DGX300

The DGX300 is part of a new piano-focused series of instruments from Yamaha called Portable Grand™. Ask yourself: "Who is most qualified to produce excellent piano performance in an affordable portable keyboard?" Answer: The world's most respected piano manufacturer, Yamaha. Yamaha is one of the only portable keyboards manufacturers that builds and designs real pianos. In fact, Yamaha is recognized as the world leader in pianos, from home models to concert grands and 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 DGX300, Yamaha confirms its leadership position once again. As for sound, the DGX300 features an extra-high quality stereo piano sample and a generous 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.

The DGX300 has a 3.5" disk drive with the ability to read and write Standard MIDI Files (SMF), 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 DGX300 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. If writing songs is your thing, you can save them to disk for permanent storage. And if you don't want to bother writing out the music for a song, you can just record it as you play. Now, imagine recording your child's first song onto a disk, copying it into your computer and attaching it to e-mail so friends and family can hear.

And finally, even though the DGX300 comes with a generous selection 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 amazing benefits of having a Disk Drive inside your keyboard are all there, waiting for you.

Hobbyists, music students and professional musicians will find that the DGX300 has got their needs covered. For the hobbyist, just pull out your favorite music book, select a style and start playing. In addition to the huge assortment of built-in styles that cover all genres of music, a wealth of special piano-only "Pianist" 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! The music student (or parents thereof!) will appreciate that by simply pressing the Portable Grand™ button, they transform the keyboard into a great sounding piano, stunningly rich and authentic in its sound and exceptionally responsive to their playing touch, as well as setting up the keyboard to play as a piano in full keyboard mode. And finally, the professional musician will quickly discover that there is a complement of over 600 sounds to explore.

Not only do you get full compatibility with General MIDI (GM), you get hundreds of XG Lite Voices and full MIDI control of voice and effects parameters like Reverb and Chorus, which add an extra dimension of richness. 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 keyboard 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 76 keys. In addition, "Layer" mode allows you to combine two sounds across the keyboard range. For example, you could play piano and strings at the same time. With so many voices to choose from, the combinations are only limited by your imagination.

The DGX300 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.

Yamaha Portable Keyboards are famous for their ease of use. But, even when the keyboard is easy to operate, how does the novice know which settings to make that are appropriate for the song he wants to play? With Yamaha's remarkable new Music Database, you simply choose from over 200 song titles in the database and the entire keyboard will set itself up for that song. It couldn't be easier.

The DGX300 comes with 135 built-in styles, 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 DGX300 will follow you through a piece of music, providing all of the drums, bass, piano, guitar, horn and string parts for you. 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.

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

"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 DGX300 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).