BOSS KATANA 50 FOOTSWITCH FULL
BOSS KATANA 50 FOOTSWITCH PORTABLE

Beginners may find it a little challenging, but no less so than your average acoustic piano, and, just like an acoustic, well worth persevering with. It’s quite a heavy action, a great workout for the fingers that intermediate to advanced players will love. The keys have a really premium feel - the weighting is perfectly balanced and graded heavier from left to right, while the non-textured keytops deliver an authentic playing experience that’s truly evocative of an acoustic grand. Derived from their famous 9’ CFIIIS concert grand, it’s just a delight to play when partnered with the supremely playable and responsive GHS keyboard. You wouldn’t really expect anything less from Yamaha, and it certainly lives up to expectations. Its main selling point was always going to be its principal grand piano sound, so after powering the unit on and waiting a few short seconds for boot time, it’s reassuring to discover that it is excellent. Yamaha are one of the few top digital piano manufacturers that also have a long tradition of crafting acoustic instruments, and it shows particularly well in the case of the P-125a. The rear connectors are tucked away so far back into the recess on the underside of the piano that you have to practically invert your entire upper body to get to them from the player’s point of view, but thankfully the two 6.3mm headphone outputs are located more accessibly on the front of the instrument, on the left-hand side. Round the back, we have a pair of L/R auxiliary outputs, a USB to host port and sockets for a sustain pedal and Yamaha’s bespoke LP-1 three-pedal unit (sold separately). There are plenty of recesses on the underside to get your fingers into, making it easy to lug the unit around, but it’s only capable of running on mains power - no batteries here.

BOSS KATANA 50 FOOTSWITCH PORTABLE

Since this is a portable piano, Yamaha have done an excellent job of keeping the overall weight down to a manageable 11.8kg. The surprising dimension is the height - presumably to accommodate the 2-way speaker system and the weighted keyboard mechanism, the chassis is pretty tall, giving the instrument a height, when placed on a flat surface, of 16.6cm.

BOSS KATANA 50 FOOTSWITCH FULL

The physical footprint of the P-125a is not a lot larger than the keyboard itself, with a slim control panel running the full width of the instrument and housing speakers situated at each end. Still, unless the lack of a built-in audio interface is a deal breaker for you, it doesn’t detract from the P-125a’s extraordinary piano sound and playability. We’re not sure what prompted the decision to remove this function. The P-125a replaces the previous P-125 model, the only apparent difference being that audio is no longer transmitted digitally through the USB port.

Boss katana 50 footswitch