Yamaha Keyboards include 61-key, 76-key, and 88-key keyboard instruments categorized under various series such as PSS, EZ, PSR-E, PSR-EW, PSR-I, PSR-SX, SHS, and more. These series of keyboards serve different needs; they differ in features, the number of keys, tonal quality, and also in price. Yamaha also regularly updates its various keyboard lines to keep them up-to-date and in line with the latest digital trends and changing customer needs.
Introduction to Yamaha Keyboards
Yamaha has come a long way from being just the producer of entry-level keyboards and pianos, and today has perhaps the widest range of musical instruments for learners as well as professionals.
Beginners, looking for a learning instrument, have always favored the Yamaha brand because of their excellent quality, great instrument sounds, and ease of setup.
They have significantly ramped up their professional offerings as well, and even professionals who are looking for cutting-edge features that give them more control over their sounds, look towards the Yamaha brand.
There are very few brands out there that manufacture such a wide range of musical instruments and recording equipment, that are admired both by professionals as well as students.
If you are looking for a portable beginner keyboard or piano, a digital home piano in the traditional piano looks, a lightweight synth to supplement your main board, or a full-fledged professional arranger or studio workstation, you will find it here. Yamaha makes keyboards and pianos, professional synths, workstations, and more.
So, it’s very likely that your first music keyboard will be a Yamaha keyboard.
If you’re a beginner, you should ideally buy a beginner keyboard with at least 61 keys if you are serious about learning to play the keyboard so that you can use your left hand to play the harmony (chords) and your right hand to play the melody.
You should also ideally buy a keyboard with touch/velocity-sensitive keys, which makes the keyboard respond to how hard the keys are pressed; it enables one to play songs with expressions and that’s the way the keys on a real piano are also built. On most electronic keyboards, you can change the level of sensitivity.
All Yamaha keyboards come with touch response keys (except the mini-sized keyboards). You can opt for a Yamaha lighted keyboard (61 keys) or a keyboard from the Yamaha PSR-E series (61 keys). You can even opt for a 76-key keyboard from the Yamaha PSR-EW series as they are not really very expensive.
Intermediate and advanced players can consider the higher-end models in the Yamaha PSR series, Yamaha synths, and workstations.
Related: Reviews of Bestselling Yamaha Keyboards
Yamaha’s Keyboard Line-Up
Yamaha’s keyboard instruments are categorized under various series, each targeting a different audience.
Yamaha Arranger Keyboards (Beginners and Intermediate)
The Yamaha PSR series has been around for a long time, and it is where you will find most of Yamaha’s arranger keyboards.
An arranger keyboard comes with several sounds (pianos, guitar, strings, and more), musical styles. built-in songs and also have recording functions. These are affordable, lightweight, and come with everything that a beginner needs to enjoy playing music, as well as to make music.
These are perfect starter keyboards that beginners can use to learn to play the keyboards.
As a child, in the 90s, I first learned to play the keyboards on a Yamaha PSR keyboard (I have owned the PSR-420, PSR-520, and the PSR-550 models at some point of time).
Yamaha is known to upgrade their PSR keyboard range every 18 to 24 months in order to incorporate better features and the latest technology.
It means, that even the beginner keyboard models in the psr series will have better features and capabilities compared to the flagship Yamaha keyboard from a couple of decades earlier (assuming you’re still holding on to one). And that keyboard, which probably may have cost you a couple of thousand dollars back then will now be available for only a few hundred dollars.
The PSR series have always been geared towards beginners, although the series now includes high-end keyboards as well. Today, the range of the PSR series has also grown tremendously, besides having beginner keyboards/learning keyboards, the series also has several performance keyboards.
That is the reason, why Yamaha has further segregated the PSR series as PSR-E, PSR-EW and PSR-SX.
Yamaha PSR-E Series (61-key Keyboards)
This series includes 61-key arranger keyboards (with non-weighted keys) for beginners and intermediate keyboard players. This is a popular series in the 5-octaves or 61 keys category of digital keyboards, mainly because of their high-quality sounds, even in entry-level keyboards. These keyboards are meant to enrich and educate the beginners. Read more on Yamaha PSR-E Series keyboards here.
