? UPDATED REVIEW – My 15, 2023 | Yamaha P-515 Digital Piano | The Yamaha P-515 at $1599 discount price is the latest self-contained portable 88-key digital piano from the Yamaha piano company for 2023. Yamaha has 3 portable piano-weighted key action digital pianos with built-in speaker systems on the market from $500 to $2000. The 1st and least expensive one called the P-125 ($699 internet price) is focused mainly on piano playing and is an entry level product. The next one up is called the DGX-670 ($849 internet price) which is really not very portable weighing in at over 50 lbs and having a somewhat bulky cabinet. It is also an “entry level” piano in terms of key action, piano sound chip, and pedaling response but it has a ton of fun,
interactive “bells & whistles” for people who like having a built-in “one man band” along with other interactive functions and features
at $1599 internet price (stand & triple pedal optional), especially as compared to other portable digital pianos over $2000. The P-515 has been out for about 5 years The P-515 does a lot of things including being an overall impressive instrument whether you’re a beginner or an advanced player and has a number of upgrades in it over the previous model including a different key action, improved piano sound engine, new pedaling and pedal response, upgraded operating system, new features, and more. It even has a redesigned look to it, new cabinet materials, and new user interface…almost all good improvements over the previous model, and this P-515 is at a reasonable $1599 price.
This newer piano sound chip in the P-515, which was not in previous models, offers two new grand piano sound samples from the top Yamaha acoustic grand called CFX and also from the top European Bosendorfer grand piano called the Imperial. Yamaha included the piano sound from the Bosendorefer because
not only is it a very pleasing and rich European grand piano tone, but it just so happens that Yamaha purchased the Bosendorfer piano company (originally headquartered in Vienna, Austria, Vienna) a number of years ago so that name now belongs to Yamaha and is not their competition anymore. That’s the way to do it…buy up other
great companies and have them for yourself. I am not sure it was a good move for Yamaha to do that or not because those Bosendorfer grand pianos costs big bucks, but it sure comes in handy to be able to get that type of piano sound on some of the Yamaha digital pianos.
The European Bosendorfer piano sound in the P515 is a richer and more melodic acoustic piano sampled sound as compared to the Yamaha CFX piano sound, based on my playing and comparing both piano sounds. The Bosendorfer sample is less brassy, less bright, and much deeper and richer in tone than the Yamaha CFX grand sound and it’s good for classical music, ballads, and jazz as well as pop, country, Latin, Ragtime, and other genre’s of music. What also makes this piano sound so versatile is the fact that you
can also edit the sound and brighten it up in a number of ways with a variety of functions on the P515 including EQ, brightness, and sound boost controls so that it takes on the more of the CFX sound without the extra brassiness that can be associated with the Yamaha CFX piano sound. However, there is one thing about the Bosendorer sound that is quite irritating to me, and that is…it doesn’t sound near as good through stereo headphones as it does through the internal speakers of the piano.
through a good pair of stereo headphones, the Bosendorfer piano sound is much more plain, less resonate and it has a much reduced “stereo sound field” whereas the Yamaha CFX piano sound is much better through headphones because it is using a better headphone sound technology which Yamaha calls “Binaural” sound. The Binaural headphone sound optimizes the CFX acoustic piano sound so that it sounds like it does through the internal stereo speaker system when you listen to it without headphones…and that’s the way it should be and it sounds realistic. However, the Bosendorfer piano sound along with the 7 additional piano sound variations don’t have the Binaural headphone technology and so those piano sounds are all somewhat uninspiring to me. The Bosendorfer piano sound, which is arguably the better acoustic piano sound in the P515 just did not sound very good as compared to the Binaural sound environment of the CFX piano sound.
OK, now on to the the acoustic piano sound “tonal dynamics” and expressiveness of sound along with the talking about the quality of the 256-note polyphony piano sound, the range of tonal dynamics, the organic nature of the piano sound with overtones, sympathetic vibrations, and even distribution of soft to loud without noticeable jumps in volume. I can say for sure that the P515 does a great job in piano expressiveness while
offering a huge range of tonal dynamics for mellow to bright and everywhere in-between. This is not the “cheaper” tone of the previous models but a noticeable upgrade to the authenticity and natural sound when playing piano. It just sounds more alive and resonate than ever before. But it is important to remember that the overall character of the CFX piano sound is still bright, clear, and a bit brassy (sometimes) so if you like that type of piano sound then you’ll really like the CFX piano sound. The Bosendorfer sound is the one I like more and I believe it is the favorite of the majority of people who have played the P-515 and/or heard the two piano sound samples.
