Why Is My Electric Piano Not Working

[Desmond Hutchins]

Iwant to learn playing the piano. Between my schedule and the expensive labour around here, it seems I'll be better off buying a used instrument and learning on my own, rather than starting with courses. But as I don't know if I will stick with it forever, I don't want to pay the price of a new instrument.

I found a classified ad for somebody selling a Yamaha YDP-143 in the vicinity, and plan to go there, and if it seems good, buy it. The question: since I am a complete beginner and cannot even play the simplest melody, how do I know that this piano is good?

I am not so much worried about finding out whether this model will fit my needs, all information I could find said that this is a great beginner's instrument and I guess I can't get more than that before I have formed my own preferences. The problem is that, as I am buying from a private person, there is no way to return it. So the question is about making sure that this one instrument has no defects which will ruin my joy learning. Without the ability to play a tune, which functions should I test, and how?

Play every single key and make sure it sounds. After that, use the pedal all the way to the right and make sure the sound sustains when you lift your finger from a key. Try holding the pedal down while you press 20-30 keys, one after the other, and see if any pitches "drop" from the sustained sound. They should not. The other two pedals are not as useful to beginners.

What features this digital piano has will be different than others. It is not likely you will be able to test all the features and sounds, but if it passes these tests, you are good to go as a beginner.

That being said, it is impossible to know how long the piano will last, and it will not be under warranty. Technology has improved quite a bit, but there is a limit to the memory life of these things. I had a digital piano that was almost 20 years old when all of a sudden certain notes below middle C just stopped working.

Assuming the seller plays, at least a bit - get them to play something & listen for any signs of amp distortion or speaker buzz at a good volume. This would be harder for a non-player to test as hitting huge bunches of random notes isn't going to be kind on the ears ;)

Check that at least the right pedal does what you expect, sustains. Press it & tap a note, then several - they should all ring on until you release the pedal. The left pedal, or left & middle if it's a 3-pedal device, might be harder to figure out for a non-player [may also be software reassignable & you may not even need them in the first couple of years of playing.]

Check each and every note from bottom to top. Play them individually in order from bottom to top, successive notes being next to each other (so if there is a black note between two white ones, play the black one after the left white one and before the right white one). The pitch should rise by a somewhat minor amount each time. If the pitch remains the same or lowers between notes, the keyboard has failed this test. The pitch rising too high between notes also fails this test, but I'll have to leave it to you to figure out what a whole tone (the smallest interval between adjacent notes that makes this test fail) sounds like.

Also make sure that notes--or, heaven forbid, the whole keyboard--don't drop out when certain sounds (e.g. organ) are selected. (The drum kit sounds are in another boat and don't play pitched sounds, though.)

"Electronic Piano" was also the trade name used for Wurlitzer's popular line of electric pianos, which were produced from the 1950s to the 1980s, although this was not actually what is now commonly known as an electronic piano. Electronic pianos work similarly to analog synthesizers in that they generate their tones through oscillators, whereas electric pianos are mechanical, their sound being electrified by a pickup and then amplified through an internal or external amplifier.

The first electronic pianos date from the 1970s and were mostly made in Italy (Davies 2001), although similar models were made concurrently in Japan. An exception is the range of instruments made by RMI in the United States from 1967 to approximately 1980, which was used by Genesis, Yes, Deep Purple, Elton John and Rick Wakeman (Reid 2001). These early electronic pianos (including the RMI) are not velocity sensitive in that, like an organ, they do not vary their volume based on how hard or soft the keys are played. "The major drawback of the RMI was its total lack of touch sensitivity. I found this very restricting, especially since any bum-notes are played at full volume, no matter how lightly you brush against them" (Tony Banks, quoted in Reid 2001).

The first electronic grand piano was produced in 1979 and patented in 1981 by Wilton Decker of St. James, NY. (PianoNova Co.) It contained the first full-touch-sensitive keyboard and working pedals (Decker 1981).

