Yamaha P515 88-Key Weighted Action Digital Piano, Black

The Yamaha P-515 is so good, my review can't possibly properly describe how excellent it is but I'll give it a whirl. First, the photos on the page here do not do it justice...really. That's right, the keyboard actually looks better in real life. I was stunned. Second, the quality of the hardware is top of line. You can feel it. The chassis of the item is solid. The keys, find an acoustic piano and voila - that's what they feel like. The ports are quality ports and the cables/cords that go in them fit snugly. The buttons and display look and feel great - feel sturdy. The display is clear. The speakers are good. There are some downsides: 1. Extremely heavy. When the box arrives at your door, Surprise!!! Be prepared. Meet the delivery man with his cart with your own cart so you can move it easily within your residence. I mean, heavy-heavy. Wait, 70 pounds isn't so much - try that with an oblong shaped box. It's an experience. Taking it out of the box. (this is good) Well-packed and safe as you will need a knife to open it. There's a piece of cardboard on top of the inside that prevents you from damaging anything inside. But on to another kinda' negative but just advice: when you have it all out of the box, BEFORE you put it on your piano stand, take a look at the bottom of the keyboard and take a photo of the label - it has the model and serial number; if you don't do it now, you'll have to re-lift that heavy keyboard all over again to get the serial number when you register the product (yippee, that's what I had to do - just sayin'). Also, prior to ordering this, make sure to order the Apple Camera adapter with the 2 slots, one for lightning cable, one for usb. The headphone jack is for the larger input so if your headphones have the regular small jack, you'll need to purchase an adapter, i.e., small to large. The P-515 comes with a nice foot pedal but I ordered a 3rd party 3-pedal device (DAOK brand). It works great. Also, you may want to pre-order a music stand light - a nice touch for an item this expensive. As far as making space for this, the Yamaha P-515 is very big and very long. It's not as deep as expected but long. Finally, I purchased a Z-style piano stand with wheels (brand is Plixio). This will be a life saver later on as the keyboard is extremely heavy (did I mention that before?) and moving it would be a struggle - the wheeled stand (on my carpeted floor) is sturdily locked in place; however, it can be unlocked and easily moved if necessary. One final note, I practice with headphones and it sounds great! With the Yamaha app on my iPad, it makes navigating everything very simple. I've had this less than a day so I'll update this if anything odd develops but from what I've witnessed, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Oh yes, I e-mailed Yamaha with a suggestion (remember the serial number on the label on the bottom?) - they responded to me in less than an hour. That's service. Best purchase I've made in years.

