Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards How does Casio Privia action compare w/good acoustic pianos?

I have a Casio Privia PX-750 which has graded, weighted action and touch-sensitivity that feels pianistic to me - I'm not at all dissatisfied but don't have finely-tuned sensibilities at this point.

Anyone have enough familiarity with the Privia series to have a sense of how it compares in this respect to good pianos?

Generally speaking, Casio's Scaled Hammer Action is regarded as one of the better low-end/budget DP actions.How well they simulate "real acoustic grand actions" is really a complicated topic. Lots of excellent home pianists and pros use it, but in the absolute sense I don't think most people consider it one of the more realistic digital actions.

Action realism is such a subjective topic that I imagine there will be a lot of diverging views here.

It may also depend on what you define as a "good" piano. But how close does the Privia come to the feel of my Yamaha grand? It doesn't.

I don't think Privia action is close to a real piano.

I have a Casio Privia PX-5S and I get along with the piano. I really like the hex-layer sounds and layering of sounds. The pianos are okay.
The keyboard is an okay keyboard for what the Casio PX-5s is. A jack of all trades type of piano. The keys are to shallow to really be used for advanced classical music in my opinion.
But for what the unit is I'm glad I brought one. Great lightweight unit that suites me fine.

As others have already said, if you're trying to get close to a real piano action, look elsewhere. Hey for around $2800 you can get yourself a Kawai MP11se.
I have played it and it was a dream to play.

A PX-870 was my first piano after a long time not playing(decades).

I was very pleased with the action and would recommend it without hesitation.

I would put it like this:

. . . If you practice on your Casio,

. . . . and need to perform on an acoustic piano,

. . . . . and you have an hour to accustom yourself to _that_ acoustic piano,

. . . you'll be OK.

That might not work if you'll be playing something that demands really sensitive playing -- some Debussy, some Satie, some Bach. You'll need some more adjustment time.

But the Casio and an acoustic piano are members of the same species.

I second what Charles has said above....I have a Casio AP470 (which I find the tri-sensor action to be good especially considering the price - if I had to put a finger on it I would have to say it's more akin to a decent upright action than a grand). So, as per Charles' comment, "members of the same species"...

What anotherscott said. It depends on your definition of "good piano". With my own definition of "good" (i.e. e.g. a good quality German upright, or a medium-priced grand piano, or better), the answer is: No.

But to be clear: The same answer has to be given for most digital piano actions except the very best such as the top actions in Yamahas or Kawais, or hybrid digitals.

Public performance of hifalutin' literature like that - or any public performance of any sort - not going to be an issue for the foreseeable future.

Then I'll put it differently:

The Casio keyboard gives you (almost) the full range of possible "MIDI velocity" (the range from pppp to ffff), with fairly close relationship to how you'd play an acoustic piano. So you can be as expressive as you want.

It'll feel different from an acoustic -- but so will any low-to-medium price DP. If you have a chance, go to a showroom that has both acoustic and digital pianos on display, and go from one to another:

. . . pick the DP that feels closest to an acoustic piano, that's within your price range.

I picked my PX-350 that way, and it's worked out OK. When I started taking lessons, I had a shock playing my teacher's old Yamaha upright. But after a few practice sessions, I could go back and forth between them:

. . . I knew what to do to make "lesson playing" sound more-or-less like "home practice playing".

I'm sure if I had a Roland FP30, or a Yamaha P105, I'd have had the same experience.

I played a Casio PX-560M for almost 3 years. The 560 has the same action as the PX-750. It does not feel like the action of the acoustic grand I regularly play in my lessons and it also does not feel like other grands and uprights I have played. But it does offer a very decent simulation. Most important is that you would likely have the same experience regardless of the DP model you play, since none will be able to replicate an acoustic action, but most will allow you practice without major limitations and to to go back and forth between the DP and an acoustic after you get used to the differences. Also, there is no such thing as a "standard" or "good" acoustic action, since there is huge degree of variability between acoustics. If you play a top-tier DP action from Yamaha, Kawai or Roland, you may consider the simulation to be better, but it will still be far from the experience of an acoustic. So, just continue practicing with your PX-750 and save for a real acoustic or for a DP with acoustic grand action :-)

arc7urus just hit the nail on the head!

