Just wondering what you think of new digital pianos-are they the way forward for music playing and composing? Or should we stick with the original ones?

Opinions would be great, and any other ideas.

Thanks,

chrispiano

It depends on your standard, at any price point below quite a few thousand the digital will be better than the similarly priced acoustic.

I agree on that myself- i own a yamaha digital mpiano and it is just as good(if not better) than a similarly priced accoustic!

chrispiano

I am intrigued as to why it is better. Perhaps you could explain? I do not know much about digital pianos. But, i do know you can buy a "decent " secondhand acoustic piano at quite a reduced price compared to how much you would pay for it new. I suppose it also depends on what you prefer. I am interested, only i was thinking of getting a digital???

This is what i like about it- you can change the volume of the piano, use different voices(depending on the model) and plug headphones in, so other people can't hear(great for something like scales)! Mine looks just like a normal piano too.

I also find the touch nicer on the digital than the touch on my old piano- but that's just my opinion!

chrispiano

You can play acoustic piano at many different dynamic levels, and you can have a "silent" pedal. Yes, you can have the different voices, and if thats what you want then thats good. Touch - well like you say it is a personal opinion, but varies from piano to piano.

Do digital pianos every go out of tune?, only i was told they do at some point, only i did not know this.

I doubt they go out of tune very highly!

It's definetly a matter of choice with digital pianos!

When I play the G2 list-C Cloudy Day by Chris Norton on my piano I love the way the sounds blend and ring with the long pedals. Do you get the same result with a good digital? I know one perhaps wouldn't want a small number of such pieces to define ones choice.

The biggest problem with digital pianos is that they make you sound quite good, even when your technique would make you sound awful on an acoustic.

Christopiano thanks for your answer, only it was not me that said this. I was unaware of them going out of tune as well. I started looking into keyboards but there was so many it very difficult to choose. Anyway i will have to stick to my acoustic one for now.


What about those who only have a digital piano to practice on, and then have to play an acoustic in the exam? Do they really struggle??

My 10 year old daughter only have Digital piano at home. With that she managed to get into specialist music school, where she played on Steinway Concert Grand at audition.

----- that's just brilliant!

I'm quite happy with my Yamaha CLP970 digital. Nice touch, good sound and never goes out of tune. I have just had all the internal plastic strips replaced as the keys were getting very noisy, now much improved.

However, I think there are a couple of big advantages which have not been mentioned so far. If, like me, you do a lot of accompanying (choir, solo singers, other instrumentalists, etc.), then the ability to play the other part/s into the memory using a different voice, and then play it back at different speeds in order to practice the accompanyment, is a major help.

A second advantage is that if you want to record a piece for, say, a CD, then to play the piece into the memory and then record the playback, eliminates any stray piano sounds (keys, pedals, etc.).

I'd love to have one of each (I have a Kawai CA71). The digitals are great for most things - recording, silent practise, but there are some subtleties of tone that they just don't have. I can tell on my teacher's piano (not anything fancy, a Nordiska upright) thta when I play in different ways the tone changes, and I cannot do that on my digital.

I'd say that the one thing I have to be careful of when only practising on a digital is dynamics. If I play with the volume turned down too much, then I can't tell what feels like what dynamic. I mostly play with the headphones on and the volume set to average, so the physical feedback is hopefully the most accurate compared to "real life". I don't think that my playing has suffered and I think (I hope) that when I play an acoustic piano it still sounds OK.

This is a more accurate description of part of what I was trying to say.

One of each, so as to have the advantages of both, is a good solution, and as many models of digital pianos are not very expensive, especially if bought second-hand, that is not being impractical.

As for acoustic pianos, you can get a superb medium to large grand piano if you buy second/third/fourth hand for much the same price as a very average upright, because no-one apart from serious pianists and very rich people wants them taking up house space any more. The same does not apply to baby grands - especially if they are fitted with a silent system.

Thank you. She spend more than 2.5 hour per day on her digital and still able to pull out all the homework perfectly on Teacher's Yamaha GP.

I can get quite good pedal blending effects on my digital - however even with the 64 voice polyphony I notice when the voices "cut out". It does not happen often though. And the sostenuto pedal effect on the digital is better than the physical pedal on most grands I've played.

I think that this will depend on whether the digital is a digital piano, or a digital keyboard.