Spoiler alert: To get the menu for the 480+ Yamaha-XG voices, hold down the 'Function' key and then press 'Others'. You must already be in the Voice-selection menu (press any of the 6 voice category keys). Easy to miss in the user manual (p. 23). Motivation: My background is electric guitarist who dabbles on the electric bass. I decided that I want to be a skilled piano/keyboard-ist going forward. I am also a programmer who wanted an instrument that I could integrate/utilize with my DAW and maybe write music programs. I am currently a keyboard novice with some knowledge of scales and chords, but no 'piano-dexterity.' This is viewed as a long-term investment. So, I purchased the whole 'outfit': Yamaha p-515 keyboard, stand, 3 pedals, and a separate artificial leather stool. I just wanted a keyboard that had a high-quality wood keyboard, a piano-quality 'feel' and genuine sounding piano sound. After reading about several keyboards offered by Amazon, I thought this would be the best for that. My expectations were overmatched by the 515! I didn't check much into the features until after I placed the order with Amazon. Only then did I read up on all the voices and drum-kits it has. There are 40 voices directly accessible using the 6 categorical selector keys, but the big surprise was that this has hundreds of 'XG' voices as well of all the major categories of instrument types, including about 40 or so percussion sounds. When I got the keyboard, I didn't read the instructions closely, so it took some days before I found the XG voices--hence the spoiler alert above. I suggest downloading the user manual (Amazon has the link on the product's page) as well as all 'data sheets' etc. that Yamaha lists for the P-515. Voice quality: The attached video does not do the voices justice. You will have to hear it for yourself. The piano voices are (near) perfect. The voices selectable from the other buttons are not as impressive--until you dress them up! In particular, there is a duo mode that has 3 different modes: (1) Blend 2 different voices, (2) Split the two voices for the left and right sides of the keyboard, and (3) Blend 2 voices on the right and have a single voice on the left. Blending voices really sounds impressive. The voices under 'Strings' are great for blending with others. I especially like the 'Dark Pad', 'Lite Pad', and 'Bell Pad'. Choose one of them to blend with others such as the 'E.Piano' voices to really get a great sound. Another way to greatly enhance the voices is using the 'Voice' and 'Voice Edit' menus under the 'Function' key. You can choose a type of Reverb (6 types), a type of Chorus (3 types), and a type of Effect (12 types). Selecting any or all of these will not affect the voice until you also set the Reverb-depth, the Chorus depth, and Effect-depth. The maximum setting for each of these is 127 (not '10'). There is also a 'Harmonic content' and a 'Brightness' control (range +/- 63). Using these you can greatly enhance any of the sounds you choose. Even the 'so-so' E.Piano voices come to life once you add Reverb and/or Chorus and maybe a distortion effect. Use the Harmonic content to get more growl or overtones. For reed instruments it makes them sound more like the actual instrument. If you are blending two voices in Duo mode you can select each voice and edit it independently. You can get some really fat sound! The distortion effect is fairly tame, and probably does not affect all voices. It seems that it may work together with the Harmonic content setting. The XG voices mentioned earlier are Yamaha's own. They seem to be of higher quality. You can utilize them any way that you can do with the ones under the category buttons. For the video I used a SYNTH PAD->PolySynthPad with the addition of chorus, reverb, distortion, harmonic content (at 15) and brightness (at 15). It really sounds tremendous in person. Overall the menus are fairly easy to manage once you've been over them a few times. The manual also covers them well. There are a few quirks. For instance you should be able to edit the 'depth' of the Voice->reverb item within the reverb selection itself, but instead you have to detour into the Voice->voice-edit->reverb-depth to do this. Likewise for setting up the depth of chorus, effects, vibe-rotor etc. It can also be tricky to get out of the Song menu that you get into from the 'Play' or 'Record' buttons. Pressing a voice-category button gets you out of 'Song'. The other features: Metronome, beat machine, Bluetooth, USB, MIDI, of the p-515 seem to be maximally functional. It appears that anything you'd normally want to do with these is doable including reading/writing from/to USB as well as interacting with computer digital audio workstation (DAW) software. Importantly, the P-515 allows you to play and record up to 16 MIDI tracks in your own songs. It can save up to 250 songs, with a maximum of 80 minutes each (can ALL 250 songs be that long? I haven't had time to check!). There are many more features. Too many to list. The beat machine can play a bass note along with you and it changes the note is plays to match with your song. The one feature I would like to see, but probably does not exist on any keyboard, is the ability to save the settings for the voices you create. As it is, each time the power is cycled, you will have to re-enter your 'recipe' to recreate it. I just write down the combination of settings I used when I dial-in a favorite sound. Maybe saving to usb would allow a MIDI file reader or DAW to read-out these for future reference. I have not tried it. I guess I need to learn how to use my DAW software. Price point: I read about quite a few other keyboards, both from Yamaha and others and decided that just the realistic piano sound and keyboard feel were worth the money I spent. However, there are other price points to consider. If you search Amazon for the 'Yamaha DGX670B' you can find a section on its page with a comparison between it and the P-515 (and others). The DGX670B seems to be a 'heavy hitter'. It has a more voices, but lacks the P-515's wooden keys and has a pair of 6watt speakers rather that the 515s dual 15watt speakers and 5watt tweeters. It also has an accompanyment mode with 263 styles and comes in at much smaller price. On the 'third hand', if you like Yamaha's 'Bösendorfer Imperial' piano, only the P-515 has it. Anyway, I was not phased by other choices. This keyboard is the one for me. I believe it is the one instrument I will enjoy playing and hearing every day as my new addiction leads me to become an accomplished keyboardist! Finally, I have really enjoyed playing this as a piano as well as 'other instruments'. I have spent hours each day practicing and experimenting with its sounds. Its an addiction that I expect will last for years. Now its YOUR turn.

