Yamaha expands their Portable Grand series with the DGX-650, an 88-key digital piano with learning and accompaniment features.

Yamaha designed the DGX-650 Digital piano to provide classic piano touch with modern features that make playing and learning enjoyable.

Central to the DGX-650 is its piano-like keys, they are designed to behave, look and feel like the keys of acoustic pianos. Each one comes with graded hammer action, close mechanical approximations of hammers hitting the strings. This means that like real pianos, the action is lighter around the top keys and heavier at the low end.

The piano sound it produces is just as critical as the keyboard action, so Yamaha meticulously sampled their CFIIIS full concert grand piano under controlled conditions. These samples are then manipulated and used by the keyboard's sound engine, with each sample being triggered by how you press the keys.

Aside from its authentic sounding piano samples, this keyboard also comes with other useful sounds like guitars, strings and bass. Each sound is also sampled from real instruments, and the sound engine utilizes a blend of long, stereo and multi-layered samples to better reproduce the sound. It has over 543 voices, with 128 voice polyphony. You can split the keyboard into different sounds like you would on synths and performance keyboards.

For further tweaking your sound, this digital piano comes with a dedicated multi-effects section, complete with memory banks and compatibility with USB, pedals and the like. There are 35 types of Reverb, 44 modulation effects and 5 EQs that you can play with, and you can record your sound directly via the USB connection.

Another cool feature of this digital piano is the smart chord function. It can automatically provide you with accompaniment that covers over 100 music styles, by simply playing a few note patterns. This turns the unit into a virtual jukebox and songwriting medium that you can control whichever way you prefer. It has a total of 195 accompaniment styles and 100 song presets.

Since Yamaha is known for their top notch student level instruments, it's not surprising to find a wealth of learning features incorporated into the unit. The XG sound set will let you jam with professionally-arranged recordings of songs made famous by artists like Elton John, Adele, Coldplay and more. There is even an optional "You Are the Artist Series" add-on that combines best-selling Hal Leonard song books with play-along XG song files.

The Yamaha DGX-650 digital piano is currently retailing for £649. You can visit Yamaha for the complete spec and other details.

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