Yamaha PSR-EW Series (76-key Keyboards)
These are 76-key keyboards with non-weighted keys, for beginners and intermediate-level players. The advantage of having more number of keys is that it allows you to learn more types of songs. The 76-key keyboards have the prefix PSR-EW, where the ‘W’ indicates it’s more of a workstation (for beginners though). The 76-key keyboards, in general, are referred to as the PSR-EW series. Read more on Yamaha PSR-EW Series keyboards here.
Related: Reviews of Bestselling Yamaha Keyboards
Yamaha EZ Lighted Keyboards (61 Keys)
These are portable 61-key keyboards with lighted-keys. The keyboards have touch-sensitive keys and they light up, making it easier to learn songs. It’s designed for beginners and will appeal more to kids and growing children (the overall quality is good enough for adults as well). The lighted keys make learning to play electronic keyboards fun and easy. Read more on Yamaha EZ Series: 61-Key Lighted Keyboards here.
Yamaha Grand Keyboards (76 and 88 Keys)
In the past, Yamaha had the DGX and YPG series which included 76 and 88 key arranger keyboards (some models had fully weighted keys). However, most of the keyboards in this series have now been discontinued due to the introduction of the PSR-EW series and because Yamaha has expanded its offerings in its digital pianos.
The Yamaha DGX arranger keyboards come with 76 and 88 weighted piano keys. These are the best recreational digital pianos for beginners and intermediate players combining excellent piano sounds with loads of features and are available at an excellent price. Read more on Yamaha DGX Series arrangers here.
Yamaha Mini Keyboards
Yamaha also makes mini-sized keyboards (Yamaha PSS series) with fewer keys for the earliest beginners. These are extremely portable, and also easier to carry to school for lessons.
Pros & Cons of Yamaha Beginner Arranger Keyboards
The Good
- Ideal ‘First Keyboards’ for young musicians Learning to Play. YES system – A comprehensive built-in music-teaching system for beginners.
- Highly regarded brand
- Superior sound – be it acoustic instruments or synth sounds, the quality is just too good. Superb range of built-in accompaniments as well.
- Arguably the best range of arrangers in the market
- Good accessories to complement them
The Bad
- There are cheaper beginner keyboards available from other brands
- The bundled accessories usually are of okay quality
- These keyboards do not come with fully weighted keys (you need a digital piano for that). While these keyboards are great for learning to play the keyboards, piano teachers recommend that you use a keyboard with weighted keys if you are really serious about learning to play the piano and wish to develop proper piano-playing techniques right from the beginning. However, keyboards with weighted keys are heavy and cost more.
Highlights of these arranger keyboards:
- These come with hundreds of instrument sounds, rhythms, songs. The PSR-E and PSR-EW keyboards feature touch-sensitive keys, use better sound samples, and have features such as USB to HOST audio and MIDI connectivity, onboard lesson functions.
- Comes with Yamaha Education Suite (Y.E.S.) which includes a series of lessons serving as a great aid for learning how to play, it allows beginners to learn at their own pace. It offers piano exercises & lessons to train both your hands at various levels of complexity. There are enough built-in songs to help you hone your skills and it has a grading mechanism as well to grade your performance.
- Casio’s CTK series keyboards compete with the entry-level keyboards in the Yamaha PSR series
Yamaha has never offered the cheapest instruments because it offers better build and sound quality compared to its competitors.
The premium you pay for a Yamaha keyboard instrument is for the high-quality samples and built-in speakers. Just pick up any keyboard from the PSR-E series and compare it with another competing brand and you can immediately hear the difference in sound quality.
Yamaha also keeps on introducing innovative features in its products.
Even if you take a mid-level arranger, you will find high-quality samples, styles based on a wide variety of genres, and a sequencer that enables you to record your own songs and performances.
The variety and number of accompaniments will suit just about any style of musician and is ideal for expanding your knowledge of world music. The various features and built-in recording function helps understand music production.
