Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Just accept it: it'll NEVER be a real piano...

oh well... one has to adapt to life changes.

In my case, changing house, getting away from an overcrowded, traffic packed, loud, polluted and smelly Rome to go to a nice, green, quiet suburban area, located just nearby, was a very good thing under every aspects save for the fact that...

I had to sell my B E A U T Y F U L Yamaha U1M...
both the new furnishings and the neighborhood no longer allow me to have/play an acoustic piano.

I also considered getting me an acoustic with silent but I should have given up part of the furniture and my house would have turned too much "piano-centric".

So I ended up with yet another digital piano (a Kawai MP7SE, as some people in this forum may already know).

Am I happy with that?
...uhm...

Let's say that I like it for what it is: an excellent instrument, probably among the best in its league, aesthetically pleasant, everything on it appears professional, it feels sturdy, definitely a good buy.
Also, as all electronics, it does offer options a regular acoustic piano doesn't.

I.e. I'm quite happy with the Rhodes sounds: that is a whole lot better that anything I had in the past, though I happened to play with "the real thing", for quite a while (a year or so) and... there's no possible match...

The "drawbar Hammond like" sounds are also very nice, really WAY above the average these keyboards usually offer: the sound can be trimmed to achieve anything you want. Of course, in this case too, it can't be played as a real Hammond, but I am no organ player so I'm quite happy with the way it is.

AP, EP and organs are the instruments of real interest, to me, the rest is just fun stuff (well... it's good to have a few valid analog synths, too).

From my profile it is possible to see all the instrument I owned (I still own some of them); I bought them all brand new, with the exception of my former acoustic pianos.

I can say that this new one is definitely improved, both the sound and the key action, but... not to the point to be jumping for joy, particularly when it comes to the "acoustic piano" sound, which is the "main course" in the menu.

The Yamaha CP80 is the piano with which I studied most of my life: the keyboard action feels (it actually is) the same as a baby grand and when it's not amplified, it makes a pleasant sound, muffled enough not to bother the neighborhood. I sold it because I wanted a real acoustic.

I made enough money, with it, to get me a splendid U3H, which really had such an elegant sound, almost comparable to a baby grand. I sold it for good money, like 30% more than what I paid for it, and got the U1 (I could say I STOLE it from a guy who was "desperate" to sell it, because he too was moving to another house and the poor piano ended up stored in a garage, so he gave it away for a... "very interesting" price); that piano sounded as good if not better than the previous.

With the time, I learned pretty well how to choose a good one in the bunch and, so far, I always ended up earning a little profit, buying and reselling acoustic pianos.

This compensates the fact that reselling electronics has always been a total loss, whether or not you buy them new or used, they lose a lot of value with the time, while used acoustics might even gain some, once you set them right.

All this bla bla to say...

I like my new DP but, boy... do I miss my acoustic pianos, and I mean: A LOT.

Those pianos played "by themselves"... notes and phrasings came out of the fingers without even having to "think" about it.

They were "inspiring", like a muse.

Those days are gone, now...

As I said, I really like what I have now, but... yet again I have to adapt to the "coldness" of this sort of "robot" (though it is a nice one, I have to say).

I tried LOTS of them, all brands and price ranges: it'll NEVER be the real thing, both under your hands and in your ears, your brain, your heart, your creativity...

I don't regret buying it but I know I'll end up getting me another acoustic, sooner or later, even if I have to move to a new house!

Yes, that’s the reality. But I think MP7SE isn’t the most realistic DP anyway, so it can hardly compete against a real acoustic piano. Even CA-pianos fall short, let alone a stage piano. Maybe you should have looked at hybrid pianos instead.

I understand your point. This is a little bit of a non sequitur, but from another perspective the piano in the abstract sense "playing by itself" really became a musical minus to me. It's one of the reasons I took up the cello quite a while back. You're more intimately involved with tone production, and therefore more intimately involved in the music itself. When you've played a string or woodwind instrument and go back to the piano, you realize how coldly mechanical it can be. The thing that keeps me coming back to the piano is the repertoire and harmonic richness, and that's accessible on my DP. It's more about the music than the instrument.

