Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Would You Buy a "Travel/Practice" Piano With Good Action?

I've talked about this in several threads, but as a new piano junkie who has to travel a lot on business, I'm frustrated by days away from my acoustic piano. For me, they're lost practice days.

It strikes me that some decent practice could be done on a 49-key digital piano that might also be quite portable (carry-on luggage for the overhead bins). Forget the speakers (headphone jack only), lose the sliders, knobs, and drum pads, etc. -- and you'd have something that looks like this:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyb...pla&gclid=CIHRm8auuq8CFUPf4AodfXwxkw

The problem is that, with the exception of one theoretical Studiologic MIDI controller that appears not to be for sale anywhere in the phenomenological universe, no 49-key DP or MIDI controller has weighted keys. I have the Line 6 product shown above, and it's good for what it is, but nowhere close to the touch of, say, a Yamaha p95.

I'd pay decent money for a light, small, keyboard with weighted keys that would serve only as a practice piano while on the road. If the keys were pretty good -- something like what we see on the better DPs -- I'd probably pay $500 or even more.

Would anyone else be interested in such an item?

Ok practice keyboard, no sound though.
http://www.pinkhampianos.com/pinkhampianos.nsf/Pianos/HomeDummyPracticeKeyboard

Another thread on the topic, with one very interesting (albeit perhaps not cost-effective!) solution...


Want an engineer to make a 49-key weighted action digital keyboard

I was looking for the same since I travel a lot and I found but they don't do it any more I don't understand why. Studiologic VMK149 perfect for this purpose with fatar hamer like action
together with pianoteq on my laptop.

Count me in.

There is the problem. You want the keys from a "better" DP and the price from an entry level DP. And on a very specialized device that likely would never sell in high volume. Had you said "keys from a better DP and priced only slightly higher" then there might be a chance. The real problem with this, I'm sure is the low number of units that would be sold. Something like this would not sell at entry level price.

The problem is that a professional would simply ship a full size instrument in a shipping case. After all if you are doing a multi-city tour you can by definition afford to ship your gear. So who is the target market for a fully weighted "short" piano? Not a huge market there.

The easy and cheap solution is to learn to play a second instrument and practice that while you travel. As a pianist you might be able to play a synth action keyboard. Or maybe buy a 20-something key keyboard and learn how to build film scores with multi-tracked midi. There are many productive and interesting things to do.

If anyone ever did come across one, I wonder how that VMK-149 feels. It does not use the same keybed (TP-40M) that the 161 and 176 use, it uses a TP8-PIANO keybed, and I don't know anything else that uses that.

As for the $500 price, well, Casio makes a serviceable weighted 88 in the CDP-120 that sells for $399, so I would guess they could make a 49 that would sell for $299... if they thought there were a market for it.

I think you're ignoring the "or even more" part of what I wrote. If the keys played like a P95 or even better, I'd probably be willing to pay a good deal more than $500.

I don't know how big the market for this would be. My guess is that there are some other serious piano students who have to travel and who would like to be able to take a practice instrument on the road with them. God knows one sees many people in airports with those horrible little travel guitars.

By the way, I DO play a second instrument (it used to be my first instrument)... the double bass.

I know this isn't what you asked but I wanted to add my point of view about practising on road.

Practising on road is okey for composing purposes but can be unhealthy for pianists. Because you have to practise without using the correct sitting position, body and arm weight. And the road can get bumpy or loud. "Not practising", "thinking about the work or just reading the score" can be much more healthier.

We all know that some famous pianists used those keyboards. This is just my opinion.

I would like a shorter, high-quality digital piano to take with me to the ship. When I go out on various relief jobs for 30 or 60 days, I can handle playing nothing but Bach while I'm away, but I want to play him on a hammer-action keyboard. Same thing going off for a weekend jaunt. I love my Roland (just upgraded to FP-7F), but it is such a hassle to lug through an airport, into a taxi, up a gangway and a few ship's ladders... you get the picture. Having the same level of performance in a 67 or 73-key machine would be just peachy, for me. But alas, it's just a wistful dream....

No. If I didn't have 88 fully weighted keys I simply wouldn't be interested.

I wouldn't be bothered much by the sound as long as there was a dynamic response that I could recognise. Other than that I'd take up the flute or something and accept it as the price I paid for travel.

OK, I've got an Electro 3HP so I am all set for traveling.

But let's take ClsscLib's challenge and speculate where one might go for pianist travellers for less money.

