The most portable digital piano (Was: The Best Digital Piano)
Paul Liu
>
>: : I have just finished trying most models of Yamaha's Clavinova family,
>: : Roland's HP and KR series, Kurzweil's Mark series, Baldwin, and some
>: : controllers like Peavey, PC88 by Kurzweil and finally Technics pianos
>: : and I have concluded that overall the best is Technics digital pianos.
>
I've seen Kurzweil PC88 and it is very portable (50 lb). Is there any
other good (I mean 'good') digital piano that is portable too?
--
Paul Liu
pl...@cadence.com
Michael Scott
: Paul Liu
: pl...@cadence.com
I've read in-depth rave reviews of Yamaha's top-of-the line portable (in
Keyboard magazine last year, I think), but its list-price is is around $10K.
I think that the model-number is something like PC-1000 (or PX-1000, etc).
I don't know how much it weighs--I'll try to find the review and quote a few
facts here. At that price, it's aimed at only serious road-touring musicians.
In addition to a full-sized, fully weighted action and excellent piano-synth,
the model is loaded with master-keyboard features (features to allow a variety
of interconnected MIDI synthesizers to be controlled from a single keyboard).
Most digitals pianos weigh in at 110 lbs minimum, topping out at around 160,
and aren't really designed to be moved around constantly. The inclusion of
serious sound-systems in the instruments seems to contribute greatly to the
weight (the difference between a model with an 80-watt sound system and
one with an 120-watt system is likely to be 30 or 40 lbs). The Yamaha
YPP-55 which I have now sounds pretty nice through headphones, but fairly
horrible through its 8-watt speaker system mounted in a plastic case.
-- Mike
Michael Scott
: : Paul Liu
: : pl...@cadence.com
: -- Mike
I looked-up the Yamaha that I was thinking of yesterday (it was the P500)
and it's definitely not what you're looking for. At 120 lbs, its barely
portable, it's loaded with features that you won't use unless you're a stage
musician or have a home MIDI studio and it's way out of your price range.
I'm personally about to purchase one of the high-end digital pianos. Earlier
this year, when I couldn't spare the money, I shopped for the best stop-gap
purchase (I wanted to spend $1000 or less), and I tried a lot of instruments
in the price-range you're interested in. The one that I was most impressed
with was the Roland FP-8. It has 88 full-size keys and a reasonably believable
fully-weighted action (Roland calls it the "PA-4 hammer-action" keyboard and
use the same mechanism in at least one other product). It is truly portable,
weighing in at 57 lbs. It lists for something around $2500, but you should be
able to get it for $1500 if you shop around.
The downsides of the FP-8 are its techo-funk cabinet (it comes in red, pearl-
white and a sort of soft metallic gray), its wimpy sound system
(20-watts--again, it's hard to put powerful speakers in a lightweight package)
and the mere fact that it's portable. It has provisions for only a plug-in,
free-roaming sustain-pedal (and probably some sort of "expression" pedal),
and you have to place it on some sort of stand. Only the most expensive
keyboard stands don't bounce a bit when you play loud passages.
A good source of abbreviated specs for this sort of thing is Electronic
Musician's yearly Digital Piano Buyer's guide. Though it came out a few
of months ago, it is a supplement to the magazine and should still be on
the stands. I find it largely useless, since it doesn't subjectively re-
view any products (it's sort of a big brochure for digital pianos of all
makes), but it does list just about everything on the market with which you
can make piano-like sounds (except, of course, actual pianos 8^).
-- Mike