Speaking of editing or adjusting the piano sound, Yamaha has designed a clever and quick way to do that directly from the control panel with a button called “Piano Room.” When you press the Piano Room button then in the LCD display screen you will see the first setting in the Piano Room is called “Lid Position,” and you’ll see a virtual piano picture with an adjustable lid position and you can set that lid with the navigation buttons on the control panel to “full, half, or closed” position and when you do that then the sound goes from fuller & brighter to mellower & muted. The next Piano Room setting is
called “Brightness” and this setting adjusts the over brightness or mellowness of the piano up or down from 0 – 10 so there is a wide range and it does have a noticeable impact on the overall piano sound as does the Lid Position.
sound comes in. However when you make an adjustment and change a level of touch, that also changes the brightness or mellowness level of the sound, but that’s true on all digital pianos with this feature.
button arrows on the control panel as are all settings in the Piano Room. The next setting is called “reverb depth” and this controls how big and long the reverb sound is going to be…how long the echo will last when you play a key when using the a piano sound. This setting is also useful and necessary to “dial in” the right amount of reverb effect for your music. Following the reverb function is “Tuning.” Tuning is generally set to the normal setting
A-440 and remains there and it is the default setting of the piano. However if you are playing along with another instrument that is slightly out of normal pitch or its with an instrument the plays normally in another key like a clarinet or saxophone, then the Tuning feature is useful.
the sound when using the sustain pedal, “String Resonance” which effects the sound of the virtual strings and the natural vibrations you would get from piano strings when playing, followed by “Aliquot Resonance,” “Body Resonance,” and “Key Off sample.” Also in the Piano Room settings is “Half-pedal Point” which allows you to modify and control the way the sustained piano sound comes in when using the proper single pedal or adding the optional triple pedal unit to the P515. Otherwise it has no effect with the included piano pedal that comes with the P515. So when you need to make relatively quick changes to your piano sound the the “Piano Room” button is what you press to do that and then scroll down to the function you want to change/edit to customize your piano sound.
With regard to the single pedal that comes with the piano, although it’s a good pedal, it does not trigger the “half-damper” pedal effect which allows for a variable amount of sustain when pressing the pedal down based on the position of the pedal. Having a 1/2-damper sustain pedal is important if you want a more realistic piano playing experience like you would get on a real acoustic piano. You could purchase a separate single pedal by Yamaha that would trigger this important function but unfortunately Yamaha does not include that pedal with the P515 (a way to get you to spend more money). The triple pedal furniture style unit for the
P515 is called the LP1 and it costs $75 to add to the P515.
piano sound is not only determined by the original piano sound sample but also by the ability of the piano sound to have a long and resonant sustain/decay time which means the piano sound (the notes you play) will sustain for a long period of time when holding down the pedal just as it would in a real acoustic piano. This has been a major issue in the past for Yamaha because most all of their digital pianos had very short, unrealistic sustain/decay times that made the piano playing sound somewhat choppy and artificial.
When it comes to having a great piano playing experience in this price range, it is the key action that can make or break a digital piano, and the P515 is no exception. Yamaha has replaced the previous plastic piano weighted key action (called GH) that was in the former P255 with a new wooden key action in the under-$2000-price-range called NWX. The white keys are made of wood but the black keys are still all-plastic. The white keys have smooth-top synthetic ivory-feel surfaces on them to enhance the tactile feel of those keys and the black keys have a smooth-top matte black finish to them which is quite nice and feels good to the
fingers.
The NWX key action has 3-sensors underneath each key for better key repetition response when playing faster pieces regardless of where the key is positioned during key travel. The key action is stable and quiet when the keys are moving and Yamaha has has a fairly good reputation out there for reliable key actions over the years. With this NWX key action in a portable digital piano 
When I play music on a piano I want to be able to express myself musically without an undue amount of effort. When I want to play a light, soft passage of music I want to be able to press the key easily without too much force and yet have it come back up quickly so I can play faster and more lightly. When I strike the key harder then I want a lot of quick movement (without being too quick) and for the key action to allow me to be expressive. To that end it is well known that the “weight” of the keys in going down and coming back up is referred to as “static and/or dynamic down-weight” and “up-weight” (resistance).
for the key to (begin) to press down and a certain amount of force (resistance) when the key is coming back up against your fingers. This force or weight is measurable and done in grams. In fact, qualified piano technicians are able to set up an acoustic grand or upright piano action to perform at proper standards by adjusting the key weight going down and coming back up. The keys themselves have no weight or resistance in them because they are (by themselves out of the piano) very light…they are just plastic and light wood material. It’s the added weight inside the keys or attached to the key action that gives the keys their “weight” or firmness.