Let's start from the NE3HP. Strip away the organ and the sample section (or keep the latter for fun...). Improve the action a tiny bit (make it more 'equal'). Add a new (or user defined) velocity curve for harder response (point being to have more control in the ppp-mp range). Give us a new piano sample with higher dynamic range. Keep the rest as is (73 keys is fine for size reasons, 11kg is a great weight) and sell the whole thing for substantially less than the NE3HP.

In short, a Nord Piano 'Light'.

Maurus, I'm liking it.

Forgot to mention price in my earlier posts. Since I gladly paid $1300 for my FP-4 and got several years' use out of it, and now paid $2k for my upgrade, which is indeed a major improvement in all things piano; I think $1500 for a really top-notch portable digital piano, a shortened version of a CP5 or FP-7F e.g., would be quite reasonable.

But in the absence of such a smart accessory, I plan to shell out twice as much for a VAX77, and put Pianoteq on my macbook.

Gonna love flying with my new best friend now.

Let you all know how it works out.

Over.

Ctnski, does the VAX77 have piano-like keys? I've never seen one, and if it does, it might be my answer.

When will you get yours?

Please keep us posted!

In a sense, an NE3HP is Nord PIano light.

I'm not sure taking out the organ (the only thing you definitely want removed) would make it that much cheaper (especially since you want them to add things, too).

If you want something that feels similar to the E3HP, has a good piano sound, and sells for substantially less, look at the Numa Piano. (Except it's almost 9" wider since it has the full 88 keys.)

Numa is coming out with what is essentially a lighter weight and lower cost version (the NumaComact), but are doing it by dropping the fully weighted action, as opposed to keeping the same action but dropping the # of keys.

As for the other things you'd like added to your 3HP, what do you mean by wanting the action to feel more "equal"? It's not a graded action to begin with, so I'm not sure what kind of change you're talking about. (Though since Nord doesn't manufacture their own actions, there are limitations to what alterations they can make.)

You might be able to make the adjustment you want to the velocity curve by getting a MIDI Solution Velocity Converter (turn Local Off on the Nord, send MIDI Out to the Velocity Converter, then go from there back into the Nord's MIDI In).

As for piano samples with more dynamic range, well, that's not model-specific... whatever Nord does in that respect would be a sample, which could as easily be loaded into a Nord Pianos or Stage 2. I imagine that, apart from programming, the issue they have to deal with in thinking about extending dynamic range of piano samples is how big the sample file may get (i.e. with more velocity layers) and also possibly limitations to the action that make it hard to more realistically map finger action to dynamics.

VAX77 is probably the best answer for a compact travel board for piano players. But it's $3,000. (And it doesn't even include any sounds, so you'd have to trigger something in you laptop or whatever.)

A few clarifications:



Well, mostly more precise production, no unevenly spaced keys, no unequal heights between of keys, such things. Perhaps a different felt for bottoming out.



Well, how fiddly is that for traveling? I would hope a simple firmware update could help? Don't know, however.



Well I don't know. Other producers (e.g. Yamaha) are on the other side of well-balanced dynamic range. I guess Clavia has opted for low dynamic range (and a compressor, by the way) since in gigging situations that's what you need. Several of us would prefer a more realistic dynamic range.

For traveling, 88 keys is too much. I think the things that I mentioned could all be done without too much trouble.

Nord has limited control here since they don't manufacture the keybeds. These kinds of things could be unfortunate side effects of using a cheaper keybed than they use in their other weighted boards, so it may not be realistic to ask for both a better keybed and a cheaper product.


The box is tiny, you could probably keep it permanently velcro'd and wired up to the Nord itself so it wouldn't add any complication to traveling.

ClsscLib, please read through this link carefully. For me, traveling as much as I do, away from my grand as much as I am, this is the cat's meow.

http://www.nathanaeliversen.com/?p=298

As I am away now, I plan on getting it when I get home the end of June. I'll be sure to post here my impressions. Every review I've read notes the very high quality of construction, hand-made in Texas, USA. Also noteworthy is the exceptional level of product support accorded by Infinite Response. I think it's a company I would like to reward with my business.

On the Infinite Response website, under videos, you can see Stevie Wonder playing on stage on the Dr. Phil show, with Donny Osmond harmonizing alongside.

Pianoteq Stage, their simplest version, is available for 99 euros, about $130.

Cheers,

Forgot to mention that, in the linked review above, the author ordered his VAX77 with the heavy keys. IR offers standard, heavy and ultra-heavy options, and most reviews I've read say that the heaviest most closely resembles a piano. That's what I'm getting, anyway.