Hello All,

I’m hoping one or more of you may be able to offer advice about choosing a digital piano.

I’ve wanted to learn the piano for some time and last November I started taking lessons. Mr original intention was to ask my teacher for advice about what kind of keyboard/digital piano to buy and then go and get one. However when I spoke to her about this at the end of the lesson she said I might be able to buy her granddaughters old keyboard off her as she had just upgraded to a digital piano herself. I was able to do this and I have been using it since then. It is quite an old model with a reduced sized keyboard (5 octaves I think), touch sensitive keys (of a sort) etc but it has got me through the first 6-7 months of lessons and to grade 1 standard which is all I could have asked for really.

I now think it is time to move on, (a sentiment shared by my teacher) and I am looking for an actual digital piano. I would point out that I cannot purchase an acoustic piano, it is physically impossible to get one into any room in my current house as the hall is too narrow. Additionally I won't be in a position to own a house for some time and there is a strong chance that when I next move it could be to a smaller flat which would further reduce the scope for owning an acoustic and finally I need the ability to practise occasionally at odd hours and so headphones are a must (I know a hybrid allows you to do this but they are still acoustics and therefore currently impractical). I’d be looking to use this as my only piano for at least 3-5 years and ideally would like to keep it until it breaks!

Anywho my original intention was to purchase a Yamaha CLP 320 or 330 (depending on whether I could tell the difference between the two when I tried them out). I was going to do this when I got my result for my exam at work (I need to pass to keep the job and so if I’d have failed my piano lessons would have dropped far down my list of priorities). I passed the exam and then got a very pleasant surprise as I was actually due a much larger pay increase than I had been expecting and can now afford a more expensive digital piano as well as adding funds to savings etc. However this throws up a lot of confusion when it comes to actually choosing what to buy which is actually the point of this rather rambling post.

As I see it I have two broad options, I could stick with my original intention and get one of the basic Yamaha models (they seem to be the default choice at the bottom end of the market) or spend quite a bit more for the higher models. The choice at the top would probably be between the Yamaha CLP 370, Roland HP 207 or Kawai CA 91. All three models are available at a music shop in Bristol (which also operates the ‘take it away’ scheme!), when I went there they pushed the Kawai more than the others but not in any kind of forceful way.

The problem is I don’t know whether the extra features are really enough to justify the extra money and if they are I’m not technically able enough yet to really tell the difference between any of the three better models and finally even if I could thoroughly test out them out, just like a car, an hour test drive normally doesn’t let you in on the little things that can drive you insane and I’m sure it’s the same with these instruments!

So what I’m actually asking is, in principle, does paying more get you a better digital piano (with reference to the models above) and does anyone have any personal experience with these models that I could use to help me choose between them.

Many thanks

Paul

In general terms I can recommend Yamaha and Roland as I have used both (although not those specific models) whereas I have no experience of Kawais. I preferred the keyboard on my Yamaha to the one on my Roland - although the Yamaha was a more upmarket model at the time.

I will have a look online at the spec for the models you mention when I have a few more minutes. Broadly speaking though, extra money may only buy you extra bells and things to play with - depends what you want your instrument to do really. If you simply want a really good piano-type keyboard you may not care much about 250 other voices, or a great rhythm section.

Best help may come from someone who actually owns one of the models you list - I'll be interested to see what comes out too.

ps welcome to the forums - I see it's your first post !

(ed) have just had a quick google on the first two models you mention - neither in fact appears to have a rhythm section, so it does look as though you would be getting piano value rather than extra features.

I recently had to purchase a digital piano on behalf of a church that needed a very portable piano (doesn't have it's own building). Top priority were sound and touch (a couple of professional pianists are expected to play on it), closely followed by portability. We ended up purchasing a Roland FP2 stage piano (now upgraded to FP4). This was cheaper than expected (a lot less than a thousand all inc.), but has been very well received by all concerned. We weren't too worried about the other sounds, or any other 'buttons' (these are often what can make a digital instrument more expensive).