When someone is looking for a digital piano and wants a good feeling, good moving key action, the keys should not be too heavy to push down nor they take long in coming back up but should not come back up with too much force. For digital pianos, since key actions are definitely not adjustable in terms of the physical weight or movement like they are in regular acoustic pianos, whatever key action movement you get in a digital piano cannot be physically altered…it is permanent. However, you can electronically adjust the “touch sensitivity curve” of the key action
which makes the sound come in more or less quickly depending on how hard or fast you play the keys. Although the electronic adjustment does help a bit in adjusting key action sound response when pressing down the keys lightly, this does nothing to adjust the actual physical weight of the keys going down or coming up.
So where does the Yamaha NWX action weigh in when it comes to key movement and comfort along with expression? Although the NWX key action is certainly not the heaviest key action in the Yamaha digital piano line-up, it is still rather heavy comparatively to many other competitive digital pianos in it’s general price range and certainly much heavier than real acoustic grand pianos. Not only do many people get the “perception” that the keys in the P-515 are extra firm when pressing them down, but the measurable weight (based on my personal experience measuring it) is approx 85 grams of static down-weight (aka: touch-weight) and approx 45 grams of up-weight when the measurement is taken on the white middle C key.
and possibly cause hand/muscle, finger fatigue over time…especially if your hands and/or fingers are a bit weaker. Now it is true that there are some people out there who prefer a heavier/firmer piano key action that requires a lot of finger force when the keys go down. However, that’s not the way real acoustic piano key actions generally feel and the way those keys are normally weighted and balanced by a good piano technician. I frequently play real acoustic grand and upright pianos and when I go from those pianos to the NWX there is noticeable difference and my comfort level goes down when playing the P-515. When I play the Roland, Kawai, or Korg digital pianos in this price range between $1500 to $2000, those key actions are definitely lighter than Yamaha with Kawai being the lightest piano weighted action of all of them and closer to that of a real piano key
action with regard to key weight in this price range.
does not necessarily mean that the wood keys move and are weighted like real acoustic pianos, because they are not. Also the keys are not full length grand piano size keys but instead they have a key movement in terms of weight distribution from the front of each key to the back of each key more closely associated with upright pianos, which have completely different key balance than grand pianos.
Let’s move on to the other instrument sounds in the P-515. There are 10 acoustic piano sounds or variations of acoustic pianos including bright piano, studio piano, rock piano, honky-tonk, and others. Unless you are playing in a rock band or you love honky-tonk music and know how to play it, in my opinion (as I previously mentioned) the 3 main usable acoustic piano sounds include the CFX, Bosendorfer, and Ballad acoustic
piano. The rest of them are noticeably brighter. There are 7 electric piano sounds including vintage tones from the Wurlitzer electric, Rhodes, and DX7 among others and they’re all quite good and usable whether playing them individually or layered with other instrument sounds. There are 6 organ tones including pop, jazz, and pipe organs and all are very good along with a couple of very nice harpsichords, vibes, and clavichord. String and choir sounds are
always popular and Yamaha has 2 each along with 3 “pad” (synth) tones which are very good for sustained fill-in sounds (as long as you hold down keys) played separately or layered with pianos…and they are impressive. There are different types of bass tones used when splitting the keyboard into separate left & part hand parts.
There are also a couple of Guitar tones for steel string & nylon (classical string). Those 2 guitar sound samples are really enjoyable
to play (you can hear picking and organic string squeaks, etc) and there are lots of ways to edit them (along with the other sounds) so that you can add special effects, adjust relative volume when layering or splitting sounds, add or subtract brightness, reverb, and change octaves, among other things. So there are a total of 40 proprietary instrument sounds along with an additional 480 XG voices which is a large library of instrumental tones that covers all
the bases including horns, woodwinds, percussion such as marimba, xylophone, etc, reeds, guitars, synths, special sound effects and other tones.
particularly useful and important when playing back General MIDI song files from a USB flashdrive when needing instruments like trumpets, marimbas, flutes, special effects and other tones which I will talk about more later. I am the kind of person who likes to experiment with mixing two instrument sounds together in a layer or even a split as well as combine tones in ways that make music more interesting. With all the XG instrument sounds and the 40 main sampled instrument tones, there are literally thousands of tonal combination possibilities. But for now you just need to know that the most important sounds in the P515 are the 40 instrument sounds I previously mentioned and the ability to quickly layer or split them depending on how you want to use those sounds..
