YPT-400
Computer-friendly portable keyboard

   photograph from Yamaha site

The second big improvement is the addition of a dedicated ARPEGGIO section, with several great-sounding types that run from the classic up-down and random, to more modern and useful patterns like Guitar arps, finger picking, acid line, trance, salsa and a lot more!

The third very welcome improvement is the inclusion of a PITCH-BEND WHEEL. No other keyboard in this price range has a programmable pitch-bend wheel.  I trust and seriously hope that with the next release, Yamaha will also add a modulation wheel, but maybe it's asking too much?  :-)

Now for the sounds:  the basic sounds are beautiful and realistic, and they very much borrow from the excellent ROM found in the pro-line of the Motif, PSR-3000, and Tyros... They are, of course, a bit slimmed-down, the base samples are not as vigorous as the ones found in its bigger brothers, but - as you will hear from the audio samples - the quality is there, including a selection from the famous Yamaha "Sweet" and "Cool" voices.  In addition to the "more serious sounding" AWM2 samples, the YPT-400 features a huge amount of XGlite and General MIDI sounds, that are perfect if you want to use this to play .mid and .kar files.

I have had a few other Yamaha keyboards in the past (PSR-550, PSR-3000), and the YPT-400 is a worthy successor to them.  It's their baby brother, but I can assure you, add some quality effects to the base ROM sounds, and you will have good results in your songs.

The Music Database is also featured (like on the previous models), and several other song templates have been added, bringing the total to a hefty 256 song templates on-board!  You will not need anymore than that to play piano bar gigs :-)  , and if you do, you can still add songs to flash memory or user song data.

Also the very useful OTS (One Touch Setting) is retained, allowing you to step through the songs/style patterns, and a suitable arrangement and lead sound will be chosen for you.  Of course, you can change that in no time, but 90% of the time, it's the right sound for the right hand melody.

The excellent scroll wheel from the mid-range PSRs is there, and I assure you, this is a MUST-HAVE item that will make your life easier at gigs, or at the studio.  It allows to run and program things a lot faster than having a couple of increment buttons (case in point:  I was also looking at the comparable Casio CTK-900, and while the sounds on the Casio are good  - especially the organ section - the lack of a scroll wheel made me go with the Yamaha).

The on-board speakers are of good quality, and certainly adequate for home use, or small parties at somebody's house.  However, if you want to compete in a band, with other instruments, you will need an amplifier - the speakers only go so far up in volume.

OK, so, what corners have been cut to bring the price down that low?  One single stereo 1/4" output serves for both phones and line out, there is one lonely sustain jack input, and no MIDI.  What?!  No MIDI??  Nope... there is a USB port though, which will happily attend those functions, but of course, you will need a computer to hook it up to.

This is, in my opinion, more than a starter keyboard.  You can definitely make it sound like a "professional" synth, and if you connect it to a DAW and start sweetening up the sounds via effects and plug-ins, it will reward you with excellent sounding arrangements.

Here are the main Factory Song demos:

001 Phunk !  ..... a very cool and modern funky beat, that represents the synthetic soul of the YPT-400

002 Syn_Zone  .. the current trend in dance beats, vaguely a la Benny Benassi

003 Chillin  ........ beautiful chillout/downtempo arrangement... check out the beautiful piano and puffy pads

004 GP Demo  .... the notorious Yamaha Stereo Sampled Piano

005 TSaxDemo ... the same demo that's on the PSR-550 and PSR-3000

006 JzOrDemo  ... superb hard-bop Hammond organ 1960s demo, a la Jimmy Smith with orchestra

007 EPnoDemo ... the beautiful "Galaxy" electric piano

008 MHrpDemo ... very expressive mouth harp (aka harmonica) and soprano sax

and here's a selection of audio examples I recorded from the main sampled voices:

stream all Voice examples below

Available at www.yamaha.com
 

Yamaha YPT-400 review with audio demo