IMPORTANT DIGITAL PIANO REPORT! Are you shopping for a new digital piano? Then please read our important report on the 5 things you need to know right now about which digital pianos to stay away from and DO NOT BUY! We have over 40 years personal and professional experience with all of the major and minor digital pianos out there. We play pianos, teach piano, and talk with people all over America to help them make the right buying decision on a new digital piano. If you want to make a good decision on which digital piano to purchase in your price range, then you must also know which ones to avoid!
We can help you navigate the “muddy waters” of the digital piano marketplace in simple ways that you are likely not aware of. The information below are the “bullet points” to help you make the right decision. Just so you know, we can help you purchase any major brand of new digital pianos, and for a lot less money too. Also, we offer free shipping with in the continental US and also no sales tax on most items! We do not work for any digital piano manufacturer and we do not get paid for our reviews or reports.
We are independent musicians and I have taught piano lessons to thousands of people on piano as well as on other instruments for over 40 years. My son Erik and I have a excellent wide reputation for helping people in many musical ways. So please read our important report below to learn about what to look for and what to avoid when making a digital (aka: electric) piano purchase decision. Don’t guess at it just because the digital piano says they are the best. They all say that but it’s not true. Find out the facts below.
1. Have you ever heard the old phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover?” What that means is that the outside of the book may look good, but the contents of the book is not good, or at least not as good as the outside cover. There are so many new digital pianos these days that do look good on the outside. There are a huge variety of digital pianos from various brands in various price ranges who make nice looking cabinets. That’s a good thing, but you are not getting a digital piano to play its cabinet. You are going to want a digital piano that has keys that feel good, move good, sound that sounds realistic and resonant, pedals that work right, features that will help you and not be a waste of time or confuse you.
So please do not buy a new digital piano mainly because it visually looks good. Be sure it actually plays like a good piano and not like a toy…or worse. It’s easy to get fooled out there and listen to “slick talking salespeople” or read reviews from people who don’t know what they are talking about. It can be a shopping jungle out there so you need to be very careful and we encourage you to contact us and we will talk with you on the phone and/ore by email and give you solid, dependable, experienced free advice so you don’t end up with a “PSO,” or Piano Shaped Object as we call it!
2. The name brands are the ones to stick with and will offer “the best bang for the buck” with regard to the “piano playing experience.” Those name brands are Kawai, Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Casio, and Orla. These are the top digital piano brands and they offer good digital pianos from less than $500 to over $15,000. Nevertheless, just because they are the “name brands” does not necessarily mean they will all have the best one for you within your price range. To cut through the “noise” of the digital piano manufacturers all saying “we have the best,” just contact us and we’ll help you figure it out so you can make the right choice for your budget and musical needs. We will also save you money on what you finally decide to choose.
3. Digital Pianos by their nature have “weighted keys” so they can try to emulate a real piano key action touch. But…digital pianos can also be referred to as “keyboards” which is the more generic phrase for them. However, a “keyboard” does not necessarily have “weighted” keys. Keyboard keys can be semi-weighted or unweighted. Some of the good manufacturers do produce keyboards that have “semi-weighted” key actions. These semi-weighted key action keyboards can reduce the cost of that keyboard under the cost of a weighted key digital piano. But…semi-weighted definitely has in key action deficiencies and issues.
If your goal is to learn to play “piano” and have a good piano playing experience, then we recommend you do not purchase any keyboard with a semi-weighted or unweighted key action movement. Those keyboards can create hand, finger, wrist, and forearm fatigue along with potentially creating bad playing habits with it comes to learning to play piano with “expression” and a developing the right “touch” to actually play piano.
Good weighted-key digital pianos normally start at around $500 so we recommend those models in the lower price range if that’s where you need to be. If you need to be in an even lower price range, then semi-weighted key action movements are OK and as we say, “better than nothing.” But if the piano student is progressing in their playing skills then don’t stay on that semi-weighted action keyboard too long because it will create some bad piano playing habits after a while that may be a bit difficult to break. Contact us for more info on that.
4. Most digital pianos have plastic keys. Real acoustic pianos have wooden keys. Plastic keys are fine and some of those plastic key action models feel great to play. As long as they have good key length, are weighted properly, and the key action design and construction are good, then plastic keys in digital pianos can be an excellent choice. However, wooden keys is the next step up for key actions, Wooden keys can provide an even more realistic keyboard touch and response.
But the wooden keys in some name brand digital pianos may be limited to the white keys only or they may not be 100% fully wooden. They could be 10% to 20% wood just on the outside of the white keys but on the inside they could mostly be plastic. So don’t get confused about digital pianos with wooden keys. Those brands and models are not all the same. The best wooden keys in a key action to get would be 100% wood with all 88 black & white keys using the correct wood and construction along with having “counter-weights” inside some or all of the keys. So plastic keys (in most cases) are fine as long as the important “electronic key contacts” within the keys are good, and some are not. But wooden longer-length key actions are better.
5. The piano sound in digital pianos is important because that sound can either be cheap and toy-like and sound bad, or the piano sound digital electronics that make the piano sound can be good with realistic piano tone and expression. If you have no experience playing or listening to good pianos then you may not realize the piano sound in a particular digital piano is artificial or very bad. When you have no experience then that is to be expected. But that does not mean you’ll be happy when hearing the piano sound out of a specific digital piano or keyboard.
How would you like to listen to your favorite songs coming out of toy speaker system? Maybe there is no bass response or the sound is much to “sharp and tinny?” It won’t take long until you discover how artificial and disappointing some digital pianos can sound when you get a chance to really play them in person, in your home. The internal speaker systems in these various digital pianos are also important because the piano sound may be initially good, but when you hear it through the internal speaker system of the piano, then the sound is bad, or tinny, or just weak.
Sometimes if you watch and listen to a demonstration through headphones or perhaps from a YouTube video, it’s possible the piano sound may be better through headphones but weak & artificial through its own internal speaker system. But you won’t really know until you get it into your home or talk to some experts like us who have the experience to tell you what to expect and which ones to get that will make you happy.
Unless you are very experienced with piano playing and listening to good pianos, then do it the right way and contact us because we can and will sort it out for you so you can be sure your are making the right decision when finally purchasing a new digital piano. There definitely are certain new digital pianos that you should absolutely STAY AWAY FROM! Don’t be sorry later…call us or email us and we can and will help and talk with you and answer your questions and let you know the specific models to stay away from.
This is our passion and we truly want to help people make the right buying decision when it comes to the many brands and models of digital pianos that are out there. We mean it when we say “Warning, Don’t Buy This One!” What you may wind up with could be the one you wish you had not purchased! So let us help and we will not only do that but we’ll save you money in the process. It’s our passion and our mission.
