Help me pick a digital piano model

November 25, 2023 2:23 PM

I'm overwhelmed by the number of models after considerable 'research'.

* My goal is a US$600–$1300 piano that emulates piano sound very well, and also emulates a real piano keybed well. (When I went to a music store,^ I found the Rolands had a clunkier-feeling action than the Yamahas, FWIW.)

^ I have access to one music store, and when I stopped there I was on a clock and had to leave. It didn't seem that helpful, or have any of the models that I've ever looked at online. I am bad at buying things, which is not helped by looking at various "top-rated digital piano" guides, only to read user reviews that are concerning (e.g., this guide recommends a really cheap model at the top, that I almost went for until I read user reviews about how... cheap... it is.)

* Some context: I am far more interested in piano than I've ever had access to pianos. I moved into a place with an upright piano in the common area, and it makes me want to have a decent instrument privately. I have a 23-year-old Casio with "semi-weighted" keys that is a toy compared to what's available now. I have very acute hearing; I noticed when a certain Youtuber changed the "equalization" of their piano recordings in the mid-range.

* It has to have MIDI out. I've had significant confusion about how common it is for specifications to say something like "USB to computer" without ever using the word MIDI. Or the specs will say "record MIDI to keyboard memory or a USB stick", which isn't the same thing. (To make my point: is this model a MIDI controller, as represented by the company's page? The only mention of MIDI is "MIDI Recording: [blank]"; later there is "USB TO HOST: Yes". The answer is yes, though, right?) And when I went to that music store, they pointed me to their synthesizers after I told them I wanted a MIDI-capable piano. Like, what?

* Bells and whistles: other sounds would be great (mainly other keyboards), and other features, but I want my money mostly going toward piano emulation quality.

* Use: at home; good internal speakers required. May use audio out later. And MIDI out, again.

* Aesthetics: While a piano with a nice finish/frame/stand would be ideal, I can't prioritize it based on what I've seen. The Donner DDP-80 for example would be great in my home over standard black finishes, but it's apparently another cheap model.

Some models I've noted include Kawai ES-120 (from a Youtube review), which is not available in Canada that I can find, and Yamaha P125, which seems to be solid (if now replaced by P225?). These two are probably around the low end of my budget.

I would like to buy something for once that is not labelled "beginner/entry-level" (even though that label, as it applies to the ability of a digital piano to be... played, is rather confusing; but that's another tangent!) I do want a keyboard that would allow an advanced pianist to play a Beethoven sonata without feeling like the keyboard doesn't respond to dynamics, or fast passages, etc. Imagine I'm a professional pianist, even if I'm not. What's the least I can get away with?

Bonus question: is the role of a music store to order in a model I think I might be interested in, so I can try it? I have no idea what expectations to have about anything, any more.

Thanks - I know this is long but I'm only doing it once. I would find picking a new vehicle easier than this, because I don't really care about them.

posted by sylvanshine to Shopping (15 answers total)

There really are a lot of options but you've got a solid start, in my opinion. Kawai, Roland, and Yamaha are the big three, with Casio giving it their best shot too.

I have a Roland Fantom which I love, entirely because I like the touch, although it also has some important qualities for me that you didn't mention. It competes with the Yamaha Motif; these are keyboards designed to be the center of a production studio or expansive live rig. They have all the bells and whistles you're thinking you might want. Other digital pianos are focused on being pianos first, for instance the revered Yamaha Clavinova line. I'm less familiar with Kawai's offerings which is funny because I strongly prefer their acoustic pianos. I bet they feel great.

The most important thing you can do while shopping is make sure you try before you buy. It's certainly worth asking a local store if they'll order for you, but don't get your hopes up. In my experience you'll have the best luck with in-stock inventory at an acoustic piano dealer.

And just in case you haven't stumbled across it, the forum at pianoworld is a great resource as well. Good luck!
posted by dbx at 2:44 PM on November 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

It takes some scrolling to find what you're looking for, but the piano comparison videos (shootouts especially) on Andertons are very informative. The ones with Mike Patrick are especially good for his descriptions of how the keys feel and also of more intangible qualities affecting playability.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 4:58 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

It feels much harder to try them out these days than it did 20 years ago, harder to find things in person but if you are anywhere near a larger town absolutely try and go shop in person if you can or find a store that will let you return in X days if you don't care for the sound or the action. I believe Guitar Center has a 45 day policy and maybe you can get a local store to match that. I purchased 3 keyboards during the pandemic roughly in your budget range and it was frustrating not being able to try things out ahead of time. Here's my thoughts based on those purchases.

