DGX500

The DGX500 is the first Portable Keyboard with piano keys and is the flagship in a new series of instruments from Yamaha called Portable Grand™. It is packed with functions and features designed specifically for the new piano user. Included with the DGX500 is a furniture-type stand that completes its piano image. The Yamaha Portable Grand feature in the DGX500 is immediately apparent when you see the large, piano-shaped button in the center of the front panel. When you push it, the best piano is automatically chosen, the auto-accompaniment is turned off, putting the keyboard in full keyboard mode – just like a piano. A piano accompaniment style is automatically selected and is waiting for you if you choose to use it. Next to the piano button is a metronome-shaped button, giving you a built in metronome for practice.

Yamaha is one of the only portable keyboards manufacturers that builds and designs real pianos and in fact, Yamaha is recognized as the world leader in pianos, from home models to concert grands. This experience makes the introduction of the DGX500 especially significant due to its piano focus. Yamaha Portable Keyboards have always been recognized by consumer and music publications as superior musical instruments and the portable keyboard brand of choice. With the advent of the Yamaha DGX500, Yamaha confirms its leadership position once again. As for sound, the DGX500 features an extra-high quality stereo piano sample, General MIDI (GM) compatibility and a selection of Yamaha's famous XG Lite voices resulting in remarkable sonic quality, far beyond anything in its price point. The quality is enhanced by the inclusion of two-way speakers and bass ports for high fidelity sound.

Because Yamaha is first and foremost a music company, we know that you you'd rather spend time creating and playing music, not trying to learn how to operate a keyboard. To that end, we've taken the latest technological advances and designed an easy-to-use panel to access them. For example, when you want to record your playing, just press record, the track button you want to record on, and start playing. It's that easy. When you're done, save your song internally or to the floppy disk drive as a Standard MIDI File (SMF) to make it compatible with other General MIDI keyboards as well as most computers. Then simply pop the disk out of the drive and insert it in your computer.

Imagine recording your child's first song onto a disk, placing it in your computer and attaching it to e-mail so friends and family can hear. Another new addition to make song playing easier is the Music Database. Just pull out your favorite music book, select a song from any of the over 200 songs in the Music Database and the entire keyboard sets itself up. Start playing and the keyboard will follow your every chord – no other buttons to press.

And finally, no matter what level of playing ability your at, you'll appreciate being able to build combinations of your favorite sounds. Pressing the "Split" button divides the instrument into two parts, allowing you to have two different sounds on the keyboard at the same time, like piano on the right and bass on the left. That's when you really appreciate the 88 keys. In addition, "Layer" mode allows you to combine two sounds across the keyboard range. For example, you could layer piano and strings and play both sounds at the same time. With over 600 voices to choose from, the combinations are only limited by your imagination.

The DGX500 has a 3.5" disk drive allowing it to communicate with the world. You can download a song file from the literally thousands of songs on the Internet onto a 3.5" disk in your computer, then take the same disk, insert it into the instrument and play the song. You can also purchase professionally made MIDI song files and education software with music from your local music store. Conveniently, the backlit display allows you to select a song from the disk by name. To play the song, just push the start button, sit back, and enjoy. And finally, even though the DGX500 comes with a generous amount of built-in music styles, the disk drive opens up the ability to load in even more styles for you to enjoy. And guess what, the Internet is alive with people exchanging styles that they have created on hi-end Yamaha keyboards. The disk drive will allow you to save and organize your favorite data for years to come.

The DGX500 comes with 100 built-in songs with Songbook. But if you've never played before, where do you start? Well, if learning to play music is important to you, the Yamaha Education Suite II, a wonderful set of music training functions, makes learning music incredibly easy. Seven types of lessons are available as well as a convenient chord dictionary.

The DGX500 includes a huge assortment of 135 built-in styles that cover all genres of music waiting for you to play along with. It's just like having a built-in band. Call up your favorite style of music like Rock, Big Band, Gospel or Country, press a chord or play Single Finger mode, and the DGX500 will follow you through a piece of music, providing all of the drums, bass, piano, guitar, horn and string parts for you. A wealth of special piano-only "Pianist&3034; styles, like Piano Ballad or Boogie Woogie, provide professional-sounding piano accompaniment that changes chords automatically as you do, while you play a piano melody on top!

For a demonstration of "What is a Style", click here (1.3MB download – requires Macromedia Flash and computer sound).

And to make it easy and entertaining, when you select one of the styles, the One Touch Setting function will automatically configure keyboard parameters, such as voice selection and digital effects, to match that selected music style. For example, for a Country style, the keyboard might select an acoustic guitar, fiddle or steel guitar for the right-hand voice with appropriate effects.

"Polyphony" is how many notes a keyboard can reproduce simultaneously. As with many things, more is often better. Some keyboards in this price range have 16, 24 or 28-note Polyphony. The DGX500 has a full 32-note Polyphony allowing you to play intricate instrumental arrangements and dense musical passages.

The Floppy Disk Drive makes it easy to transfer files between your computer and your Yamaha keyboard, but for those who would rather connect the two directly together, Yamaha makes it easy. On the back of the keyboard, you'll find a special MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) port that lets you connect your keyboard to your computer (requires a MIDI Interface like the UX16 and music software).