Yamaha P145

Review

The Yamaha P45 has many features in a truly portable package. It is Yamaha’s first digital piano in its P-series line that offers intermediate to professional level performance in a moderate price range. It is portable, powerful and has many usable options without breaking the bank.

Designed for flexibility and usability the P45 is very versatile. It measures approximately 52 x 11 x 6 inches with a full 88 keys. It comes in basic black and weighs in at a svelte twenty-five pounds. It’s streamlined appearance foreshadows its functionality.

The 88 keys are weighted using Yamaha’s Graded Hammer Standard technology. This system mimics the mechanics of an analog piano by requiring more effort on the lower pitched keys and lighter effort on the higher pitched keys. Keyboard sensitivity is also adjustable between hard, medium, soft and fixed settings so you can customize it to your playing style.

The keyboard also has a split function making it ideal for teaching. This allows the keyboard to be split in half so the teacher can play in the same octave as the student. It also provides a great deal of tonal variation during a live performance as the split keyboard allows the player to create multiple tonal layers in the same octave.

Internally it boasts 32 note polyphony and ten voices, so your sonic output is very reasonable for the price. Sounds include horns, organs, strings and electric pianos. The P45 also has four reverbs with a dual layer function to add flexibility when adding effects. Other functions include a metronome, transposition and tuning.

The P-45 uses Yamaha’s proprietary Advanced Wave Memory (AWM) Stereo Sampling for its tone generation. AWM sampling digitally captures analog instruments on two microphones (left and right). It processes the signal through its wide range of filters, modulators and envelope generators to reproduce the most realistic sounds possible. The end result is rich, resonant, authentic instruments that can stand on their own.

Externally it has the standard headphone jack for silent play as well as a sustain pedal with a half pedal option as well. And, obviously, it has MIDI in/out connectivity so you can connect directly to other modules, keyboards, your laptop or any other compatible device. In addition, it has a 6 watt amplifier with two 4.5 inch speakers so it can be heard on its own.

Yamaha also offers optional accessories for the P-45 that add to its functionality and play-ability. They include the FC-4 and FC-3 piano style sustain pedals, stereo headphones and a MIDI-USB interface that allows you to connect directly to your computer.

Drawbacks to the P-45 is its inability to record, relegating it to live performance and making it more a controller than a standard keyboard. There is also no USB port which limits its memory potential and interface capability.

All of its features make the Yamaha P-45 very accessible for intermediate use, but its flexibility and portability make it an option for professionals as well. Yamaha has developed a very stable sonic platform that makes the P-45 very reliable. Its full keyboard with weighted keys bring a concert piano feel with unparalleled portability. It has some weak spots and limited internal functionality, but for the price, its shortcomings can be easily overlooked. In the end it is great for both practice, live performance, home studios, pro studios, students and teachers.