One of those keyboards was a Yamaha p-515, which is at the top of your budget but I selected for a house concert venue and the various pianists that have been played it the last couple of years seem happy with it. I had the p-120 for a long time (like 20 years) and while I retired it from gigging about 10 years ago I recently gave it to a local teacher, it's still going strong. Around the time I got the p-515 for this venue I also got a p-45 for my parents house since their tuner seems unable to tune their piano, I really don't care for the action of the p45 but I only play it a couple times a year. I was very interested in getting the Kawaii 920 when I got the 515 but they were having inventory issues, but in my limited experience I've preferred my Kawaii actions over the Yamaha's. If you don't plan on moving it around very often (because it is heavy) could you stretch to the 515 or 920?

My keyboard at home for when I can't play the piano is my old gigging keyboard a Kawaii ES7 which I like but I've decided is too heavy to haul around anymore so last year I replaced it with the Roland fp-30x, I don't care for the action, and find it a bit clunky as you mentioned although I get used to it after a couple minutes. Wanting a lighter weight keyboard pushed me towards the lower end models - I really wanted to try the Kawaii 120 but I could only get white at that time and I really wanted black.

When I was shopping I found most review videos to be pretty much just a read down of the specs and not particularly helpful but I really liked the comparison videos produced by MerriamPianos and by ThePianoforever channels if you haven't found them. There's also a lot of opinions over in the PianoWorld forums, but that might not make it any easier for you.
posted by snowymorninblues at 5:19 PM on November 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

Depending on the flexibility of your budget, I was going to suggest at least looking at the P-515 as well. (You could always try to snag a used one in your price range.) I think Yamaha just updated that model this year, so I can't speak to the current version, but I have the previous version and can confirm that it does indeed have MIDI capability. (To confirm this for other models, you might want to download the manuals; they should mention it, even if the marketing doesn't.) I use it to record MIDI in my DAW all the time—it works great. In terms of on-board sounds, the CFX and Bosendorder sound great to me; I use both regularly depending on what I'm playing. It has plenty of other sounds too, although admittedly I don't use them much. I like some of the e-piano sounds, but it feels a bit wrong to play them with pseudo-acoustic action. I have it in white, and I think it's quite nice looking, but aesthetics were not my primary concern.

All that said, if you're looking for something portable, look elsewhere; the P-515 is technically portable, but heavy enough for that not to be practical.

Caveat: I'm a beginner pianist, playing for about 2 years now. I wasn't able to try my piano out before buying, but I was hoping to find something as close as possible to an acoustic within my budget, and I wanted something that I wouldn't outgrow quickly. (If I'd had a bit more money to throw at it, I would also have looked quite closely at the Roland FP-90x.) But I haven't been anywhere near an acoustic since I started playing, and some people say that the keybed on the P-515 is a bit heavy. Personally, I'd rather too heavy than too light, since I figure it's easier to adapt to a lighter keybed than a heavier one when playing another instrument, but YMMV. Regardless, I find the P-515 a true joy to play, and I expect to get many, many more years worth of use out of it.
posted by cellar door at 5:53 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have a P125 so can answers questions if you have any. I would rate both feel and sound as decent but can be bettered. For the price I'm happy, and I love that within a few seconds I can be playing without messing with VSTs.
posted by SNACKeR at 6:18 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Any digital piano in that price range from Roland, Yamaha, or Kawai will do midi out over USB. Many of them won't have dedicated MIDI DIN 5-pin jacks, but some will.

If you don't have other hardware that takes midi in via 5-pin sockets, then the distinction probably doesn't matter much to you. But the general notion is usb midi needs to go into a computer first before it can go anywhere else. The manuals are indeed all online and you can confirm what physical plugs/sockets they have there.

I have the Roland FP-30 at the lower end of your price range and I'm pretty happy with it, I picked it in part because it had the biggest/loudest/best onboard stereo speakers at that price.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:55 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ve seen some Kawai ES920s used for the top end of your price range. If you could find a used Kawai VPC-1, those feel amazing. I found that soo many digital pianos feel crappy, but the kawai hammer action is really impressive.
posted by umbú at 8:02 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

A couple years ago I bought a Yamaha Clavinova (CP-400) on German-Ebay for our piano-curious kids' birthday. Very reasonable price (sub 400 euro) and 100% a good instrument. A friend who plays piano (because we don't) agrees - good instrument. The real luck, aside from the price, was that the previous owner had barely used it. Also, that you can plug headphones in and practice in peace.