Electronic pianos became less popular in the 1980s when the digital piano and polyphonic synthesizer became available and affordable enough for both professional and home use as an inexpensive, smaller and lighter alternative to an acoustic piano.

In modern usage, the term electronic piano sometimes refers to either a digital piano or a stage piano. This is actually a misnomer, as electronic pianos use analog synthesis to generate its sounds while digital pianos normally use digital data sample-based synthesis. In addition, early digital pianos in the mid-1980s were often referred to as a personal electronic piano. [citation needed]

An electric piano is similar to a traditional grand in how it amplifies a vibration created by hammers and strings. Unlike a grand, however, electric pianos use electromagnetic pickups to amplify the sound instead of a soundboard. There are three main types of electric pianos, differentiated by the element that vibrates to produce the sound.

Some electric pianos actually still sport string and hammer actions much like a traditional grand piano, but feature piezoelectric pickups as a means of amplifying the sound. Perhaps the most notable example of an electric piano that uses strings is the Yamaha CP-70.

My Digital Piano is selected as the midi input in Cakewalk, but it's not working. I tried every solution I could find online (including deleting duplicate midi devices in device manager, restarting/reinstalling literally everything related, and trying different audio drivers like AISO).

For some reason it still works if I open a VST on it's own outside of Cakewalk, but there is horrible lag that makes it impossible to play fast without getting really messed up. The lag is probably a separate issue, since it's present in all other DAW software I've tried (including Protools), along with all computers/cables I've tried.

I don't even know, I'm a musician not a tech wizard. Just want to record song unga bunga. Every single time I've ever tried to use recording software it never works like it should lol, about to throw my computer out the window...

You need to set up a MIDI track that has the Digital Piano as its input.

Then you need to route that MIDI track to a VST synth.

Then you need to route the audio track associated to that synth to a Bus (preferably the master bus)

That bus needs to be routed to your output device

Hopefully you have a USB audio interface that comes with its own native ASIO drivers.

In Cakewalk, what VST synth are you routing the MIDI from the Digital Piano to?

What audio interface are you using?

It's not clear exactly what you want to achieve, so I'll outline a few scenarios:

If you just want to record your piano, and play it back through the piano speakers:

1. Ensure both the Piano MIDI inputs and outputs are checked within Preferences->MIDI->Devices

2. Within Preferences->MIDI->Playback and Recording, uncheck "Always Echo Current MIDI Track". This is important, because otherwise you'll get MIDI feedback.

3. Create a new MIDI track, setting both the inputs and outputs to your Piano ensuring echo is OFF (it should be if you've unchecked the setting in step 2).

If you want to also record audio and/or play other software instruments:

1. Do all the steps above

2. Take the audio outputs of your Piano, and plug them into the audio inputs of your audio interface. Leave echo on on this track.

3. Create an audio track, setting the inputs to whatever audio inputs you have your piano plugged into.

4. For recording other instruments, you'll need to manually turn MIDI echo on to hear them.

5. When you've finished your song, and want to mix-down to a stereo file:

5.1. Arm the piano audio track for recording, and solo it.

5.2. Press Record and let the whole song play through.

5.3 . Mute the MIDI track your piano part is on.

5.4. Do your export.

If you don't want to use your internal piano sound, but just use your piano as a controller for a software piano VSTi (or other synths)

1. Ensure both the Piano MIDI inputs is checked, and the Piano MIDI output is unchecked within Preferences->MIDI->Devices

2. Within Preferences->MIDI->Playback and Recording, ensure "Always Echo Current MIDI Track" is checked

3. Insert a piano VST as a simple instrument track.

4. For export, just export as normal. There's no need to mess around with your piano track, as all of the sound is being generated inside Cakewalk.

As a side note... even if you're ONLY recording MIDI (and by MIDI I mean pure MIDI, and no VST synths), it's always best practice to have at least one Audio track. This ensures that the audio engine is engaged, and Cakewalk can get its timing from it.

If you are recording only one track of piano, WASAPI should be ok but as soon as you want to record more than one track you have to have a proper audio interface with a proper ASIO driver from the manufacturer.

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