Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai ES920 VS Yamaha P515

PMFJI --

It's not _enough_ better, so that you should trade your almost-new P515 for a new ES920.

I’m a professional musician, and I call my ES8 a stage piano, because I play it on the stage when there isn’t a real piano. And the speakers are quite important.

Both those pianos look great with their respective stands. It's a mouth watering choice these days.

Build quality of stage pianos tends to be higher, and there is currently a sub-trend to put speakers in Stage pianos eg Korg Sv2. I don't consider those to be portable pianos on account of their stage piano core features. So indeed, to me, my distinction stands.

As I said, this is to me completely wrong and confuses matters when comparing stage and portable instruments. It's as much a stage piano as an acoustic Grand piano on a stage is a stage piano.

The formular of components and qualities of portable pianos is basically: a mid range portable version of a home cabinet piano, with or without a wooden bespoke stand with a built in triple pedal. Functionality of the portable piano is low.

Stage pianos are built for band gigging, have advanced MIDI control, better build quality, often hundreds to thousands of sounds, slider control for each parts, live control knobs for effects, hundreds more presets etc etc.

Once you compare top portable and stage pianos, you will indeed know they are different beasts entirely.

I apologize if I’ve said this before: P-515!

When I got on this forum in 2014 I didn't know the difference between the slabs yet and people calling everything "stage piano" (just as non-musicians like to call everything with keys an "e-piano") didn't help me and I was even looking at arrangers and workstations with a question mark over my head. It might be even the same people who now pretend that the ES series without balanced outputs (XLR) is a stage piano, who confused me back then. On top of it where the people advertising pure MIDI controllers on these forums as well.

Thankfully I got it right by accident and acquired a portable piano - something I didn't know existed until then, which had everything I needed to get back into practicing piano.

No worries man. I understand how every now and then you need to introduce yourself to the new members of the forum... of course as a very intelligent member!!!

Having and XLR output is not a parameter of a stage piano. Nord Stage 3, Kawai MP series, and alsmost every single synth I have seen and owend doesn't have XLR outs.

I should also say many instruments on the stage also don't have it. e.g. electric guitars, basses and so on.

...and Professor Chaos (Abdol) strikes again!!!

https://youtu.be/1Ocaztxj87E

It is: You are unlikely to find XLR on a portable piano.

It just doesn't work the other way around.

However Kawai MP11SE series has balanced outputs, Yamaha CP88 has, Roland RD-2000 has. Or in other words: the integrated professional gear intended to be connected directly to the mixer. (Synths you might want to patch somewhere.)

These are meant to be used together with effect pedals and a balanced output doesn't help with that. On microphones OTOH you always have XLR, because there it's real advantage.

But to add to the confusion, I could also start to call my RD-17C-CE an electric guitar, because it features a pickup with an instrument out and hooked up to the right combo I could make sound like one. Nevertheless it's an acoustic guitar, which is intended to be connected an acoustic amplifier and sound like an amplified acoustic guitar. And I'm gigging with it as an acoustic guitarist, so what the audiences hears matches what they see.

And to complete this, Kawai is the first company who introduced the concept of a "Stage Piano" before everyone else (specifically Yamaha!). Yamaha started monkey-see moneky-do just after they saw how successfull MP9000 was. Yamaha is famous for doing it. CP-88 is the latest example of copying other companies.

Here is the article which refers to how Kawai build the first concept of a Stage Piano:

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/kawai-mp9500#top

Kawai still follows the legacy of MP9000 I believe.

So here is the definition of a Stage Piano by its inventor:




So no XLR, no thousand sounds (of course), great MIDI controller capability. Top notch grand piano souds: Dark, Bright, Mellow which probably comes in 3 sizes: Baby, medium and full concert grand pianos. Top e-piano, Rhodes, Wurlitzers, Clavs and Organs. Having other sounds like pads and strings are nice but I don't really care how realistic they are.

It's good to have balanced outputs but I don't see it as a necessity. There are many instruments that don't have balanced output and there are DI boxes all around the stage which eleminates this need anyway.

That's the most funny theorycrafting I ever heard of, because I remember stage pianos already existing in 1997.

They weren't digital in the beginning during the 1970s and larger than today's slabs, yet much smaller than an acoustic grand or upright piano - which made them tada stage pianos. Here, have a Yamaha CP-30 from 1976:

.

It's always tempting to point out the exception even though it really doesn't prove any point whatsoever. But here we go:



Or maybe it's a stage piano. With built-in speakers. And optional furniture stand and triple pedal bar.

(I don't really care about the classification.)

I think we can safely say, that definition is dated, just as the first PC running MS DOS wouldn't define a modern PC.

The stage piano definition evolved naturally due to more complex tech under the influence of competition. This has occurred to such an extent, such that, a market has opened up for a modern slab piano combining a desire for an instrument with nicer aesthetics for the home with the simplicity of the original Kawai concept: the portable piano.

I think of the main difference between stage and portable is one of complexity over simplicity, where the stage piano gives more sliders, knobs and presets plus on the whole more sounds, parts, MIDI control and other such gadgets. Now we could even argue that there are clear sub-markets opening up eg between
Non menu driven simpler stage piano UI's : Nord Grand/ Yamaha CP88/Korg Sv2 vs more menu driven function heavy all in one boards eg Rd2000, MP7SE, Dexibel S9 Pro, Kurzweil Forte

I've no doubt that this genre 'stage piano' will continue to evolve as tech gets more advanced. Perhaps the boundaries between workstations, Synths and stage pianos will blur over time.

We didn't have Stage Pianos in the 70s'. Spend some time and read the link. The author of that link knows more than you.

You are mixing an instrument Yamaha called it an "electric piano" from 70's. Stage Piano is a new concept from late 90's when technology allowed us to have main instruments used in band performances in a compact digital box, that actually sounded acceptable and decent.

So you probably categorize Mellotron as a stage piano too!

What makes the Roland RD series -- starting in 1986 or so -- not "stage pianos"?

I don't think so. The main instruments that defined the Stage Piano concept are timeless. The need for the bread and butter instruments on the stage will not evolve with time.

First of all Nord Stage isn't a simple instrument. 2nd, MP series doesn't offer you a deep interface to edit your voices. The most complex one is just for Piano. The rest are very basic. Among all of these, CP-88 is the only instrument which is a step backwards.

There is also an overlap between Stage Pianos and syths. e.g. Kronos is very versatile when it comes to important stage sounds.

That's easy: It's neither a stage piano nor a portable piano. It's a toy made by this company and re-badged by M-Audio: https://www.medeli.com.hk/4200