electric piano for practising

[_chops]

okay... now it has happened. my neihgbours are angry! Every tone I play they can hear and they curse me for that...
    I practise maybe 3-4 hours a day, sometimes even more,

okay. time to buy an electric piano. I dont have so much money, but im planning to use all the money I have at the bank. ... then i'll be broke for all future. So now you really have to advice me. Which is the best electric piano? I dont care about cool functions I just need the right resistance in the tangents. I need it for professional.
 please help me!!!!!

[zheer]

Thats a good idea chops. I have 2 pianos one electric and one accustic, i use the electric piano to do boring things like practice with my eyes closed, and the accustic during the day for playing. I think it is important to have the accustic, and practical to have an electric, so to answer your question, try the yamaha clavinova electric they have lasted 14 years with me.

[leahcim]

okay. time to buy an electric piano. I dont have so much money, but im planning to use all the money I have at the bank. ... then i'll be broke for all future. So now you really have to advice me. Which is the best electric piano? I dont care about cool functions I just need the right resistance in the tangents. I need it for professional.
 please help me!!!!!

What's the budget?

What's the plan? Are you going to stop playing the acoustic or will you have some period when you can play it and the neighbours are happy? There was a recent thread on this subject you might want to read that.

You might want to look at soundproofing instead.

Assuming you've sorted out when you can play the acoustic. The digital can be played through headphones the rest of the time, so I wouldn't bother with fancy speakers. Perhaps a stage piano that doesn't have them at all and just wear headphones?

There are lots of makes at various different prices though, so it depends how much you have to spend [and whether you like the sound it makes and the action it has]

Personally speaking, as I've said a number of times, I like Gem, but others like Yamaha, Roland, Kawai and so on.

[chiyo]

I have Yamaha P-120, and a crappy acoustic spinet piano.  I've been practicing on my digital piano for around 2 yrs..and I can tell digital piano is limiting.  I cannot make the note resonate for longer time w/o pressing the sustain pedal (maybe its because of polyphony).  It also have 3 dynamic levels I think... and the keyboards are heavy.  The piano sound itself is good, because it is recoded from grands, but the intimate touch and expression cannot be studied on digital.  The worst thing is that the piano always makes beautiful sound no matter how crappy my fingers look like, or whether my hands are relaxed or not.  These things would show up in grands..and make different kind of sounds.

I got to play on my friends Yamaha C2 (or C3), and it was like opening up a new world to me.  It was very sensitive to different playing techniques and had a good response to my dynamic expression.  I almost felt the hammer striking the notes too...

SO...Try to avoid playing on digitals...but if your neighbors are that angry maybe you don't have a choice.

[chiyo]

Oops. Double post.

[_chops]

well the plan is : I can use my own acoustic piano daytime. I'll play it afternoons and early evenings. maybe until 9 pm

And the electric or digital piano is for etudes and scales and so on. That's why the resistance is so important and so on. I'll play late evenings and nights...!

The budget is well... maybe 2000 usd.

any ideas?

[clef]

What's the budget?

What's the plan? Are you going to stop playing the acoustic or will you have some period when you can play it and the neighbours are happy? There was a recent thread on this subject you might want to read that.

You might want to look at soundproofing instead.

Assuming you've sorted out when you can play the acoustic. The digital can be played through headphones the rest of the time, so I wouldn't bother with fancy speakers. Perhaps a stage piano that doesn't have them at all and just wear headphones?

There are lots of makes at various different prices though, so it depends how much you have to spend [and whether you like the sound it makes and the action it has]

Personally speaking, as I've said a number of times, I like Gem, but others like Yamaha, Roland, Kawai and so on.

I have a stage piano called the Roland RD-300SX Stage piano, it does not come with speakers, so you need to hook it up to a pair of headphones or a keyboard amp, like the Roland KC-60.  The good points about it is, its touch is very good, it comes with a damper pedal, its very portable, 15.5kg and it has a variety of good voices, I use mainly piano and electric piano, but somtimes I use organ sounds and synths, but I like the piano and electric piano sounds the most

[leahcim]

well the plan is : I can use my own acoustic piano daytime. I'll play it afternoons and early evenings. maybe until 9 pm

And the electric or digital piano is for etudes and scales and so on. That's why the resistance is so important and so on. I'll play late evenings and nights...!

The budget is well... maybe 2000 usd.

Caveat emptor, you might find the action on digitals lacking, even though they are weighted etc, but you'll have to try them.

I'm not 100% sure how 2000usd translates into what you can buy in pounds sterling, but :- [listed in order of my preference]

Gem Prp800 [or prp700 if you aren't bothered about speakers] Excellent sound and supposedly an improved action compared with other gems. Often difficult to find dealers.
Out this month, allegedly, so they keep telling me every month

Roland rd700sx or rd300sx, covered already. Not sure how much the former is in $, but it's action is arguably better than the 300.

Yamaha p120 [or p90 if you aren't bothered about speakers] The popular make. You might even consider the p60, depends how much the sound matters to you. The action is the same on all the Yamahas though.

It might be worth considering Casio, cheap and cheerful.

If you don't like the action on what you try above, the kawai mp8 has wooden keys and hammers, but that's probably over budget?

[gjkoster]

Hi,

I've been in the same situation as you are. When I started playing the piano, I purchased an acoustic one since I was convinced a digital piano could never deliver the same thing. On the other hand, practising and playing takes a lot of time - if you want to play a bit decent - and allthough my neighbours kept saying they didn't mind, I didn't want to wait until they would. Using the silencing pedal all the time does not sound great either, so I started thinking about a digital piano. With the same objections in terms of sound, touch and so on. In the end, I bought an occasion yamaha p-120 and I'm actually very satisfied bearing in mind its purpose. And that is the MAIN thing in my opinion. If you want to buy a digital piano for basic stuff (scales, octaves), getting the first hang of a difficult part etc, a digital piano can prove to be a very usefull replacement and can get you kickstarted without having the entire neighbourhood doing protests while you're not even half way getting it right. I bought the P-120 because yamaha has the best action and feels more like a real one than any other digital for its price (I play a Roland digital once a week and it definitely plays less than my own yamaha). All a matter of personal taste I guess.
Having said that, every time I switch to my acoustic piano it always strikes me how different a real one plays and sounds. An acoustic piano is 'alive', a digital one is not. Also, an acoustic piano is much more unforgiving; it reveals errors that are simply covered up by a digital one but it also sounds a lot better when a part is played well. When I think I can play a part reasonably well, the acoustic piano shows me the weaknesses, the digital piano doesn't. An acoustic piano just is a much more dynamic instrument. The way I see it, a digital piano can help in playing an acoustic piano properly and certainly has practical advantages. But it will always be the means to an end. Good luck with your decision!

[g_s_223]

I made a suggestion about MIDI keyboards in an earlier thread which you might like to take a look at: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,14743.msg158125.html#msg158125