Choosing a digital piano

Good afternoon,

I'm looking for a good,digital piano that feels like a real piano. Of course I know you can't get the same feel on a digital one as on a real one, but unfortunately I don't have enough space in my house and playing with headphones is a real advantage ( if I don't want angry neighbours :P). I've never played the piano before, so I don't really know what I should be looking at when buying a digital one. My budget is about 1000 euros. I did a bit of research and there are three pianos that fit in my budget.

- The Roland HP101.

- The Yamaha CLP220

- And the Kawai CN21

Two of them are 64 polyphone, the Kawai 96. Is that enough for playing classical piano? (because the more expensive models are 128 polyphone)

Perhaps someone on this board has one of these or has experience with one so he can give me some advice. Thanks! :)

My Roland FP-7 arrived today, and it's brilliant; sounds are great and it feels very similar to a piano, or at least as close as I've experienced on anything other than a piano :D

I have always been pleased with Yamaha.

I second Yamaha. I don't have as much experience with Roland as with Yamaha, but they've never impressed me when it comes to pianos. Yamaha, however, has, and you can't really go wrong.

I would suggest you take a look at the CP33 or CP300 (although the latter is beyond your budget, I think).

I have a roland f-100. It's awesome. take a listen Improvisations I think the model has been discontinued. I believe the HP101, which you cited, is the modern equivalent, and probably just as good. I like the tone of rolands better than yamahas.

I can't really say I'm a Roland fan, but I know I'm not familiar with Kawais. I do have a Yamaha CLP-930, but it's pretty much gone by now. I believe Yamaha improved their key action after models such as mine, so hopefully you wouldn't have that problem (but CLP-220 might). But as it is now, after about two years, I've worn it down until about a dozen white keys broken, my sustain pedal is almost shot (really need to squeeze it down), and my LED display makes loud buzzing noises constantly (I don't know why). Some keys stick horribly and some stay down and don't come back up after being pressed. This makes me so mad because now I can only play pieces in Db and Gb major. :w00t:

Now mind you, I did get it used, and I got it for under $2,000 USD, so it may be a couple years older than that. I would recommend going to your local retailer, though, and seeing what they have that's used, you can get a much better model for a lot less money... just be careful you don't get one that's been through some use like I did, mine was probably on the verge of having the first thing go wrong with it when I got it, so when I did get it, one thing after another would periodically fail.

Other than that (and that I believe the action is improved and more reliable in newer models), I would say Yamaha is a great direction. The touch seems phenomenally close if you're not a serious pianist and haven't been playing for like eight years. ;) The only thing is, if you're getting serious, it won't cut it, you'll need a real piano, you can't replace a real piano. I thought the action was so close to a real piano, for how much the Clavinova felt real to me, once I went to play a recital after a month or so on a real piano I had a hard time because I had gotten so used to the 'fake' action. It was unbelievable, you don't realise how different it really is, but it's just a little, just enough.

If you're not playing any particularly difficult pieces in the near future though, I think a Yamaha would keep you plenty happy. The sound is nice too, some newer models even let you tweak the tone between soft and bright and have many different piano sounds to choose from, so you can choose one that suits you.

Last time I were in a music shop I tried different digital pianos to see what was best, and well I did see and play many good pianos, but then the store clerk came up to me and asked if I'd tried the Roland FP-7. I hadn't really thought of trying it out because I was only trying out those looking as uprights or grand pianos at the moment. So the clerk sat down at the piano and showed me the various things you could do at this beauty, and I have to tell you, I was greatly amazed by all the possibilities of this piano. You could practically set up the piano sound almost exactly how you wanted it, making it sound like a real grand, setting up things like the sound of hammer strikes on the string and when pressing the sustain pedal getting the sound of the damper going off the strings, and you could "open" and "close" the virtual lid of the grand, well you could pretty much change all different things of the actual sound qualities you can get out of a grand that I just don't know the name of. It's also got more than just a grand piano sound, electric pianos like rhodes and such, organs (really good), clavs, strings, harpsichord plus much more and they're very amazing as well (and you're free to to edit them in many ways too). You could change to alternate tunings, and you could even make your own, and very easily too! And the speakers on this thing are one of the most amazing things I've seen/heard, I can't quite explain how they work, but they give off one hell of a depth for two small speakers, sounds very authentic! And yeah, the key action was superb, couldn't ask more of it, one of the greatest feels on any keys I've tried. There are many other features of this beast, but if you wanna look further you can search more info on it on the net.

The best thing about it, it is not that very expensive compared to other digitals in the "same" calibre! I could almost say it's the best one I've tried so far out of digital pianos. It might be just a bit over your budget, so if you can't afford it I'd advise you to save up for it. It costs 1299 euro at thomann.de, you might wanna check it out there (I've bought things from there before, and it's certainly the best net store in Europe, I live in Sweden and I got my Doepfer LMK2+ midi keyboard very quickly and well packed for a very cheap price too). I'm going to buy one of these myself when I get the money because this thing is the craziest scraggy I've seen in a long time.

More info here: Roland FP-7 Digital Piano :: Overview

ROLAND FP-7 - U.K. International Cyberstore

Haha, I almost sound like a real promoter :D But I assure you, I am not :P

There...you got me drooling, now!

I second everything Erik said; I've had mine for just 5 days and I love it; sounds amazing, and feels very much like a grand :D

I can't say for sure, but I think that Roland used the same piano sound for the fp-7 and for the Roland keyboard I recently bought, the RD-700SX. It looks like, since they're both newer stage pianos, Roland put the same great piano sounds in each. So I can comment on them as well, and say that they really are stunning. I've played a lot of virtual pianos before that always lack something, or are insufficient in some style, etc. For example, there's the dreaded "Kurzweil sound" that you always hear on History Channel shows and stuff, that really tinny sound that just screams "I'm not using a real piano". But I can say that the piano sounds on my RD-700SX are lacking nothing...they sound great all around. I'm completely satisfied with them because they hold all of the nuances of an acoustic. The RD-700SX has the same piano sounds, but is a different kind of piano than the fp-7, so do some research.

We have bought a Yamaha Digital Piano, and as a Piano player, I have to say, that it feels almost like a piano, yet the pedal doesn't impress me very much and the sound output isn't that wonderful either, there's nothing like a good oldfashioned piano.

Yamaha pianos don't impress me much, I don't like their sound, they sound somewhat metallic.

Yet, Yamaha is very good in the digital pianos in my opinion, so that's what I would suggest.

If you're not sure, go see a music store and ask for some information. The vendor had me play on different pianos and switch back and forth to compare, so that's what I suggest you do.