Shopping for a digital piano
I have a Baldwin upright and need a digital piano (for portability). Obviously (since I'm posting this on Tonebase), I'm more interested in a digital piano that simulates an acoustic piano's sound and action, then one that can simulate other keyboards and with other assorted bells and whistles. Any recommendations?
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I looked for one long and hard for months before settling on a CASIO GP 510. I ordered one in Vancouver. It was delivered and assembled, I just before the delivery team left, they decided to plug it in to see how it works. It didn’t.
CASIO sent me a new transformer, assuming that it could have been the source of the problem. It wasn’t, as I had previously gone into a store to test the transformer that I already had, which worked perfectly.
The CASIO technician came to my home, disassembled and reassembled what he could in three hours, and declared that this keyboard had to be returned to the warehouse in Montreal. In other words, it was Beyond Lemon.
It is possible that an electrical component was damaged in the course of the long and cold trek across the prairies. However, after this rigmarole, I will be insisting on a refund instead of a replacement.
that’s my story. I’ll be interested to hear what others have to say.
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Monika Tusnady Beyond Lemon would be a great name for a band, Monika!
My inexpensive Privia is still going strong even after an hour in the rain, and the action isn't bad.
But it's definitely the kind of "machine" you'd pick for portability. I was looking for something that I could carry easily, and this fits the bill.
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Gail Starr Let's start a band!
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Monika Tusnady I’m in!
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looking forward the Beyond Lemon album release
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I have a Roland V-Piano that has served me very well over the years. It has great action and sounds, and it _only_ does piano, rather than loads of other stuff. I don’t need it anymore as I have bought an acoustic piano, so if you are interested (and live in the South of the UK), let me know.
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Ken Radford I am, but I'm in the southern US.
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David Ah, that’ll be a bit difficult then!
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Check out Kawai’s line of digital hybrids, which combine physical piano actions with beautiful detailed samples. I just purchased the CA-901, which is the size of a small spinet, and have been very happy with it.
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Henry Aronson David I have a Kawai MP11SE (sometimes referred to as their "stage piano" because some performers put the keyboard into a grand piano case on stage). I highly recommend it. It has a wooden action like a real piano and feels/sounds great. It's quite heavy and not as cheap as many keyboards, but still portable ... I can move it around pretty easily with the help of another person to hold the other end. I use it with headphones only but you can rig it up to speakers.
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Sorry, just re-read your post and realized you’re looking for portability. Again I recommend Kawai — my first purchase was their 88-key portable (ESS110, I think, it’s been replaced by a newer model). Only about 25 pounds, but a very satisfying action and sound.
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Dominic had a live stream that talks about buying piano, and has some recommendations on digitals/hybrid.
Try this recorded livestream (around 50min mark is where he takes about digital)
https://app.tonebase.co/piano/live/player/picking-a-piano-dominic-cheli
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For a portable instrument, I use Modarrt Pianoteq
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When you say portable, do you specifically mean a slab?
If so, unfortunately, the manufacturers don't put really great actions in slabs.
The best would be Kawai MP11, but if portability is really important, it's probably the heaviest slab.
Roland's PHA50 is regarded as a really nice action (I didn't like it, felt spongy), but regardless of the action (you'd have to feel it yourself), the sounds are modeled as opposed to being samples, and so many very familiar with real pianos don't like this sound.
Then, there is Yamaha's top slab, the 525, which was just released. It had the same action as the Clavinova 725. In my opinion, it's the best you can get for the money, and really the only thing that beats is it is the MP11, which is nearly 3 times the cost (given the discount you can easily get in the US from Guitar Center). If you live somewhere where you had to pay full MSRP, I guess it depends on what prices of other gear is, but it's still a very strong contender even at full MSRP.
There really aren't any other options worth considering if you are motivated strictly by action, sound, and being a slab.
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Hi. I did a lot of research on this earlier this year being new to the piano world, and actually bought and sold a few based on experiences. A few key takeaways:
- I originally bought a Kawai ES920 as my primary instrument (before I bought an acoustic piano) but the action was noisy and became annoying. It sounded fantastic and the action felt fine - a little on the light side. I just didn't like the noise. Ended up selling it.
- For portability I settled on the Roland FP 30x. It's fine for what it is, better with headphones vs. speakers, and great for being able to have a keyboard when traveling, but for air travel (which is what I use it for) it ends up being very heavy to lug around. Also, the FP 30x has started to develop a click noise on the action, though you can take the keys off and grease them according to Youtubers with the same issue and smooth it out, but it seems like it'll be kind of a pain.