Although my son was more interested in a synthesizer than a digital piano, nothing had a realistic piano action, so we settled on a digital piano for practice purposes. His playing on other people's grand pianos has improved, according to both his school music teacher (that is, the teacher who used to teach him core music at school, and who kindly listened to his audition pieces a couple of times) and his private piano teacher.

He thinks the reason for the improvement is partly because he can set the piano action to Hard, and also because the deepish key action and rather matte keys force him to position his fingers accurately. Our old DP keys were shallow and slick (sounds like several people I know!) so he could just zoom from key to key quite sloppily and get away with it.

You can have your cake and eat it too! I recently bought an acoustic with silent system and am very happy with it. I practise a lot in the evenings in silent mode not to disturb the neighbours but also love the touch and being able to play a "real" piano during the day.

I don't know the piece in question, but the description sounds to me more like the use of overtones resonating with the unplayed strings - in which case, no, it's not something that's replicated electronically.

A big advantage of a digital instrument, which I don't think anyone's mentioned yet, is that it will have a MIDI connection. Very useful if you get into a position where you want to input music to a computer.

Another really good advantage is to be able to transpose, particularly when accompanying singers....

We have a digital, I love it very much, seems to transfer well to an acoustic - in fact it has a slightly heavier keyboard touch than some acoustics (it's a Kawai) which makes it easier than if it was too light.

Oh, good point! It messes with my head while playing though, because I have nothing like perfect pitch but certainly have a sense of 'that sounds wrong'!

Actually, newer (and more expensive) ones do attempt to simulate this. Look for sympathetic/string resonance.

I have near perfect pitch (from tuning to A for so long)... the amount of times our choir master used to drop a piece by a tone for the sopranos...and not warn us. Used to mess with my brain really badly, I'd end up transposing in my head!

I did not know this - about transposing! --- that's really good.

Mine does - http://www.kawai.de/ca51_en.htm

My two cents:

In my youth I played on my parents upright, and still do when I visit. It's a relatively unknown brand (waldman I think?). It works OK, but the keys get stuck, it goes out of tune and the sound does change with time.
Bottom line - acoustics at a low price range need a lot of maintenance, which still doesn't guarantee good quality.

Coming back to piano I played a non-weighted, non touch-sensitive, non full-size keyboard that cost ~?100.
With that I passed my g2 with a distinction. However I would steer well clear of them. They sound horrible, feel horrible, and if you never practice on a grand, you are in for a shock.

Lesson learnt- If going digital make sure it is accurately weighted, full size, responds well to touch and has a good polyphony!

Then there was a yamaha p90. It's great for beginning amateurs and would recommend it wholeheartedly, especially as it comes in at ~?400. However the touch difference is notable between that and an acoustic. That and there is only one, low quality, pedal.

My nephew has now got a Casio Privia, not sure which model but it cost around ~?600. I would steer clear again, you can get better for your money, it sounds horrible compared to the cheaper Yamaha p90, and feels tacky.


In all of the above cases I found my parents acoustic better quality as a cheap second hand acoustic.


Now I own a Yamaha CLP-470 (~?2000). I have next to no complaints about it.

I will admit, it is not a high quality acoustic, especially not a grand. But it sounds great, it feels great and it allows me to do anything I want to do on it. Comes with the bonus of headphone ports for private practice. Volume control for when you want to annoy neighbours. plenty of voice and transposition options. Even comes with wooden keys, which while I'm not 100% convinced give it a totally realistic acoustic feel, definitely make it sound classier.


Only real problem: It's not an acoustic. I love my digitals, but when it comes down to it, if you have 10k to spare, a good quality acoustic will always be a better choice. It's just the cheap ones you've got to be wary of (my opinion).



My vote: Digital if you are on a budget thats <?3000. ?3000-5000 you're going to have to think about it. ?5000+ I would say acoustic.

That's interesting, I prefer the Privia touch to the P90's, although it tends to be a bit subjective, at that sort of price there are also a couple of Korg's to consider.

I'm probably quite biased towards the p90 as I was playing on it for a year before trying out the privia. So it's possible that the privia might feel better to someone who hasn't tried either.

Personally though I can't stand privias

It depends, I have both kinds, especially because after 9pm my neighbors are annoyed by me if I'm still practicing... So if you like playing till very late digital pianos are great. What is also great about them is that the resist when you play really loud, for example while I was studying the famous octaves from Prokofiev's first piano concerto I broke 4 strings of my acoustic piano...for this kind of purposes digital pianos and much better, I mean they are better to study repetition of really loud passages.