Digital Piano Wooden Keys vs Acoustic

[luca33]

Hi,

Do you ever played a digital piano with wooden keys??? Like:

Yamaha Clavinova 545
Kawai CA65

Are these better then plastic key piano I guess.
How much difference there is from an acoustic piano (an 3000$ acoustic, not a 5000$ or 10000$)

[outin]

Hi,

Do you ever played a digital piano with wooden keys???

Yes

Are these better then plastic key piano I guess.

Maybe...but wood does not make a bad action good.

How much difference there is from an acoustic piano

A lot...

[hfmadopter]

If I had to point out the things that stand out between my Kawai digital and my acoustic grand it would be that the action is slightly heavier below the let off point in the keys on the digital. Mine has plastic keys but I've played digital with wooden keys and a rougher ivory feel key top than mine. That brings it a step closer to the acoustic with ivory feel. But with some tonal curve corrections and so on ( it goes on and on with Kawai digitals, at least the stage pianos seem tweak-able endlessly) you can get a very acoustic feel from the piano. I get all the vroom I want out my digital, it has super adjustable sensitivity and I have it working with better dynamic range than my acoustic which I had not thought possible going into digital. But they are different instruments none the less, digital has yet to catch the full spectrum of sympathetic resonance, though adding some reverb goes a really long ways towards filling that gap. And obviously in a stage piano I can do things not possible in an acoustic without backup sound tracks or a band. But in terms of the keys, I can go between one piano to the other without a huge adjustments in technique. They feel at least familiar. I did not get this feeling from any Yamaha I played, nor any Casio FWIW. I did from Roland and from Kawai ( when I went out testing digital pianos) .

[luca33]

Thank you very much for your reply.
What pianos do you have???

And  is there some tutorial for tweaking Kawai sound???

[hfmadopter]

Thank you very much for your reply.
What pianos do you have???

And  is there some tutorial for tweaking Kawai sound???

No, well there may be that I'm not aware of. I got bits and pieces of information in other forums, a stage piano forum, Piano World and digital piano forum just reading archives and posting a few questions. Read up on tips both in sound systems and in tweaking, spoke with a sound engineer who does live setups , after a while you catch on ! I'm still tweaking, may never stop. I'm about to retire, should have some more time on my hands then. Anyway about the touch itself I just went through the manual and set the Kawai up to emulate my grand as best I could get it. I played a few notes on the grand, then the digital, looked up what I needed to change. I did the same with one piano sound. I took Mellow Grand and went through the 4 channels equalizer ( EQ) and tone controls getting the mids, lower and upper registers, string resonances, damper sounds etc. to best emulate my grand and saved that as a setup. So now when I bring up Mellow Grand it sounds  a lot like my real grand, at least in tone and to a large degree in response, sustain and so forth. I would not want to buy a digital piano that didn't offer these adjustments or if not then I would add a control module to it that then did make the piano offer them. It all makes for a remarkable tool. But ya know I don't use that Mellow Grand so much just on some pieces. I have tweaked the Mellow 2 Grand more to my dreams liking ! And I have the Concert Grand set up for another liking.

Reverb and Modulation controls are huge ! To get that live feel going, vibration, sound is all about vibration and these two controls are all about that as well. You can't over due either or it gets all fake but a touch of both makes for a real live sound in digital. Because that gives you the string vibrations you need. Digital is sterile compared with a real acoustic grand, this cuts into sterility and brings life to the sounds. Even instrumentation or perhaps even more so instrumentation. I often add flute or a background string ensemble to my own music for things like bible study or gospel. in the Kawai I can set that for just certain portion of the register too in four channels so each sound take it's own place in the register and play over it with piano in a layer. People love it, love it  love it. I've literally had people crying in the group , seriously ! So the sound is powerful from this rig.

My digital is the MP6 stage piano, now the MP7 has taken it's place and that is supposed to be all the better. My MP6 isn't perfect, there is room for improvement in it. But I am very pleased , it's almost 2 years since I got it and it's gotten a heavy workout. I've had two different sets of main speakers, I like these Adam Audio but they cost as much as most people want to pay for just the piano. I added a sub ( some folks say that's not required but set the cross over right and it makes a huge difference in bass tone and resonance in the room). Today I would go right out and buy another Kawai if this one dropped dead or got blown up in a power surge or something, what ever. Or an upper end Roland might call to me as well. Mostly it's the keys in these brands though, as I said you can add modules and sound systems for sound and response.

It's all about live sound for me. I use headphones for early practice sessions or early morning times so as not to bug people or to be in my own world working something out. But that isn't what piano is about to me, I must project my sound live into the world, music and piano music is meant to be vibrated off the atmosphere, even clouds. I get all spiritual and my music spills all over the keys with live sound not so much in headphones. It's just another keyboard till you put life in it, regardless of brand.