Description
If you play music for a living, you deserve a digital piano that offers the finest selection of acoustic pianos, organs, electric pianos and other essential keyboard sounds. You deserve a hammer-action keyboard that’s so smooth and responsive it feels just like a real piano.
You deserve comprehensive master controller functions and full XG MIDI implementation for connecting to computers, synth modules and other equipment in your musical arsenal. You deserve the P-250.
Full Description
The Most Realistic Feel
When it comes to realistic acoustic piano action, the P-250 really makes the grade. It employs Yamaha’s acclaimed Graded-Hammer Effect keyboard, developed with Yamaha’s over 100 years of acoustic piano expertise, to thoroughly emulate the responsive touch and resistance of the real thing. Just as on an acoustic piano, this 88-note keyboard has a heavier touch in the lower registers, which gradually gets lighter as you play up the keys. It’s only competition is, well, an acoustic piano.
Of course, not all keyboard players play alike. Accordingly, you can adjust the keyboard sensitivity to match your own playing style. Other parameters such as soft pedal depth, string resonance, and tuning scale can also be modified as desired.
The Most Realistic Sounds
What good would realistic piano action be if the triggered sounds weren’t just as authentic? Thanks to Yamaha’s Dynamic Sampling technology, the acoustic piano voices onboard the P-250 are as close to the real thing as you can get. Most of them use three layers of piano samples-mezzo forte, forte and fortissimo-each set at a different velocity. What this means in real terms is that when you press a key lightly, you get a sample of a piano played mezzo forte, and the harder you play, the louder and richer the tone becomes. But the realism doesn’t stop there, there’s also a fourth sample layer that simulates the resonance of a piano’s soundboard and strings when the damper pedal is pressed, and key-off samples that add the subtle sound piano keys make when they are released. What’s more, the P-250 gives you a massive 128 notes of polyphony, so you’ll almost never experience note dropout, even when playing long sustaining passages.
Versatile Pedalling Capability
The newly designed footswitch included with the P-250 can emulate the soft pedaling effects of an acoustic piano. Four pedal jacks are provided for a variety of different pedaling capabilities, including sostenuto, soft, sustain and expression.
Ultra Expressive Voices
In addition to its remarkable acoustic piano voices, the P-250 is equipped with 30 sample banks containing all the essential sounds for the stage, including a full range of classic and contemporary electric pianos, organs and tuned percussion as well as strings, choirs, guitars and basses. Its 48MB wave ROM also packs a complete set of high-quality XG MIDI voices, covering everything from orchestral instruments and synthesizers to ethnic instruments, drums and sound effects-over 480 XG voices in all.
Features
Size/Weight | |
Dimensions | |
Width: | 1,391mm (54 3/4″) |
Height: | 170mm (6 2/3″) |
Depth: | 460mm (18 1/10″) |
Weight: | 32.5kg (70.6lbs.) |
Control Interface | |
Keyboard | |
Number of Keys: | 88 |
Type: | Granded Hammer Effect Keyboard |
Other Controllers | |
Pitch Bend: | Yes |
Modulation: | Yes |
Control Slider: | Volume Slider |
Display | |
Type: | 24-character x 2-line LCD |
Backlight: | Yes |
Voices | |
Tone Generation | |
Technology: | AWM |
Dynamic Levels: | 3-layer Dynamic Stereo Sampling |
Polyphony | |
Number: | Max. 128 notes |
Preset | |
Number of Voices: | 45 voices |
Performance voices: | 32 performances x max. 135 files |
XG voices: | 480 voices + 12 drum kits |
Reviews
Keyboard Magazine August 2005
Don’t you love that unmistakable feeling of sitting down at a gorgeous Bosendorfer or Hamburg Steinway and thinking that it could be an amazing instrument for that next gig? At least until reality sets in and you realize you’re short a couple hundred G’s, a road crew, and a professional tuner. Thank goodness for electronic stage pianos, instruments that seek to give a similar experience, but with superior portability, lower cost, and lots of nifty features to boot.
Sit down at the Yamaha P250, turn up the built-in speakers, close your eyes, and feel the piano envy slip away. A solid, fun, all-in-one instrument, the P250 combines a well-crafted piano action with excellent sounds, a 16-track sequencer, and MIDI controller capabilities.
The P250 is an expressive, intuitive instrument that will delight many players. If a truly acoustic feel is what you’re after, and you can haul this reasonably hefty axe, it’s worth a serious look. The built-in speakers and ease of use also make it a strong candidate for technological newbies, players who gig in smaller venues, and folks who just don’t want to deal with external amplifiers. Not to say the P250 won’t find a home with touring pros – many road warriors will continue to favor it for its mix of authentic piano mimicry and relative portability.
If a stage piano with built-in speakers is truly what you’re after, you might also consider laying your fingers on the slimmer Casio Previa PX300 and the Roland FP-5 as part of your search, though the P250’s combination of power and quality sound will be hard to top. And if internal speakers aren’t that big a deal, the RD-700SX also presents an appealing package – see Keyboard’s April ’05 issue for a full review.
With strong piano sounds, touch, and amplification, I think the P250 lives up to Yamaha’s claims. If you’re in the market for a stage piano, be sure to give this one a whirl and see if it doesn’t make that piano envy disappear.
https://ryderecordingstudio.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Yamaha-P250-Manual.pdf