Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Casio PX-350 vs. Yamaha DGX 640

Hi, I'm currently looking for a digital piano to buy, and was curious as to which were the best ones. 2 have caught my eye, the Casio PX 350 and the Yamaha DGX 640. I'm trying not to spend too much money, and the Casio is a bit cheaper, but I'm concerned with buying a Casio. Are they good quality? The keyboard I currently have is a Casio, probably from around 2001, light up cheapo keyboard. Thanks!

IMHO in that price range they are both decent choices. The Privia series from Casio is a very popular choice for bang for your buck, and I have seen a few of these at my local music store stand the test of time from years of lessons.
One thing to consider in the pricing is if they come with the pedals. If it were me I personally would go for the Yamaha, but that is a biased opinion as I have a Yamaha S90es which I absolutely love. (I went from almost purchasing a used Privia for $300 to the S90es, talk about budget creep!!)
If you can, I would take a decent set of quality headphones and try them both. If you do not have a decent set, ask to use some at the store.

Personally, I probably prefer the sound of the DGX640 and the action of the PX350. But I think quality of either is fine, I'd just choose whichever you enjoy playing more, or, if there's not a clear winner there, how appealing you find some of the additional features each has.

Hello trityche. I have the earlier Yamaha, the 620. For the mony, the voices are good; I don`t know if the piano voices are the same, but imagine they will be. I have my stuff on youtube, all done with this instrument, if it`s any help. But it can do so much more in the right hands. The playing action is pretty . . .average!

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhee

Casio products have excellent quality. My previous Casio (a CDP100) after enduring its time with me, has survived almost a year with a pair of 5 year old twins so that says something about durability as well.

However, best advice is get the one that you like best. There are no wrong choices.

DAVID

My beef with the 640 was how deep the unit was, if I recall correctly. The 350 is a solid board for the average user, and much newer. Doesn't the 640 come with the stand? You have to buy that extra (and the 3-pedal) with Casio.

I had both precursors -- first the Yamaha 625, then the PX 330. I liked the sound better on the 625 but the touch better on the PX330. The deal breaker for me was that the 625 did not sustain the left hand in split mode and the Casio did. Silly, maybe, but I couldn't get past that.

I had the Casio for a couple of years and never had any quality issues at all.

Higher end keyboards let you specify that, on a patch-by-patch basis.

If you're playing piano and doing a split for LH bass, you would not want the piano sustain to be affecting your LH bass work.

What do you mean patch by patch basis?

You mean that like phones the firmware can be updated? Because there was another post about the PX130 vs the 350 and somebody else mentioned patches as well.

I can certainly see the possibility with the USB cable.

Patch is a generic term for a sound on a keyboard (dating back to old synths where you would literally insert patch cords into different locations to get different sounds). So you might say "this button calls up a Rhodes electric piano patch, and that one calls up a strings patch," where patch basically just means sound. In this case, I'm talking about patches that consist of combinations of sounds. For example, on many keyboards, you could create and save a patch that gives you bass on the lower part of the keyboard and piano on the right, and you would only want the sustain pedal to function on the piano sound; but you might also create and save a patch with some kind of pad sound on the left and a piano on the right, and you might then want the sustain pedal to work on both sounds. If a keyboard is "fixed" in how it assigns the function of the sustain pedal on either side of a split, you get what you get, the left hand part will either sustain or it won't and you have no say in the matter. But some keyboards lets you specify how you want the sustain pedal to work on a particular patch, and so every time you call up that particular patch, the sustain pedal will alter its behavior to match. These kinds of recallable patches that include combinations of sounds along with any relevant user-specifiable settings that might apply to them are called different things by different manufacturers. Usually, on a Korg it is a Combi, on a Roland it is a Registration (a term that dates back to Hammond tonewheel organs, their presets were called registrations), and on a Yamaha it is a Performance. Though even these companies may sometimes use different terminology.

I see.

Reading patch, I thought of it more in computer program terms. The maker of your software discovers a problem and releases a patch to fix it up.

Thinking of android phones and Win7 which spends all its time updating I thought this possibility existed for digital pianos...


In fact I am wondering now why it does not exist for digital pianos!

It does. Many companies release downloadable system/firmware updates (patches in the computer sense, if you will) which can both add new features as well as fix bugs.

Just a thought, unless you want the PX350 to be portable, then you may be better off buying the PX750, as by the time you buy the stand and pedal unit the purchase price is equal, but I understand the PX350 may have more bells and whistles which wouldn't interest me as I'm only interested in the key action and a decent piano sound.

hello that was me- by patches I meant "sounds". Seems to me in the 80's they used that term more

A 750/850 could be a better option if you are concerned like I am about having speakers that are more powerful.

If you are looking at a DGX640, though have you looked at the P105? Less sounds but a newer sample.