REVIEW – Samick SDP45F Digital Piano – Recommended –

Samick SDP45 polished ebony

The Samick company has built many digital piano models over the years but in my opinion these instruments were just average or below average (I have
played many of them) and not at all competitive with top companies like
Yamaha, Kawai, Roland, or Casio, and I would not have personally owned one in the
past. So it comes as a surprise to me that the Samick company has a very attractive, well built polished ebony furniture cabinet digital piano  SDP45F in a lower price range under (approx) $2500 store retail price. I had an opportunity to play this Samick model and was impressed by what I felt and heard. I
was impressed by the realistic graded hammer weighted premium key action from the Italian key action company Fatar, which moved
and responded to velocity and dynamics better than many other new digital pianos I have played under $2500 retail. In fact, the ability to
express yourself in an acoustic piano way was quite good
considering my disappointing experiences with other less expensive instruments from Suzuki, Williams, Adagio, Artesia, and others. So for the money, I believe the Samick SDP45F is more than sufficient in producing a very
satisfying piano playing experience for most people.

Two main reasons why I believe these pianos are impressive is because
Samick has entered into a business relationship with
the Fatar key action company and the Orla digital sound electronics
company, both of which are located in Italy. These two well known European companies have been designing high quality digital piano
components for many years and are very respected in Europe and around
the world. Samick is now using these two company’s pro quality (I have
played them and they are really good) graduated hammer piano key actions
(with full dynamic response) along with a good stereo digital piano sound
& a non-piano instrument library of sounds and had them built into this model. I
believe the resulting outcome is that Samick has the best digital pianos
they have ever offered and are now competitive with the more well
known names in digital pianos. These instruments are at very
reasonable prices (in my opinion) for many people looking for a
beautiful and well built furniture cabinet along with satisfying
piano performance, sound, and digital features.

Sliding keyboard cover

The SDP45 that I originally played had the new European Fatar key action in it which is identical to the Samick digital grand piano version of the SDP45 called the SG450. The SDP45 is also offered with a much lower quality Chinese built standard key action (without the letter F in the model number name) which is different than the premium European Fatar key action. The difference is noticeable in my opinion with the standard key action being less smooth, less responsive, less dynamic, and much noisier when the keys are going up and down as compared to the European key action. The difference in price between the two key action models is about $400-$500 or so (depending on the dealer) but the upgrade to the Fatar key action model is well worth the difference in my opinion (if it’s in your budget) because the key action movement is a fundamental part of any piano playing experience and it’s the number one thing piano teachers, students, and players look for when shopping for a piano. 

As far as other aspects of the SDP45 go, it has 3 full functioning brass pedals but does not have damper half-pedaling), 64 notes of polyphony memory which is fine for most people (128 notes would have been better but that does increase
price), 385 realistic instrument sounds, 20 panel memories for saving your
favorite setups, a 16-track general MIDI multi-track player/recorder
using a USB flash drive to save and load songs which is very cool, and
it plays educational General MIDI files too. Each of the 16 instrument
tracks, including the melody line, can be individually muted (switched
off) so that you can isolate certain parts for better understanding of
how that part plays and sounds, which is great for learning and
playalong. That is a very useful feature not found in many digital
pianos.  

SDP45 front panel

The SDP45 also includes a good sized user LCD display
screen for easier to read information and more intuitive functions, a built-in 40 watt stereo sound system with 4 speakers, and a built-in Rhythm Orchestra with 520 exceptionally good automatic left hand
chord accompaniment styles & drum patterns for all
styles of music along with right hand harmony notes when played
one-finger or 3-fingered style on the right hand. In other words, you can be a novice
beginner player or more advanced player and sound like you’ve been playing many years…fun stuff! You
name the type of music style and the SDP45 seems to be able to do it
incl Jazz, Latin, Rock, Country, Big band, Swing, Broadway, Ragtime, New
Age, Christmas, Disney, and everything in-between. This kind of system
is great for people who just want to have fun and not go through
traditional piano lessons or they want to explore new ways of
playing music (which I personally enjoy). 

Other notable features include real
time volume slider controls, a brilliance control for many variations of acoustic
pianos sounds, and “twin piano” which electronically divides the 88 keys in
half for two identical 44-key piano keyboards (with the same octaves and
tuning) which is great for two people playing at the same time…very
cool. I do want to point out that the internal speaker system in the SDP45 could be much better and the sound is a bit on the thin side. The actual high quality of the piano sound and other instruments can be heard through a good pair of stereo headphones so if you want to improve sound coming through the insternal speaker system you would need to connect a pair of external powered speakers to the piano and in this way you could drastically improve the sound you hear.

Fatar premium key action

To summarize, I would definitely recommend the SDP45F in its attractive polished ebony cabinet with its beautiful finish and upscale design features. The SDP45F also is available without the Fatar key action and it’s called the SDP45 (no F) and I would definitely not recommend that model. The key action is just too clunky, noisy, and uninspiring. With a 3 year parts and one year labor factory warranty, a very smooth European Fatar key action, and lots of useful features, I believe this model will be a good competitor (at its reasonable price) in the world of new digital pianos and one definitely worth your consideration. Finally, there are many people who ask me for an elegant looking good polished ebony digital piano under $2500 and actually closer to $2000. This is a common request that I get and of the name brands only Yamaha has one in a polished ebony cabinet but the cabinet is very basic, the piano has few features but the price is inexpensive at just $1699, The name of that Yamaha model is called the YDP162PE. However, the SDP45F with Fatar key action is definitely worth the higher price as long as its not too much higher. Do your research, shopping, and your homework and when you have questions and want answers go ahead and contact me.