Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards from acustic piano to digital piano: suggestions?

Since I leave in a flat and I have most of my spare time in the evening I had to get rid of my acustic piano and I am going to order a Yamaha CLP-340. I tried it in the shop and it felt quite good.

I am a bit anxious since the feeling of acustic sound is very important to me and I am afraid that a digital piano might kill some of the enthusiasm of studying the piano.

I had an experience long time ago with a stage piano P80 that after a while did not feel any fun to play and so I quit the piano completely. But I also never bought really good loudspeaker to it, so I hope that the CLP340 somehow can help keep at least some of the feeling to play a real piano.

Anyone went through the same process? Any suggestion on how to do the transition in the best way?

I am currently looking for a digital after playing acoustics almost exclusively for 16 years. I'm obviously no expert, but the way I've been going about it is looking for the same "this is it" factor I'd look for if I were picking out an acoustic. I'm not trying to find something that makes me forget I'm playing a digital, but rather looking for a digital I enjoy playing.

So I'd say don't try to compare your Yamaha to an acoustic, but focus on the reasons you're going for a digital, and on how it performs well in that capacity

The P80 compares very poorly to a CLP-340. The CLP-340 has a better action, but, more importantly, it has a 4-level piano sample that changes significantly with playing dynamics. The P80 sounds ok, but the sound doesn't change with volume, so playing it would be unsatisfying.

I think you made a good choice. A digital still isn't perfectly equivalent to an acoustic, but the one that you've chosen is close enough so that it should be enjoyable, expressive and useful for practice (or even performance).

I consider acoustic pianos to be
essentially obsolescent today,
19th-20th century period instruments
and living relics from a bygone
era. To my mind they are comparable
today to manual typewriters,
mainframe timeshare companies,
film cameras, and horse-drawn
carriages. You can buy brand
new harpsichords and clavichords
today, but these are specialty
instruments for people nostalgic
for them. The day is approaching
when acoustic pianos will be in
the same category. Carriage
fanatics bitterly fought the
horseless carriage when it
appeared, but they could do
nothing to prevent it from
driving the horse and buggy
into oblivion.


Frankly, I'm not all that
concerned about their demise.
I can't be bothered with hiring
a moving company just to
get one into or out of my house,
nor do I like the idea of
hiring someone to tune it
at least twice a yr., at $90-
$150 per tuning. I don't like
the constant repairs for
sticking keys and buzzing strings,
at $100 per service call. And
I don't like the neighbors
constantly complaining about
the noise. You need to spend
about $6000 today to get a
good, but unspectacular,
acoustic upright piano, but for
that amount you could
get a digital piano that would
be essentially a concert grand
in performance, with the
added benefits of light weight,
no tuning and maintenance,
durability and reliability,
volume control and headphone
jacks, record and playback,
etc. Who is going to keep
buying acoustic pianos with
that kind of product competition?

I grew up with classical lessons
and acoustic pianos only, an
upright at home, and uprights and
grands in the teachers' studios
and at recitals--there were no
digital pianos back then. I
quit playing in high school
and didn't touch a piano for
20 yrs. Since restarting as
an adult, instructing myself,
I've bought five pianos, the
first one an acoustic, and
the rest digitals, as follows:
a top-quality acoustic upright
piano, bought in the early
1980's for around $6000 (a
similar model today would be
in the ~$20,000 price range);
a Korg C-800, bought in 1989
for $1700; a Casio AP-24, bought
in 2005 for $700; a Korg SP-250,
bought in 2006 for $900; and
my current piano, a Williams
Overture, bought in 2009 for
$600.

You can see from the above that
I've gone to less and less expensive
pianos, and left acoustics behind
long ago, even as my playing
has gotten more and more advanced.
I can now play concert pianist-
level pieces like the Chopin
op. 14 Concert Rondo, as compared
to the mickey mouse preludes and
nocturnes I played in my last
yr. of lessons in high school.
I owe this all to digital pianos.
I could never have made the same
progress on acoustic pianos.
Digitals have literally been
my salvation as a pianist, and
I consider them the greatest
thing that has ever happened to
pianists.