As far as the the instrument sounds go, you can layer/mix any two of them together for a more exciting playing enjoyment as well as electronically split the keyboard into two separate sound parts with being able to assign one sound to the left hand and a
different sound to the right hand. When playing any non-acoustic instrument sound on the P-515, whether it’s guitars, strings, choirs, clarinets, electric pianos, synths, or whatever it may be, those actual instruments have light playing key actions and you don’t have to
play hard to get expression out of those instruments. In fact, I personally play and teach guitar & organ (along with piano) and I play those instruments very well. One of the most irritating things a guitar player can have happen on his guitar is a hard to play guitar action where it require pressing down the strings very hard on the fretboard to get the right notes and do it quickly and smoothly. A high (or hard) action on a guitar just gets in the way of guitar
playing…at least it does for most guitar players.
sounds on the P-515 I found that it was not conducive to having an enjoyable playing experience and much more difficult to control light, quick touch. You can manage a bit better with the acoustic piano sounds because you may be able to adapt to the extra firm (hard) NWX key action for piano playing…but not so much when using the other instrument sounds…it just doesn’t allow for a more delicate or subtle touch, especially when using most of those other instrument sounds…whether they are part of the 40 proprietary tones or they are part of the XG sound library. So what I am saying is…
I personally love many different styles and types of music including classical piano, orchestral, symphony, jazz, Latin, pop, rock, oldies, country, western, blues, Christian, world music, and so on, and like playing all these styles on the piano. I also play guitar & organ, as well as synth so I like some of those sounds as well. When it comes to using the non-piano instrument sounds on digital pianos, it’s very common to want to use those
sounds either by themselves (like organ, synth, strings, pads, choirs, French horns, etc) as well as combine/layer any one of the instrument sounds with the acoustic piano sound such as Bosendorfer piano with strings, Yamaha CFX acoustic piano with choir, etc.
musical experience.
or holding down the sustain pedal…that’s normal. However, when layering/mixing any two sounds together such as the popular layer of piano + strings, electric piano + pad, organ + choir, the layered 2nd sound such as strings, organ, pads, choirs, etc should keep playing & sustaining (being heard) while the piano percussive sounds fades out when holding down a single sustain pedal.
This is commonly referred to as “Pedal Hold” in digital pianos. The piano
sound (or other percussive sound) needs to work like a piano and the layered tones need to work like they would in real life where the strings do not decay, the choir does not decay (fade out), the organs keep sustaining,
the synths and/or pads keep sustaining while the pedal is being held down, even though the piano sounds do decay and fade out when playing. If the piano sounds never decayed when holding the sustain pedal down and they stayed on all the time, the sound would be a big mess. So…with most digital piano brands, when holding down the sustain pedal and mixing 2 great sounds together like piano + strings, the pianos will fade out as normal but the strings will keep on being heard as long as you hold down your sustain pedal.
It is interesting to note that although the acoustic piano sound technology is very good in the P-515 along with other percussive sounds such as harpsichords, vibes, guitars, etc, the technology for the sustaining legato instrument sounds such as organs, strings, choirs, pads, etc, is no impressive at all. I thought that these instrumental tones would be as lifelike as the pianos are with no sampled loops being heard. But unfortunately the sample loops of those other sounds are so short that you hear a
very noticeable repeat loop about once every second or so when holding down a note as you are playing any of those sounds. In other words, when those sound samples are done on those sounds (strings, pads, organs, choirs, etc), that sound sample is not called a “sample” for nothing. It is indeed just a very small slice of the full original sound. In the case of the choir sound, as an example, what Yamaha does is give you approx a 1 second sound sample of choir and then they loop that 1 second sound in a continuous circle so that when you hold down a key and play that sound you will continually
hear it which is good, but unfortunately you also hear a repeating “beat” approx every 1 second with a start and end point, but continuous without stopping.
