Love 
by Sasha from CA USA, April 2008
Music Background:  Arranger, Session Player, Composer

Here is the thing: we're musicians, let's not analyze it to dead. The fact (for me) is simple: I fell in love with the instrument on the spot. I want to play it. I want to play with it. It is inspiring my to play and write more.

I have lots of other great toys in the studio. Most of them are great to use in recording, much better than s90 es for particular sounds, but this one is playing me. Musician's instrument. Thumbs up. Way up.

  S90ES is an excellent keyboard. 
by Lou from Wallingford, PA USA, August 2007
Music Background:  Semi-pro Musician.

I love this board. It's very flexible and powerful, let alone the fact that it sounds great. Lots of great third-party sound libraries are available for it too. I play in a classic rock band and a church worship band, and the S90ES does everything I need it to do. No need for additional rack sound modules. It's a terrific piece and I'm totally happy with it.

  Great keyboard!!!!! 
by B. H. from Columbus, Ohio, February 2007
Music Background:  Pro Musician, composer, arranger

The Yamaha S90ES is a very cool keyboard. I love the fact they loaded the Motif ES sounds in it along with an action that feels extremely good. The keys feel very natural to me and provide a very nice resistence, but allows for expressive playing on other instrument voices as well. The performance presets are a lot of fun and got pretty addicting after a few minutes. Compared to my Kurzweil PC88 (which I've had for about 8 years), I think the S90ES is a step up from it with just as nice of piano action (maybe better), incredible sounds, and it's expandable! How cool is that?

I would recommend the S90ES to working musicians of all styles!

  Superb! 
by TomH from Dallas, January 2007
Music Background:  Played professionally years ago, now a hobbyist

I am very please with my recent purchase of this unit. I tried about every synth out there and am confident that this is one of the best choices available today. I have a lot to learn about the S90ES's capabilities, but without a doubt, the stretched grand piano tuning, and piano voice sampling is state of the art. The intelligent arpeggiation is also extremely usable and musical. On guitars, the S90 layers in string sliding sounds into chord transitions in a very natural way. Real time control is very easy and the touch and weighting of the keys is very close to that of my acoustic grand. All voices are extremely natural and the preloaded user settings are very useable and facinating.

Highly recommended

  Some Observations on the S90 ES 
by Fly By Light from Atlanta, Georgia, December 2006
Music Background:  Piano/Bass Player, Songwriter, Home Recordist

This piano is a fine piece of gear. Its main competitor is the Roland RD-700SX. If you want the VERY best piano sound, you may prefer the Roland; if you want a well-rounded array of sounds (including a nice selection of piano sounds), you will probably be happier with the Yamaha. Highlights from a huge set of features include organs with Leslie that speeds up and slows down well enough to use in a recording, inspiring Wurlitzer/Rhodes pianos, several usable horn patches, nice fat analog leads and pads, and on and on. . . There's many more presets than any one person could use, and much of it is very good to excellent.

The smoothness in the sounds is really crucial - there's none of the piercing or grainy quality that ruins so many sampled sounds on other instruments. It is easy to get lost on this instrument. Fortunately, the "Favorites" feature allows you to flag your favorite patches and "performances" (splits and layers) for quick access. This is crucial during live use if you use more than one sound.

Master EQ and four auxiliary faders make fine-tuning fairly quick and easy. The faders can also double as a poor man's drawbars (rich guys can afford nine).

Down sides? The instrument is VERY wide - noticeably more than my old 88-key controller. This means larger cases if your instrument is to be carried around. The very fancy "performances" illustrate the power and possibilities of the instrument, but not many would be usable "as is" (IMHO). Many patches may also go unused, but there is still plenty to work with and lots of parameters to tweak on the ones that fall short. In fact, the editing power may be a bit daunting to those new to programming synthesizers.

The piano sounds fall just a bit short of my wishes - the "bright" sound has good energy, but is a little buzzy in the lower range. The softer sounds have more smoothness, but may not cut through in a dense arrangement as a result (maybe a good thing, depending on your needs). Some of the piano patches sound just a bit "nasal" in certain ranges. Careful selection of piano patches keeps these issues in check, and experimentation with eq and layering of two piano patches may be your path to the Holy Grail.

The warts are minor - this is a really nice instrument that I look forward to using for many years.

  An incredible keyboard 
by Scott Ross from Ohio, July 2006
Music Background:  Studio musician, songwriter

I had been in the market to add to my keyboard arsenal for quite some time, but could never find anything with a great blend of acoustic sounds and synth creativity. I knew within the first 5 minutes of playing the S90ES that I had found exactly what I needed. The piano is incredible, the arpeggios inspiring. My studio has been rejuvinated. This keyboard is an awesome foundation no matter what your style of play is.

  Kurzweil PC2X is mutch better than S 90 ES 
by jose carlos from Brazil, June 2006
Music Background:  live sound engineer

Coloquei lado a lado um S90 ES e um PC 2X. Os pianos acusticos, cordas, baterias, orgãos, etc. são muito melhores no Kurzweil PC 2X. Até hoje, não escutei melhor som de piano acústico em um teclado que o PC2X. Não entendo porque a Yamaha com tanta tecnologia não consegue fazer um som de piano acustico melhor, isto sem levar em consideração que quando voce troca de timbre no S90 ES, ele corta o som, o que não acontece com o Kurzweil.

  Yamaha S90 ES 
by Chris Lynch from Gastonia,NC USA, June 2006
Music Background:  Pro Musician / Minister of Music

I Still believe that Yamaha makes the best keyboards on the planet. I own the S90ES, Motif8 and P250. I've had everything from Kurzweil to Korg and Yamaha stands alone. My only regreat was letting go of a KX88 I had for 16 years. As for the S90ES it is a very solid stage keyboard. Good Piano,Rhodes and organ sounds. I still think Kurzweil has the best strings. S90ES AWESOME BUY!

S-90 
by Scott Joyce from Nashville, May 2006

I've owned my S-90 for a little over 2 years and it has done a great job on the road until recently. It has great sounds and the controller functions are adequate. However, the action, while it feels good, tends to wear out after a couple of years and the keys begin to stick which can be a problem during a performance. Other than that, this is a perfect stage keyboard for your "meat and potatos" gig. The problems with the action are not unique to my S-90 and are only on the "D's" so this seems to be defect rather than normal wear and tear. I really like this keyboard but I need something more dependable and with better customer support.

Yamaha S90 ES piano samples 
by Andrew Scudder from Fort Worth, TX, March 2006

Yamaha FINALLY got it right when they developed their new piano samples for the S90 ES. I can actually play my own solo piano compositions without having to blend soft strings in the background to compensate for the lack of realism in the piano samples for a change!
Thank you Yamaha, and keep up the good work!

Yamaha S90 ES 
by chuck pearson from hughesville md, January 2006

Up until now, my Korg SG-1 was the only electric piano I would use on stage (since 1986). This S90 ES has great painos and Rhodes electric piano sounds and Clavs that work great on stage. It weighs alittle under 50 Lbs. Only compaint are the amp inputs which are all cluttered in one location that confuses me. I sometimes plug sustain pedal in the wrong input. Wish they would have recessed the volume sliders as they are exposed and subject to getting hit and bent. Nonetheless, a wonderful sounding piano and weighted keyboard it is.

The S90ES is the best piano I have ever played! 
by Brian Gorrell from Oklahoma City Metro, September 2005

The S90ES contains the absolute finest sounding acoutic piano samples I have ever played in a keyboard. The action is exceptional and this instrument is amazingly expressive and dynamic. I played on a Kurzweil K2500X for many years and this new board absolutely blew me away!

Thanks...

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