Shopping for a Digital Piano
As I’ve mentioned, the old Kawai CA-640 has given up the ghost and so now, I’m looking for a replacement, because at this point a replacement sounds more promising (with even a limited warranty) than ~$700 to replace the computer board. I guess what makes me most skiddish is the idea that parts likely just won’t be available soon. So, I’ve been looking online for information to compare on different digital pianos and finding some interesting things. For one, I found several relatively cheaper…. models at musiciansfriend.com and sweetwater.com…. 1500-1800 which seems to be an improvement over the original cost of the kawai. Yamaha seems to be the brand that’s highly recommended there. However, on a closer look I find that they don’t have wooden keys. In fact, what I found out is that the Yamaha clavinova series isn’t sold through those outlets, only through Piano retailers. Hmmm… The same seems to be true of Kawai as well.
It’s kind of interesting, there are different classes of offerings for the different markets…. you see stores that get guitars and “gear” get one type of digital piano offering and the “piano stores” get another. I stopped by Dunhams (probably for the last time) the other day to see if they had any decent digital pianos left with a good price. Most everything was already sold when I got there, but one Roland that looked 15-20 years old and sounded/felt disappointing… They had a truck on the way with 2 digital pianos – one kurtzweil and another “piece of junk”. They told me they were scraping the bottom of the barrell these days on what they were getting in to push out at the end of their sale.
It does sound as though there is a rumor of a Piano and Organ Distributor coming to town and someone that’s been with Dunhams may also be starting up a music business, which is good to hear, but that’s in the future, the present state of piano-less-ness…. needs to be addressed.
So, why a digital…? Yes, I’ve read people online compare acoustics and digitals and come to the conclusion that “discriminating pianists will always choose an acoustic”. Please…. There are a lot of things I like about a digital piano…. headphones and volume are ONE BIG feature. We have an 800 square foot house and a 5 year old… believe me headphones and volume are a big feature. It’s nice to be able to play in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone. The action, while slightly different than some of the better pianos I’ve played (and this is judging mainly from the Kawai CA640..>) has been consistent and better than many of the cheaper uprights out there. In fact, I haven’t played any cheap uprights on display that I would prefer. Many of the cheaper ones seem to have peculiar feels to me. In many cases they feel uneven in the response, or just…. odd.
Now, I’ve played a few uprights that I’d prefer the feel of over the kawai, but they were older models, well care for and for the nice feel on acoustics you usually have to pay a bit more. Also, we don’t have a LOT of space, so a small spinet would be on the border of being too big. Yet another point to the small digital.
The next one is fairly important to me, almost as much so as the feel, if not more-so…. the SOUND. Yes, I would LOVE to have a 9 foot grand piano, but 1) I don’t have the money and 2) I don’t have the room. With a digital you really have an amazingly good sound in a very small space. (“But it’s not perfect you can tell it isn’t a REAL piano”) No, it’s not perfect, but the sound of most digitals is so much better than so many of the cheap acoustics…. One of the things I LOVE about the digitals is how clear and crisp the bass notes sound. One of the pieces I really have enjoyed playing is one of the Brahms Rhapsodies…. the bass on the digital is so clear and GOOD, on most upright acoustics you get a muddy sound from the bass strings (not enough room to “unfurl” the strings for the proper length to get a good clear sound..) So with the digital you get a sound “like” a grand in a small space. Yes, it’s not perfect, if we lived in a perfect world, all pianists would have 9″ steinways in their living room.
Tuning – no need to call for the piano tuner. Now, with my recent experience with the Kawai…. I’m wondering what the typical service life of a digital is, but…. I have heard of some that have kept their digital piano churning for some time. That’s one fo the questions I have at this point though and will likely influence whether I look at a cheaper digital or another ~3000 …. Oh, the other thing about tuning… you know tuning systems have changed over the years and it’s possible to experiment with different tunings with pushing just a few buttons. Transposing CAN be as easy, but it’s still worth learning to do it the old fashioned way. It does come in handy “in a pinch” though.
Line out. I like recording some of what I do and, with the audio background I’m always picky about getting a good sound. So many times that distracts me from the main idea, which is to play the piano. With a direct line out you can record without having to decide where to place your microphones to get the best sound, or any of that, just plug in a patch cable, roll tape (or hard disk) and play. Nice and simple.
Midi capabilities – wow, we could go in depth on the sequencing you can do with a digital. You don’t even NEED to have your computer close really, many digital pianos will give a simple two track sequencer for up to 5 songs or so. So, you can play a duet with yourself all within the digital piano box.
Built in metronome – handy…. variety of sounds – given that I like to record, it saves me from having to find other midi sounds. (and something else as a controller).
So, those are some of the reasons I’m still looking at digital pianos (and in fact, I haven’t entirely foregone the possibility of repairing the 640 I guess…..) The bottom line is the great sound makes them fun to play, headphones and volume are convenient and not everyone has room (or $) for a 9 foot acoustic grand. Don’t get me wrong I really do like acoustic pianos and hope to have one someday. But I expect I’ll always want a digital around as well for a number of reasons. Like so many decisions acoustic vs. digital comes down to “how you plan to use it” among other things.
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get a chance to try out some of the different Kawai actions these days. I think they’ve gone through a generation or two improvement since the 640.
Popularity: 8% [?]