Acoustic uprights are generally not brilliant on dynamics. You are stuck with a pretty bad velocity curve. The keys will clatter, as will the rest of the mechanism, the pedal may have it's own issues.
These are the issues you have to acclimatise to when switching from digital to acoustic, the action is probably easiest to deal with.

Frankly, I would rather have a first rate fantasy than a third rate reality. I have owned and played a very fine Steinway B for thirty years. Now I live in Turkey and it is not available to me. Yes, a great acoustic is ....great, but for two or three grand you can get a Kawaii that is a pretty first rate fantasy. Impossible to get an equivalent acoustic experience for that amount.

Brassplyr, enjoy your Casio, but once those sensibilities get refined you will want something better and it will be available.

The short answer is this: it doesn't even compare. It's clunky, noisy and abrupt. I've just made this video comparing Privia PX-560 (which has the same action as PX-750) with Kawai MP11 SE (which has a fantastic action), just watch what crazy difference is between those two. Yes, the Kawai is much more expensive and it weighs 3 times as much, but oh boy...

https://youtu.be/QXkANSJjDb0

Well, to be honest, and since the OP question was about a comparison to acoustic pianos: The noises of the PX-560 action in your video are much closer to the noises of an acoustic action than the MP11SE's GF action noises.

The GF is a very quiet action. Much quieter than an acoustic grand action (source: own experience and complaints from my wife after I switched from the CA97 with GFII to the NV10 with an acoustic action .)

Hmmm. Mine isn't as noisy as the one you're showing. It may be due to the somewhat unique circumstances of how I came to acquire mine. I got it for about 30% of what the retail was at the time - it was a "U Fix It" model off eBay that I surmise was dropped off a truck and did an end over end or some similar trauma. The piano mechanism worked and luckily was unscathed but the composite-board housing was badly damaged. I had to take it completely apart and do a lot of gluing back together and re-fabricating pieces. The base the keys and electronics unit are attached to was badly cracked so it's a minor miracle the actual guts weren't broken. I ended up cutting apart the cracks and re-gluing the base back together - hooray for Gorilla Glue. Fortunately the one piece that was spared any damage was the pedal bar but otherwise no other part of the case was undamaged.

One of the things I did since I had the guts out of it was make sure the dampening materials for the keys were put back in place, some of them were misaligned. I'm going to guess at least some of the noise has to do with how much care is taken at the factory to make sure everything is where it's supposed to be. I bet with some additional tweaking - i.e. adding additional damping material it could be made even quieter.

Well the noise is not the problem, the problem is the same as in most DPs: the short pivot. They are very easy to press from the end, very hard to press from between the keys and they drop like a brick. It's practically impossible to play something smooth with it.



Well, get a Casio if you want complains :))

My teacher's upright is not very noisy, not as quiet as mine though, but her upright is 10 years old and she plays some really crazy stuff on it...

I think the plus for Casio are the many sounds and the effects for the price, and I think it can be used very effective in playing something that doesn't require much finesse.

In response to the original question - I've played a few pianos in my time, and currently own a Kawai VPC1 and have a Welmar upright in my house.

There is a noticable difference between the two, but I would say that it's the difference between two pianos, rather than the difference between a digital piano and an acoustic piano. It's mainly in the action.

I think the higher end digitals are for the most part just like another piano. If you think of the differences in acoustic pianos among themselves, it's probably far greater than the differences between a halfway decent acoustic, and a top of the range digital, if you see what I mean.

As far as sound goes, depends what you run on the digital, you need to get it as acoustic as possible, both in volume and timbrre, which is usually pretty do-able.

A really high end pianist might start to notice small things, but I think for the average decent player, a higher end digital is pretty satisfactory. Just try and get access to an acoustic as well, little things like pedalling, volume, etc.