I admit I enjoy playing an
acoustic piano on the rare
occasions that I encounter one,
but this is like how a person might
enjoy playing a clavichord, or
using a manual typewritter, or
riding in a horse-drawn carriage--
just an interesting experience that's
enjoyable for the novelty and
nostalgia it gives.

So enjoy your CLP 340 and forget
the relics from the past.

Oh, biting tung so hard.

And I'm the digital guy...

A question for Gyro -

What's with all the hard carriage returns in your posts? Are you messaging on a portable device, or is it an adaptive thing, or ?

FormerFF, this question has been asked by several forum members, including myself. Curiously however, no explanation is ever given.

Cheers,
James
x

I just googled 'why do people write in narrow columns' and one of the top returns was a site suggesting ideas for writing 'for the people' as they put it which was about creating websites etc. ----It said that it was easier to scan columns than wide formats....so maybe that's also a way to be distinctive unique as well....sort of his trademark.

I didn't think of it being easier to scan but maybe; the other day when someone replied;

I'm getting
a headache

....that made more sense! but maybe, easier to scan...??

Perhaps Gyro's posts are supposed to be read like an Allen Ginsberg poem? They are certainly about as repetitive in terms of their content:

"Digital Piano Howl"
by Gyro (copyright 2005-2009)

Digital pianos are all the same
no matter how much they cost!
Digital pianos are all the same
no matter who built them!
Digital pianos are all the same
and better than acoustics!
Digital pianos are all the same!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs!
skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic
industries! spectral nations! invincible mad
houses! granite c___s! monstrous bombs!

Well, to the original poster’s question...somewhat

I am sort of in the same boat, I want the look and sound of an acoustic grand piano, but would like a digital.

I have been searching for awhile know and have found this:

The majority of people say that the Roland grands sound the most like an acoustic grand piano and the Kawai grands feel the most like an acoustic grand piano.

I also want the look of a grand - that way I am sure to want to play it and it wont just sit in a corner collecting dust - for me anyway.

You left out the part about xylophones.

I don't know if this is true or not. But in this price range, you'd have to list the Yamaha AvantGrand as a serious new competitor. It looks great, seems to sound pretty good, and even "vibrates" like an acoustic when you play it.

The Roland V-Piano would be a competitor too, if it were a bit less ugly. Buy it for the action and sound, not the looks...

That made my day, thank you

I guess there is a parallel with acoustic vs electric guitar.

Embrace the digital features and stop trying to compare the piano sounds. Play baroque with a harpsichord, or layer some strings with impressionistic music, use a detuned sound for boogie and blues, and try Bach on the cathedral organ!

There is a parallel altho' not an exact correlation. Since there is already such a thing as an electric piano, and most dp's have several of those voices, it's not quite like the acoustic v. electric guitar.

Still, you're correct in a couple of ways, you can't yet duplicate the experience of a really good acoustic piano on a DP.

On the other hand, all the fun stuff you mentioned is exactly why I love the DP. Playing a Bach invention on the harpsichord or the church/chapel organ voice is wonderful. Playing boogie and blues on the different electric piano/organ voices is even better.

Not to mention, splitting, layering, accompaniment, drum sets, and being able to push a button and be accompanied by a perfectly tuned 4 part harmonic choir!

You might consider a silent piano. Yamaha and Kawai make these.

You could have even installed a similar system called quiet time into your acoustic.

If money is not much of an object, you should definitely check out the Yamaha Avant Grand. I could not tell the difference between it and acoustic grand piano it was next to.

Good luck

I kind of like the way it looks, at once retro and outer space.

The funny thing is that during music lessons in elementary school when everybody had to pick an instrument I somehow always ended up playing the xylophone! So Gyro must be right on that point, I was destined to play the piano. Now finally here's some irrefutable, anecdotal, single-case evidence to back one of his statements up...

Far be it from me to dispute the science of anecdotes.