Yamaha DGX-650 Review

Posted by Digital Piano Warehouse in Yamaha Reviews on August 16, 2013 . 1 Comments.

Yamaha DGX-650 Review

Recently added to the Yamaha range is the DGX-650, ‘Portable Grand’ digital piano, as Yamaha like to refer to the DGX series. The first DGX models were introduced several years ago and have steadily evolved and improved as each new model has been developed.

What is the DGX?

The DGX is more than just a standard portable digital piano, and for those of you who are not familiar with the instruments, let me explain.

Most digital pianos generally offer a range of piano tones and a small selection of other keyboard and instrumental sounds. Some people purchase a digital piano after starting on a small keyboard, and while many switch to piano and don’t want or require all the extra sounds and rhythms their keyboard offered, there are those who do. The DGX-650 is aimed at those people…and of course for anyone else who wishes to play the piano and incorporate all the bells and whistles!

DGX-650 first impression

The first striking difference with the new model compared to the previous DGX-640, is that Yamaha has replaced the walnut or cherry wood effect finishes with black or white options, which certainly give the piano a more contemporary look. The DGX-650 comes complete with the stand, power adaptor and a footswitch/sustain pedal. The LP7A piano style 3 pedal option (complete with a wooden panel to attach it to the stand) is also available and can be added at any time. I would have to say that the 3 pedal option is a worthwhile addition and much better than the single switch style pedal supplied with the instrument, which usually ends up sliding all over the place when you’re trying to use it! Half pedaling is also supported when using the LP7A, which is much more like a traditional acoustic piano, where as the basic pedal supplied with the DGX-650 does not enable half pedaling.

DGX as a piano

The power up tone of the DGX series has always been the main grand piano, or ‘Natural! Grand Piano’ as Yamaha like to call it. In the past the sound has been a little disappointing when compared with the other Yamaha portable digital pianos such as the P95/105. To me, the sound was always much more like an improved version of that found on their lower priced keyboards. This time however, things are very different. Using their PureCF sampling technology (recording the sound digitally from the Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand piano) they have managed to upgrade the sound so it is much more comparable to their P-series portable pianos. The forward facing speaker system has also been upgraded from the previous model, and I have to say the overall sound is pretty good and much more of the quality I would expect at this price range. I should also add that damper resonance is also added to the sound when using the sustain pedal, although this only applies to the Natural! Grand Piano sound. The keyboard action is Yamaha’s GHS (graded action standard) which means it is heavier at the bass end and gets progressively lighter as you move up the keyboard, similar to an acoustic piano. The GHS keyboard is used in several of the lower priced Yamaha pianos and although their most basic weighted action, it is certainly very acceptable at this price range. The polyphony, or how many notes can sound at once has been doubled to 128 which is a great improvement and means when playing using the sustain pedal, notes don’t cut off too quickly.

The touch sensitivity is factory set at medium level which gives a very reasonable playing feel across the whole keyboard. It can however be adjusted to soft, hard or fixed. This enables the player to alter the touch to suit their playing style or with the fixed setting, switch it off completely.

Not just a digital piano

As I have already mentioned the DGX-650 is much more than just a piano, so let’s delve a bit deeper and take a look at some of the other sounds and features.

The layout of the DGX-650 follows that of most keyboards, a central LCD display and a numbered keypad and data wheel for entering information to call up sounds, accompaniment styles, songs and other functions. To select any of the sounds you simply tap in the corresponding number and the sound name is shown on the screen. Naturally with over 500 sounds to choose from there is not room to list them all on the panel, but Yamaha has sensibly included sound categories for easier selection. A complete sound list is included with the owner’s manual. The first three categories are piano, electric piano, and organ, and there are some great sounds including several more grand piano tones such as ‘Live Pop Grand Piano’ and a more mellow ‘Live Warm Grand Piano’.

Moving on, there are several electric piano sounds which are pretty good, as well as several organ sounds from classical to jazz. There are 35 sounds in the first 3 categories alone, making it impossible for me to mention them all, but I have to say they are generally up to Yamaha’s usual high standard.

There are another 14 categories covering most, if not all the instrumental sounds you could ever want, including some great guitar, bass, string, choir, brass and woodwind sounds. Yamaha has also included a range of their Live! Sweet! and Cool! sounds. These are tones that have been recorded with extra detail for greater realism. Sweet! sounds include tenor and soprano sax, flute, pan flute, clarinet and they sound great, especially when you consider we’re not looking at a top of the range product here. As well as standard instrumental tones there is a range synthesizer sounds, SFX’s and drums.

To add further to the flexibility of the DGX-650, two sounds can be played together using the dual function, and the volume of each sound can be adjusted. There is also a split function enabling the keyboard to be divided at any point and a different sound to be played on each section. You could for example play a bass sound in the left part and piano on the right, and it’s also possible to use the dual and split functions simultaneously. Once you have gone to the trouble of setting up the sounds, all the information can be stored in one of 32 memory locations, for instant recall at any time. I should also point out that many other functions can also be stored in the memory along with the sounds for instant recall, and all this information can be stored on a USB drive should you wish for safe keeping.

