Customer Reviews

Yamaha DGX620AD 88 Key Electronic Keyboard with Graded Hammer Action

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great keyboard for the money. Packed with cool features, especially for students. First, the keys are nicely weighted so that switching from this keyboard to an acoustic one is transparent.

The piano comes bundled with 100 or so lessons, that is tunes you can play along, either with or without accompaniment. Although I don't think this will teach you how to play, it is a nice complement to a teacher. When you're done with your scales and arpeggios, treat yourself to some rock, boogie woogie or bossa nova. These lessons go from easy to very advanced.

The piano sound is about as good as they get. Much better in my view than other keyboards at similar or higher prices.

The USB connector is another awesome feature. You can download tunes from just anybody (there are dozens of people who share their compositions out there). The keyboard will display the score for you so you can learn from others. You can also record yourself and view your create your own music sheet. That's hours of fun guaranteed.

The styles are fun to play with. Even while playing scales, it is more fun with a jazz beat than it is with a metronome, and it's more real too. This keyboard is really all you need to get going. I actually think you won't find better at this price or even 50% more. This is easily a 5 star.

There are a few cons with this:

Do plan on buying a new sustain pedal. The one that comes in the box is inadequate.

The keys are somewhat loud, esp when playing fast exercises (like scales). If you can, try it out somewhere with the volume all the way down and see if it's a problem for you.

The pitch wheel is more or less a joke.

The software's a bit slow. Recording in particular. When done recording, it takes about 30 secs before you can do anything. Displaying a score takes about the same amount of time. Not a big deal, however.

It doesn't look as nice as some of the higher end keyboards. In other words, it's not black.

You cannot play a style without accompaniment while recording. So if you want to record your own bass for example, you'll have to record your own drums too. Overall, the recording feature is simple compared to many synthesizer, but it is superior to many digital pianos.

I love my Yamaha DGX-620. I have it paired with my DGX-500, and feel there are a few minor things which don't get in the way. Namely the fact that you cannot connect the two keyboards via MIDI/XG cables. The 500 has standard MIDI ports, whereas the 620 has only USB ports. Other than that, I feel the two keyboards complement each other very well. They look and sound great together.

I've owned and played other keyboards in my life, but none of them compare to the 620. I love the fully weighted graded hammer action keys. That's one feature that not even the 500 sports. I've connected my Sandisk Cruzer Titanium to the input USB jack on the 620, On the Cruzer, I have my entire MIDI and XG music library. I feel the external flash drive which I use with my 620 is far better than the floppy drive on the 500.

I also would like to point out the difference between the two keyboards as far as file names are concerned. The 500 does not sport the compatibility for long file names. You can only use up to eight characters per song name on the floppies. I find this particularly cryptic when it comes to the style and voice names on it.

On the other hand, the 620 is compatible with long file names. Not only does it give you long file names for the song files, it also gives you complete names and graphic representations of all of the voices. Non cryptic names are also employed on the 620 as far as styles and other features are concerned.

I also love the 620's display. Of course it does not show each and every note and chord you play. However, it shows you your song, style, voice and Music Database selections on the main screen. In addition, the display is a big part of the demonstration function.

The graphic representations of the voices are really cool. It gives you virtually a different graphic for each and every voice. I noticed this particular feature the first time I turned on my 620. This gives you not only the complete name and number for each voice, but also imagery of the voice.

Another feature that I love on the 620, which the 500 does not have, is the keypad and dial combo. I feel this combo, combined with the great GUI interface on the display, is a far cry from the 500 and older keyboards.

I also love the deeper and more resonant bass response of the speakers on the 620. Not to mention the speaker cones are a snazzy white. The deeper more resonant bass response, combined with the powerful amplification, gives the 620 far better sound than most earlier keyboards.

I also love the score feature. On the upside, it shows you chords, melodies, measures, and just about everything. On the downside, when you record a song to the user song slots, you cannot use the score button to see your recorded score immediately. You must copy the song to an external drive as a MIDI track to do so.

If you play piano, and want a great digital piano, combined with the versatility of an electronic keyboard, get your hands on a Yamaha DGX-620 today. It's the kind of instrument that will go and grow with you far into the future.

I agree with a previous reviewer who said that this is a good keyboard for the money. There's a wealth of features here. On the other hand, I've encountered one disappointing limitation: Yamaha Technical Support confirms that files generated by the Yamaha DGX620B are in a proprietary format that is recognized only by the DGX620B. There is currently no computer software that can convert these files into midi format, and consequently no way of importing the data in such a file into a notation program.

I hope this will be a helpful clarification to P.M. Feldman's comment that DGX-620B saves only to proprietary non-MIDI format, which I believe is not fully correct. Page 94 of the User's Manual (available free online from yamaha) describes how to Convert a user song to SMF (Standard MIDI File) format and save to a USB flash drive. In this way it is possible to compose your own song with multiple voices, and save it to to MIDI format for use on a computer or other MIDI devices (and this applies to the 520 620 525 625 models, and similar function is available on the DGX 505 as well). I hope this helps!

I bought the Yamaha DGX620 for my 4 1/2 years old daughter who's taking piano lessons for 2 years now. She really likes the piano especially the different sounds effects. Sometimes, she records her piano practice and then play back for her to listen. (great tool). The sounds was very nice comparing to the one we previously owned($150 Yamaha brand bought 15 years ago). Another reason we choose this one is because it doesn't take too much space and very easy to assemble.