Best advice I think I could give is to choose according to what feels and sounds the best to you. All the models you name are great. Definately try at home before you make your final purchase commitment.

Good luck!

Em

I would spend the extra money on a Clav with a better sample than on one with all the bells and whistles.

I was going to get one of those crazy ones with all the extra sounds, screen etc etc, but decided to just spend the budget on a CLP-270 with the AFC widget, which sounded tonnes better to my ears. The more extra stuff a digital has, it seems the more the proper piano patch is compromised (or at least it did while I was shopping around).

I use external sound modules and MIDI out for whizzy sounds and stuff instead

Hello Paul, and welcome.

I think the most important thing about a digital keyboard is how the keys feel under your hands. If you decide after a while that the piano sound is unrealistic (which, believe me, you will), you can always get better sounds by plugging the keyboard into a computer. But, if you decide after a while that the keyboard feels all wrong, you're stuck with it until you buy a better one (or an acoustic). For your purposes the best one will probably be the one that feels most like an acoustic piano. I assume you're familiar with the feel of an acoustic piano from your lessons, so you can judge this for yourself. My own feeling is that the Kawai models tend to be slightly better in this respect than the Yamahas and Rolands, though there isn't much in it. I haven't compared the specific models you name.

Have you considered getting a "stage piano" (i.e. just the keyboard, without the legs etc), since space is tight?

I would like to endorse the Casio PX-320. Please note that there's a possible bias here: I own one

It has a wonderful piano voice ('Grand Piano Modern' = 1) which has been digitally sampled from a superb grand piano. The weighting of the keys feels good. There's one you can try out at The Bristol Music Shop by College Green (yes -- I live in Bristol too!) Gear4Music offers the best deal online if you choose to purchase.

A digital piano is never going to replace a real piano but it is an excellent practice tool. Wearing decent headphones gives a very 'close' and precise level of audio feedback which helps in developing tone control. You can practice in total privacy and without disturbing anyone. It is light and portable enough to take on holiday. You can record your pieces and listen to them critically later on. The built in metronome marks the measure as well as the beat. Plus you save money on tuning!

We have an old Yamaha PF70 which you're welcome to have for free if you come and collect it (contact me privately).

Thank you for your responses and the welcomes!

maggiemay

You're right the ones I listed are the three manufactures piano focused models. They all come with some bells and whistles like extra voices etc but they are mainly marketed on how close they mimic a real piano.

The Yamaha range appears to be one piano which they knock things off and charge less, or add things on and charge more. For instance really looking at the specifications again the only significant difference between the 340 and 370 is the latter has wooden keys. I guess it’s a matter of taste whether that change actually makes a material difference to how it plays.

Similarly the better Roland has more powerful speakers and can be fiddled with more than the lower spec ones. I was able to play the HP 201 next to the HP 207 and there was a distinct improvement with the more expensive model but again it’s a question of whether it’s worth paying for.

The Kawai’s are interesting in so far as the CA91 uses a soundboard as well as speakers, the man in the shop seemed to thing this was a huge deal (as it cost more he would say that) but I’m not sure if that is more than just marketing.

music margaret

Thank you for pointing those models out to me. The only concern I have with the stage type ones is the stability of them and how they project their sound. Is yours hooked up to amps etc or is it quite loud under its own power? I know I only need it to fill a room but some of the heaver ones definitely seem to have some volume (if nothing else!)

Solari

The Yamaha is basically the same model with some small tweaks I think. What’s the AFC widget incidentally?

primrose

It’s an odd situation really, it’s not really the space in the room that’s tight, there is plenty of space for an acoustic in there (and the bigger digitals take up the same space on the ground I think). The problem is the house has quite a narrow hallway and by the doors it gets a bit narrower due to a silly arch which makes it completely impossible to get a piano in at all (it was hard enough getting sofa’s in!).

Incidentally is it relatively easy to play another piano sample through a computer? I think I stumbled onto a link for a Steinway grand piano once, as well as several mathematical models which may be worth considering in the future.

undividedself

I’ve got to admit I didn’t know Casio made digital pianos, but they seem considerably cheaper than any of the models mentioned above . I’ll wander over to college green over the weekend and see what they are like.