If you have been focusing solely on western music and styles for a long time, these arrangers will ensure you have plenty of material to focus on music from other parts of the world as well. Yamaha keyboards are quite versatile and will help you develop well-rounded music abilities.
Even the most basic electronic keyboards nowadays come with 61 keys, hundreds of voices and styles, midi, etc. So If this is going to be your first electronic keyboard, it’s best to stick to your budget and not get tempted by the higher models. It’s better to spend the extra cash on keyboard/piano lessons.
If you’re looking for more options, then you may want to check out the best portable keyboard for beginners & hobbyists under 200 dollars.
Yamaha Arranger Keyboards vs. Competition
Yamaha arranger keyboards (for beginners) face competition from the likes of Casio, RockJam, and a few other brands that have emerged in recent years.
While the keyboards from competing brands are cheaper, the sound quality of those keyboards is not at all inspiring.
Also, there are not many companies offer affordable 76-key keyboards for beginners and intermediate players, such as Yamaha’s PSR-EW series.
Yamaha Digital Pianos
Yamaha has a wide selection of excellent digital pianos as well. Yamaha’s experience in making acoustic pianos definitely gives them an edge, and that is reflected in their digital pianos, in terms of their sound and feel.
In the more expensive models, the weighted keys of Yamaha digital pianos definitely feel much better and closer to the real acoustic ones.
Yamaha makes excellent portable digital pianos (P series) as well as upright digital pianos (Arius series). These feature 88-keys, Yamaha’s Graded Hammer Standard (GHS) keyboard action, USB/MIDI connectivity, and offer more features. Checkout all Yamaha Digital Pianos here.
Besides digital pianos, Yamaha also offers a range of classic upright and grand pianos. Checkout Yamaha’s entire range of pianos here.
Yamaha Professional Keyboards
The Yamaha portable keyboards mentioned above are great for beginners to learn to play the keyboards, and should keep them occupied for a few years, after which one should ideally consider investing in a more expensive keyboard model.
Yamaha is one of the few music gear brands that make impressive arranger keyboards, digital pianos, synth keyboards, and keyboard controllers for the professional player as well.
Yamaha pro keyboards use excellent sound samples, have excellent built-in speakers, and offer many more features for the performing musician. Yamaha pro arrangers are great for “one-man bands” in particular. You can also choose from a range of Yamaha keyboard synthesizers, if you’re interested in music production capabilities.
There’s also a huge difference in price between the beginner keyboard models and these pro keyboards.
Yamaha Arranger Workstations (PSR-SX, Genos)
Yamaha PSR-SX series includes high-end arranger workstation keyboards that are much more powerful than the models in the PSR-E and PSR-EW series.
These 61-key keyboards come with the hottest accompaniment styles and several pro features that are aimed at intermediate and advanced-level players, pros, and working musicians.
These high-end keyboards are great for one-man-band situations and even for use in the studio.
Read more on Yamaha Arranger Workstation Keyboards here.
Yamaha Stage Keyboards and Synthesizers
Yamaha has top-class synths, workstations, and stage keyboards for the professional/working musician.
Yamaha synthesizers include a rich collection of analog as well as acoustic sounds and can be used for any type of music production. These come with control knobs that can be used to shape out sounds on the fly by adding several effects, changing filter settings, and so on. Yamaha’s entry and mid-level performance synthesizers sound like a million bucks but are a lot more affordable. Read more on Yamaha Performance Synthesizers.
In the high-end keyboards, Yamaha faces competition from the likes of Roland, Korg, and Nord. Korg’s PA series of arranger keyboards are popular among the music fraternity. In general, Korg and Roland also offer good products for professional music production. Korg and Roland however do not offer many options for intermediate-level musicians.
Yamaha Keyboard Accessories
You need accessories to get more out of your keyboard instrument and to enhance your playing experience.
While some Yamaha keyboards may come bundled with accessories such as an adapter or a keyboard stand, not all keyboards may offer bundled accessories.
Yamaha also offers a wide range of Piano and Keyboard Accessories including Keyboard Stands, Benches, Sustain Pedals, Power Adapters, Bags & Cases, and more.
Chckout Yamaha Keyboard Accessories here.
