Need help choosing a new digital piano for singer/songwriter daughter

J

Jennlovebug

New member
Hello! This forum was a tremendous help to me in 2018 when I did a home recording studio setup for my teen as a Christmas surprise. I’m hoping you can help me again! My daughter is now almost 21 and a music major in college. She writes, records, and mixes her own music, including working on ”custom-song-for-hire” websites. Last year we moved across the country from where she is going to college and left her our family digital piano (a 10+ year old one that we bought at Costco back in the day but which has been good enough for her to do some really great composing and recording with it!) Now I would like to buy another one for our home, but want to make sure she can use it to record when she is here.

I know NOTHING myself about recording, but learned enough from lovely folks like you to get her studio gear. She uses a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 as her interface. Historically, she has been running a cable from a MIDI-out port on our old digital piano to the Scarlett, and then connecting the Scarlett to her Windows laptop computer where I *believe* she is still using Cubase as her DAW.

I’m sure things have changed since 2018, but I’m confused because I see almost no newer digital pianos with MIDI out. I think I remember reading in 2018 that having a USB out on your digital piano/keyboard wasn’t as good as having MIDI out - that there was some loss of data/quality/information/?? if you had to use USB out instead of MIDI. But USB out seems to be all I see these days. Maybe I’m remembering wrong (like I said, this is NOT my space, I’m just a mom who learned just enough get myself into trouble! LOL), or maybe things have changed?

All that being said, can someone explain to me, as if I’m as clueless as I am, what kind of outputs would be best to check for as I’m looking at a new digital piano so my girl can continue to produce great quality music?

And while we’re at it, if you have a favorite console digital piano with weighted keys of some kind (I don’t know if weighted or graded hammer action is better?), that might be selling right now within a budget of about $1000, I’d love your recommendations!
 
What kind/style of songwriting? Weighted keys are awesome for piano-based musicians, but if she does a lot of synth/organ/etc in addition to piano, a semi-weighted action may be better.

USB for MIDI is usually fine -- I should talk, I'm having some serious issues with mine these days, but this is quite rare.
 
I have some history with digital pianos.
As an adult of around 45, I wanted a decent piano, so decided if I spend enough, I'll probably get a respectable one.
I bought a Kawai MP9500 new from a magazine advert for £1500, without having seen or heard one.
It has real wooden keys, you can remove, and hold in your hand, just like an acoustic piano.
It was a good buy. The feel of the keys is just as important as the sound.
I bought it just as it was being discontinued in USA.
The MP9500 weighs a ton.
I then wanted a more portable piano, so bought a next generation cheaper plastic key Kawai MP4.
The MP9500 had the feel, and the MP4 had portability.
Fast forward 10 years or so, and I sold my caravan for decent money.
There was no way I was not going to buy the latest Kawai MP11 (the great grandson of the MP9500).
That is my best piano today. Super voices, super wooden keys feel, and good midi control of external kit (works well with Roland Integra 7).
The current Kawai offering is the wooden key MP11SE, or plastic keyed MP7SE.
What I'm suggesting is you may be able to pick up an original MP11 or MP7 for sub $1000
This would not be a mistake. At least check out kawai.
I have seen some very good piano buying advice, and reviews on the youtube channel 'Merriam Pianos'.
I think they're Canadian, but offer free sound advice on pianos.

I bought a bottom of the range Yamaha P35, because it is very light, but you get what you pay for.
Also I bought a Roland RD64, which has good keys, and is compact.
There are plenty of good plastic pianos around today. I was looking at getting a Yamaha CP73.
There are plenty to choose from. I wish you luck.
 
So much depends on her playing preferences if she’s getting better as a musician so buying for somebody else is hard. Much easier when they are beginners. As raymond says, there are rarely interconnect problems nowadays. What does happen is that every keyboards and not even common across makes is the scaling. I played a Yamaha yesterday and medium loud fingers produced a too loud sound but I play quietly and many of my gentle presses produced no sound at all so I had to play harder! My real Yamaha grand makes sound even when you tickle it but the MDs Yamaha stage piano needed so much more. Worse, as you get progressively louder, the different pianos reproduce it differently. I know you probably want it to be a surprise but if she’s getting better she could hate what you buy? Like buying a guitar for somebody else. As you get better it gets personal. You could be sneaky? Say a friend is asking for himself and say you’d appreciate her help and give her a list to rate out of ten. Include random stuff and she what she now fancies or rates highly. Then she gets one she likes!!
 
