From: burley@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Craig Burley)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers
Subject: Re: acoustic pianos versus digital pianos/keyboards
Date: 21 Aug 92 16:21:08 GMT
Organization: Free Software Foundation 545 Tech Square Cambridge, MA 02139
In-reply-to: mjs@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM's message of 18 Aug 92 20:21:00 GMT

In article <122130078@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> mjs@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes:

   This is the one that has me completely baffled.  I know I can get a good
   acoustic for $1000.  Are there any "digital pianos" (88 weighted key, sampled
   sound, including possibly separate amp/speaker) for anywhere near that amount?
   I keep hearing about there mythical cheap digital pianos, but I've never seen
   one, and whenever I call this bluff, I never get a response.

I don't know of any mythical cheap digital pianos either, but as the owner
of a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-670 and an acoustic upright, I do know that in the
few times I've gone shopping, I've _never_ found a good _new_ acoustic piano
for under around $2500.  I've found some that sound decent in the midrange,
but muddy in the bass and plinky at the high end.  As far as used acoustics
go, I was amazed to find that our old Mason-Hamlin upright, which sounds
excellent IMHO (though not quite as crisp as the Yamaha upright I convinced
my mother to buy 12 years ago), is valued at $2400 or so, despite being around
35-40 years old.  (It's actually my wife's piano; we both generally prefer
the new digital one, which was supposed to replace the acoustic, because it's
easier to control the volume.)

When my mother decided she wanted to buy a piano and learn how to play again
12 years ago, she asked me to help her shop for it, expecting to pay several
hundred dollars or so.  I didn't know about pricing, but I do have a decent
ear.  Well, two.  So entering the store full of spinnets, uprights, baby
grands, and so on, incl. Yamahas, Baldwins, and (I think) Steinways, among
others, she wanted to hear the $500-range pianos right away.  So we played them
a while.

Naturally, she went right for the midrange and thought the cheap ones sounded
okay.  So I found one listed for around $750 or $1000, then demonstrated the
differences between the low end on both pianos, and the high end as well.

Next thing, she wanted the $1000 piano, and began thinking how she could afford
it.  Meanwhile, I found a $1400 piano, and did the same demonstration.

In this manner we moved all the way up to the top of the line Yamaha upright
(insufficient room for baby grand).  Neither of us could really tell the
difference between it and the second-from-top-of-line Yamaha -- at least not
a $500 (or whatever) difference -- so she bought the second-from-top Yamaha.
I can't remember whether it was $2400 or over $4000, but she's been delighted
with it ever since.  Actually, it's pretty much the best piano I've ever
played, though I'm hardly an experienced pianist.  Whenever I visit her in
Austin, I try to make time to play it for an hour or so.  It sounds so great,
even my amateurish plinking sounds good to my ears, so I just keep playing.

Picking our digital piano resulted in kind of the same thing -- when I play
it, it sounds so good I want to just keep playing it.  None of the other
digitals (well, the Yamaha is really AWM, of course, but certainly not
acoustic) had the right sound.  Of course, I tend to record my playing on
my Mac's sequencer program to catch the "good stuff" I improvise for
potential use later on.

   > >     5. The keyboard has a reasonably good-sounding piano setting.

   Not a reason to prefer it over acoustic, though.

Definitely not.  In some important ways, digital pianos aren't even close to
sounding like acoustic pianos.  Forget playing church hymns and having them
sound realistic, for example -- any music with simple, strong chords
makes digitals sound kind of puny compared to acoustics, because on acoustics,
there's a lot more sound due to the interaction of the strings.  Fast-moving,
less-legato pieces, however, make the digianos shine.

   > >     7. You can also afford to get a sound system and mixer.
   > >	(Some electric/digital pianos come with built-in speakers.)

   Huh?  Are you saying that the fact that you can afford a sound system and mixer
   should determine whether you go with an electronic or acoustic instrument?
   Nonsequitur.

I think the point he/she was making was that the price range makes it easy
to afford a setup in which one can record the digital piano along with other
electric instruments, etc.  Adequate recording and mixdown of an acoustic
piano is fairly challenging, technically and financially.  Of course, I miss
the sounds of the keys and pedals thumping, not to mention the interactions
of the strings as they resonate, but at least you can get decent recorded
sound without overspending and/or becoming an expert in recording engineering.

   > Another one in favour of the digital piano:
   > 
   > 	8. You wants to play at any time of the day without bothering
   > 	   your neighbours (or even your partner -- depends on your level ;-)

   You can have your acoustic fitted with a piece of felt to dampen the strings -
   this helps somewhat, but obviously is not the same as a pair of headphones.

No, but when I tried headphones, they kept getting all smashed up as I
played, so I went back to using the piece of felt.  :-)
--

James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson    burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers