Electronic Piano Purchasing: Recommend a Price Guide?

Factual Questions
1

I can’t seem to find a decent guide to reasonable prices for various models of new and used electronic pianos, the purchase of one of which being something I’m contemplating.

Google may be my friend, but I am at times rather clueless about what to tell it I’m looking for, and perhaps that is the problem this time.

(If you have a sense of such matters yourself, I’m particularly interested in finding out more about the piece of equipment known as a Roland HP-2800. I have a sense that it probably costs more than $30 and less than $3,000,000, but I’d like to narrow that down a bit…

2

Well, that’s a bit like asking, “How much does a car cost?”. Without more info, the range is going to be from $29.00 for a Casio mini keyboard to $15,000 for a top of the line baby grand digital piano with LCD display and hard drive.

What exactly are you looking for? Does it have to be portable? Do you need weighted keys? If weighted, do they have to have hammer action, or just simulated? Do you need a grand piano action (upper register keys weighted lighter than lower keys), or is a simpler keyboard acceptable? How much do you need in the way of electronics? Just a sampled piano, or do you want the whole nine yards with MIDI sequencer and different instruments?

How about aesthetics? Can it have a particleboard back, or does the back need to be finished? Is a black finish okay, or so you want real wood?

3

I want weighted keys that feel exactly like a good upright piano. I want the tones to fade out gradually exactly the same as if you slam down a five-finger chord on a Steinway and let the sound fade to nothing, with the faint overtones from the strings that are covered by the dampers.

I want it to sound different if I pick up the dampers 60 seconds after slamming down the five-finger chord.

I want it to sound different if I use the sostenuto pedal instead of the damper pedal, and different yet if I don’t use any pedal but hold all five keys down.

I want to be able to play a glissando of all 88 keys (assuming that it has only 88 keys; extra points for extra keys, like, say, another octave in the bass for a total of 100) and have all 88 ringing out at the same time, rather than the most recently played keys erasing the others.

I want keys that feel different and sound different when I have the una corda pedal down. A more delicate sound, more easily created with less key pressure.

When I hit a chord, hit the sostenuto pedal, then play some stacattos while the chord holds, I’d like to hear some ghost harmonics from the struck stacatto keys.

I should be able to touch a single key and make a sound so faint you can’t tell for sure if it played or not, then gradually add more.

The harmonics from the bass registers should be rich and impressive, like a Steinway.

I should be able to hit the damper pedal and play a riff, let it “mud”, then lift up on the damper and hear the reverberating strings damp out gradually, not all at once.

I should be able to strike a double octave in the bass, hit the damper a split second after I’ve struck them, and have the harmonics in the treble register echo much stronger than if I hadn’t.

I should be able to smack a note sharply and hear not only the string resonance but the sound of hammer impact.

The model that was suggested to me (as I mentioned) was a Roland HP-2800, do you know anything about them?

4

I don’t, however, need a plethora of other voices. I don’t need much in the way of MIDI, although MIDI in/out (essentially a keystroke recorder plus playback) would be nice, all other things being equal. Aesthetics are not a big deal, and would not come under consideration until all performance issues and economic considerations were satisfied.

5

You should subscribe for awhile, or at least pick up a few back copies. They have tremendous amounts of info.

I have a Kurzweil, a Peavey, and a Kawaii (in the electronic arena) and a Kawaii studio upright in my apt.

From what you described above, you need to buy a piano.
A real one.

Good luck!

6

I’ve been away from music technology a good 8 years now, but I suspect there’s no way you’ll find what you’re looking for in an electronic device.

I could be wrong, of course.

BTW, the HP-2800 was around when I was into it, 8 years ago, a fine instrument. But it wouldn’t do what you needed then, and if advancements have been made, I think you’ll find them in other instruments.

Your requirements are extremely tight, so even if someone says they have a device that’ll do what you want, I strongly recommend you go to a few stores and try out their wares. You’re clearly a phile way beyond the norm; you’d be wise to do some real hands on investigation.

7

Yeah, I also think the fine details are beyond the state of the art for digital pianos. The best ones I’ve seen have a nice grand piano action using real hammers which give an excellent feel, and they have large sample memories for very good sound. But they just don’t have the type of subtlety you’re looking for.

8

What you want probably does not exist as the mechanisms required to truly mimic a real piano are less expensively had by simply getting a real piano. The closest things are the real “player pianos” with sophisticated auto mechanisms and data in-out that can also be played in non-autoplayer mode but they are typically piano output only and good ones are 15K-20K+.

