Digital Pianos

Being accostomed to having a piano of my own that I can play whenever I so wish, it is a huge trial for me to be living in London where no flat that I can afford has the space for my piano. In addition to this, practice rooms in London charge extortionate rates and are always booked up.

I have thus come to the decision that the solution is a digital piano on a stand, that can be placed on my desk, or just take up too much space and then be put away when I'm not playing. I guess this also means I won't have to keep finding a new piano whenever I move (which is frequently).

Anyway - my question is this: which digital piano is best?! I am completely out of my element when it comes to electronic instruments! I have been told that Yamahas are the way to go, but I'm not sure which model produces the best sound quality/has the best key action (weighted of course) etc .....

..... I hope someone can help because I'm going crazy not being able to play 24/7 like I used to! x

budget makes a big difference I'm afraid.

There are digital pianos out there for 300 quid, which are quite nice (I have one, for example). There are also the ones that cost 3000 quid...

Yamaha, Casio are 2 names to keep in mind. Roland and Fatar are mostly for midi controllers, so you also need a computer along with the keyboard, as well as the M-Audio or CFEs...

I recommend doing a quick search for 'digital pianos' or 'electric pianos', there have been a few threads with similar questions to your's, which you'll probably find quite useful

Yamaha's Clavinova series is almost definitely your best bet. Google it and you should come up with a number of different options within that series to best suit your needs and budget

Clavinovas rock, but they might be a a teensy bit big, and expensive.
I think their cheapest might be around £800. Not sure.

Thanks for your suggestions guys.

I have pretty much decided on a Yamaha, as it seems from my research that they have the best hammer action and piano sounds, along with the portablility. The only problem now is that I there are 3 models that are very similar and I can't choose between them as I'm having difficulty working out the differences!

If anyone owns one of the following models or knows much about any of them, I would be very grateful for your feedback and opinions:

Yamaha P70
Yamaha P140
Yamaha P85

x

There are digital pianos out there for 300 quid, which are quite nice (I have one, for example).

Just out of interest Nikolas - which digital piano is it that you have? and are you happy with it? x

I have a Casio Privia PX110. Rather poor polyphony (32, or 64), no knobs, no mod wheel or pitch bend and the piano sound is half bad.

BUT! I mainly need it as a midi controller. When I want to play normal piano, the computer is always on and I have pianoteq, or Ivory playing, instead of that (so no polyphony issue, or piano sounds).

The touché is very very good, imho (and I'm a pianist btw), of course not as a real piano, but much better than everything I've tried! When I tried it (whithout even looking for a piano at the time), I just decided to buy it...

Thanks a lot for your help guys.

I've just bought the Yamaha P140 - I woud have preferred the CP33/300 but it was out of my price range unfortunately

As I don't know anything about digital pianos - a lot of people keep talking about sounds, as nikolas said

When I want to play normal piano, the computer is always on and I have pianoteq, or Ivory playing, instead of that

but I don't quite understand - are these coming out through your computer as you play with the piano connected to it, or are you loading them onto the actual keyboard? How do you do this?!

sorry for the ignorance, but I have been playing acoustic instruments for so long! x

Exactly that!

My keyboard is hooked up (with a simple midi cable) to my soundcard. Everything I play goes INTO my computer. The "what sound" I get out, is a matter of the computer, since I muts the actual keyboard.

MIDI is a protocoll for communication between digital instruments. It transfers VERY simple digital information (pitch, duration, start, finish, velocity (how strong you hit the keys), volume, pitch bend and another 118 or something information...) from one digital machine to another. In this case the keyboard to the computer. These digital information do NOT contain and SOUND information. It's just digits.

The keyboard (the Yamaha in your case) does have some sounds saved in itself, but they should be inferior than the pro samples in the computer, I'd imagine.

Anyways, since the signal goes into the computer, you can then load up WHATEVER you want. A piano if you wish, a violin, a thunder, some porn cries, wolves crying, a baby crying, whatever. When you hit the keys, since you have loaded the sounds, and with the right software, you will listen to THAT sounds coming from your computer.

In order to do that you need:

A. a keyboard (you already have that)
B. A computer (you already have that)
C. A midi cable
D. A soundcard with midi input/output
E. Some sounds (you can get free ones from various sites. Check KVR: Virtual Instruments, Virtual Effects, VST Plugins, Audio Units (AU), DirectX (DX), Universal Binary Compatibility - Audio Plugin News, Reviews and Community for free stuff)
F. A "platform" in which to load your sounds. If you plug your keyboard on windows, or word, it won't play, naturally. You can have notation programs, or sequencrers or anything in between. Free sequencers (no score, or scores in bad shape) are "reaper" and "audacity" (google them). Non free are Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, Logic, Pro Tools and a few others.

Hope it helps