FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Yamaha Piano Keyboards

Question:
I have decided to pick up the piano (not literally) 40 years after my last lesson so essentially I am a beginner. The two keyboards I am looking at are the Casio WK 3000 and the Yamaha DGX 202. They are priced locally at $400.00 and $700.00 respectively. The question is which board provides the best bang for the buck? I like the brand name, service centers and availability of the Yamaha but the sound through the on board speakers is so weak. At full volume sitting at the keyboard its ok but it doesn't carry through the room very well. The Casio is much cheaper and seems to have similar features to the Yamaha and definitely has better volume. Aside from the volume they both sound pretty good. There is more information on the net about the Yamaha and I am a little leery of the Casio brand name. So help me out here. If you have any personal experience with either of these boards, please let me know if they are a decent choice for a beginner who doesn't want to grow out of it for a few years at least.

Answer:
Don't do it!!! I'm 43 and had the same idea. Costco had a sale on Yamaha DGX-500 keyboards (about $600). So I thought it would be perfect for me to try out and see if piano lessons would take. I outgrew the keyboard in about a month!!! It's nearly impossible to take lessons seriously unless your keyboard has a piano action. In other words, the keys need to feel like a real piano. The keyboards you mentioned (and my DGX-500) have an action like an organ. The keys are too easy to press down. Not only is it nearly impossible to learn the proper way to play louder and softer (dynamics), but it's extremely easy to press additional keys down where on a real piano, there wouldn't be that problem because of the resistance of the adjacent keys. Also, it's more difficult playing between the black keys on a keyboard than on a real piano. If I had it to do over (I just bought the keyboard at the end of September), knowing what I know now, I would have rented a piano until I determined if I liked playing or not. As it is, I'm enjoying it so much that I just bought a 5'7 Samick grand from a classified ad for $5,000. I can't wait 'til it gets here on Tuesday so I can really get into my practicing! If you don't want to rent and you really want a digital (a mint condition upright can be had for less than $3,000), then I would recommend the Yamaha YDP-223 as the lowest model of digital to go with.