hello. im wanting a digital piano with the best key drop/acoustic piano feel. can anyone offer any advice please? s
Digital piano authenticity
- Thread starter cliffordcook
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Welcome Clifford.
It would help if you advised on what budget you have.
Have you been to any Music Stores yet to see what they have available to play? When you have a short list it would be very useful for you to have a trip out to try a few here are some of the Music Stores that I have been to or used fairly recently.
I have been into Dawson’s in Liverpool a few months ago and they had a reasonable range of keys in the store.
PMT at the other end of the M602 in Manchester is a huge store with plenty of kit available to try, there is also Dawson’s and Forsyths in the City Centre but best to ring if planning to go into either of them as Parking is very expensive.
A&C Hamilton in Preston are the best (do look up their video reviews or simply just a demo of voicings available), Music Matters also in Preston are very good (5 minutes from junction 31A of the M6).
Promenade Music in Morecambe have a good constantly changing selection.
Rimmers in Leyland or Bolton are worth looking at if they have any of your shortlist on demo (tip, view and play in store, only ever buy online as their instore t&c’s are restrictive and different from online)
It would help if you advised on what budget you have.
Have you been to any Music Stores yet to see what they have available to play? When you have a short list it would be very useful for you to have a trip out to try a few here are some of the Music Stores that I have been to or used fairly recently.
I have been into Dawson’s in Liverpool a few months ago and they had a reasonable range of keys in the store.
PMT at the other end of the M602 in Manchester is a huge store with plenty of kit available to try, there is also Dawson’s and Forsyths in the City Centre but best to ring if planning to go into either of them as Parking is very expensive.
A&C Hamilton in Preston are the best (do look up their video reviews or simply just a demo of voicings available), Music Matters also in Preston are very good (5 minutes from junction 31A of the M6).
Promenade Music in Morecambe have a good constantly changing selection.
Rimmers in Leyland or Bolton are worth looking at if they have any of your shortlist on demo (tip, view and play in store, only ever buy online as their instore t&c’s are restrictive and different from online)
Hey Col thanks a lot.
I guess im looking to spend £1000 to £2000.
I just sold one of the early technics on ebay because it took up too much room and i found the touch sloppy.
i understand that everyone is different when it comes to touch.
in your opinion are there any makes / models you know of which are better in terms of "real feel"?
im unemployed and had a vision of busking though this would again require some knowledge of how to power it. Would a digital work outside using a car battery would you know?
thanks again for the details of out lets. there seems to be a lot on ebay and im looking at second hand to be honest.
cliff.
I guess im looking to spend £1000 to £2000.
I just sold one of the early technics on ebay because it took up too much room and i found the touch sloppy.
i understand that everyone is different when it comes to touch.
in your opinion are there any makes / models you know of which are better in terms of "real feel"?
im unemployed and had a vision of busking though this would again require some knowledge of how to power it. Would a digital work outside using a car battery would you know?
thanks again for the details of out lets. there seems to be a lot on ebay and im looking at second hand to be honest.
cliff.
I would be happy with almost any digital piano in your price range.
Roland, Korg, Yamaha and Casio are all very good producers of DPs so you have a lot of choice.
One thing to take note of is onboard amp and speakers, the more expensive ones are primarily aimed at stage use and have no onboard amp or speakers.
Throwing in a curve ball, check out a Korg Havian 30 digital piano, which also has Arranger functions.
Many keyboards in the lower price range include the possibility of being battery powered.
I have a Korg Kross 2 61 and a Boss Katana Mini amp, both of which are battery powered and I use them when jamming away from home.
A Kross 2 88 has hammer action keys and is far more versatile than a digital piano, the same is also true of a Roland Juno DS 88 and another to consider is a Numa Compact x2, and all these will cost less than £1k.
Roland, Korg, Yamaha and Casio are all very good producers of DPs so you have a lot of choice.
One thing to take note of is onboard amp and speakers, the more expensive ones are primarily aimed at stage use and have no onboard amp or speakers.
Throwing in a curve ball, check out a Korg Havian 30 digital piano, which also has Arranger functions.
Many keyboards in the lower price range include the possibility of being battery powered.
I have a Korg Kross 2 61 and a Boss Katana Mini amp, both of which are battery powered and I use them when jamming away from home.
A Kross 2 88 has hammer action keys and is far more versatile than a digital piano, the same is also true of a Roland Juno DS 88 and another to consider is a Numa Compact x2, and all these will cost less than £1k.
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I believe the Numa Compact 2x has semi-weighted keys, so it probably wouldn't be the kind of response and feel that you're looking for.
