic sound.

2) Backlit LCD screen is easier to see. Also, since it is quite bright, it reminds me to turn off the keyboard when I am done.

3) There are over 400 musical voices. While I will never use all of them, I have many choices that enable me to find the voice that best suits the mood of the music. (For instance, some of the string voices sound more orchestral and others more like country fiddles.)

4) The voices are remarkably realistic. The wind and brass instruments really sound like air is going through them.

5) The middle-C is marked and the silver body makes it easy to see.

6)You can record a few of your own pieces. This can be very useful if you need to learn to sing a new melody. (As a pianist of modest skill, I can not play and sing along yet.)

It's fun to play and motivates me to spend as much time as posible practicing. I'd much rather spend an afternoon at the piano than in front of the TV.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Amazing Quality and Sound, June 30, 2007

By 

Brian Wallenstein "JACKOFHEARTS" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Yamaha DGX-205 76-Key Portable Keyboard with MIDI and Built-In Song Sequencer (Electronics)

I bought this keyboard during the winter of 2006. I had compared literally 50+ different keyboards but ultimately decided on this one. The price was great and the features were very good. My keyboard arrived a few days later and I was astonished when I hooked it up at how good the sound quality was.

I have owned a Casio keyboard for some time, and after playing this I can definitely hear a MASSIVE difference in sound quality. The Casio keyboard (and most Casios I've used) sound too digital-like and not realistic. If you don't think so, play this keyboard aside your Casio and you'll be surprised. I instantly got hooked on this thing from the minute I used it.

The keys can be put in touch-sensitive mode OR turned to normal mode, where they are not touch-sensitive and are all one volume. This is done simply by pressing the 'Touch' button on the keyboard. The keyboard also has over 400 different sounds, many of which sound absolutely incredible when mixed together. About that-- this keyboard can be put in dual mode where you can play two different notes at once. For example, you can be playing a Grand Piano voice along with a strings voice at the same time. Alternatively, you can play either a single voice at a time or do a split keyboard, where the left half of the keys are one voice and the right are another.

If you buy this keyboard I *HIGHLY* recommend getting a sustain pedal. Sustain pedals are what carry sounds out so all you have to do is press a key once and the sound will last much longer. Also, if you don't have commercial-style headphones (with the thick jack plug thing) then buy an adapter. If you use normal earbud headphones you won't be able to plug them into this keyboard, as the jack will be too big. You'll need to look up "small to big headphone adapter" on Amazon/Google and find one you like.

Buy this keyboard.. You won't regret it. I've had people who own Rolands tell me this sounds better than their $1,200 machines. Score!