YAMAHA P115 88-KEY WEIGHTED ACTION DIGITAL PIANO REVIEW

Neal Bricker

This Yamaha P115 digital piano review will delve into features and characteristics that come with the Yamaha P115 . If you are looking for a digital piano with good sound and professional feel, this might leave an impression on you. It is a perfect intermediate digital piano and one of the leaders in the portable digital pianos’ market.

So, let us take a closer look at this piece of instrument.

 YAMAHA P115 DIGITAL PIANO SPECIFICATIONS

• 2 x 16.1 x 11.8 Inches in size
• 6 Pounds in weight

Control Interface

• 88 Keys
• Graded hammer standard (GHS)
• Hard/medium/soft/fixed sensitivity

Voices

• Pure CF Sound Engine
• 14 Pre-set Voices
• 192-Note Polyphony

Effects       

• Dual/Layers – Yes
• Split – Yes
• Duo – Yes
• Reverb – Four types
• Intelligent Acoustic Control (IAC) – Yes
• Damper Resonance – Yes
• SOUND BOOST – Yes

Songs

• 50 Piano songs and 14 Demo songs
• Numbers of Tracks – 2
• Data Capacity – 100 KB per song (approx. 11,000 notes)
• Playback – SMF (format 0, format 1)
• Recording – SMF (format 0)

Functions

• Metronome – Yes
• Tempo Range – 5 – 280
• Transpose – -6 to 0,0 to +6
• Tuning – 414.8 – 440.0 – 446.8 Hz
• Rhythm – 14
• Style – 10 pianist style

Connectivity

• DC IN – DC IN 12 V
• Headphones – Standard x 2
• Sustain Pedal – Yes (Half pedal available with optional FC3A)
• Pedal Unit – Yes (Optional)
• AUX OUT – [L/L+R][R]
• USB TO HOST – Yes

Amplifiers and Speakers

• Amplifiers – 7 W x 2
• Speakers – 12 cm (4-1/2”) x 2 + 4 cm (1-1/2”) x 2

Power Supply

• Power Supply – PA-150B
• Auto Power Off Function – Yes
• Power Consumption – 6 W Using PA-150 power adapter

Included Accessories

• Music Rest – Yes
• Pedal/Footswitch – Yes
• AC Adaptor – PA-150B or other Yamaha-preferred parts

YAMAHA P115 DIGITAL PIANO REVIEW FEATURES 

Below we shall look at some of the most important features of the Yamaha P-115 88-key weighted action digital piano. These will help you get a clearer picture of exactly what this piano is really made of.

Design

The P-115 is a compact and portable digital piano. It can easily and comfortably fit in a small room without taking much of your floor space.

Unfortunately, this piano does not come with a stand of its own. This only means you will have to buy it separately or operate the keyboard from a desk. The light nature of this piano makes it easy to move or carry from one place to another. This feature particularly makes it great for gigs or tours.

The keyboard

The P-115 is a full sized piano with 88 keys, which makes it easy to play all kinds of music.

Just like the hammers with an acoustic piano, the P-115 uses GHS (Graded Hammer Standard) weighted action. This features a heavier touch in the low end and a lighter one in the higher end. This type of action helps build proper finger technique, especially for the aspiring pianists who may want to perform on an acoustic piano.

The black keys come with a matte finish avoiding slipping of the fingers when playing for extended periods.

Sound

The P-115 comes equipped with Pure CF sound engine, which produces a sound similar to that of the Yamaha 9 CFIIIS grand piano.

This gives you incredibly realistic sounds that are quite accurate.

The bass is very decent and the other included instrument sounds also sound pretty authentic.

The keyboard has four types of reverb: Recital Hall, Concert Hall, Chamber, and Club. The depths to these four reverbs can be adjusted from 0-20.

Polyphony

The piano has 192 notes of polyphony, sufficient for even the advanced players. This allows the layering of multiple sounds and performance of more complex pieces.

Extras

The P-115 has a couple of extra features that make playing this piano a more enjoyable and fun experience.

Modes

There are three modes on this piano;

• Split mode divides the keyboard into two and you can play a different instrument sound on each side.
• Dual mode/Layering lets you put an instrument sound on top of another to sound simultaneously across the entire keyboard range.
• Duo mode is when you split the keyboard into two sections with identical pitch ranges. Here, two players can sit side by side and play the same notes at the same time.

Recording and Playback

The P-115 has a 2-track MIDI recorder. this means you can record and save your performances on the internal memory in SMF format.

Transpose and Fine-tuning

The P-115 does not need tuning, however, you can use the transpose function to change the pitch of the entire keyboard.

Whenever you want to match the piano’s pitch with a singer’s or other instruments, you can use the fine tuning function in 0.2Hz steps.

Sound Boost

The Sound Boost feature helps the instrument’s sound cut through other instruments when performing. It does this by increasing the volume and making the softly played notes clear and audible.

Intelligent Acoustic Control (IAC)

This function automatically provides a full, balanced sound with rich lows and clear highs even at low volumes for sound clarity.

Connectivity                                            

There are two 1/4″ AUX ­Out jacks used to plug in an external amplifier or speaker for powerful performances during live performances.

The USB TO HOST port allows the piano to be connected to a computer and other devices such as iPads and smartphones.

Pros

• Comes with a 192-note polyphony
• It has a sound boost feature
• The keys have a great feel
• It is affordable, well priced
• Comes with a pure CF sound engine
• Highly portable

Cons

• It doesn’t have an operating display
• It has a low piano memory
• Doesn’t have MIDI connection

Overall, the Yamaha P115 lacks enough options for sound customization. However, it is still a piano that will give you a realistic piano playing experience. From this Yamaha P115 Digital Piano review, its clear that this piano packs features that will prove useful to beginners, intermediates as well as advanced players.