Once again thank you for the responses!

This is the one I got. It has a brilliant sound but I don't think this model is available anymore.. Yamaha seem to advance with their models so quickly it's scary.

The iAFC is something to do with having mics and rear speakers for a richer sound. It'll also amplify anyone singing, or another instrument playing along... it does some wizardry to auto adjust according to where it is in the room. I must admit I'd never have it turned off I don't know if this has been superceded by some new technology though.

I'm not sure how much the equivalent would be now, but I'd imagine quite a bit cheaper than when I bought mine.. I'd imagine the newer models will have the same if not better sample for less money.

The absolute best advice I could give would be to get along to somewhere like Chappell's and try out different ones to see what you like the sound of and what comes within budget I dithered for ages before buying mine, and then it didn't even get played for at least 6 months! Poor thing.

We have the Roland HP207e - bought about a year or so ago as we needed a 2nd piano because I was using the acoustic for teaching & my 4 children were finding it increasingly difficult to get practice fitted in around that. We chose the Roland because I felt it was the closest in touch and sound to an acoustic piano that we could find.

After a year with it how are you finding it? Did you happen to try any of the other ones I mentioned above? Would you recommend it?

Solari

The 370 is about £2,000 I think, I'm not sure whether the pound falling like a stone has any effect on that . I'll take a trip to the shop again soon I'm just trying to get as much background information as I can so I know what to look out for .

Ouch, that's something I'd not taken into consideration. I know I went way over budget when I got mine, I figured out that if it lasted 5 years, it would be well worth the cost-per year when I divided it up I justified it by saying "well, over 5 years that would be X amount of pennies per day" The fact that I'd recently become single and had a lot more disposable income to treat myself with may also have had something to do with it

My 2p worth.

I once had a Fatar studio 1100 keyboard, and found the action to be much closer to a "real" piano than any of the current Yamaha or Roland range (which are in stock at the local music store) except possibly the Clavinova. They can be had second hand very cheaply, but you do need an external sound generator.

Two years ago I bought (for silent practice at anti-social hours) a used Yamaha P80 on eBay for £300. It has worked perfectly ever since and is good enough for most of what I want to do (including some of my learning and preparation for recitals). It has a tolerable sound (better on headphones than through speakers) and the action is not so horribly alien that it destroys your touch on an acoustic instrument.

The point is that you can get a decent instrument for a lot less than £2000.

I do think it is important to find an acoustic piano somewhere (pub, school, friend's house) for at least a few hours a week, to supplement your practice on the electronic instrument.

Yes. It may be worth mentioning that last time I looked, Yamaha keep spares available for only three years.

In the main they are dependable. But if you are unlucky after 4 years and something goes wrong, you may not be able to get a repair. On the other hand if you are thinking of keeping it 5 years that's not such a problem. I think the average life of a digital is reckoned to be about ten. My first one lasted 12 years, then gradually worked less dependably.

Yes, it's quite easy. You just need to get a MIDI interface, plug it into the computer, and connect the piano to it with MIDI leads. The software I use is Synthogy Ivory, which sounds amazingly realistic. It even runs as a standalone program, so you don't need to use sequencing software. I don't really understand why anyone still bothers with the sounds built into digital pianos. But you do need plenty of disk space and RAM.

I'm actually quite happy with the sound from my ancient Akai but reading this has prompted me to have a try through the computer - they are only 2 feet apart. I shall prepare to be wowed.

Beware that with an onboard soundcard, it may not support ASIO, so you may get some latency between the time you hit the key on the piano and when the sound and any effects are actually produced on the computer's audio output. You can usually tweak a few parameters to make this much less noticeable, but a decent sound card is a must IMO

If you find you are getting delay, this will be the reason

There is a VST instrument called "The Grand" IIRC, which blew me away when I heard it.



