Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Poll (sort of): Will the 'acoustic piano' become a relic?

Of course they won't

They're not trying to sound like a 9 foot steinway, that would be ridiculous. Who has a 9 foot steinway in their study?

But, on the other hand, they were always prepared for a party !!

I think a piano always brightens up a home. Even if someone doesn't play, its nice to have one. Whenever they have guests who are musicians they can have a bit of a singsong, and thats nice

Well the 9' was just the most extreme example. I think the same applies to all of the well-sized grands, and even the smallest of grands. The organic, raw sound presence you get from any acoustic instrument can't be replicated as such by a non-acoustic instrument. IMO.

Well, I have experienced it replicated, so yes it can.

Really? If you were to be blindfolded and sat down at two pianos, one being the one you felt successfully replicated the organic presence of an acoustic, and the other being a 6' acoustic grand, you would NOT be able to tell which one was which? Haha c'mon man! "I have experienced it replicated" -- no you haven't!

Agree! But I just want, no NEED a piano in my life, any piano!

Mark, BTW, did you manage to follow the Poll so far?

How is it going? Relic or not?

Could you post a list of who said what.

The cost of acoustic piano can well make acoustic piano relics
My colleague says she purchased an August Foster piano for her nieces 20 years ago for 1/3 this make and size cost now.
Digital pianos have not come far in terms of sound modeling, they have a lot of room for improvement, their software is still pretty primitive. As soon as software will be able to emulate piano resonances and tonal differences at the reasonable level, only few will still purchase a 'real piano' - and not because they cannot tell the difference, but due to the cost and convenience.
Now digitals compete with entry-level acoustics, as soon as they can compete with mid-price point, there will be not too many buyers left on the market for acoustic pianos as a few have budget for high-end grands. IMO.

Digital pianos have come extremely far in terms of sound modelling, and they can emulate piano resonances.

I'm sorry for shocking anyone...it has to be a matter of taste...I've just never liked the shape of a grand...it's somehow unbalanced... But I love to play and listen to them

Sample libraries are already vast and growing. By the time acoustic pianos have died, sampling them will no longer be necessary and people will be identifying more with the sample than the original. I imagine that a couple of centuries from now, a project will be undertaken to build a (then extinct) acoustic piano to marvel at how ingenious we neanderthals were.

The sad part of all this discussion is that, aside from acoustic pianos, we will be replicating our food and other naturally derived items. "They" are already growing hamburger in a petri dish. I suppose that one day we'll be able to simulate sex, because the real thing is ugly, or too expensive. I imagine that in a couple of centuries from now, a project will be undertaken to have real sex, and marvel at how ingenious we neanderthals were, that is if, unlike the Shakers, we are still around.

I think there are already some concert pianists around who would say that a high-end digital is preferable to a vertical - any vertical, according to one well-known pianist I spoke to, after a masterclass that I attended this afternoon.

One of the biggest drawbacks with most digitals are their consistent sound - too consistent. If you strike a chord with the same force several times without pedal you can easily get exactly the same sound, which is next to impossible on an acoustic, due to the 'Butterfly Effect'. That's because you're triggering the same velocity level on the DP, which any good pianist can do. The sheer consistency really does become boring in a way acoustics can never be, and contributes to the sterile effect when you try to play expressively, especially in slow music. And slow sustained music is also where sampled DPs show up their flaws: the decay sounds artificial, because it's looped and stretched: no vibrating string decays like that. (In rapidly flowing music like, say, Chopin's Op.10/2, sampled DPs can sound very convincing).

And that's where modeling makes all the difference, which I believe is why it will be the future of digital pianos - if only all the big DP manufacturers get in on the act, to spur each other on. Another advantage of modeling is that it's easy to tweak so many parameters like level of sustain, tone color, various resonances, pedal effects etc - because the sounds are generated from scratch, not already pre-recorded: there's only so much you can do to pre-recorded piano sounds before they become unacceptably synthetic-sounding.

BTW, anyone who isn't familiar with looping and stretching on DP sounds might want to drop in on the Digital Pianos forum and look at the long-standing 'DPBSD Project' thread (DP bullsh*t detector - you get the idea ) where 'dewster' does tests on the sound samples from several DPs........

Yeah, I have gotten a lot of good info at the DP forum. Also, if anyone in this thread has only ever played DPs in the class of Yamaha's Arius and the like, try to play an Avant Grand if you have the chance, it's pretty amazing! No headphones, no recordings, you have to play it yourself to understand what they've done.

That said, I will always prefer organic, go-out-of-tune-when-it-rains pianos!

"Real [sex] is ... too expensive..."? Really? I guess I'd better not ask ....

Reminds me of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, as well as a Hollywood movie starring Ewan McGregor (? The Island with Scarlett Johansson)......

I'd probably agree with that.

I wouldn't give up on sampling yet. As the price of memory continually drops they will soon be able to make an affordable digital without loops and stretches.