Strongly recommend looking for a used/refurbished better-than you might have been looking for otherwise model.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:02 AM on November 26, 2023

Casio Privia px-160 or 150, iirc
posted by elgee at 2:02 PM on November 26, 2023

I got my digital piano through the advice of this company:

https://azpianonews.blogspot.com/p/buy-piano-which-piano-should-i-buy.html?m=1

And also used them to buy it.
posted by foxfirefey at 1:00 AM on November 27, 2023

I would also put in a plug for Korg digital pianos; I've had mine for 20 years now so I can't really speak directly to current models, but I know that current ones do still show up on top review lists in your price range, and Korg generally is still a good brand. At the time I (and this was a minority take) definitely did not prefer Yamaha action. Some other notes:

• Personally, I have a strong preference for models that do not do a lot of stuff, just piano. This may be getting rarer, but can still be found (at least at the high end). My wife has a yamaha of a similar age and a long-term failure point is the screen; mine doesn't have or need a screen.
• As others have said, just about anything these days should do midi over USB, which for connecting to a computer is much more convenient than 5 pin midi connectors anyways; midi control (see below) is a bit more unusual in a digital piano. For a Yamaha specifically "USB TO HOST" will include midi and maybe audio also depending on the model.

I found the Rolands had a clunkier-feeling action

• I can't speak to this specific issue, and I guess someone has confirmed their opinion on this, so I don't really mean to disagree with it. But. Unless you have played a lot of physical pianos, which it doesn't sound like, I would be a bit wary of this kind of judgment. There's a huge amount of variation and I could definitely envision some fairly high end heavier action being described as "clunky" by someone not used to it, though of course that may well not be what this specific case was. Just a cautionary note. Anyways, I definitely agree that there's no substitute for trying things out, and you should not go with something you dislike, experienced or not.

when I went to that music store, they pointed me to their synthesizers after I told them I wanted a MIDI-capable piano. Like, what?

• This is probably mostly just the music store employees misunderstanding a somewhat unusually worded request. But, they probably heard "MIDI" and sent you towards MIDI controllers, which themselves do not produce sound, can be 88 keys (so, piano sized), are usually unweighted or semi-weighted but can be weighted, and are often used to control synthesizers, and often have many, many more MIDI controller features than most digital pianos. For a couple of examples of the sort of things someone asking directly for "MIDI" would more typically be looking for, see e.g. the Arturia keystep pro or for a piano-oriented one, the keylab 88. (Personally these days I have better pianos in software (e.g.) than I would really care to pay for in digital piano form, so there's something to be said for this approach..)

posted by advil at 8:00 AM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

The r/piano subreddit has a nice guide, including specific recs for your price range. There are a lot of threads on the topic as well if you search a model. I was in a lower price range than you and was aiming for a Yamaha P125, but ended up with a used Casio Privia that has worked well enough for my purposes (it does not sound like it'd be great for you but it's old).
posted by quadrilaterals at 9:11 AM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you for the responses.

advil, if you see this, you seem to suggest that "midi control" is different from my generic use of the word "midi", and suggest that "midi control is a bit more unusual in a digital piano".

18 years ago I would plug my utterly average Casio into my computer with a 5-pin midi cable and a serial port on the other end, and play soundfonts in real time through the PC. This is what I want to be able to do – or whatever the modern version of that is. I want to be able to press the digital piano's key and have a virtual instrument sound on the PC. (But I won't be doing that most of the time; I want a standalone digital piano with speakers etc.) If I can't do that, I have no idea what "midi capability" from the keyboard's USB to PC would even mean?
posted by sylvanshine at 1:10 PM on November 27, 2023

MIDI is a fairly rich protocol, and a digital piano's core feature set uses a tiny portion of it; what I mean is that people who say the word "MIDI" in a music store these days are probably looking for MIDI features that a digital piano won't normally have. Essentially everything marketed that way should do what you want, based on your response - sending note+velocity data to a computer host over usb is de rigueur. (But since you ask, here's some examples of features that a MIDI controller might have and would be less usual on something marketed as a digital piano: modwheel, pitch bend, aftertouch, controls that aren't keys (pads, knobs, sliders, weird stuff, etc), an arpeggiator, MPE, various advanced midi configuration things (channel assignment, program changes), direct control of a hardware synthesizer (rather than mediated by a computer as the MIDI host), MIDI through, DAW-specific controls / displays, >3 pedals, CV out, ...)
posted by advil at 2:30 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have an Arturia Keylab 88 because it’s great for controlling what I want to control — I have some Native Instruments hardware and an Arturia Microfreak and I want DAW controls on the keyboard too — and I do all my playing in headphones because Japanese apartment buildings don’t appreciate playing out loud, but there is one thing I would say about the piano-like weighted keys on the Keylab 88 MkII.

Though it is great for me (I’m only learning to play piano but I’ve been making music my entire life) the weight and response is heavy and slow relative to the digital pianos I’ve seen and played. I think an actual pianist would probably look for feel first.

I got it for a different set of bells and whistles and to be honest I wish the keys were a little lighter. I can adjust actuation points but the physical weight of the keys won’t change. It’s a little spongey.

So yeah. I love that the piano sounds available to me are pretty much unlimited, and I can do all sorts of other control related stuff with the Keylab, but when I watch those Andertons videos and I see real pianists playing those Yamahas and Nords and Casios(!), I’m impressed and I think they’re certainly nicer to play.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 7:05 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]