Depending on what you buy, the inbuilt sounds can be extremely good. I'd personally say there's no point using the computer and a different sample unless you have decent quality speakers and sound card/amp to deliver it properly.

That may well blow it. I've just got the mac without extra speakers.
I shall ask the oracle when I get home. Thanks for the advice.

I've still never heard of anyone else (going back to the original question) who has an Akai Professional. I think I must have bought the only one but it still works beautifully after 13 years hard (ish) use. It has the usual bells and whistles (useless, but relieve the boredom in scales) and midi but I wish it had a recording facility because that is really useful. I don't think the keyboard will divide either but it may be that I've just never found the gizmo.

Mad Tom

I take your point about practise on an acoustic piano however I'm not originally from Bristol and don't know anyone down here who owns one and I think I'd struggle to persuade a school or pub to let me use theirs. The money they got would be very small compared to the perceived risk to their instrument (not to mention it would soon bring the cost of a cheap keyboard up to the cost of an expensive DP) and I'm not advanced enough to be able to provide any entertainment in return.

Anything I buy that isn't an acoustic will be a compromise I'm just trying to make sure I get the best value for money. As it is I already spend almost a third of my lessons getting back to grips with my teachers pianos if I can spend a bit more and reduce that time (and frustration) I'm happy to.

maggiemay

I'd actually assumed that the manufacturers would put in something that would break soon after the warranty ran out

Regarding connection to a computer

Does the midi connection overrule the pianos speakers and use whatever is connected to your computer?

You turn the piano speakers off, and use whatever device (speaker, monitor, headphones) you normally use for listening to the computer. I get excellent sound from a Mac mini (the cheapest Mac) plus decent (but not top-of-the-range) headphones. No noticeable latency either. I believe it helps if you have the piano samples on a separate hard disk, which I do.

Shame I can't play the piano.

The samples are big and take up a fair bit of Hard Disk space, but when you select a patch, they are loaded into memory, so it should make no difference where they are stored.

I'd think a Mac, being pretty much designed for media usage, would have a decent sound-card as standard so latency may not be an issue

Hi Bristol paul

Just referring back to your previous post to me. The stage piano is pretty sturdy, it came with a pretty good stand (negociated as part of package - not difficult). It has good volume in it's own right. It is amped up through speakers in a large hall, but it's own volume creates plenty of foldback on the stage area. I set it up and played it at home when I first purchased it and the volume was more than enough for home use. Again, I wouldn't advise buying anything unless you can try it in your situation before making a firm commitment, this way you can iron out any of those kind of problems.

Using computers is very variable! I worked on a technics attached to my computer until recently, and even though my sound card was high spec, I always used the technics sounds as these were definately superior!

The actual sounds (or patches) on the computer will vary according to what software instruments you are using. Just using standard XG sounds for example will be pretty pointless, but if you were to use something a bit higher end that emulated, say, a lot of the sounds on a Korg Triton, that would be a lot more fun and satisfying

I wish I hadn't got rid of my Novation Nova, that was so much fun with it's arpeggiator and millions of possibilities

It is not that difficult to set up a computer to generate your sounds and you can get superior sound, but there is a lot to be said for a computer-less set up where you just switch on the piano (and maybe power up an external speaker) and play, even if the sound is not quite so good.

why is it that a computer-based patch can produce such a good sound, but no one thought to take one of those patches and put them in the digital piano? after all, they are basically just computers with a piano keyboard, right?

As a correction to a previous post, it seems Gigasampler stuff does stream from a HDD, so a separate disk would be prudent in those cases!

Good question anyhow...

High quality patches/samples take up a LOT of space. However storage is very cheap these days. They could easily use something like a solid state drive to store an OS and samples on, and a decent amount of RAM without impacting price too much. There is however, the issue of needing a decent processor to achieve a good level of polyphony.

I'd think most manufacturing costs on a digital piano are the keyboard and action along with the cabinet. There has to be a compromise on price somewhere

I agree, but the "not quite" is crucial. With the possible exception of the Yamaha Grantouch (which is very expensive), no digital piano I have ever tried sounded anywhere near as good as the best software.

