Archive for the ‘Electronic Pianos’ Category
Buying A Digital Piano
July 16th, 2010
Looking to buy a digital piano? Believe it or not, some people might compare buying a digital piano to buying a car. Just like car, you go out and visit a bunch of music shops, try out a bunch of digital pianos, and have a bunch of conflicting advice thrown at you by the sales associates. Not only that, but they will likely try to sell you additional components such as damper pedals, metronomes, piano stands, MIDI cables, and whatever else they could possibly include in their sales pitch.
Unfortunately, this is what many shoppers face when shopping for a good digital piano. While one digital piano dealer may recommend the Roland digital piano as the number one choice, another may actually recommend the Yamaha.
In essence, most digital piano shoppers generally don’t have sufficient knowledge or proper advice to make an informed decision when choosing a digital piano.
If you are in the market for a new digital piano, I will give you my truthful and honest assessment of which digital piano you should consider, including the strengths and weaknesses of each brand.
Yamaha
Yamaha is the most well-known and popular brand these days. More Yamahas are sold compared to any other brand. The product development and branding is outstanding, mainly due to the fact that Yamaha puts an extreme amount of effort into making their digital pianos (also commonly known as Clavinova) sound and feel just like a real acoustic piano. The extract the sound sample from their own Yamaha concert grand piano to use in their digital pianos.
Yamaha Rating: 9 out of 10.
Should You Buy A Yamaha? I say go for it. I own a Yamaha P-70 Digital Piano and love it. It’s completely worth the investment.
Casio
Previously known as the “mediocre” digital piano, Casio digital pianos have improved greatly over the years. In fact, such improvements have moved them up toward one of the best digital piano brands today. When it comes to saving money, you can’t beat the Casio brand. They are notoriously known for being the best value for money, normally priced between half and two thirds the price of Yamaha or Roland digital pianos. While the quality is not quite as good as Yamaha and Roland, they are a great cheap alternative.
Rating: 7 out of 10.
Should You Buy A Casio? If you need to stick to a strict budget, Casio is a great choice. The offer a fantastic value for money. The Casio Privia digital piano range is a great choice if you don’t have a lot of space in your home to store it.
Roland
The Roland digital piano, another well-known brand, is built with outstanding quality and fantastic piano tones. Roland values their brand and has been known to resist reducing their prices if that meant that the quality of their pianos would be compromised. The sound sampling is taken from a Steinway concert grand piano.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Should You Buy A Roland? Absolutely. I suggest buying from the HP, F, or KR range.
Korg
Korg digital pianos are widely known for their high end keyboards as well as their stage pianos. They offer a bit of a limited range in terms of digital pianos, most of which offer functions that are comparable to the Casio digital pianos. They are reasonably priced, however the quality and sound is nowhere near comparable to that of the Yamaha, Roland, or Casio digital piano.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Should You Buy A Korg? I personally wouldn’t recommend it, however some people prefer the sound of the Korg over others.
So there you have it! You should be pretty well equipped with enough background information on the most popular digital pianos. Don’t forget to sit down and try the pianos as well. Take your time and ask questions. If you choose any of the brands as explained above, you will most likely be very satisfied with your purchase. Good luck!
Posted in Casio Pianos, Digital Pianos, Electronic Pianos, Korg Pianos, Roland Pianos, Yamaha Pianos | 
Tags: Casio, Digital Pianos, Electronic Pianos, Korg, Roland, Yamaha | 
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Happy Birthday To Me
September 14th, 2009
Today, I am 23 years old. I can hardly believe it. I still feel like I’m a teenager or something.
I’m very excited to say that for my birthday (from my dear parental unit), I am getting a PROPER piano stand for my Yamaha P-70 Electronic Piano. It’s been ordered, but I haven’t gotten it just yet. Right now, I just have one of those “X” stands that prop up the keyboard, mostly used for concerts and stuff because it’s portable and you can heighten it if you’re standing.
