Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Electric vs acoustic piano? Whats the best choice?

If you`ve access to a big piano shop, or there`s a lot of acoustics or digitals for sale privately, see and play as many as you can. Play them all; there are some dreadful acoustics out there. Don`t get stuck with one of them. You don`t need a big name. Baldwin acoustics are great, I think..

Thank you all for your answers, I really appreciate them.
I thought about my situation again and I do now think that I will have to get a digital one. The point is that in the near future I will have to have a possibility to train playing the piano silently. In a about two years I will start college and since I can't afford a huge place for my own playing an acoustic piano will be almost impossible.
So I think that I will go with a digital piano, but a pretty good one, and later in life when I have the money and the space for it I can get myself a decent acoustic piano.

Given the fact that you will be away at college, a digital is the way to go, and I recommend like a previous poster did, that you go for a stage piano. You will have to purchase a stand separately (as well as a bench), but the portability factor is really important. You may also want to consider buying a case for it. I'm not sure what the living conditions will be like at college, but chances are keeping the piano out at all times will not be an option (and might be better protection from random wandering fingers) to be able to put it away when you're done practicing.

I recommend a table stand which IMO is much better than the X ones which can be wobbly. You may be able to get some stage pianos with a nice stand, but you'll want to make sure it can fold up as storing it in a dorm room with already limited space might be an issue. I recommend this stand: table stand .

As for which digital, you will definitely want to go around and play as many as you can. Good ones to check out would be Roland (I like the feel, not as great a piano sound), Yamaha (better sound, not as great a feel IMO), and Casio Privias (a great bargain). You probably will want to bring headphones with you because the on-board speakers on many digitals are pretty poor.

I own both digitial and acoustic. I tend to agree with other that nothing sounds like a piano more than an acoustic piano ... that said college does demand a digital ... as an idea you might look for a good digital to practice on. Often your local church or the music department at school have digitals to practice on. At my college they even have a (very well worn) Steinway grand in the student union that has its own practice room for people to come in and play

Good luck, it's a life long journey

I'm a beginner, too, who owns just a DP but takes lessons on an acoustic. They are simply different worlds. DPs (in your/my budget) are nothing but decent emulations of real sounds and touch. Their keybed tends to imitate grands instead of uprights, which are (as far as I know) very much difficult to "ride". Cheap uprights are like cheap old cars: good to learn how to drive. DPs are like F1 emulators. If you have a decent ear, you'll never love them.Besides, an acoustic ressonance is felt with the whole body and that's only for the very high end DPs to reach. But they are all what most of us can afford.
Anyway, there aren't two identical accoustic pianos, so by definition there's no such thing as a realistic DP, in a strict sense.
In your situation I'd choose a decent slab to practice and have fun. But don't you expect to learn it all from it, as you'll need to be able to adapt your playing to each different piano you met.

Could you please tell us which digital you play, I am looking for one and sounds like you have a model I would be interested in. Thank you.

It's the Roland V-Piano, one of only two digitals that are fully modeled (the other one is its big brother, the V-Piano Grand which is the V-Piano plus a few extra presets housed in a grand piano cabinet with dedicated speakers) rather than sampled, i.e. the sound is generated from scratch when the key goes down, rather than from pre-existing recorded samples which are then processed, which is what happens on all other digitals. The modeling gives the V that amazing connection between the way you play and the sound that comes out, which IMO is almost uncanny in its realism: it's the only digital on which I can forget (while I'm playing, that is - its slab appearance doesn't look anything like a real piano: for that you need the Grand version, which costs a lot more) that I'm not playing on a fully mechanical instrument, with all its resonances and its response to touch and articulation etc.

It's exactly what it is: a purely acoustic piano substitute, with no concessions made to those who want some non-piano sounds. All of its 28 preset sounds (30 in the Grand version) are piano sounds, but all are fully customizable by the user - you can alter the tuning, the tone color, the pedal effects, the various resonances, the hammer hardness, the sustain and damping levels etc. to your heart's content. I have several of my own customizations based on all the well-known brands of acoustic pianos (from Steinway and Yamaha to Fazioli and Bösendorfer) stored in its memory - you can store up to 100.

But you really need to play it for yourself to find this out. In my experience, the more used you are to playing on acoustics (I'd been playing on acoustics since I was 10, and never tried digitals until three years ago, when I decided I needed my own piano, and then set off on an extensive search) and the more you're inclined towards classical music (where it's not just the notes but how you play them), the more you appreciate its qualities above those of other (sampled) digitals. I suggest that you don't just use the factory preset sounds when you audition, but increase all the resonances to +40 and the 'decay time' to +70 (which is about concert grand level). If you want a brighter sound (e.g. you prefer the Yamaha sound to a Steinway or Blüthner), just increase the tone color to +1 or +2.

