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I could get a big grand, but why bother? You've got to hire movers to move it, you've got to tune it, maintain it, fuss over it. Why spend even a second doing all that when even the cheapest digital will play anything, with no tuning or maintenance? When I was 7 yrs. old and taking piano lessons, the teacher had a big grand in the studio, and I never noticed anything special about it. I still don't see anything special about grand pianos, even the most expensive concert grands. My $600 economy digital will play anything, even the most difficult works in the classical repertoire, so why do I need more than that?

Hideki, I could afford a nine footer but I suffer from tinnitus. Acoustic pianos are great for the stage but for every day practice I wouldn't want an acoustic piano in my living room (even if you gave me a nine foot Bösendorfer). They're simply too loud.

For me the action comes first (thus a hybrid piano - my N3 has a real grand piano action) and the sound comes a very close second (thus a hybrid piano - a sample from a CFIIIS).

A piano for me is just a tool. I don't have emotional attachments to them. If Steinway, Kawai or Bösendorfer marketed a hybrid piano like the N3, I'd probably trade in my N3 for something else. What I'd like is the action from a nine footer in a hybrid to practice on every day but it doesn't yet exist.

my paying music days are behind me, however being a drummer I either brought my kit or at least my cymbals and made do with what was there: not many horror stories for me...

I do think that the ones you mentioned would be served even better by a slab piano in a grand-shaped wooden wrap, after all for that kind of gigs it's more important that you have a 'piano shaped object' compared to actually having a real piano... I also don't think the real action of an AG would fare too well on a cruise ship environment compared to a typical DP's...

Dave, understood. I happen to have a large house with big rooms and although a nine footer would be overkill, having a 6-7 footer is totally practical for me. I don't find tuning expensive and only use my digital when quiet around the house is needed.

I know you are an active working musician and totally understand your practical considerations and experiences with acoustic pianos. I don't perfrom for a living but I do gig with a singer on occasion. I almost always use a digital because of practical considerations.

That being said guys like Chuco Valdes, Michael Kamen, etc. can afford to have their grands properly kept. Not easy for most but that luxury would sure be nice.

Drummer?

Am I in the wrong forum?

So do you think classical musicans should be recording on your $600 piano? I understand for practice but for recording? Plus most DPs have actions that would not be suitable as the only practice instrument for a classical musican. That seems to be changing with DPs like the N3/N2. Neverthelss, I don't see a future where classical piansists record or perform on DPs... but who knows.

Given a choice between an AG or an acoustic grand ... I'll take some tasty waves, some cool buds, and I'm fine.

If I could have an N3 and my SK3 that would be ideal... but a bit indulgent for someone who primarily plays for pleasure.

Don't know about waves but the cool buds go really well with the acoustic or digital experience... especially here in CA.

hey, you know how it goes, who are the people that hang around musicians? drummers (and bass players)

Actually as a drummer I have a pretty good perspective on the whole acoustic vs digital world (which has been going on for quite a while), and as most drummers would tell you as much as practicing on vdrums is the best especially if you don't live on 20 acres on your own, a sampled instrument will never feel the same as the real thing.

Now as a piano dabbler my 'pickiness level' is a LOT lower, but even at my lower level despite having tried the AG and the vpiano (and playing with pianoteq at home) just because of the physics of it it seems doubtful that an electronic would ever supplant the acoustic in a performance scenario where you can appreciate the difference (background piano playing in a crowded restaurant of course would not be the same thing). Digitals of course have a lot of other advantages, can't push a button and get a growly EP on that acoustic grand...

As a guitar dabbler it's the same thing, nobody will ever bring an electric guitar to an acoustic guitar gig, it's just not going to happen, but of course you're not going to play Crazy Train on your Martin for sure...

I guess my perspective is that "electronic" instruments of all kinds are the best for private late night practice, for large gigs where mic-ing can be difficult, for low-maintenance scenarios where the venue owner doesn't want to spend anything on maintenance etc. the closer the electronic can get to the acoustic the better the practice will be of course.

"acoustic" instruments provide a lot more possibilities to the musician and so are much better when the musician has the chance to use them to their fullest: a great piano player can be a lot more expressive on an acoustic than on a digital, any drummer will be able to get way more variety out of a real cymbal than a v-cymbal, any classical guitar player will be able to get endless sound shading possibilities on an acoustic.

Don't feed the trolls.