I have only had the unit for a couple of days so this covers my first impressions. I’m really just a beginner with keyboards though I did used to play a different instrument. I decided to pay quite a bit more than for one of the lower end models like like the P-125 etc. because of the better key action on this unit. This has the same NWX action as some of the Clavinova models. The keys are easy to play along their entire length. I really like whatever material they used for the black keys. The much improved sound engine and better amplifier/speakers are a nice upgrade too as it does sound quite good. One gripe I have so far is that this is very well made except for the pieces of plastic on the left and right sides of the unit. They are a glossy cheap type of plastic that doesn’t really match the more industrial level quality of rest of the unit. They really should have gone with a more durable plastic and charged a little more if needed. It’s not a big enough deal to reduce my rating. The second issue is that it turns out my iPad is not compatible with this keyboard. My iPad is older and only supports up to iOS 9.x. I apparently need iOS 10, so I can't use it. I did not see that you needed a particular iOS version to be able to use their app until I tried to install it. My iPhone is new enough, so I can use that. I don't have the cable to connect my phone yet, so I can't test it. From playing around with the app by itself, it looks like I was able to select a setup that includes which voice I want to use (along with settings for rhythms etc.) and save them then easily recall them. That was really the functionality I was interested in. Selecting voices on the keyboard itself involves pressing buttons over and over to cycle through the voices one at a time. Yamaha should really make an Android version of their iOS app. Casio did that. I would recommend this product for someone who can’t afford or doesn’t have the space for an acoustic piano but wants to get a pretty good approximation. I don’t know that I would say that having a compatible iOS device is essential, but assuming it actually works when the cable arrives, it really makes changing various settings much more convenient.

Note, my 5 star rating is for when the unit was new, and the two years after that. Now into the 4th year, it a solid 1 star, due to premature wear and tear. It isn't very sturdy for the long term, and this fact will stop me COLD, from ever buying a more expensive Clavinova. For the first two years, everything was great. I was getting much enjoyment from the customizable sound, and nice deep action. Then....the dynamics sensors started failing, and the action started getting uneven, some keys weighing slightly less than they should. So now, it really needs to be replaced. That said, I'm a professional classical pianist and I practiced about 2500 hours on it, before the sensors and action started failing. (If you're not familiar with sensor failure, what it means is, if I play a key, the volume is not reliably congruent with the amount of force I use - sometimes if I play very lightly, expecting a pp, I'll get a very jarring FFF instead.) Also the action is uneven, so playing a smooth-sounding scale is pretty much impossible. It's still okay to practice on, to learn new music, and such, but it's no longer something I want other people to hear, since it makes my dynamics sound comically uneven, and jarring harsh at random times. And there's something wrong with the speakers after the 3rd year. The sound has developed some "plastic, toy piano" sounds that give the instrument a very digital and fake sound. Not sure why, but there ya go:) The sound quality degraded over time. Additionally, the triple pedal until also failed after about 1 year. But since it was under warranty at the time, I got a new one for free. Alright.....so what's the plan here? I can get it fixed for about $1200, lol; so no, that's not gonna happen. What I plan to do is buy a new one, (I REALLY like the piano when it's new!) and do all my repetitive work, "plunking out the new music" as I learn new pieces (Liszt Transcendental Etudes, Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto - super advanced stuff) I'll do my grinding out the new music on the old P-515, feeling free to bang the s*** out of it, and buy a new one strictly for honing my dynamics of music I've already learned and practiced to death, performing for friends, family, and my YouTube channel. Bottom line - if you are a professional pianist who is going to be practicing 1200 hours a year on it, you'll need to buy a new one every 2 years or so. Or, you need to buy two of them, and sacrifice one as your workhorse, saving the second for when you already have your material memorized, and just need to refine your dynamics. [UPDATE - July 2023] The keyboard is now almost unplayable. 30 sensors are bad, and it's nerve-wracking to use. So....the P-515 is a 2 year instrument, maybe 3 tops. Just know that before you buy one.

