Yamaha P-121 73-key compact digital piano launched

Yamaha has announced its first 73-key, weighted digital piano: the P-121 aimed at beginning pianists and gigging musicians.

With 15 fewer keys (just over an octave) than a standard 88-key piano keyboard, plus lightweight construction, this digital piano is ready to be placed in a smaller living space, or packed up and taken on the road for live or studio work.

Yamaha has used samples from the Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand piano, offering a rich degree of dynamics, expressiveness and power.

There’s no skimping on build quality, with Yamaha’s Graded Hammer System weighted key, matte black key tops, and premium built-in stereo speakers. The 2-way speaker system provides an expansive sound thanks to it pushing the audio both up and down. When playing on a hard surface, the “table EQ” function provides optimal acoustics.

Budding musicians will be pleased that the P-121 can integrate with Yamaha’s Smart Pianist app for iOS devices, making learning and improving easier.

As well as realistic piano sound, there are other sounds (three variations of electric piano, organ, hammer instruments, strings and bass) along with 20 accompaniment bass and drum beats.

The Stereophonic Optimizer offers the same dispersed sound experience as one would get when sitting at an acoustic piano, while using headphones.

The minimal user interface reduces distractions when playing, although it does potentially make it more difficult to quickly access some functions such as split keyboard or dual voice layering, despite Yamaha claiming the interface is intuitive.

The P-121 offers a maximum 192 notes of polyphony, which should be ample for even the most demanding of piano techniques, or layering of voices.

At $899, it’s a great introduction to the world of piano playing. The P-121 is available now.