The right digital piano

Do you play at home or on the road?

Anyone thinking about buying a digital piano should first answer the following questions before purchase: "Do I want to play my digital piano only at home or will I maybe need to transport it from A to B more often?" Possible reasons for the second option would be band rehearsals in a private rehearsal room or gigs on different concert stages. In both cases, whether you choose the home or the travel variant, different purchase criteria are decisive. In the video playlist below we show you the basic differences between a home piano, a compact piano and a stage piano.

The digital piano for home

If you want to play your piano only in your own four walls, when buying you usually opt for a digital or home piano in addition to the sound and technical features, which we’ll examine in a little more detail in a moment. These come visually closest to an acoustic piano. A stage piano was—as the name suggests—designed for easy transport and use on stage. Digital pianos, on the other hand, are more visually appealing and can blend perfectly with your home decor. A compromise are the somewhat slimmer "compact digital pianos". The transition to the stage piano is fluid. Compact digital pianos are a bit more space-saving, but can—with the mostly optionally available stands or bases in the same colour—be turned into a home piano.

Whether the piano comes in classic gloss black or a matt white finish, or optionally in rosewood or cherry, is up to your personal taste and the rest of the room's interior. The selection in the digital and home piano segment is in any case as versatile as the different furnishing styles. Once you've chosen a colour variant, you'll find various digital pianos in different designs from common manufacturers such as Kawai, Yamaha or Roland.

Can the sound of a digital piano compete with that of an acoustic piano?

Because the sound of an acoustic piano is produced mechanically and the individual components—from the piano string to the resonating body—together with a lot of physics play a central role, we only want to answer this question with "yes" to a limited extent. Acoustic sound remains acoustic sound.

Thanks to high-quality digital technology, however, the sound of an acoustic piano or even a grand can be reproduced electronically very faithfully. Sampling technology, which has shaped music technology since the 1990s and has been continually refined to make sound and playing feel more authentic, is fundamentally responsible for this. Modern digital pianos today even go a step further and work on the basis of physical modelling.

With this type of sound generation, the quality differences compared with the usually cheaper sampling method are enormous. The tone is digitally modelled and produced by calculating physical parameters. In this way, sounds can be generated that vividly and realistically mimic the physical behaviour of a piano. By today's state of the art, this represents the pinnacle of authenticity.

Rock around the Clock: Playing the piano is possible even at midnight

If you're struck by the muse or a practice at home is going particularly well, but the clock is already close to midnight, an acoustic piano would normally force you to stop — and, thanks to a reliable caretaker, you might not even have got that far in the first place. Since the sound in a digital piano—as we've already learned—is generated electronically, you can extend playing into the late hours thanks to volume control. This allows for very quiet playing and is one reason why advanced pianists switch from the acoustic instrument to the digital counterpart.

All home digital pianos are conveniently equipped with a stereo speaker system and also have a headphone jack. Thanks to the possibility of plugging headphones into the digital piano, even the most noise-sensitive neighbour won't be disturbed at late hours. They might still complain about mechanical noises when the keys are struck, though. These are comparable to structure-borne noise and can only be avoided to a limited extent due to the built-in hammer action.

When buying your digital piano you should make sure that the built-in speakers reproduce both treble and bass clearly, powerfully and without distortion. Most of the time you'll want to enjoy your playing through the room sound or share your progress with your teacher or family.

The purchase decision stands or falls with the keyboard's playing feel

Besides visual and sonic aspects, when buying your digital piano you should above all place value on an authentic playing feel. Decisive and certainly purchase-determining here are the touch response and the weighting of the keys. For authentic piano playing, the 88 keys on all digital pianos are equipped with a weighted hammer action. The name hammer action comes from the fact that in an acoustic piano small hammers are still responsible for striking the piano strings. To simulate the playing feel as authentically and realistically as possible on a digital piano, hammers are still used, but no strings are struck. Instead the built-in computer determines the key strike and converts it into loud or quiet audio signals.

The better the interaction between touch response and key weighting is matched, the more realistically you perceive the dynamics. Different quality levels can also be identified in the construction of the piano keyboard. While entry-level models are more likely to have plastic keys, wooden keys are used more frequently as the price increases. For beginners we recommend a digital piano with a medium-weight keyboard. If the counterweight is too heavy for the beginner, it negatively affects piano playing. Finger strength and motor skills need time to develop.

Whether the keys are made of plastic or wood plays only a subordinate role at first. Before buying a digital piano you should definitely try out several keyboards from different manufacturers and choose according to your own comfort. Your own taste usually says more than a thousand words.

Suitable Stands for Digital Pianos

To round off the appearance of a digital piano and make it resemble its acoustic counterpart as closely as possible, home pianos usually ship with not only the console — which houses the keys, sound engine and speaker units — but also side panels, a rear panel and a sustain pedal. Once assembled, the individual parts form the base of an electric piano. We recommend assembling the digital piano with two people after purchase, as the stationary models for the home can easily weigh over 80 kg. That means they will usually remain in the same place once set up. Compared with an acoustic upright or grand piano, however, the weight saving is still enormous. They can generally be transported easily by two people.

If you prefer a digital piano that is less bulky and more space-saving and want to be able to put it to the side sometimes, consider a "compact digital piano" or a stage piano. Compact digital pianos are considerably slimmer and lighter than a home piano. They generally do not include stands or cabinets in the scope of delivery. If you still want one, you can add a visually matching stand for the digital piano. When buying such stands, make sure the piano stand doesn't wobble and offers a stable base.

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Digital Piano to Go: The Stage Piano

If you can’t do without your digital piano on the road and want to play its weighted keyboard at different locations, a stage piano is the right choice for you. As the name suggests ("stage" = stage), stage pianos are primarily designed for frequent set-up and tear-down and the sometimes hectic and hard-wearing demands of the stage.

The relatively light weight of around 10 to at most 40 kg (depending on equipment) and the compact dimensions make transport a breeze. You won't usually find wood finishes or high-gloss lacquer here, nor built-in speakers in most cases. A stage piano typically needs to be amplified via an external speaker (keyboard combo amp), a PA system or a hi‑fi system. This is because the various instruments used live are routed, balanced and mixed separately and output through a large PA system. Only some models have a built-in speaker system, which is usually sufficient for practising at home or for small events.

Basically, however, only the 88 weighted keys and the shared digital sound engine are reminiscent of home digital pianos. The weighted keyboard that matters most to the pianist is housed in a robust, durable cabinet or sometimes even in a roadworthy case on a stage piano, and in terms of quality it is in no way inferior to the keyboard models of the home pianos discussed above.

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