Anyone who's followed my sporadic yabbering in this blog knows I'm a dyed-in-the-wool analog synthesizer snob (because they have cool lights and knobs and stuff). But I'm also a huge Elton John/David Bowie/ELO fan, so I love banging out stuff on piano. The trouble with digital pianos is that if you want 88 weighted keys, and you don't want it to sound like junk, you're usually into paying a grand or more (a large portion of which should be spent on synths or vintage motorcycle parts, at least in my world). And 88 keys usually equates to about 88lbs as well.

My piano hunt adventure goes back a little over a year, whenceupon I tried every cheap-ish 88-key weighted piano I could find. Casios had keyboards that felt like they were made of stone, Korg, Roland and Kawai were pricey. M-Audio... keyboards was clunky and I wasn't nuts about the sound quality. Which left Yamaha. At the time, their most affordable full-size 88-key piano was the P-70. The keyboard weighting  was not too heavy and not too light, the quality of the stereo piano sample good, and the whole package weighed around 20lbs. So I bought one.

I loved my P-70. I used to turn my nose up at anything with built-in speakers, but they're actually really handy, especially at parties (they shut off if you shove a jack in the headphone jack). My only complaint really is that to change sounds you have to hold a button then press a key on the keyboard.

Which brings us to the P-85, Yamaha's current entry-level 88-key piano. It's pretty much the same as the P-70, but they added actual buttons on the front panel for sound selection (which includes a stereo and a mono piano, a decent Rhodes, strings and cathedral organs). And of course it has standard MIDI I/O, so you can use it as a regular MIDI controller. All for around six bills. Yay! The word has slowly gotten out and these guys sell like proverbial hotcakes at audioMIDI.com. I think I need to trade up... check it out HERE at the audioMIDI.com site.