Accompaniment Styles

The next major part of the DGX-650 is the style section. There are 195 preset rhythm styles each with two variations as well as an intro, fill-in and ending. As usual the accompaniments cover a wide range of music from modern club and dance styles through traditional and Latin. There is also a selection of typical piano style accompaniments such as boogie-woogie, piano blues and ragtime. Selecting the styles is exactly the same as with the sounds, press the style button and tap in the number. Yamaha are very good at programming accompaniment styles, and although not up to the level of their top of the range keyboards costing several thousand dollars, these are certainly very good for an instrument at this price point. Additional styles can also be added via USB, so if for example you like country music, you could add more country styles. Anyone looking at the DGX-650 as a trade up from a keyboard will understand how styles work, but for those of you who aren’t familiar let me briefly explain. Selecting the style function, splits the keyboard into two sections, the currently selected sound will play in the right part and the left section controls the accompaniment. Simply by playing a three or four note chord, or even 1 or 2 fingers in the most basic setting, the keyboard will produce drums, bass and musical accompaniment in the chosen style. As you change chord, the accompaniment pattern will follow. This is the default setting for the accompaniment feature, but Yamaha has also included their Multi-Finger system. In this mode, the keyboard is not split and the chords to trigger the accompaniment can be played anywhere on the keyboard and split between both hands. Because both hands are being analyzed, far more complex chords can be played.

As a pianist and keyboard player for many years, I know the difficulty many pianists encounter when trying to play with styles. The main problem has always been having to use the split keyboard method, which is totally different to regular piano playing. The Multi-finger system certainly goes a long way to alleviate this problem.

This is all very good, but what if you don’t actually know which style to use? Well, Yamaha has included a new feature on the DGX-650 called ‘Style Recommender’

This function provides a selection of appropriate styles based on a few measures of rhythmic playing on the keys or by tapping out the rhythm of the song as a drum beat on the lowest few notes of the keyboard. After a few seconds a suitable accompaniment style will start, and a list of alternatives will also be displayed on the screen. Once you have found the best one for your song, press the Exit button and play. Another new feature is Smart Chord, which put in simple terms, turns basic single finger left hand chords into more sophisticated harmonies based on the key and a style of music. Once the player has input this information, the notes controlling the accompaniment section are reprogrammed with chords that would typically be used in the selected playing style. So if using the Jazz setting for example, the C note will provide a CM79 chord, the D note plays a Dm79 chord. This feature will certainly enable you to play sophisticated accompaniment harmonies with just one finger, but it may take a bit of getting used to. There are five variations available, and the most appropriate is automatically selected to match the accompaniment style being used. The chord variations for each Smart Chord style are listed in the owner’s manual.

All the other usual Yamaha Style related features are also included, such as One Touch Setting (OTS) and Music Database. OTS will select an appropriate sound for the keyboard based on the selected style, and Music Database will set the keyboard with the appropriate sounds and accompaniment style based on a range of 305 popular song titles.

As well as styles, the DGX-650 has a library of 100 inbuilt songs. Some are demonstration tunes to highlight the sounds and styles of the keyboard and others are designed to be used with the inbuilt learning features. The musical notation for the songs is shown on the screen and the 3 step Y.E.S (Yamaha Education Suite) tuition facility will get you playing a basic song in no time at all. Certainly no substitute for lessons, but great fun! Additional songs can also be imported from a USB flash drive. Yamaha produce a vast range of high quality song files, and there are also many other suppliers.

It is also possible to record your own playing, and this is another area where things have improved. As well as digital multi track recording, Yamaha has also included USB Audio recording for the first time on a DGX product. This stores your song as a .wav file which means it can then be emailed, transferred to an iPod, or even put on YouTube! I think this is a great feature, and I don’t know of many other lower priced digital pianos that have audio recording built in. An input for MP3 or CD players has also been added to enable you to play along to your favorite songs, and it is also possible to add external amplification (using the headphone socket) without cutting the sound from the internal speakers, should you wish. A great improvement over the previous DGX-640. A USB socket for connection to a computer is also included.

Having played the new DGX-650 for a couple of hours, what do I think?

Well, it’s not perfect, but then most instruments never are, however Yamaha has certainly done its homework and made some great improvements over the old model. The piano sound, whilst still not quite as good as a regular digital piano, is certainly much improved. The new features are certainly worthwhile additions, particularly the USB audio recording facility. If you're looking for a regular digital piano, the DGX-650 is probably not the instrument for you. But I know of many families where one member wants to learn traditional piano and another just wants to play for fun. If this is you, the DGX-650 may well be the instrument to get you started on your piano playing journey.

Pros