I have a couple more concerns that I was surprised to find in this new model. Most portable digital pianos, especially in this price range, have the ability to add special effects to the instrument sound so it can be more realistic and organic and enable you to add things to the sound that can make your playing experience more enjoyable. To that end Yamaha has 3 very cool effects features called reverb (common in most digital pianos), Sound Boost (instant extra clarity and sharpness), and preset and programmable EQ (the ability to enhance the overall sound with boosting or reducing certain sound frequencies. All 3 of
these features do a very good job of allowing you to “tweak” the overall sound coming through the speakers or through headphones and I enjoy applying those effects.
press the reverb button then that button brings you to a reverb menu in the LCD user display screen. In this mode you can set what type of reverb setting you want or you can scroll to an “off” setting and turn off the reverb from there, but again, there is no instant on/off reverb button from the panel. You can also press the “Piano Room” button on the control panel and scroll down to the Reverb type and also reverb amount. You can select changes in those functions within the Piano Room such as the amount of
reverb depth you will
get for the particular reverb setting you previously selected (such as room, plate, concert, cathedral, etc), so that is a good thing.
The Sound Boost and EQ settings are great features to have on the P-515 and especially useful for pro players who like to “dial in” their sound. But unfortunately these to functions are also not especially “user friendly” in terms of controlling them and those functions are important to the overall sound. You can access both of those features from one panel button labeled “Sound Boost/EQ. means that neither function has its own button on/off button from the panel. When you press sound boost
button then it first takes you into the “Sound Boost” LCD menu and then you have to find the Sound Boost setting you most prefer, turn it on or off from there and then select the specific Sound Boost setting. With the EQ feature, EQ editing can be useful and definitely help with overall sound output quality and frequency range depending on your ears and what you like to hear.
screen. But again, the panel “Sound Boost/EQ” button does not turn those settings on or off and it is a separate feature from the Sound Boost function and yet they are on the same button with no main on/off button for each one. It is interesting to note that there is a button next to the Sound Boost/EQ button called “dual/split.” That button is dedicated to activating and changing the instrument layer combinations along with activating and changing the split sound
mode.
them in the split mode. If you press that button again you get a 3rd mode called dual/split which gives you a layered sound for the right hand and one separate instrument sound for the left hand…so you also get 2 sounds for the right hand instead of just one.
By now some of you may have the opinion that I might not be fond of this new piano…but that’s not true. The problem for me is that I do like it a lot because it is clean looking, uncluttered, layed out nicely, has some impressive features, and most importantly has 2 great acoustic piano sounds. But at this price range and for how new it is I would have expected Yamaha to take it up another notch and not have the issues I have described so far concerning the P-515. However, I am especially impressed with few of the acoustic piano sounds, the natural piano tonal resonances, the pedaling, the piano decay/sustain quality and sustain time of those piano sounds, and the powerful and dynamic internal speaker system. I also like many of the other instrument sounds too as I mentioned.
It’s just that Yamaha, in my opinion, did not keep its eye on the ball to deliver a great new digital piano across the board. This piano has so much potential because if has so many cool features including 40 built-in drum rhythm patterns that sound great with very realistic percussion along with automatic bass lines depending on what chords you are playing.
player playing along with you. But…unfortunately and yet again, Yamaha falls flat. In a real band the drummer and bass player don’t keep playing the same patterns over and over…they change it up every now and then so it does not become monotonous and repetitious and the drummer puts in “drum breaks & fills” to keep it rhythmically interesting which also ties together the song verses, chorus, bridge, etc.
pianos out there including models by Yamaha and most of those models have built-in drum breaks, drum fills and alternative drum patterns within the regular pattern that can be triggered when playing songs by pressing a dedicated button and/or foot pedal. The bass line will even change depending on the drum fill and/or alternate drum pattern. However, on the P-515, although there are 40 different drum patterns each with their own bass line which never change, there are no drum beaks, no drum fills, no alternate drum patterns, and no alternate bass lines. In other words, the P-515 backing tracks, as good as they sound otherwise, are not even as realistic or useful as some of Yamaha’s $200 keyboards with backing tracks…and I am not exaggerating.
The P-515 has a number of other cool features that you can control from the LCD menu using the navigation arrow buttons on the control panel and a feature I like very much are the recording and playback functions. You can record a song in the “quick-record” mode, 2-track mode or 16-track midi mode which allows you to create and record a full 16-track (16 instrument sounds) MIDI recording and save it on a USB flashdrive. You can also record an wav file audio recording which is the actual audio sounds of the P-515 rather than the MIDI, and this feature is pretty cool although it is becoming more common to find on many
different digital pianos these days.