9

AHunter3, please investigate Fatar music controllers.

They have an 88 key, fully weighted, velocity sensitive action that is the most like a piano of any that I have played. For around $1 - 2,000.[sup]00[/sup] you will get a superb MIDI controller with thumbwheels and a display plus inputs for footpedals. That’s all you will get, and that is all you want.

In any electronic assembly, moving parts increase the cost of an item by orders of magnitude. The electronics are mouse nuts by comparison. Spend the big money once and get an incredibly good keyboard. The samplers, waveform generators and voice synthesis modules will upgrade every few years and you can buy those separately. But you will never have to buy the keyboard again. As you break in the action and become accustomed to the feel of the keyboard you will never have to get used to a new one all over. This alone is sufficiently persuasive for me.

Be sure to go and play one of these keyboards. It is as if someone razored off the keyboard from a Steinway. Alesis now uses Fatar controllers for all of their top end keyboards and synthesizers. When I finally get rid of my piano, I will purchase a Fatar.

The timbre effects you mention will be available in part from the keyboard itself, but you will want to invest in a high quality synthesis module to get some of the nuances you refer to. Almost all of the mechanical features you cite should be available from the Fatar controller. Please do me a favor and check back into this thread with your own impressions after you have test driven one of these babies. I could go on for hours about them.

10

Site.

Top of the line model:
Keyboard action article:
Pedal accessories:

PS: Disregard the MSRP’s. You can easily beat them at a big outlet. If you do not investigate this instrument you deserve whatever you end up with.

11

Zenster: That piano won’t do what he wants. For one thing, the pedals are simple on/off switches.

There are a dozen digital pianos on the market that have excellent weighted keyboards with true grand piano actions. But I’ve never seen one that can do the kinds of nuances he’s looking for. I think he’s going to have to buy a real grand piano and then get a MIDI kit for it if he wants midi output.

12

I think you’re right, Sam. Still, I would rather invest in the keyboard alone and then slowly obtain the specific electronics that will allow for the expressions being cited. If it is not available currently, someone somewhere will soon produce a module that will permit variable position pedal nuances.

The extreme cost and limited versatility of dedicated digital pianos make them unattractive to me. If you have a full function keyboard controller you will always have the ability to upgrade the voicing modules as they become available. I am not attached to having my keyboard look like a piano and therefore do not worry about the component approach. My own major concern is buying the keyboard once. I want to be sure that as I become accustomed to a specific action that I never have to retrain my muscles and reflexes to another keyboard. As someone who likes to perform publically, portability is also a concern.

The Fatar keyboard is one of the few that provide these sort of options. Although I can see where attempting a full scale glissando or dense legato passage would require something on the order of 64 or 128 note polyphony in order to intone a majority (if not all) of the keyboard’s notes during such an event (as available in some of the Yamaha Clavinova and Roland HP series DP’s), I cannot see where such extensive voicing would be required on a routine basis. In such a case you have to balance the need for such a rare musical expression with the huge expense of providing such complex polyphony. If you are a concert pianist I can see where it might be necessary. For most home applications (and even a lot of professional ones as well) such a feature is rarely, if ever, used.

I believe it is the Clavinova CVP-109 that features 128 note polyphony. This is reflected in the $9,000.[sup]00[/sup] price tag it sports. Another thing about the Clavinova is that it is most definitely not portable. (I have moved one for a gig and it was not fun.)
I saw some mention of pedal inputs for the Korg Triton rack mount module but am unable to verify this. Here is a link:

http://namm.harmony-central.com/SNAMM00/Content/Korg/PR/T-Rack.html

13

How about a Yamaha CP-80? I know it lacks the sostenuto pedal (bummer) but it’s essentially an amplified acoustic grand, right? (Do they still make them? Can you get them used?)

14

I daresay the first step is to prioritize your requirements and decide which are mandatory. If the answer is “all”, it ain’t gonna happen with an electronic device.

But, if you can accept some limitations, you can find some wonderful instruments.

15

Bill (and other folks), I’m window-shopping at the moment. I want to know what’s out there. I know what I want, but that doesn’t mean I have zero interest in anything that doesn’t meet every factor that I’d like to have. (note above post regarding the CP-80).

Does ANYONE know anything like a ballpark figure for the Roland HP-2800? I read a review that made it sound pretty nice.