Digital PIANOs: which brand?

Question

I'm trying to decide on which digital brand piano buy (Korg, Yamaha, Kurzweil, Meyer, Kawai, etc). Could someone help me to decide among these brands (or maybe others not mentioned here)? I'd like to put in clear the PROs and CONs of everyone mostly.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I've had a Yamaha P200 for about 12 years now and have been very pleased with it. It is a stage piano with built in (and quite powerful) speakers. I like having the built-in speakers as I have often played in contexts where you are over-reliant on the PA to give you any foldback at all.

I like the main piano sound itself which is quite bright, although there is a more mellow piano 2 if you prefer. It features an easily accessible three band EQ, allowing quick tweaking of sounds and helping you to cut through the mix better if you are playing with loud guitarists. Other sounds include a few electric pianos, one of which I really like, and some organs, again one of which I found useful. I was hoping for some nice pads, but there is just a strings patch, which is very expressive, but sounds a bit too syruppy when layered on top of piano.

It's good for use as a master MIDI keyboard and has a good graded hammer action. It features auxilliary inputs which are very useful in a live context, although they bypass the master volume fader so you need to make sure they are not too hot. It is also very heavy, and barely fit inside the largest gig bag I could find for it.

As for durability, it has survived much transportation and abuse from children lasting over 10 years before anything broke (except the music stand which broke fairly early on, but I don't use it). We've had one key broken, which I initially fixed with super-glue, but it has broken again, so will probably have to get a replacement. Also the sustain jack socket has become unreliable and probably needs to be re-soldered internally.

Answer 2

Note that the following is not about transportable (stage) pianos.

I purchased a DP half a year ago. I didn't have any experience or training with a real piano (just some synth keyboards). My main concerns was about the feel of the keys. Inside the store I found the Kawai CA keyboards to have the best feel to my untrained fingers. Closely followed by the top Yamaha DPs that also have wooden keys.

Searching on the internet revealed that many people seem to consider the Kawai CA keys/mechanics to be superior to DPs of other brands.

For now, I'm quite happy with the device (CA-61, around 2k€). The next better model features a small modification to the mechanics to make it more feel like a grand piano. I think it makes the keys feel a bit more defined - but I went for the cheaper model.

For the sound: I think it sounds ok. I expect other brands to sound a bit better. Especially through head phones you notice the digital character. Kawai is still improving the firmware. There are some bugs left that mainly have to do with distributing the 192 voices when much sustain is going on. I think I've already noticed some situations where keys get cut off in a noticeable way. None the less, I think they're doing decent work on the firmware and are trying to capture as many aspects of a real piano as possible, like string resonance.

Answer 3

Have a look at Nord keyboards. They are by far the most realistic sounding keyboards I have ever heard. They are reasonably robust, have nicely weighted keys, have been designed with aesthetics in mind and also pass as a good midi controller. A friend of mine has one that cost roughly $4000AUD and I am coveting it badly. I have an old Korg that is roughly 15 years old. It still works okay as a midi controller, but various keys are starting to die and the sounds have never been really usable for anything that doesn't sound like a showroom demo.

Answer 4

I have had the Kurzweil PC-88mx for over 10 years now. I have had 10 years of classical piano training, and I have found it to have a great feeling keyboard. I lugged it back and forth to church every Sunday for a few years, and I have dropped it a couple of times and it still works, so it's pretty sturdy.

The Kurzweil piano sounds are great. The acoustic guitars are pretty good also. The thing it lacks are some really good organ and string sounds. I have heard some incredible string pads from Yamaha keyboards. The Yamaha and Roland Piano sounds are pretty good on their digital piano models. Korg has a great user interface, but I was unimpressed with the sounds.

If you are only wanting piano sounds, I highly recommend checking out Kurzweil. If you are mostly wanting strings, organs and other sounds and are not quite as picky about your piano sounds check out the Yamaha.