When it comes to learning a playing a variety of music on the P-515, a great way to do that is to use General MIDI song files because not only are those files free or relatively inexpensive depending on the music you want, but you can transpose those songs to any key and slow down or speed up the song without degradation to the song itself. Generally speaking, audio song files cannot do that…only MIDI…especially multi-track MIDI files in being stable as compared to audio files for learning and play-along. However, for the digital piano to be able to play General MIDI multi-track, multi-instrument MIDI files, the piano needs to
have the General MIDI format and instruments built into the piano. Without this format and instrument library the piano cannot play full General MIDI song files but the P-515 can play full 16-track General MIDI song files because it has the XG sound library of 480 instrument sounds including horns, reeds, woodwinds, brass of all kinds, percussion, etc.
General MIDI format and therefore the P-515 can play any General MIDI song file. This is actually a very cool thing in my opinion because there are thousands of MIDI song files available online (all your favorite music) and when you play them on GM capable digital pianos then you get to hear and playalong/singalong with any of those songs. In fact, most MIDI files are recorded as General MIDI song files and so they are the most popular digital (non-
audio) songs of all especially because you can easily control the tempo, transposed key, and other aspects of controlling those song files depending on the digital piano functions.
of music, even though it’s not the actual song CD/MP3 file recording of it, the General MIDI multi-track version is pretty good and can sound fairly real…depending on the song and the instruments you are hearing. So if I am playing the them from Star Wars, a jazz piece from Count Basie, A Disney song from Beauty & the Beast, a rock tune from Toto, or a orchestrated classical piece such as Beethoven’s 5th symphony, the XG General MIDI sound
Library works good and sounds good and you can have a lot of fun playing along with the songs on the P515 to better learn how they go or even just to sing with or play along with other instruments.
The Yamaha P-515 has some very impressive connectivity hardware and software built in including audio wireless Bluetooth so that you can play songs from your favorite digital music library in your mobile phone or tablet directly through
the P515 internal speaker system and use the piano as your stereo speaker system to hear your songs even if you are in another part of the room. Having audio Bluetooth can be useful depending on how you use it and what you want to do with it. Beyond the Bluetooth connectivity is USB direct cable connection to interface with a tablet, computer, etc, I use my iPad quite a bit in my music studio for piano educational apps for my students along with other apps and music that are interactive and allow me to interface my device so I can have the app or program react to my keyboard input. On the P515 when I do that and connect with a USB cable, not only do I get MIDI connectivity but I also get automatic audio streaming connectivity.
Other connectivity features include separate audio line outputs so you can connect to an external speaker system. Personally I don’t believe any external speaker system is need if you are playing in a small to medium size room in the home or smaller venue. Even in a larger room the P515 is sufficient. But if you’ll be playing in a very large building, church, school auditorium, etc then connecting to external speakers would be a good idea and you can do that on the P-515. There are also standard MIDI in/out ports for people who have older MIDI devices like keyboards, sound modules, etc so that you can connect your older MIDI device to the
P515 using the standard MIDI ports.
Beyond everything this new model can do from its control panel, Yamaha has a proprietary “controller app” for iOS devices (iPad, etc) which allows you to control most of the piano functions using the color touch screen of your external device. The name of this Yamaha app is called “Smart Pianist” and the app works for other Yamaha digital pianos as well as for the P-515 and it even adds extra features to the P-515 that are not already inside the piano. I like the app because overall it is a lot more intuitive to control (most of) the functions and features of the
piano through your iPad color touch screen. It uses the familiar Apple iOS operating system and with all the experience I have in using an iPad in my studio with other music technology apps, I found the Smart Pianist a lot of fun to navigate and it makes the features of the piano (overall) much easier to access and understand. The first major feature in the app is the “Piano Room” setting.
will automatically activate that Bosendorfer grand piano sound, and so on. There are 2 more piano settings in the Piano Room along with ability to change the background scene which provides different Reverb effects settings such as Concert Reverb, Chamber Reverb, Cathedral Reverb, and so on. When you want to explore more sounds and effects, etc you would go into the operational function of the Smart Pianist which allows you to bring up the categories of all 40 instrument sounds including all 480 XG instrument sounds. You choose the category, select the sound from the sound list by touching the sound you want and then the
instrument picture of that sound will appear on the main screen as sound #1.