Anyways, it’s hard to use while I’m sitting, because my knees can’t go under it very well with the “X” legs getting in the way. A proper stand is definitely in order. Not to mention, I finally got a proper damper pedal as well. This is what I was using before:
Damper Pedal I Use Now
Now, I have a proper damper pedal. The Yamaha FC4.
Yamaha FC4
I thought I get could all three pedals into one built-in unit, but I guess I can’t. No big deal, since the damper pedal is really the only one I really use. I used to use the soft pedal on rare occasions when I was studying for conservatory exams.
Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:
Your birthday is a great excuse to upgrade on the music equipment. Tell your friends and family that you want new stuff! It definitely worked for me…
Posted in Electronic Pianos, Uncategorized |
Tags: Birthday, Damper Pedal, Electronic Piano, Keyboard, Piano Stand, Yamaha, Yamaha P-70 |
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A Review On Electronic Pianos
July 31st, 2009
Yesterday, I introduced you to the types of acoustic pianos you can find, in all various shapes, sizes, colours, and prices. If you are an aspiring pianist all revved up to start learning notes and playing songs, it’s probably a good idea to actually have something to play and learn on. You can’t learn to play the piano without a piano!
Believe it or not, but choosing the right kind of piano can be a difficult decision for many people, mostly because they don’t know where to start. The first two things you should decide is the cost you’re willing to pay, as well as the room to store your piano.
Can you afford a fifty-thousand dollar grand piano? If you can, great. Do you have a relatively large room to put that piano? If you do, fantastic. And if you’re ready to commit to seriously learning to play the piano, then a beautiful and expensive grand piano may be the right choice for you.
Unfortunately, most people don’t have the luxuries of unlimited money and space for their new piano. This is why electronic pianos are a great alternative.
Fist of all, electronic pianos come in all different sizes, from very, very small, which you can just place on your lap and store away for later, or very large, generally the size of a regular acoustic spinet or console piano. I own a very large electronic piano, and it fits perfectly on one side of the wall in my room. There’s no way that my acoustic console would fit.
Secondly, if your budget is quite low, electronic pianos offer you the chance to set your price limit. There are hundreds of different brands out there with many different qualities and features, so price can vary significantly depending on what you’re looking for.
Another great thing about electronic pianos? They are the pianos of the 21st century. They integrate MIDI implementation, meaning that you can transfer music and information between other computers or other electronic pianos for recording and storage purposes. They also have different key settings that you can set to sound like a marching band, a symphony of string instruments, an organ, and so on.
Something I just recently figured out was setting the different tones of keys on the keyboard. For example, if I want to play the higher sound notes that usually appear on the upper right side of the piano, I can set it up so that Middle C is one or two octaves lower than it normally is, and when I play in the middle of the piano, the tone is quite high because I set it up that way. Interesting, eh?
Another great feature that electronic pianos include is the fact that they embrace headphone output. Before I had my electronic piano, I had to bang away at my acoustic piano for everyone in my entire house to hear. Now I can just stick my headphones in my electronic piano and play with the privacy I usually need.
And a final advantage electronic pianos have over acoustic pianos… they don’t need to be tuned! Getting a piano tuner can be expensive, and if you put off tuning your piano regularly, your piano tuner will tell you that he or she will need to come back on several visits to get the piano sounding just right.
The acoustic vertical console we have in the living room has this problem. The keys are very heavy, they stick, the pedals are heavy, and the sound of the strings is quite off. Now that I have my electronic piano with all of its convenient features, I virtually never touch my acoustic piano anymore. I would if it was tuned well and properly taken care of.
Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:
I own a Yamaha P70
Yamaha P-70 Electronic Piano
Posted in Electronic Pianos |
Tags: Acoustic Piano, Brands, Console Piano, Electronic Piano, Grand Piano, Headphone Output, MIDI, Piano, Piano Keys, Piano Settings, Yamaha, Yamaha P-70 |
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