Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards is yamaha p45 action really lighter than roland fp10 ?

anyone can confirm that ? in my country the yamaha is cheaper than the roland but the light action concerns me .. any advice ?

The P45 has a heavy "crust" at the top, then softens.
The Roland PHA4 starts out soft but you must push further down with the key travel, also doesn't feel light.
The Kawai ES110 is similar as the Roland but lighter.
But this is difficult to describe, you should just try and decide for yourself which you prefer.

do you mean by that "also" that the yamaha doesn't feel light ?

I owned a P-45 for a day or so. It's action was very light and, to me, felt like a toy.

I didn't like the P45 very much.
I tried a bunch of keyboards this weekend.

CASIO
CDPS100
S3000
PX770
Ap460 (or something 460)

Kawai KDP70

Korg LP 380
C1Air
G1 Air

All the Casios felt very similar, short pivot, ugly plastic keys. Speakers quite weak. Not my favourite

Kawai has a better action. imho.

Korg LP 380 sounded better than all of them, good speakers, RH3 keybed is great. No USB midi or lube in a bit of a shame

The Yamaha action is lighter. I had the FP50 for a number of years; it was a solid reliable action but heavier. My dodgy fingers preferred this action for some reason, but that GHS still did the job well imo and that. too was very reliable..

Well, you can't expect too much at this price level.

LOL. I like to really get to know my Piano.

I recall the measured static downweights on the Yamaha P/CLP are rather high.
But I think the overall "heaviness" one feels is relate to the finger "work" along the path when pushing down dynamically, W = integral F(s) ds, where s is the path from the top to the bottom, and F(s) is not constant.
In this sense I think the Roland is heavier, but they feel quite different and this should be measured properly to tell for sure. However, nobody does this, because it is your subjective feeling that matters to you, not the objectively measured heaviness

The best information I have seen about the actions is the video from James Pavel Shawcross: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChMHi2auG_c
The comparison is actually between P-125 and FP-30 (plus Kawai ES-110 and Casio PX-S3000).
As far as I know the key action itself is the same in P-125 as P-45 (GHS) and in FP-30 as FP-10 (PHA-4).

(There are important differences in the sound engines of these more expensive models vs. the ones asked about, at both vendors.)

[quote=_sem_
But I think the overall "heaviness" one feels is relate to the finger "work" along the path when pushing down dynamically, W = integral F(s) ds, where s is the path from the top to the bottom, and F(s) is not constant. [/quote]

Unfortunately the whole F(s) is a bit hard to accurately measure. But exactly to this question I posted the video link above, as the curve of F(s) seems to be very different.

Of course it is difficult to measure with just a set of weights. It would take an artificial finger that could reproducibly strike the key with different velocities, a properly mounted strain gauge to measure the force during the course of the strikes, a sensor for the vertical position. Not that the Germans don't do such measurements with various consumer products, but even if you have the measurements done it is still not straightforward to tell what they mean to you subjectively. So it is better to just try playing them

If the P-45 has the same action as the P-125, then the action is fine.

Yes it's lighter than the FP-10 - but that's a good thing: the FP-10 is rather heavy and tiring.

I highly appreciate attempts for measurements.
They sometimes help to understand the feelings and allow to some extent an objective basic comparison. Plus sometimes discover design flaws, too.

FP10/30 's PHA4 action is not just heavy at the top, the whole travel ~10-11mm has alot of resistance.

The P45 /125 GHS action is lighter at the top than the PHA4 is, but also throughout the whole travel.

Casio has the short pivot problem in this price range. not heavier or lighter, bout the same

Korg's action in the range is almost identical to the P45 in design.

Kawai has the rhc, It is kinda bouncy like others have said, this can be distracting depending on what and how you play.

PHA4 is exhausting to play at length, I'm not saying it's bad, but it is very fatiguing, especially on fast pieces. It will fatigue experienced and novice players alike, this is not a skills issue. You would of course need to know how to attack a heavy action by using arm and whole body momentum, otherwise the problem is even worse if you play with finger strength alone, it's much too heavy for that.

I've measured a lot of these actions with what I've been shown to be the correct way. Even if what I did was not perfect, it was consistent.
https://dtmblabber.blogspot.com
None of the normal digital piano actions feel like an acoustic--that's for sure--but the downweight/upweight measurements don't really show that. I think the majority of the reason for that is pivot length. My Yamaha p71 is actually quite heavy and shallow when playing into the keys, but out of the edge it's nice and light and of a normal depth. That high upweight also feels weird on the fingers. Only a few acoustic pianos I measured were like that, but they didn't feel as weird. weight is easy to measure. Feel is impossible, but I will say that the Rolands in general feel too heavy compared to almost any real piano I've played whereas that Yamahas feel about right with the weight aspect. The Rolands do seem to feel closer to real IMO... just real heavy.

That is correct Jenglish, it's not just the weight, what you feel is the whole Resistance-Curve, this is affected by the counter weights AND their pivot positions.