Well, that settles it. Well prepared, tuned acoustic grands are great for live performances of serious music and for people without hearing disabilities to practice on at home who can afford them and appreciate them and who are living in large houses with big rooms on 32 acres in a forest within driving distance of the beach and a bar and a tuner. Digital pianos these days are good enough for just about anybody else. Whether they are good enough to be used as an exclusive alternative to acoustic pianos depends on what you are used to, what your personal preferences are, what you want to play, how well you want to play it and how much you want to enjoy it and how much you want others to enjoy it.

Based on the samples of playing submitted to PW by Dave Ferris, Dave Horne and Gyro, we can conclude that the Avantgrand sounds infinitely better than the Williams which only exists in Gyro's imagination but that the Steinway D from Ferris gives Horne's AG a run for its money despite how delicious Dave H.'s playing is

I thought I posted in this thread. Maybe I did and it got removed.

I recently did a (literal, within two feet of each other) side-by-side playing comparison of the new $6000 Roland and a used, standard-issue Yamaha upright (I don't remember the Yamaha model for sure; it was a U1 or perhaps a smaller cousin). The action on the Roland was absolutely pitiful compared to the real upright piano; they didn't even deserve to be compared. The Roland's sound was much better than its touch, and far better than the usual less-expensive electronic models, but the upright still sounded significantly better than any of the electronic instruments.

Yes. If you are in the same room with the acoustic and the digital, the acoustic usually wins hands down.
If they are both recorded it gets more complicated.

Personally, I think that Dave Horne's arguments for the Avantgrand always make a lot of sense: you play an authentic grand action with state of the art sound reproduction including the ability to play silently or quietly.

What I never understand are all the weird arguments such as: acoustics are obsolete (really?), acoustics are heavy, acoustics are expensive, acoustics need tuning and digitals provide a superior live acoustic piano sound to a live acoustic.

I always suspect that those making these arguments only eat through the McDonald's drive through window since cooking is obsolete, shopping bags are too heavy, real food needs laborious preparation and time consuming cooking and a paper bag with styrofoam wrapped junk food is superior to home cooking any day.

.

I doubt if Hank Jone's preferred a digital piano over an acoustic, but he certainly used one in his NYC apartment.

Hank Jones is one of my favorite players. He died this year at the grand age of 91.



(The article where this photo was posted can be found here ... http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/a-jazzmans-final-refuge/ )

theJourney: That's the quote of the day What's the difference between "silently" and "quietly"?

I have now a few user presets that I customized from the various in-built ones (of which there are 24), and named them after the famous brands based on their tonal quality (Bösendorfer, Steinway, Blüthner etc) as I remembered from playing the respective concert grands. Naturally, I use the 'Bösendorfer' the most, as it's my favourite piano sound (Imperial grand that is). I've also customized a couple of period piano settings (from the Fortepiano factory preset) - Pleyel and Erard - which I use occasionally for Chopin and other early 19th century music, when I'm in the mood for nostalgia...
And I play with the several unequal temperament settings (meantone, Pythagorean, Werckmeister, Kirnberger, even the microtonal Arabic) when I play Bach or Scarlatti, which gives the music a piquant quality when the music modulates into non-related keys. But all that is only on high days and holidays, not when I'm practising properly, for which I always use the Bösie preset.

My interest is almost entirely in classical music (Gershwin is as far as I'd venture into jazz; Piazzolla as far as I'd go into Latin/world music etc) especially in the Romantic era - from Chopin to Rachmaninov. When I went around auditioning the various DPs, I played the Rachmaninov 3rd Concerto's big first movement chordal cadenza as well as some Chopin Nocturnes, and frankly, I wouldn't dare to attempt the Rach on many of the smaller uprights that I tried on Saturday (which cost around the same as my V-Piano incidentally). It really is no contest - for that price range, an acoustic upright just doesn't give me what I want from a piano in terms of power, depth of tone, keyboard action etc. And I certainly can't afford a concert grand, nor would my neighbours tolerate me having one.

But I never change the volume setting on my DP - it's always at the same realistic level, at the volume I'd expect if I was playing on a concert grand. Otherwise, my technique would suffer, when I start twiddling a knob rather than use my brain & muscles to change the loudness of what I play.

Silently is when you have headphones on and for the most part all anyone else hears is the sound of the action.

Quietly is being able to turn the volume down into a range that is unrealistic for an acoustic piano (and potentially ruinous for your technique) so that you could say still practice without headphones but with neighbors or where you could still play for friends after 11 pm.

I see, my fault, damn, English language...