I purchased a Yamaha P515 88-key weighted action digital piano on 11/19/2018 as a Christmas present for my son. The keyboard arrived within a week of my order. I contacted the seller, Kraft-Music the next day, and told them that the front facing panel appeared to have some bubbles under the paint in a couple spots, and that one had chipped off simply by touching it. Ben at Kraft-Music responded within minutes. He offered to replace the entire unit at no cost from me. Additionally, he sent me the replacement unit as soon as he confirmed I shipped the return, instead of waiting for the return to arrive back at his location. This company is the Gold Star in customer service that I think every company should try and emulate. Now for the keyboard. This is a phenomenal musical instrument. My son loves it, and I am actually starting to learn to play as well. My wife sees us playing, and now she wants to learn also. This keyboard is feature rich. I won’t go into all the features in this review, but I will just say that I think this was a far better option for my son and myself, rather than buying a classical piano, at least in this stage of our learning. My son and I really enjoy using different “voices” (instruments) to play the same songs. I love this instrument just as much as my son. I seriously cannot recommend this highly enough for beginners to advanced muscians. Not only is this keyboard feature rich, but the sound is amazing as well. I am in no way affiliated with either Kraft-Music or Yamaha, and I am not being compensated in any way for this review. This is simply straight forward, and honest review, meant for those who have been researching keyboards and pianos, as I did for months.

I am new to piano playing but I quickly outgrew my first keyboard. The P-515 is more than I initially wanted to spend, but I’m so glad I did. The keys are realistic and have a great feel/action. I love the sleek look. I haven’t explored too many of the sound options, but the few I have are confident and easy to use. The speakers are clear and have great sound. With COVID-19, my lessons have been over Skype. My piano teacher said I have the best sounding piano out of all her students. I am 100% pleased with this piano. I will say it is on the heavier side and definitely benefits from two people carrying it, so it would not be the best for consistent travel. But, I did not purchase it for travel so that is not an important factor for me. I would recommend this piano to any beginner like me that is quickly developing a love for piano. Through my research before purchase, I found that this piano will also serve an intermediate student well.

This is Yamaha's new flagship digital piano with many new cool features. I don't normally give five star reviews, this piano is worth 4.5 stars. I have played it for about two days and compared it with my Yamaha P255 (the previous flagship) and think P515 offers a lot more. I am very pleased with the purchase. * Menu and display: The larger display provides better descriptions and the menu design is much easier to navigate. I love the "piano room" button, which provides quick access to piano lid option, tone brightness, reverb, sound environment, resonance, and even half-pedal point. Metronome is easier to adjust too. * Piano voices: The one I love most is the Bosendorfer Imperial Piano sound, available only on P515. The piano room button allows piano lid position adjustment (full, half, closed). The fully opened option gives the feel of playing on a real grand piano vs. P255, which sounds boxy and like the "lid closed" option. Yamaha's CFX Grand sounds much grander when using "lid open" option. There are several other brighter piano sounds for pop music too * Other voices: So many voices to play with. The combo of "function" and "others" keys will bring up hundreds of other fun voices strings, EP, organ, reed, guitar, percussion, etc. * Keys: White keys are wooden and feel premium though generate more clicking noise vs. P255 (all synthetic materials). Black keys have textures so allow better grip vs. P255's all smooth and slippery keys * Speakers: are on the front and facing up so gives more a grand piano sound vs. P255 with speakers in the back * Extra: I tested half-pedaling with FC3A and it worked, though the zone that gives this effect is quite small, perhaps less than an inch. It takes some experiment to get used to it * Weight: Very heavy at 49 lbs, about 11 lbs more than P255--needs a sturdy keyboard stand.

I'm not nearly qualified enough or experienced enough with playing the piano and especially acoustic pianos to give a very thorough review, but I can say that I've enjoyed this keyboard much more than my P-45. Lots of good sounds, ability to record, and other bells and whistles but I mostly was looking for a digital piano with decent speakers, better acoustic piano sampling, and other effects (reverb, etc.) that can help bridge the gap between digital and acoustic for classical music. The only big complaint I've seen from others with this keyboard is clicky keys. The keys are going to make noise - it's not noticeable with the sound of the music at all, nor do I ever find it distracting or notice it. This happens with basically every keyboard and isn't a defect unless it's unbelievably loud. This model is still considered a "portable" digital piano, but it's definitely cumbersome for one person to carry. It's an easy two-person job if you really want to take it somewhere. Is it the best keyboard on the market? No, but compared to other digital pianos, this is the best bang for your buck as you're getting something very close to the CLP-645 for only $1500. After this the only upgrade for me is a nice acoustic upright, but I'll keep my P515 around for many years until it falls apart.