Yamaha ARIUS YDP V240 Digital Piano

Review

This is an ensemble piano that provides you with several voices, styles & effects types. It’s easy to assemble, is made from a nice solid wood, and looks elegant. It comes with USB connectivity, and many more features.

Key Action
The Arius YDP-V240 comes with Yamaha’s Graded Hammer Standard (GHS) keyboard, which is supposed to mimic the action on a real piano. With a matte finish, the keys enhances the keyboard’s luxurious appearance.

As mentioned, it doesn’t come with the “Graded Hammer” (GH) action, which is avialbale in most of Yamaha’s premium pianos, however the difference is not much and this one still has a weighted/graded hammer action.

Advanced Wave Memory

This advanced sampling method used by Yamaha provides the realism of an acoustic instrument, and helps you produce dynamic nuances of various playing strengths. The greater the number of samples used, the higher the expression.

You also get Yamaha’s highly acclaimed Sweet! and Cool! voices (amazingly stunning, realistic, natural and very dynamic).

More High-Tech Tools

• You get hundreds of voices, with the ability to layer multiple sounds and split the keyboard.
• You can jam along with the 160 built-in rhythm styles.
• It gives you the ability to transpose the keyboard up to an octave up or down
• You can record and play back your performances or compose original music using the built-in 5-track recorder
• You can further dress up the sounds/songs by adding reverb, chorus, and many more inspiring DSP effects (such as distortion, and more).

Beginner piano players will appreciate the Yamaha Education Suite (Y.E.S.) as it provides several piano lessons as well as many well-known songs for practicing. You can slow down the tempo, learn left and the right-hand parts separately.

With the Easy song arranger, you can change the default style associated with each song, and select any other style of your choice, with ease. You can also change the song’s melody voice and the keyboard voice for a complete change of image.

USB to device / USB to host (for PC or MAC)
The USB to host port lets you easily connect your ARIUS piano to a PC/MAC and take advantage of several music software. You can also play back your computer-recorded parts with different instrument sounds all from this single digital piano.

The USB to device allows you to connect USB memory devices (flash drives or hard drives) to the YDP-240 allowing you to easily save or load MIDI files, style files, registrations & user songs.

This piano can also access music database files transferred from a computer or stored on a USB flash memory device, those files can be used right alongside the internal music database titles.

Specs

Here are the key features of this piano:

1. Very realistic piano sounds, courtesy Yamaha’s AWM (Advanced Wave Memory) stereo sampling system
2. 88-key Graded Hammer Standard keyboard that offers natural resistance across all the octaves
3. Dark rosewood cabinet with sliding key cover for a sophisticated look
4. Total of 492 voices, including Yamaha’s expressive grand pianos
5. Over 200 DSP effects, including reverb and chorus
6. Transpose +/- 12 semitones, plus fine-tuning control
7. On-board metronome to practice your piano lessons
8. 5-track recorder to create your own songs
9. Yamaha Education Suite to help you get started with the piano
10. 2 headphone jacks for rehearsing with a teacher or duet partner
11. MIDI via USB, for easy connectivity to computer
12. Powerful 40-watt stereo speaker system
13. Includes music stand, padded bench, power adapter, and headphone hanger

Video Review

Here’s video review of this piano:

Here’s what one of the users had to say about this product:

“I have played on many different acoustic pianos in the last forty years but didn’t realize that digital pianos had changed dramatically in the last few years. I can’t believe how much like a real piano the touch of this piano is. And for me the touch is everything, that’s what makes this digital piano feel like the real thing. And if you close your eyes, I don’t believe you will discern any real difference in the sound, either. Simply amazing.

It’s a lot of fun to try different things on this piano, and I’m glad that I didn’t go for a model with less features after all. The finish is really very nice, and it does look like a nice piece of furniture, and like a real piano, especially with the cover that pulls down over the keys. Having played classical music for many years, I didn’t want to have to “settle” for less than what I was used to. And with this piano, I don’t feel like I “settled” at all. I don’t think I could have asked for or found anything better without spending many thousands more.”

Overall Ratings

A great & affordable ensemble console digital piano with 88-note graded hammer-standard weighted action. The Yamaha YDP-V240 is packed with authentic sounds & realistic accompaniments, besides several more features; it’s a real joy to play, be it for practicing or performing.

Buying Options

• [easyazon_link identifier=”B003AOULM0″ locale=”US” tag=”keytarhq04-20″ cart=”n”]Buy on Amazon[/easyazon_link] | Buy on zZounds

Checkout more Yamaha digital pianos here.

KeytarHQ Editorial Team

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.