Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards What should I buy?

Only to jam your fingers into the case, or fall off the edge of the world.


I'd like to take a cheap hammer action DP, cut off the top octave, and build it into a cheap flight case with some small speakers / amps but I haven't seen anything worth doing this with. I recently tried the latest Casio action in a store and the keys had more side-to-side slop than the other DPs around it. I'm not a huge fan of the latest Casio AP sound either. I suppose our P105 will have to do for now, but it could be a lot more portable (and the speakers kind of suck).

I wish Kawai would make a hollow plastic key version of their best key mechanism, and stick 76 of them in a flight case controller, maybe with small speakers. I'd be all over that. Put an unlooped AP sample set in there with realistic sympathetic resonance and I'd probably keel over dead.

I had some problems (more like "I wasn't happy") with the response of my PX-350, which has the same keyboard mechanism as the PX-150 and probably shares the same "touch" settings ( 0 (off) / 1/ 2/ 3).

I set it to "touch=3" (I learned on a baby grand, and that felt comfortable to me).

Then I got Pianoteq. Things didn't quite feel right.

I went through the Pianoteq "custom touch curve" setup. I found that I couldn't reliably generate low MIDI-velocity values from the keyboard, and that I couldn't hit the keys hard enough to get to MIDI velocity 127. The problem was mine, not the keyboard.

So I set the Pianoteq curve up so that "ppp-to-FFF" (inside Pianoteq) matched up to the MIDI velocity values that I _could_ get, reliably, from the PX-350 keyboard.

Since then, I've been happy.

I really don't know if what I did made a "real" difference, or if I'm having "placebo effect". And I haven't tried to compare the volume range from the built-in PX-350 pianos, to the volume range from Pianoteq (which is, itself, a parameter that's changeable).

I wish I had more sensitive fingers, and better ears. All I can say is:

. . . No, it's not "all in your mind".

. . . Yes, you might be able to make things feel better by
. . . changing the PX-150 velocity curve.

. Charles

Yes. It's been bugging my mind lately. For like a month I will try to adjust to it the way it is before using any VST or external monitors with touch response set at 3. Then will try to find any 'deficiencies' in the keyboard or sound/speaker mechanism itself.

One thing you might try out, since you have VST's already:

. . . Get a "trial" version of Pianoteq, and go through the "set up a custom velocity curve" procedure.

That will give you an idea of what MIDI velocities are actually coming out of your keyboard. And it might give you a start for setting up "loudness - vs - MIDI velocity" maps for other VST's.

For what you're doing, the missing notes in the trial version will not make a difference.

. Charles

Thank you Charles. I will try that after a week or two. First I wanna make sure I'm accustomed to the new touch of PX-150

Jfoley. Just some advice, regardless of what people recommend you to buy, or what the instrument sounds like when you listen to it online, I strongly advice you only to buy one you have played before in a shop or perhaps a friends etc. I was dead set on buying a nord before, they sound and look admazing, but when I tried it for myself there were just some things i couldn't live with and in the shop I instead fell in love with a digital piano i hadn't heard of before (albeit a pretty famous one, roland rd-700nx). Just my two cents. A piano/keyboard is a very personal matter and there are many factors to what makes it the right one for you.

You re-teach, it means you used to play ? What is your experience and level. On what instrument you made your first lessons ? Enough to have some abit/taste in term of action feeling ?

Then, as KJ asked, what is your ultimate goal ? What is appealing / fun for you re-teaching playing piano ?

I mean, you dream of being like a classical solist on his concert grand, giving recital of bach, mozart, chopin. Jut for yourself ? For your family ? So action realism, purity of sound, speakers power, cabinetry are important.

Do you want to have fun playing pop music you like, perhaps as singer accompaniement ? Perhaps, you want to play for other, or be a perfromer in a band ? Compose your own music ? So portability, connectivity and stusio recording, rythm box, versatility of sounds, is important.

If you have enough budget, you should try to buy something aligned with your "dream". And try to touch / approach your dream from the start.

I think, restart is not so easy, so you need to have fun, and do something you like, when you will start to spend a lot of time to "work". You need to keep motivated.

I do not advice you to buy the "perfect" / most expensive DP, but just something (possibly reasonnably priced), that is "serious" on your way to fulffill your final motivation, and that you enjoy when your practise.

For example, if you need to connect things, prepare this and this, this is just little pains, but it can prevent you to spend 10 minutes of playing. If just because you walk near you instrument, and just let your fingers runs on keys, and finally, you sit down and continue, because you had immediat access to instrument, and it was just cool enough to prevent your escape, it is a godd spec.

I fear starting with "fake" / toy / unconfortable instrument, is a way to concede it is not important for you, and you can lose time, or just make a trial. So for me, a bad start.

That is generally about being serious, having faith in your re-start projetc. Then, if I can express a personnal opinion, the most important, when you learn, is to have a good action to teach/train your fingers to have strenght, sensitivity, velocity of a "real/standard" keybed, so you can adapt/evole to the better instruments, trying to reach better expressiveness (and this is independant of what kind of music you will play). So, if you are "budget-limited", if you can save some money with the cabinetry (and be confortable having a slab), then it is worth to put savings for a better keybed, one that suits you and make you connected with the instrument (if you have sufficent experienced to have a taste of that). If you don't have preferences, try to follow general consensus about good action for budget DP (you have several options, depending of personal preferences, for me Casio tri sensor II, or yamaha GH, or Roland PHA-IV, or Kawai RH2). Casio privia PX-150 being the cheapest in the "quite good" action league.

Just my 2 cents, after seing my young daughter (8) started the piano, and see how I (40) re-started (or not) myself as an adult with piano (or continue practising guitar), when time is rare and distractions countless.

At the end of the day, you really need, is to "like" your instrument, enjoy using it and be certain that the quality is good enough to grow up, so it is not an "barrier" to your music, it is a reliable friend, not an ennemy (actually, the only remaining problem should be you and your work ).

Hope it helps and not confuse even more ...

JFoley: I have to agree with zack!'s post completely.

What you should buy is something you really enjoy playing and something that will keep you playing.

My first portable keyboard was a Yamaha PSR550. I still have it and it is useful for developing chord charts, transposing keys and just generally checking things - I keep it next to my computer. For a long time it was my only kb other than my now-40+ yr old acoustic. But I never really enjoyed playing it for the sake of playing. Granted, it is only 61 keys and not 76 and that, along with the plastic keys, played a big part in not sitting down and using it often enough. Had I not had practice time on other digitals at my church where I needed to practice, I probably would have really regretted my decision. At the time price was a big factor.

So my opinion - try out what you can and go with what you are really taken with!

BTW, I purchased the Yamaha P95 a couple years ago because I finally needed to get a good practice instrument at home. It has done the trick.

So my advice, "skip" the entry level for DP, try to buy something that you like and will last at least 2-3 years (you will then not be a "beginner" anymore, and you will know if you need to change your instrument).

If you don't have budget (at this stage, this is often the conclusion ), perhaps renting something (maybe accoustic) is a good alternative waiting to have enough budget.

Personnaly, I do not like to sell my old instruments, I like to own several instruments, so I try to think about durability and having complementary instruments for me an my family from the start.