Digital Piano Shootout – with Sound Samples!

Date:2020/2/13 22:46:24 Hits:

There are lots of digital keyboards that do lots of things, but for this article, we decided to focus on just one thing — comparing just the sound of the digital pianos. So we gathered the seven best digital stage pianos into one room and listened to them side by side. Our goal was not to pick a winner, but to give you the chance to hear them all in your own personal space. You probably know most of these keyboards by reputation, but have you ever had a chance to hear them all? Now you will.

The Digital Pianos
(in alphabetical order)
Casio Privia Pro PX-560

Featuring an 88-key tri-sensor, scaled hammer action keybed with textured keys, the Privia Pro PX-560 offers A.i.R. Powered Concert Grand Piano sounds that include controls for damper resonance, string resonance, hammer response, and key-off simulation, courtesy of Casio’s Hex Layer Synthesis.

Kawai ES8
The Kawai ES8 digital piano embodies the sound of a world-class Shigeru Kawai EX concert grand, including the hammer noise and damper resonance, plus the Kawai EX and Shigeru Kawai SK-5 are included as well. Its graded keybed with Responsive Hammer III (RHIII) action and counterweights make it about as close to a real piano feel as you can get, with Triple-Sensor Key Detection that adds to the realism.

Korg Grandstage 88 Stage Piano
Powered by seven sound engines, the Grandstage 88 includes the acclaimed RH3 weighted 88-key velocity-sensitive keybed. The SGX-2 acoustic piano engine delivers every nuance of six world-class German and Japanese grand pianos, from damper resonance to mechanical noise.

Kurzweil Forte
Combining the sounds of one of the greatest sample libraries ever created and resulting from 15 years of Kurzweil sampling, with an 88-key fully weighted hammer action keybed with velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive keys, the Forte is the pinnacle of technology and feel in digital pianos. With a built-in 16GB sound library, including Japanese and German grand pianos, plus sounds from Kurzweil’s acclaimed PC3 and KORE64 soundsets, this keyboard sounds as good as it plays.

Nord Piano 3
The Nord Piano 3 comes with 1GB of memory for the Nord Piano Library, which includes six grand pianos, five upright pianos, and more. It features an 88-note, triple-sensor keyboard with grand weighted hammer action for superior expression. Nord’s Triple Pedal includes dynamic sustain that can re-create damper noises for increased realism.

Roland RD-2000 Stage Piano
The Roland RD-2000 Stage Piano features two sound engines, based on Roland’s flagship V-Piano modeling technology. The 88-key keyboard offers authentic hammer action and escapement, combining wood and molded materials for superior feel. It also offers 1100 non-piano sounds, four pedal inputs, dual mod-wheels, and a 24-bit/192kHz USB audio/MIDI interface.

Yamaha CP4 Stage Piano
Featuring 45 grand piano sounds from Yamaha’s Premium Collection, including their flagship CFX concert grand, CFIII, and S6, the CP4 also offers an 88-key Natural Wood Graded Hammer Action keybed that feels like a real piano. And who knows piano sound better than Yamaha?

The Process
We brought all the keyboards into the same room and set them up so we could listen to them one after the other under uniform listening conditions. We took the main 1/4″ outputs from each keyboard and patched those into a Telefunken TDA-2 Active Instrument DI, which was routed to the inputs of a Focusrite Red 4Pre Thunderbolt interface, recorded into Pro Tools on a MacBook Pro at 24-bit/96kHz.

All the audio clips you will hear are the exact same performance. Erskine Hawkins, Sweetwater’s keyboard specialist (Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna), recorded this performance as a MIDI file, and we then fed the same MIDI file into each keyboard. We recorded two different audio clips for each keyboard, and the name of the piano preset is included in the name of the audio clip.

What You Will Hear
Our goal was to compare the piano sounds of these seven keyboards. To that end, we began by listening to the startup piano sound (typically 001) on each keyboard, figuring that it was awarded the first position for good reason. Then Erskine chose one other alternate setting that showed off a different aspect of the keyboard’s sound.

What You Won’t Hear
There are so many aspects to each of these keyboards, not the least of which are the dozens of other included sounds or the feel of the keybed, which are both major factors, but they’re not the focus of this article. Each of these keyboards offers many different piano sounds and hundreds of alternate keyboard sounds, from electric keys to synths to organs and more.

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Digital Piano Shootout – with Sound Samples!

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