+1.

Speaking of just Kawai pianos, MP11SE and CA99/79 etc. are better approximations of the acoustic grand. With Kawai Novus NV10 being an even better approximation of the acoustic grand. NV10 is by far the closest to an acoustic grand IMHO (with the possible exception of Yamaha AvantGrand N1X - which I haven't played as it wasn't in the market when I bought NV10). NV10's action is indistinguishable from a real acoustic grand. But, the sound via speakers is nowhere close to the acoustic grand.

I play a 7" acoustic grand (Mason & Hamlin BB) daily. I play NV10 more than BB (because most of my playing is at night when the family is asleep). I prefer the action of NV10 over BB - but they are comparable. But, the sound of BB over NV10 is just incomparable.

The biggest weakness of all DPs is the speaker sound system (IMHO). The best I have seen is Yamaha AvantGrand N3X - their implementation of multi-channel samples and multi-speaker sound system is excellent. But if you have space and money to buy N3X and circumstances permit you to play it via speakers - you might as well get an acoustic (upright or grand).

With MP7SE, your best bet to get closest to an acoustic experience is high quality VST + high quality headphones.

Osho

I don't understand this either. Why do people looking for an acoustic piano replacement end up with a stage piano, which is everything but? Even the mere P-515 I own shares its action, samples and setup with a Clavinova instead focusing on drawbar organs and XLR outs.

When I switched my primary instrument to the guitar I got around this issue and a bunch of others - including the limited options of sharing my gift with other musicians. And being there now I would never expect an electric guitar sounding and behaving like an acoustic one. I just choose to own both, and carry them around as needed.

So this is how I solved this problem for myself instead of chasing after the next expensive digital substitute for an unobtainable grand. I'm open-minded and do not have to limit myself to keyboard repertoire while complaining about my choices. Maybe one day I get hands on a clavichord.

It is a REAL digital piano though.

Then again, I remember when photographers were saying that digital cameras would never replace film cameras. Reality had other ideas.

Given enough time, the gap between digital and acoustic pianos will likely narrow significantly in my view.

I don't see this happening in the next decade or so. Since the first Yamaha AvantGrand series was released, the main improvement has been in the sample quality, resonance modeling, binaural samples etc. Basically, the sound engine has improved a lot. However, the action hasn't improved that much (Yamaha AvantGrand N1X has the same action as N1 - which was released ~10 years ago). But, the action is the strongest part of hybrids. The weakest link is the speaker sound system - and I haven't seen any significant upgrade in that to close the gap with acoustic pianos.

Osho

A DP with just good sound will always be more expensive than an acoustic.
And brands selling acoustics won't do that.

I tried the U1 and U3 acoustics (Pianoteq and actual) and I liked neither. Preferred the B3 series. If you tweak up the kawai CA58 it'll pass muster imo and get the job done. Why is everyone so fussy? Man up, guys!

What about the girls in the room................................?

Both the terms "man" and "guy" are gender non-specific now. Didn't you know?

I don't see this happening ever. No matter how advanced it is, no matter how many geegaws it has, it will always be a simulation... which is fine. It's still good for learning and playing the literature. The convenience factor is enough for me.

The current B3 series is just the previous generation U1 model.

ok, I can't quote everybody but I can do some considerations about the posts I read.

first thing first, I tried several Kawai pianos (CA67, CA58, CN37, ES8) and I can state that the piano sound is exactly the same as the MP7SE, though it is a stage piano.
If you play all of them with the same headphones the sound is just the same.
What can create the illusion of a better sound is the speaker system on each one of them, not the sound engine.
The speaker system make one heck of a difference as well as the headphones quality: I tried 5 different headphone with my piano and received 5 totally different response in term of sound quality: one of them headphones were very cheap and the result was so poor I almost threw my piano in the trash, then I tried several and finally, with a pretty decent JVC, things changed radically, I mean day and night difference.

