Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Best slab DP for Rakhmaninov

Imagine you were asked to play Rakhmaninov`s Prelude C-sharp minor on a small concert and offered any stage (portable, not console - for several reasons) digital piano available in the market.

Which one would you choose? CP-300? 700GX? FP-7? Maybe Kawai? Something else?

Keep in mind that this Prelude (like many others) requires two absolutely different techniques - brilliant presto hi-resolution passages in the middle flanked by massive fortissimo accords jumping over half a keyboard. You may want the touch to be very close to real acoustic to be able to show all your mastership and precision. I`d like to hear opinions from experienced pianists who actually had a chance to try those instruments. Thanks.

No one is EVER going to ask me to play Rachmaninoff! But if they did, and I had to use a digital piano, I'd choose the RD700GX because of the responsiveness and feel of the action.

Thanks for your response, MonksDream! Are you using 700GX for playing classic? I wonder how is its feeling compared to, say, HP203 or similar.. Cause they may even have similar keyboard designation, but still different action (like Yamaha`s GHE line which is very heterogeneous in a touch action)

I don't play classical very much other than for practice. I'm a jazz player mainly. I've never played the HP203 so I can't compare them. However I have played the RD700GX a lot and it's the best feeling action I've ever come across on a digital piano. I find Yamahas actions feel nice but I'm not a fan of the Yamaha sound. It's way too bright for my taste.

I'm more familiar with console models, but I'd say also the RD700GX or the Kawaii ES-6, which impressed me a lot when I played it. Of course, when it comes to technically difficult material like this, the pianist is more a factor than the instrument. I'm sure that a world-class pianist would sound great on a Williams (even if it wasn't his first choice...)

True. But given that the pianist is a constant in this equation the question is what to put in the instrument addend to make the max sum.

ES-6.. checkmark.

This is a tough one! I'm not really sure since the RD700GX has a nice feel to it but it is quite a bit lighter than a grand piano. The Yamaha CP300 is the right heaviness but the sound would be too bright for the piece. But I think these 2 would be your best bet.

Oh, cool! I started to worry why nobody mentions my favourite CP-300 Thanks, Michiyo-Fir.

Steinway.

My rd700gx feels good. The keys are not slippery, although it is a somewhat heavy action. The pianos really sound like shlt... way inferior to the cp300. If you have to play a live show, make sure you get a stereo sound system with a decent equalizer to fix the shltty boxy sound of the rd700gx pianos. Otherwise, your performance will be hindered by your ongoing annoyance with the timbre, and you probably won't play it as well as you'd like to.