Yamaha YPT-260 Electric Keyboard

Description

• 61 keys
• 400 high quality voices
• 130 backing styles
• Built-in Y.E.S. teaching system
• Yamaha’s Ultra-Wide Stereo processor
• Reverb and chorus effects
• Lightweight and portable
• Yamaha education suite – 9 stages
• Nine step lesson function

Yamaha YPT-260 electric keyboard review

The YPT-260 has the traditional look of a Yamaha keyboard with its clinical layout and no-nonsense approach. Unlike the RockJam keyboards the Yamaha YPT-260 isn’t meant to appeal to just young children with its flashing lights and colourful displays, and instead aims towards everyone – children, beginners and adults.

The Yamaha YPT-260 on looks alone is clearly a more serious keyboard, but does it deliver on sound quality and features where it maybe lacks in colour?

Sound

Let’s start with the Grand Piano sound – it’s good, very good. At just over £140 this keyboard is not expensive but does slightly stray into the more serious beginner market, and although I would recommend this for children, it clearly tries to offer a better sound than anything else in the same price range. So does it?

Yes, definitely. The sounds are really good, and I especially like the main Grand Piano sound which is where everything always begins. You can usually tell if the rest of the instruments will sound good based on the main piano sound. So we get off to a great start with a crisp and bright piano tone.

And it continues off from there, with the strings, brass, vibraphones, guitars, rhythms and backing tracks – all sounding really good for something of this price. So you can see what Yamaha are trying to achieve with this keyboard with its more serious look.

To truly recognise the potential this keyboard has, have a listen:

Touch and feel

Not a particularly important section to worry about when it comes to keyboards, because the touch and feel is always very similar. You get the standard size keyboard keys which are very easy to play, and have no weight to them. This is expected, and if you want weighted keys you would need to spend more on a digital piano. But that isn’t the idea of a keyboard.

Features

This is where the fun begins, and buying a keyboard is all about having lots of fun creating lots of realistic songs with the numerous backing tracks and voices. There are 400 instruments in total which will keep anyone happy for many years, and on top of that you have 130 backing styles. I would have actually preferred to have had fewer voices and a few more backing tracks, but then in all fairness I think you wouldn’t find this a problem.

One of the main features of this keyboard is the Y.E.S teaching system which stands for Yamaha education system. I suppose the YES is meant to inspire you to shout, ‘Yes, I can do this!’ But how good is it?

There are a few teaching modes which I managed to test out – listen mode, timing mode, and waiting mode. They do really work, and I can see a beginner getting a long very well with them. You can go at your own pace, and the keyboard shows you the notes to play on its screen. You also get a score or rating on how well you did, so it’s nice to see your progression.

There’s also a chord dictionary so you can test your knowledge on the left chords, which are essential for learning to play along to the backing tracks and to create or emulate a song. I really liked this feature, and I haven’t come across this before. I now wish all keyboards had this, because working out the chords is not easy at all for a beginner.

Yamaha YPT-260 – Price and summary

The Yamaha YPT-260 is a solid choice for just over £140. There are lots of keyboards to choose from in this price range, but I would confidently say that this offers one of the best sounds out there. The speakers are really good, and there are a lot of teaching, recording and accompaniment sounds to enjoy this keyboard for a very long time.

Really young children could learn to play on this very easily, but they may not find it as attractive or as fun compared with the RockJam’s. That said, it really does depend on what you want your child to get out of a keyboard. If you want them to take lessons and take things more seriously, then you may want to consider the Yamaha YPT-260. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do the same with a RockJam, it’s just that they appeal more to the younger player.

Overall this is a very solid choice for around £140 and I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn and have fun – which is what the keyboard is all about!