second, the U1 and U3 are two incredibly beautiful upright pianos, but you have to find the right ones.
A lot of them have been poorly refurbished by not very skilled/competent/interested people, also non original parts were often used so that those pianos no longer match Yamaha's standards (they aren't Yamaha pianos anymore), thus they may sound awful.
Many of those pianos had their hammers filed in the refurbishing. That is a very sensitive process that, if done wrong, may cause a wrong shape and/or an excessive hardening of the hammers resulting in a piano with a very metallic sound. A wrong shape can also cause the hammers not to hit the strings properly or to hit them only partially (let's say two strings instead of three, in the three strings section of the harp).
On top of that, every piano, and I mean ALL of them, even a 80.000$ Bosendorfer, need to be properly adjusted, tuned and voiced by a skilled technician in order to play up to their potential.
So, saying "I didn't like them" doesn't mean anything, since there are several issues possible.
I had three of them, one U3H, a U1H and U1M, which I picked very carefully, had them trimmed by a highly skilled technician and the sound they had was just dreaming beautiful.

Now, back to the topic, when comparing a DP to an acoustic, it is fundamental to consider a number of components which are NOT the sound "itself".
Strictly speaking, I'm not "complaining" much about the sound quality of my DP, but the fact of missing all those features proper on an acoustic instrument. I can quote one of the posts in here, though referred to other instruments it still matches pretty well what I mean to say

I couldn't agree more with this statement.
"producing a sound" with an acoustic piano (or generally an acoustic instrument) is something that goes beyond the simple act of pressing a key on a keyboard. It involves a whole amount of "shades of feelings" which no electronic imitation could ever give.
The way the hammer strikes the strings, the string vibrations, the soundboard response, the harmonics, the infinite variations that can be given on terms of dynamics sensitivity, just to mention some...

I'm going to make a parallelism that somebody may consider a bit "graphic" but I believe it suits this case quite a bit so I hope I can be forgiven for doing so:

could the most absolutely beautiful, perfect and impeccable silicon dolls ever replace a real woman?
Well that's what happens comparing DP to an acoustic piano as well.

The problem with an acoustic piano is its maintenance and acceptable functionality lifecycle, and for this reason, I always prefer digital pianos when I arrange songs.

- No mechanical sounds.
- No detuning and thus no maintenance is necessary.
- MIDI output to PC and VST if necessary.
- I can utilize headphones.
- No mic setup and recording etc involved.
- ...

When things get more stable in my life, I will buy a nice NV series.

I hope by that time, Kawai will add an audio interface to its DPs. The main reason is, Kawai has one of the best sounding emulations, so sometimes, it's as good as a VST and I prefer to directly record it on my PC.

So, maybe it all depends on the style of music and whether you compose, arrange, perform? Bach used to say to his pupils whoever can't compose music in his head better seeks another job. For arranging and composing you may not need an instrument at all.

They have different pros and cons. But its difficult to see that digital will replace acoustic, the sound produced by acoustic means has something special about it, digital is just an emulation. Same way string instrument havent been replaced by electric ones, it became a different niche instead.

This all hinges on what you define as a "real piano". 300 years ago, people hearing a modern piano would probably having a hard time accepting it as the same as a pianoforte of the time. 300 years from now, I suspect what a "real piano" is will be quite different than how you define it now.

In my opinion, a digital piano is different than an acoustic piano, but that doesn't make it any less "real" and I find a good digital piano equally as enjoyable as a good, well tuned acoustic (and better than a bad acoustic!). But, as I say, that's just an opinion and I can understand your position as well.

I'm not talking about a piano recital. Even if I compose a song, I still prefer a DP! The final performance, sure it's nice to play it on an acoustic.

Arranging is about having the knowledge of every instrument you pick. It's about pairing and matching instruments, how each instrument can be played, the combination, ensemble, etc.

Bach was truly a jerk and he never had a chance to play a Digital Piano. Allah blesses him.

Agreed. The problem is it is difficult to keep a piano well-tuned.

It's a joy if someone else takes the responsibility of tuning it and do the recording and post-recording stuff