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That's was what I was looking for last year and I bought my Roland RD-2000 and very happy with it. In my opinion a keybed very close to acoustic piano, better than typical acoustics I've played in schools or in music lessons. Plus the Roland has around 40 acoustic piano grands and uprights both sampled and modeled plus 100's of EP's, organs, and the usual fare.
It is a bit above your budget, but look around deals always pop up, Black Friday is only a little over a month away.
It is a bit above your budget, but look around deals always pop up, Black Friday is only a little over a month away.
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Kawais are well regarded for their actions. MP11SE generally considered best of the "portables" but it stretches the definition, and at about 70 lbs, would not be practical for busking. Even the lighter MP7SE or MP8 are pretty hefty. But nothing with a high quality piano action is all that light. I'd probably look at the Casios, which have above average actions considering their light weight. CDPS-100, CDPS-350, PX-S1000, PX-S3000 are the newest, lightest ones and can run from battery.
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happyrat1
Destroyer of Eardrums!!!
You might want to look at the Gear Video Reviews Thread.
www.keyboardforums.com
Generally speaking Roland, Nord, Kawai and Kurzweil are noted for their piano feel.
Ultimately you will have to trust your own fingers on a test drive of various models.
All reviews are subjective.
Gary
Keyboards and Gear - Video Reviews
I'm proposing we make this thread a sticky.... Just to give newbies an overview of what's out there... Fell free to post any youtube or personal reviews you might think would be helpful to others.... The begin... 3 Pianos under 400 UK Pounds.... Blindfold test.... And another blindfold...
Generally speaking Roland, Nord, Kawai and Kurzweil are noted for their piano feel.
Ultimately you will have to trust your own fingers on a test drive of various models.
All reviews are subjective.
Gary
Time to take that famous Ferry Across the Mersey to head to Dawsons for a noodle around on that they have in store.
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Bsuking and the best acoustic piano feel don’t mix...
Korg Kross 2 88 can be battery powered but that’s far from being the best piano action. Just because it says ‘hammered action’ doesn’t mean it actually feels like a piano.
Don’t think internal speakers will be ideal for busking, either. They’re great for indoors but outdoors you’ll be better off with a small portable amp.
Best compromise would be the Yamaha CP88, best keyboard action in a ’portable’ DP, I have come to find ; I have the MP11SE but that is way too heavy for your use case, and an amp like the Roland KC-220 or the Roland street amp. But even then, the CP88 is rather on the heavy side.
Otherwise, take a look a the Kawai ES110, a truly portable piano with built-in speakers but also line out connections for an external amp. Great key action and well within budget. Not battery powered, I’m afraid. But you should have plenty of budget left for some sort of external portable battery solution...
Korg Kross 2 88 can be battery powered but that’s far from being the best piano action. Just because it says ‘hammered action’ doesn’t mean it actually feels like a piano.
Don’t think internal speakers will be ideal for busking, either. They’re great for indoors but outdoors you’ll be better off with a small portable amp.
Best compromise would be the Yamaha CP88, best keyboard action in a ’portable’ DP, I have come to find ; I have the MP11SE but that is way too heavy for your use case, and an amp like the Roland KC-220 or the Roland street amp. But even then, the CP88 is rather on the heavy side.
Otherwise, take a look a the Kawai ES110, a truly portable piano with built-in speakers but also line out connections for an external amp. Great key action and well within budget. Not battery powered, I’m afraid. But you should have plenty of budget left for some sort of external portable battery solution...
Thankyou so much for this information and time . i really appreciate it. especially with regards to the "busking thing" i think its probably going to be get a digital to stay in the house to practice on and have another project on the side with regards the busking thing. i get it that the two dont go together. ive just sold a technics early dp on ebay because i didnt like the feel/touch plus as one of the early models it took up too much room and had way far to many additional buttons etc..........i have a poor track record of spending money and selling again on ebay because i didnt get the right product first time...............so thanks again! cliff
thankyou very much. i really appreciate your help. Why is the korg kross more versatile than a digital piano especially? id love a synth also. (i bought a roland vr09 for church use . its ok ..... god and light but i wish i had kept the larger version which had a better keyboard (i sold that on ebay at a large loss!)
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No problem. I'm not an expert, nor do I pretend to be, but that's my humble opinion, anyway...
Well, I feel your pain, but in my case, it was more like spending money and returning the boards, luckily not losing any money in the process
I used to have an acoustic piano and synths when I was a lot younger, and I'm just getting back into music since a few months ; thought I wanted to have both again, synth and piano, only to discover that I'm no longer interested in synth at all...