rob aylestone said:
So much depends on her playing preferences if she’s getting better as a musician so buying for somebody else is hard. Much easier when they are beginners. As raymond says, there are rarely interconnect problems nowadays. What does happen is that every keyboards and not even common across makes is the scaling. I played a Yamaha yesterday and medium loud fingers produced a too loud sound but I play quietly and many of my gentle presses produced no sound at all so I had to play harder! My real Yamaha grand makes sound even when you tickle it but the MDs Yamaha stage piano needed so much more. Worse, as you get progressively louder, the different pianos reproduce it differently. I know you probably want it to be a surprise but if she’s getting better she could hate what you buy? Like buying a guitar for somebody else. As you get better it gets personal. You could be sneaky? Say a friend is asking for himself and say you’d appreciate her help and give her a list to rate out of ten. Include random stuff and she what she now fancies or rates highly. Then she gets one she likes!!
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OK, good ideas - I was actually thinking I’d like her to try the feel of the keys, etc. before actually purchasing, but I do want to make sure I’m going somewhere there are workable yet affordable options to try, as she will only be here for a couple weeks at Christmastime. I’m mostly wondering about the output issues I mentioned, as she had to do ZERO research when we set her up with equipment, so not sure she would even know at this point what differences we might face with different outputs, since her setup has just always “worked.” LOL

So if she ended up liking, say a moderately priced Roland or Yamaha and it only had USB output that could still work with an interface and DAW like she uses and give her good sound options like she’s used to? Like I said whatever digital piano we have from Costco from 2007 was definitely not top of the line, so I’m guessing anything decent today should be capable?

As to other questions folks asked, definitely real piano vibe - I think of her a bit like a Carole-King-at-the-piano singer/songwriter. She either plays piano, ukulele, or acoustic guitar for her songs, definitely not looking for synth-type stuff as someone asked.

Thanks for the help!
 
Whenever I see this discussion amongst experienced piano players I hear so many different opinions. This really is down to personal taste. In my experience the feel can vary between different models from the same manufacturer so you really need to try a good selection of models in your price range. If you stick with the well known names (Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Korg, Kawai and Nord are some decent makes that come to mind) you'll be fine as far as connectivity is concerned.
 
Jennlovebug said:
So if she ended up liking, say a moderately priced Roland or Yamaha and it only had USB output that could still work with an interface and DAW like she uses and give her good sound options like she’s used to? Like I said whatever digital piano we have from Costco from 2007 was definitely not top of the line, so I’m guessing anything decent today should be capable?
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Yes and yes.

Simply put, I would recommend giving her a voucher to go to your local music store and pick out a

Jennlovebug said:
As to other questions folks asked, definitely real piano vibe - I think of her a bit like a Carole-King-at-the-piano singer/songwriter. She either plays piano, ukulele, or acoustic guitar for her songs, definitely not looking for synth-type stuff as someone asked.
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Great, that's my vibe :) As a second keyboard, the synth actions can be quite useful. The issue is that as the action gets better, the prices go up exponentially, then shelf off. While I don't want to exert any pressure in this sense, I would strongly recommend looking a bit above your listed budget if you can -- in my experience, $1000 is a kind of "breaking point" for keyboards where you can pay just a bit more and get a significant improvement.
jamesperrett said:
Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Korg, Kawai and Nord are some decent makes that come to mind
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My personal picks for your price range would be Yamaha, Kawai, and Studiologic, then Nord and the higher-range Studiologics for the ~$3000 price range.
From my own research (I'm in the market but still raising the funds lol), this seems like an awesome deal -- especially right now, as the Black Friday sale is going strong: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...iano-88-digital-piano-with-hammer-action-keys
 
I am a Yamaha fan for ease of use...sort of. They make their own keybeds as does Roland and Kawai. I like yamaha non weighted keybeds for synth stuff and their weighted are OK. The Arturia and the Komplete weighted 88's are Fatar weighted Keybeds ( great) and come with a ton of proprietary sounds and software. I really like their feel and the touch is adjustable via software. These have no sounds built in so you will always needs a computer. tablet or ipad to play them or ( like I do) use them as a controller for another keyboard that has midi. In my case the MODX 7+ which has synth keys. Great for ease of playing synth and organ parts...no so great for playing piano

You can't go wrong with the main name brands Yamaha, Casio, Roland, Kawai, Nord and Korg...from there it is subjective that corelates with just how much koolaid you drink of the hype they all put out.

So many choices today...definitely it is best if she goes to a few music stores and plays the actual keys for the "feel" of what she might want. On the sounds within...it's really hard to know by only fiddling with them for a few hours...you can go really deep in some of these and can take months of deep diving and learning to get to the cheese.

This guy is fun to watch, he's always reviewing keyboards and their is a ton of info there to help make a semi informed opinion..

Good luck!
 
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