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

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 touch

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

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 :)

Thank you so much - I now actually understand what the connection between all these things are! Before, the only music technology I had used was notation programs and although I had read the threads with people asking which software was best for various things, I couldn't work out how they interacted together. Thank you! x

Yamaha Digital Piano CVP 307 is best, i use..

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

Given the space that you have, I best thing I could suggest would either a Casio Privia or M-Audio Pro Keys 88 hooked up to your computer via MIDI with an awesome sounding plugin, such as Native Instruments Acoustic Piano. M-Audio is easier to hook up to a computer as it supports USB but can also be connected via traditional MIDI; you just have to make sure your soundcard is also good for the purpose like the M-Audio Delta series.

You might want to try Yamaha Clavinovas (the later models) or a Technics PR series (Has awesome piano samples that could knock the socks of those from Roland, poor polyphony though around 32 to 64 voices).

Given the space that you have, I best thing I could suggest would either a Casio Privia or M-Audio Pro Keys 88 hooked up to your computer via MIDI with an awesome sounding plugin, such as Native Instruments Acoustic Piano. M-Audio is easier to hook up to a computer as it supports USB but can also be connected via traditional MIDI; you just have to make sure your soundcard is also good for the purpose like the M-Audio Delta series.

You might want to try Yamaha Clavinovas (the later models) or a Technics PR series (Has awesome piano samples that could knock the socks of those from Roland, poor polyphony though around 32 to 64 voices).

get an m-audio keystation, plug in the usb cord and you're ready to go, no hassle (midi cables + midi interface are a hassle and take up extra space).

also, save up some money for NI's akoustic piano, and you're good to go.

Why is everyone talking about NI akoustik piano(s) when there are many better ones, nowdays? Ivory, pianoteq, truepianos, EWQL pianos, Garritan Steinway, to name "most"...

Robert, why is midi hassle? I have it connected 24/7, play whenever I want, a latnecy of 3-6 ms (depending on whether I have the buffer at 128 or 256), and a single cable, rather long, going into the soundcard straight in. No hassle really, as far as I can tell...

How do you change the buffer? I want low latency :D

Why is everyone talking about NI akoustik piano(s) when there are many better ones, nowdays? Ivory, pianoteq, truepianos, EWQL pianos, Garritan Steinway, to name "most"...

Robert, why is midi hassle? I have it connected 24/7, play whenever I want, a latnecy of 3-6 ms (depending on whether I have the buffer at 128 or 256), and a single cable, rather long, going into the soundcard straight in. No hassle really, as far as I can tell...

akoustic piano is around 10 gigs, ivory is over 40 gigs, this is not appealing to me, at all. the sound of akoustic piano in combination with altiverb works very well for me.

and the midi hassle, well, if you have midi inputs on your soundcard, then it's practically the same, if you have a seperate midi interface, you have unnecisarry clutter. also, having a buffer size of 128mb while using ivory without clicks n pops is new to me also.

Oh! ok, I understand about the MIDI part.

About Ivory: I didn't like the Yamaha and Bosy, so I just kept the Steinway which is around 13 GB or something, which is simmilar size with the akoustic, but of course 1 single piano...

128 buffer is with pianoteq, not Ivory. ;) I don't use Ivory anymore! :D:D:D

every man his piano :).