I now have a Kawai MP11SE which is the closest thing to an acoustic piano you can get, but it is in no way portable (unless you're like Billy Joel or Elton John and have roadies). Kept the Kross 2 88 which has a decent enough keybed for piano and it is light enough for gigging but I'm having second thoughts about the gigging part : the Kross 2 88 is a quite large, although not heavy, and having to lug around an external amp isn't what I had in mind, since my 'gigging' consists of very small and intimate venues, no stage in sight. So, I'm now looking for a lighter alternative, with built-in speakers that are powerful enough for indoor, and preferably with a better action than Korg's NH action, which can be found, among others, in the Kross 2 88...
It can be quite a long journey, finding the right board for your needs. But when you do (in my case the MP11SE for home use), the 'experience' is second to none ! And that's why I suggested the Kawai ES110 : the keybed is plastic but feels very close to a real piano ; it's somewhat noisy (well, to me, anything sounds noisy to the quiet keybed of my MP11SE, so take this with a grain of salt as I am very very demanding), which isn't ideal for me who wants to gig indoors, but when you're busking outdoors, it doesn't even register as an issue...
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A lot of digital pianos have only a few voices-- maybe as many as two dozen or more, but sometimes less than two dozen-- and they tend to be limited to certain types of instrument sounds, such as acoustic pianos, electric pianos, pipe organs, reed organs, drawbar organs, harpsichord, celeste, acoustic guitars, possibly electric guitars, bass guitars, strings, and possibly a few other orchestral sounds. The focus is more on playing a handful of sounds and playing them really well-- for instance, the sound samples might be longer (such as for long sustained notes on a piano) and of higher quality than what might be used on a more generic keyboard, plus there might be some sort of intelligent sound modeling used to help replicate things like sympathetic resonance or other details that can give a good piano a rich, complex sound.
In contrast, a more generic or all-purpose keyboard will usually have several hundred sounds. Even if many of the sounds are basically variations of each other, there will be enough different sounds to let the keyboard qualify as GM-compatible, so all 128 of the GM instrument sounds will be covered-- some of them in triplicate or more-- as well as the standard GM percussion kit plus some additional drum kits. The sound samples might not be as highly detailed or long as on a digital piano-- for example, if you strike a note and sustain it using an acoustic piano voice, the note might decay more quickly than you'd prefer, or if it does keep sounding you might be able to hear where the sample starts to loop in order to artificially prolong the note beyond the sample's actual length. But any trade off in sound quality is made up for by the sheer quantity of sounds.
I have two Casio Privia 330's - their low end sounded realer than the 350's; at 26lbs, with speakers and a mod wheel, I think they're pretty near the top. Haven't tried the ES110, though Kawai's are great, so thanks for that suggestion. I'm liking the Juno DS61 nowadays, but the 88-key version, though glorious, is a little too heavy for me. (and no speakers.)No problem. I'm not an expert, nor do I pretend to be, but that's my humble opinion, anyway...
Well, I feel your pain, but in my case, it was more like spending money and returning the boards, luckily not losing any money in the process
I used to have an acoustic piano and synths when I was a lot younger, and I'm just getting back into music since a few months ; thought I wanted to have both again, synth and piano, only to discover that I'm no longer interested in synth at all...
I now have a Kawai MP11SE which is the closest thing to an acoustic piano you can get, but it is in no way portable (unless you're like Billy Joel or Elton John and have roadies). Kept the Kross 2 88 which has a decent enough keybed for piano and it is light enough for gigging but I'm having second thoughts about the gigging part : the Kross 2 88 is a quite large, although not heavy, and having to lug around an external amp isn't what I had in mind, since my 'gigging' consists of very small and intimate venues, no stage in sight. So, I'm now looking for a lighter alternative, with built-in speakers that are powerful enough for indoor, and preferably with a better action than Korg's NH action, which can be found, among others, in the Kross 2 88...
It can be quite a long journey, finding the right board for your needs. But when you do (in my case the MP11SE for home use), the 'experience' is second to none ! And that's why I suggested the Kawai ES110 : the keybed is plastic but feels very close to a real piano ; it's somewhat noisy (well, to me, anything sounds noisy to the quiet keybed of my MP11SE, so take this with a grain of salt as I am very very demanding), which isn't ideal for me who wants to gig indoors, but when you're busking outdoors, it doesn't even register as an issue...
I think numa is on the right track with aftertouch, drawbars and speakers, but suspect that there were too many compromises necessitated by squeezing all that into a 15 lb. instrument (the keybed for example, and the not-exactly-sledge-cool synth add-in). Maybe next year though, their 3x will blow us all away!