Another thing to bear in mind is that decent speakers/monitors are a lot more expensive than decent headphones. So the speakers built into a digital piano are not usually very good, and the piano sounds a lot better with decent headphones. The snag is that you then don't feel the vibrations under your fingers as you play, which undermines the illusion of playing a real piano (assuming that you know what that feels like). Best of all would be to have state-of-the-art software built into the piano, as river suggests, with really good monitors built into the cabinet. But that wouldn't have much advantage over an acoustic, or at any rate an acoustic with a "silent system" built in.

Incidentally Synthogy recommend that you install the Ivory samples on a disk other than the one with your system files on it. In the case of a Mac mini, there is also the consideration that the system disk is not really fast enough.

If you have the pennies, a solid state drive will blitz all performance issues that could possibly arise

No no no no no no no NO!!

"Best of all" would be to have a custom built studio with a couple of Bosendorfers/Faziolis/Steinways/... (select your favourite).

Point taken!

I was in exactly the same situation as you

I started learning on a flimsy little plasticy keyboard with flashing keys

Then my parents agreed to upgrade to a digital piano (because I'm taking grade 2).

We got a Yamaha Aria Clavinova. It's AMAZING and I LOVE IT. It's really pretty too, with a wooden finish

It was £600. But we bought the last one in the store, because Yamaha had just put the price up to £800, and the shop were selling off the last in store for £600. So we saved ourselves £200

But yeah, I love it. You can get dynamics, it has pedals (3 ), and the keys feel like a real piano's. Plus it has headphones so I can play at 2am and the neighbours don't even notice.

Hello..
From personal experience I can help ypu..
I wanted a digital piano with match to a sound which was as good as an acoustic piano...
I looked around and found that the Yamaha Clavinova Range CLP series was the best... I looked deeper into this and found the CLP 270 (the model) i have sounded best... The model above 280.. was merely less sound and more aesthetic. though i felt the sound of the CLP 270 as well as some other more professional pianists thought that the sound of the 270 was brilliant.
Ive had this piano for almost 3 years now and never regretted it... A great purchase

I have the same (in Rosewood). Agreed with the iAFC it sounds great It is no longer made, however. I think the 370 is the replacement. The 280 just had wooden keys if I remember correctly, that was about the only extra feature.

I have a second hand Technics which I love but it's almost as big as an acoustic so probably wouldn't suit!

I have an expensive set of "DJ" headphones that I use with it and I get a really good rich sound through them. Much better than the sound through the pianos own speakers.

This works fine for me as I do all my practising at stupid o' clock in the morning but on the odd time I unplug the phones I really notice the difference in sound quality

Lois

Thank you once again for the comments.

I don't really think the software route is going to be all that great for me, my computer is no where near where I practise and I don't have any particularly good speakers (and I'd prefer headphone practise only at silly 'o'clock.)

One of the comments above got me thinking about negotiating a price in a shop. Is this practical/possible/acceptable/expected with instruments? If it is any tips? I know manufacturers guide prices are normally way above what people would expect to pay, but if they've already knocked 10% off that would is it realistic to ask for more, or ask for an adjustable stool, decent(ish) headphones etc?

Thanks

Paul

In the current climate I wouldn't hesitate to haggle on such a large purchase. Get some quotes from other places as ammunition. Bear in mind shops have overheads and hence smaller margins, but may still be willing to haggle. Alternatively you could (shock, horror!) try out several models in a palce like Chappell's, find something you like, then shop around online for the cheapest price.

I know that suggestion will get a few peoples' backs up but it's still valid (until all the shops go bust!)

As it's a family owned place I'm slightly less willing to do that, and they currently do the Take It Away scheme (government scheme, £2k interest free loan for 10 months to buy any musical intstument) which will help cash flow .

I'll just have to see if I can hold my nerve in the shop, hmmmm.

Yep, that's fair enough. I didn't realise that scheme existed! I am personally averse to any sort of credit but if it works for you, then so be it