Hello. My first post. I just bought a Yamaha YPG-235 and will take a few lessons but mostly use emedia's keyboard lesssons. I plan to play mostly for myself. The YPG-235 was a great bargain but I wonder what I would have got for around $800. I'm not sure piano keys touch matters as I never played a regular piano. I know 88 keys would have been nice since the teachers and instruction books use that. So what am I missing? If I really get into this I can easily sell the YPG-235 in a year or so and upgrade. Would it be worth it?

Welcome Boho,

About the 88 keys... the big difference is with the 61 Key DPs, but since yours have 76 keys, I really don't think that you would feel a lot of difference if you are just beginning... you will have enough range to play the thin high pitch notes or the thick bass notes.

The most significant upgrade will be on the sound generator, which I believe is quite limited in the 235 (my ears tell me that from the samples). But for getting a hang of things, it looks quite capable. You may want to purchase a sustain pedal which will help a lot regarding the sound qualities of certain passages you may play.

Rafa.

The YPG-235 appears to have a "graded soft touch" keyboard, which is Yamaha's term for a simple sprung keyboard, rather than a hammer action keyboard to emulate a piano. So the big advantage you get in going up to a DGX-640 or P-35/P-105 etc and beyond is to get a key feel that has some inertia and starts to get similar in nature of that of a piano.

One main reason to go to a hammer action keyboard is just so that it is similar to a piano, and so you can also practice to play well also on a mechanical piano. The other is simply the feel, and I find I feel like I'm being more expressive when there are keys with some weight to them under my fingers.

If you want to learn and play "piano", then hammer keys are quite important. But then, lots of music is made with synthesizers with sprung keys like yours. It's just not so piano-like, but you can still learn lots of things that can later be transferred to playing the piano.