The “Smart Pianist” also allows you to do things the piano itself cannot do such as save your favorite instrument sounds into a “Favorites” page so that when you want to use your favorite sounds individually, in a layer, or in a split, you don’t have to search for the sound category and find the sound you want. You just go to your “Favorites” page and select the sound you want from the list of Favorites you have saved…it’s that easy. You can also save full registration (setup memories) in a “Registration” page in the app which is very cool because the piano itself does not have this function.
sounds, key change, reverb & EFX settings, and other functions so that you just go the the “Registration” page where you saved those setups and then you touch the one you want and it instantly activates that “registration memory” and you instantly have what you want without having to recreate it manually every-time you want it. Pretty much all the important functions that I previously mentioned which are in the P515 can be controlled from your iPad with the Smart Pianist app. This includes recording functions, metronome, drum rhythms & bass lines, touch curve, transpose, piano elements, etc. There are some things the app does not control but it does a very good job overall and as I just mentioned, it does things the piano itself does not do on its own including having a live 5-part digital volume (touch) mixer.
When it comes to playing songs in the piano, you can do that by pressing the song button and all of the songs that reside in the piano song library can be accessed including all General MIDI song files on the USB flashdrive. In the Smart Pianist app you would go to the virtual “song button” in the feature portion of the app and when you touch that virtual button all of the internal songs come up that are available in the piano and you can access and play them more easily from the app. When you see the song book and song you want on the page, you just touch it and then that song is instantly accessed and will play in the piano.
song file from the classical music books in the piano then the sheet music will also be displayed in the app on your iPad so you can see the notes and play along as well as control tempo, key, volume and parts of the song that are playing back. You can isolate the left hand from the hand part which is very cool as well. The app also allows you to load songs from your iTune library so that you can listen and play along as well as even change the key or tempo to some degree and the songs from your MP3 files will also display accompaniment chords in a chord chart and the chords will be seen in a linear fashion as the song is playing so that you know what chords are in the song by instantly seeing them in the Smart Pianist chord chart. I have tries this many times and although it works well, it doesn’t always work for all songs or does not display the chords and chord changes correctly depending on the song. But overall it’s a great learning and fun music tool if you have iTunes.
There is one downside to using the Smart Pianist app which is personally annoying to me (although it won’t matter to other people) and that is when you access the app, it instantly shuts off access to the piano control panel or LCD display screen. In other words you cannot use the piano control panel, display screen, or any features within the piano at the same time as you are using the app. The display screen reads “in-
communication” with the app and then all piano controls are frozen and display screen is non functioning. Well…you might think this is no big deal because after-all, you’re using the app so why would you want or need to also access the piano functions from the piano?
else. The way I would need to do that is to go out of the sheet music page to get to my instrument sounds and press 8 button pushes to eventually get to my sounds to select them and then back into my sheet music…no one is going to do that…takes much too long and you lose the music.
piano using the piano control panel and accessing the transpose function through the piano but then you would have to disconnect the iPad to do that.
using the app is that the app can not control or give access to General MIDI song files that are on your USB flash drive so that you cannot play or activate the flashdrive songs from the piano and there is no way to use it through the app. The app will not display the songs on the flashdrive and/or give you control over it so to do that you would need to disconnect the tablet from the piano and take out the cable. Obviously this Yamaha app is not “perfect” (what app is ever perfect?) but it’s very good and quite useful in many ways. I will say that having the app and the piano control panel/display screen work simultaneously must not be “rocket
science” because Casio’s proprietary new controller app for iPad & Android called “Chordana Play for Piano,” works simultaneously with its piano control panel on new portable pro models called PXS series, and in a lower price range.
you just deal with it and enjoy as much as possible. There certainly are big advantages to having and using the proprietary Smart Pianist app with the P515 in terms of accessing and controlling various functions and features of this piano. So I do appreciate the fact that Yamaha developed this great looking tablet/mobile device app to help better navigate the P-515.
I wanted to specifically mention the internal speaker system in the P-515. There is a total of 40 watts of power going into 4 amplifiers and 4 speakers and the way that Yamaha designed that internal system allows for a much clearer tone and more precise bass response along with plenty of power without noticeable distortion. The built-in EQ feature in the piano allows
you to precisely control the lows, medium, and high frequency tones in the P-515 for live play and recorded playback from song files. I can tell you that from my personal experience playing a lot of hours through the P-515 internal speaker system that it is by far the best sound I have ever heard coming through a portable digital piano under $2000 expect for the new Kawai ES920 ($1799 price). The overall sound is very impressive and the bass response is tight and precise without being boomy.