If I were shopping again, I'd probably look at the Kawai ES120 as supposedly it doesn't have the same action noise as the 920, or the Casio Privia line of keyboards as they are supposedly lighter, though I haven't tried one. If I do, I might sell the FP 30x and go lighter for travel purposes, but now that I have an acoustic and a hybrid piano now (and love both of those), I only think about the keyboard when I have to lug it to an airport.
I also bought and traded in an upright digital piano for the hybrid, and the hybrid is significantly better now that I'm used to an acoustic piano action.
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Hi, I have a Yamaha upright piano, I just bought a Yamaha p225 digital keyboard for Christmas. It doesn’t break the bank, but it’s brilliant. They took samples from their CFX piano, their flagship, most expensive piano and put it into the p225. It is from their portable range made for gigging, it’s heavy, but compact. The base is really rich, the higher notes are nice and lighter as you ascend. It has a graded hammer action, 88 keys, plenty of bells and whistles, has a usb to host port (usb B to A if I’m correct?) to link up to iPads/computers, bluetooth, built in accompaniment to you playing which is handy for Jazz, it’s like having ireal pro built in, and comes with free flowkey for three months (but I don’t really like flow-key, you can’t download any of the sheet music and have to learn in chunks, it slows me down when I’m a good sight reader and trying to learn from it. It’s hard to see the staff music on it). You also can download the Smart Pianist app for free.
I got it in a bundle with the stand, bench, headphones, and the Yamaha FC35 Triple Piano Pedal which allows you to half pedal. The right pedal is fantastic the other two are decent. They’re available on Gear4Music. The sound quality is great, the depth of it.
https://youtu.be/rXFP3uFGMTc?si=GdnsGjFI_gdRvZzl
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I can’t say enough about the Roland DP models. They are modeled after the Steinway sound and play beautifully. I purchased one so that I could practice with headphones on and I find that I don’t play my Steinway B as much anymore because I’m enjoying the Roland!
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Just got a VERY affordable Casio PX-S1100 with the 3 pedal attachment. Chris O'Riley used this model for his historical keyboard sampled plug-ins for his Bach P&F project and he suggested it to me. Took it to an outdoor wedding gig, it got rained on and it STILL worked fine. Might be on sale now after Xmas?
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There's no substitute for trying them out. Sit down and play for a few minutes on everything you can find. Then determine how much you're willing to pay. Most companies reserve the best actions for the higher end pianos.
I have a Yamaha P90 and a P515. The latter has a slightly better touch/keyboard (wooden keys), but the P90 is very satisfying too, especially if it sits on a very solid base (2 inches of wood on top of a portable stand!). My "real" piano is a Steinway M from 1952 (rebuilt about 20 years ago).
The keys on the Yamaha are very slightly narrower than on the Steinway. I never noticed it, but my violin-playing granddaughter did. Apparently there is no industry-wide standard for the dimensions of keys and keyboards, although they are all now very close.
Everything I have tried sounded good with headphones. But they often differ with respect to "polyphony" -- the number of sounds that can be produced simultaneously. 128 seems pretty standard for better keyboards.
Pay attention to the outputs, too. MIDI and USB are common, and allow you to use some super-lovely sampled or modelled piano sounds with a computer. (I use PianoTeq.)
Good luck!!
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The Casio PX-S6000 along with Yamaha’s P-525 and Montage6 are models I’m familiar with and enjoyed playing. Make sure you get 88 notes. I couldn’t play on a shorter keyboard and I’m not a good player.
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Have a look at Clavia Nord Piano.
After trying a lot of digital pianos, I believe it’s the best acoustic piano simulator. Sound is good. Feel is very close to real.
I bought used Nord piano 2 for quiet playing about a year ago. I believe 2 model is very old (probably 10-15 years) but it’s good though. The new model probably has much better sound.
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After several years on Casio PX5S - which is very light because they are simulating weighted piano action rather by springloads instead of really massive mechanics at it has no own built in speakers - i recently upgraded to Kawai VPC1. The latters action is clearly superior but at the same time it weighs 3 times as much and it's really only a Piano Action without own sounds or speakers. It has a built in calibration for Pianoteq and that's the combination i'm using now and i'm very happy. You'll have a much harder time calibrating MP11SE for Pianoteq.
For a live situation within a band context and transportation the PX5S would be perfectly fine, if you want a real grand feel and virtuosity the heavy Kawai would be my recommendation.
Sampled piano libraries sound still most realistic but for me Pianoteqs computational modeling has a tighter connection, the way it reacts to my input feels more real or analog if you could say so.
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I bought the new Yamaha Avantgrand NU1XA and it's really good so far.