Yamaha Keyboards: Buying Guide
Yamaha has been making acoustic pianos for several decades and they also have a formidable line-up of recording instruments. So Yamaha is in the best position to provide the best of both worlds in their digital keyboard instruments. Yamaha digital keyboard instruments use recorded sound samples taken from their best acoustic instruments, including pianos.
Almost all the Yamaha keyboards contain the standard musical keyboard features like:
- Sounds, Accompaniments, Digital Effects
- Sequencer – for recording your own music
- Built-in Speakers
- External Connectivity – Headphone, Pedals, MIDI, USB
In addition to the above features, Yamaha keyboards come with certain other features that are aimed at learning and mastering the instrument. Anyone who is genuinely interested in improving his skills will find these features extremely useful.
Contemporary features
Recording features and the ability to be connected to external and bigger monitors are becoming quite common, and are offered on almost all the Yamaha music keyboard instruments.
These keyboards also come with options such as Midi, USB to Host / storage and various line-ins / outs. You can connect your keyboard instrument to a wide range of electronic and digital devices ranging from amplifiers, computers to iPads.
Some of the top end Yamaha music keyboards and pianos are even designed for synchronized recording and playback with external devices such as multi-track recording equipment and video cameras. Now you can easily create audio/visual recordings or full motion videos of your performances, with instrument sounds directly from your own Yamaha piano keyboard.
Popular Artists
The popularity of Yamaha keyboard instruments can be gauged from the fact that some of the top musicians/artists chose to play them.
Here are just some of the names that use Yamaha keyboard instruments.
Sara Bareilles . Jamie Cullum . Phil Vassar . Diane Birch . John Legend . James Blunt . Michael McDonald . David Bryan . John Ondrasik . Natalie Cole . Isaac Slade
Competition Check
Buyers consider various factors such as price, value-for-money, quality of sounds, and so on, before buying a musical instrument. Here are some of the brands that compete with Yamaha when it comes to providing the best, in specific keyboard categories.
| Keyboard Categories | Brands |
|---|---|
| Entry-Level Portable Keyboards | Yamaha, Casio, RockJam |
| Mid-Level Arranger Keyboards | Yamaha, Casio, Korg, Roland |
| Professional Arranger Keyboards | Yamaha, Korg, Roland |
| Entry-Level Portable Piano / 88-key keyboards | Yamaha, Casio, Roland, Korg |
| Mid-Level Portable Piano | Yamaha, Casio, Roland, Korg, M-Audio |
| High-End Portable Piano | Yamaha, Roland, Kawai, Kurwzweil |
| Traditional Home Pianos | Yamaha, Casio, Roland, Kawai, Suzuki |
Yamaha also makes high-end pianos that offer a combination of looks, value, and quality, for those who demand style, along with exceptional sound and build quality.
Useful Features – Yamaha Electronic Keyboard
Yamaha Music Keyboards: Learn about their products and features, and what makes them so popular. Their products are technologically innovative and also up-to-date with the latest in digital trends.
Products that may be phased out in future
- Yamaha YPT Series: 61-Key Arrangers: These are entry-level portable arrangers with 61-keys, suitable for beginners and intermediate-level players.
- Difference between Yamaha DGX and YPG Series: Understand the difference between Yamaha’s grand keyboard series – the DGX and YPG keyboard models.
To sum it up, Yamaha is the only brand that has a range of keyboard instruments that can cater to the needs of a wide range of keyboard players – beginners as well as expert players. A huge amount of skill and workmanship goes into making these instruments, so these may not be the cheapest, in case you’re a beginner looking for an affordable keyboard/piano to begin learning. However, a Yamaha musical keyboard is definitely a worthwhile investment if you are serious about learning to play the keyboard instrument. There are several keyboard models to suit different budgets, but remember, you do not really need a fully loaded electronic keyboard in the early stages of learning.
KeytarHQ editorial team includes musicians who write and review products for pianists, keyboardists, guitarists & other musicians. KeytarHQ is the best online resource for information on keyboards, pianos, synths, keytars, guitars and music gear for musicians of all abilities, ages and interests.
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