Yamaha did an outstanding job with the cabinet design and cabinet finish on the P-515 in my opinion by making it look a lot more “upscale” than any previous models they have had by using nice (quality) looking materials, better construction, contemporary design elements that add a bit of elegance to it, as well as nice looking button layout and shapes, and larger/better user display screen size and style. The previous model P255 in black had some black shiny plastic plex on the interior of the control panel which scratched easily and just looked bad. On this new model Yamaha got rid of all that and improved design and
materials, although to give the P-515 that more “elegant” appearance they redesigned the top outside cabinet panels into a more interesting geometric shape and used that black plastic plex material there to give the piano a “polished black” appearance on those sides.
In the final analysis the P-515 is an impressive piano, but with some negative caveats. I obviously like many aspects of this model but my main hang-up with it is the key action being heavy making it more difficult to control the key volume and dynamics, especially when playing more softly (too firm down-weight) particularly for a portable product. Key action is the #1 thing that piano teachers and pro players (like me) consider to be important and everything else comes after that. But besides key action and a few quirks that the P-515 has that I have previously mentioned, I believe there are a number of people who will like this
model and will find it to be enjoyable to play.
Between the price range of $1500 to approx $2500, the 5 main portable digital pianos in this category are the Yamaha P-515, the newer Kawai ES920 at $1899, the Roland FP-90X at $2199, the new Casio PX-S6000 at $1799, and the new Casio PX-S7000 at $2499. I would recommend that you should especially read my reviews of the Kawai ES920 and the 2 Casio models before making a purchase decision, because for me personally, the Kawai and Casio models respond a lot more like a high quality acoustic piano than does the Yamaha P-515 when it comes to key action authenticity and piano sound. Kawai ES920 Review. Casio PX-S6000 & S7000 Review.
If you want more info on new digital pianos and LOWER PRICES than internet discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call direct at 602-571-1864.
Thankyou for your review which was very helpful. I was interested in purchasing the Yamaha P 515, but after listening to many videos on the P515, I have found that there were some things that I did not like. I have a Yamaha Pro 9000 which I bought many years ago which I have enjoyed but would now like to purchase a similar keyboard with soft keys and I wonder if you would be able to help me. I have heard many different keyboards on the Internet but would dearly love your advice. Cost around $2000 76- 88 keys. I live in Melbourne Australia.
Hopefully I will hear from you, Thankyou, Margaret Bethune.
Interesting had a world renowned piano player and musician who found this instrument outstanding, especially the key action being weighted closely to a real piano….So….
Thanks Tim for your thorough review.
Which setting is the "lightest"…Soft 1 or Soft 2?
I couldnt find the answer in the manual.thanks.
Soft #2
Impressive! No stone left un-turned. Thank you for a most comprehensive review. I needed this.
Lucien
What makes me want the Yamaha is the Smart Pianist App. I have over $1000 invested in iTunes music. I'm a jazz player and use chord progressions extensively in playing and improvising. An App that gives me the chords in a song, will speed up or slow down the song, transpose it etc. is invaluable. As far as I know the apps for other pianos don't do this. Also, being able to record a song onto a thumb drive and transfer it to a computer and a CD is also invaluable. Although touch and tone are important I find that most reviewers spend a huge amount of time on these and very little on connectivity and apps. For me (I've been playing all of my life and I'm 78 years old) all of the major brands have good sound but what interests me is what you can do with the piano (and I'm not talking about elaborate composing or arranger keyboards like the high end Nord, Korg etc.)
Is there any other app or software that will analyze and display the chords of a song you have stored on your computer or other smart device???
Hi
Hope you are well and keeping safe. Can you assist with the settings that I need to get the closest feel to an acoustic piano. I am not looking predominantly at the sound but want to ensure the action I use is correct. Sorry I don't think I am explaining myself very well. I don't want the P515 to play it for me, rather I want to play it as I would an acoustic.
Also the pedal settings using the 3 pedal system. I decided to do a factory reset with sad regret.
I use the P515 to allow me to practice late without disturbing the neighbours and are lucky to have a 1925 Steinway upright.
Look forward to receiving advice
Blessings to you