Like Bennevis, I play classical music pretty much exclusively, but the only instrument I have is a digital piano (Casio Celviano AP-620). I have owned or had access to an acoustic upright pretty much all of my life, (50-plus years!) buta couple of years ago, for various reasons, I decided to part with the acoustic and get the Celviano. Overall, I have been very happy with the choice, especially since my poor old acoustic was getting pretty long in the tooth and was going to be needing more and more work done on it. I'm happy with the soundand touch, I don't seem to have any problem switching to an AP when I have the chance to play one, but the main advantage for me is the ability to practice with headphones. Early morning is the best time for me to practice, and with an AP I just couldn't do that. There are, of course, lots of threads on here about the relative merits of DP and AP, but I just thought I would put my two cents in here. Since I think that many of us here play only for our own enjoyment and will never be performing in public we need to only have something that makes us happy when we play it, right? Cheers!

I agree with others' comments. As acoustic piano substitutes, digital pianos are getting pretty good, but they are not a perfect simulation. I don't know if there is always going to be a need for acoustic pianos, but at the moment, acoustic is still more enjoyable to listen to and practice on.

When evaluating whether to go acoustic or digital, I think one needs to preference an acoustic piano, but if there are requirements that an acoustic piano cannot address, silent practicing, lack of tuning budget, a digital may be better. An entry level Yamaha Clavinova (well within your budget) comes with a 5-year warranty, and they usually last much longer than just 5 years, so for the period of time you would own it, it is maintenance free. With acoustic pianos, you should budget at least $200 a year for tuning and servicing, which give you about 2 tunings; good tuners cost even more. If you buy a used acoustic piano, it's hard to predict how much service you will need initially. Then again you could get lucky.

A digital piano holds its tune better than any acoustic piano. In a discussion with another forum member, I think this static never changing nature of the digital piano eventually seemed fake to him, so ironically, a superior aspect of digital could become undesireable.

Finally an acoustic piano is more difficult to play well compared to a digital one. Personally, I have not yet reconciled whether it matters for me to play an acoustic piano well versus a digital one when I have no desire to perform. Logically, I only need to play MY piano well, but on occasion when I have the chance to play some rather nice acoustics, I'm always glad that I do practice on an acoustic. As I said, I haven't figured that one out yet.

Er....a digital never goes out of tune. Unless you deliberately detune it, which you can do with individual (virtual) strings on the V-Piano. And of course, many DPs also allow you to access unequal temperaments like Kirnberger, meantone, Werckmeister etc which can sound out of tune to modern ears.

I do agree with you about the 'static' nature of the sampling sound production in most DPs, which is probably the reason why many people get bored with their new DP within just a few months, and keep looking to 'upgrade', or buy new sound samples to upload on software to change the sound - there're plenty of threads in the Digital Piano forum about this.

Yeah, the different temperaments are very interesting, and I've played with them a bit. It lets you appreciate how certain music would sound in their 'native' temperament. Still, to me, it's interesting but not so critical that would make me want to abandon an acoustic piano for a digital one.

I didn't realized it is the static nature of the DP that causes the upgrade obssession. I do notice DP-only owners do seem to upgrade often. I always thought they were just chasing technology, but never thought perhaps they're just bored of the sound. Interesting.

It's probably also the fact that techies (which many DP owners seem to be) always want the latest, as you say. When I started joining in the DP forum, I was frankly amazed that so many DP owners already have several DPs and yet keep looking to upgrade. I simply regard (and use) my V-Piano as I would a normal acoustic, and have never become remotely bored with it (even if it isn't almost infinitely customizable - I've got several different customized piano sounds on it but only ever use a couple regularly): I'm in control of the sound, not the machine; and if I don't like what I hear, it's because I need to practise more......

I am not convinced that digital pianos cannot go out of tune. I am not convinced that some of them are ever in tune, for that matter.

No, you're right; no DP is ever perfectly in tune because so-called 'equal temperament' means that no two notes are perfectly in tune with each other, other than octaves - possibly. And that's apart from the fact that the original grand pianos that sampled DPs get their sound from might not have been properly tuned anyway....

Maybe that explains why, after not having played my DP for several weeks, when I went to do so yesterday it just didn't sound "right".

My acoustic piano is having the key bushings replaced and the action regulated, so I am forced to play my DP for practice until my tech returns with my grand action on Tuesday afternoon (I can't wait!!)

This was the longest I've gone without playing my DP, and I am amazed at how different it sounds after playing strictly on an acoustic for a month or so.

Dan

My technician tunes my piano with the high notes higher and the low notes lower than what equal temperment dictates. It sounds much more "in tune" this way for some reason.

Also, I have heard older digital pianos that do go out of tune (and it's not a setting, but a malfunction somewhere).

Yes, my V-Piano has what's called 'stretch tuning' which can be selected by the user, which does what your tuner did to your piano. Apparently the ear perceives high notes as sounding a little flat and low notes as too sharp, which stretch tuning 'corrects'.

I always did think that coloratura sopranos get flatter as they sing higher....

That is usually because conductors and orchestras today tune much higher than composers of the time were working with. Verdi, for example, insisted all his operas be at A=432. This makes a HUGE difference when singing.

He's seen the light! -- He's seen the light.

That's cheating! Pavarotti wouldn't want to be thought of as 'King of the high Bs'.....