[Johanx64]

You're not going to get a "natural sound" out of pretty much all of the digital pianos out on the market. Even the pretty pricey ones.

What you can do however, is try hooking up Roland FP-30 to a computer and using the computer to generate sounds (so called VST).

I'm visiting relatives for a few weeks, and they happen to have FP-30X (same action), the built in sounds are absolutely god horrid (they are so bad I consider them useless, outside of maybe the rhodes sound), but I'm hooking it to my laptop which has Garritan CFX Concert Grand (full version), Ivory II grand pianos and Pianoteq.

Garritan CFX being the overall most realistic. But you can't go wrong with Ivory II either as it will be a massive upgrade compared to any built in digital piano sounds.

So the full stack would be:

1. The best action you can get (the built in DP sounds don't matter since they are all going to be some gradient of suck anyway)

2. PC with audio interface with very low latency drivers

3. Garritan CFX

[mh-]

I don't disagree with you for the low-mid end of the market, but I don't think this question can be answered without a price range, haha.

I have a YDP-184 [1] that includes the CFX you mentioned. I actually think the weak point in its sound is the acoustics of my room, coupled with the inboard speaker placement.

Then of course there are the Hybrids [2], which I haven't tried myself (and are considerably more than I'm looking to spend as a hobbyist.)

1: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/pianos/a...

2: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/pianos/d...

[Johanx64]

I can guarantee you that the sampled Yamaha CFX grand which is in YDP-184 is but a small fraction in size compared to model of Yamaha CFX sampled by Garritan at Abbey Road Studios. And sounds like shit in comparison.

The Garritan CFX full version (with near and far mics) is 132gigs in size, and even if you take only one set of near/far microphones, it would still be ~40-41gigs in size.

Obviously bigger isn't always better, and there's a diminshing returns point... however, digitial piano sample sizes don't come even remotely near it.

I would be surprised... VERY surprised if the sample size in YDP-184 would reach even a single gigabyte.

More realistically, the piano sounds in YDP-184 is in megabytes. It has been like this with digital pianos - with very few exception models - for decades, with little to no progress.

If a digital piano manifacturer doesn't specify sample size in megabytes/gigabytes, it is most likely because the samples are embarrassingly small, short, looped and stretched.

Disklavier you linked is not a hybrid or a digital piano. It's a real acoustic piano with playback system.

The hybrids - Yamaha N-1X Avant Grand, 7k euros, Kawai Novus NV-10S 9k euros - have great piano action, but the sound is still pretty embarrassing for the price you pay for it.

If I had Kawai Novus-10, I would still hook it up to Garritan CFX, because built in sounds in it are pathetic (for the price)

[kzrdude]

Thanks for your thoughts. Do you have a lot of acoustic piano experience? Is that why you have this taste?

I understand and really will think about your suggestion, but I think I will want to choose something that's easy to just sit down and play at.

[Johanx64]

Kind of the opposite. I have plenty of digital piano experience to know that the built in sounds in pretty much all of them are severely lacking. And has been like that for decades, to this day unfortunately.

I've never been WOW-ed by a built in DP sound, they always sound like DPs.

And I have listened to a lot of acoustic grand piano records, thus I'm very well aware of how they should sound like. And that's the sound I'm aiming for.

The only way to get WOW-ed and to approach the realism / sound quality of recording of a real accoustic grand is by using large sampled VSTs (like Garritan CFX).

Pianoteq (which is a synthesized piano VST) has it's pro's too - more life-like string/soundboard resonance, and just overall playability.

But in terms of pure, record-like sound quality, nothing comes close to a large sampled VST.

Unfortunately there are very few - if any DPs - with built in sample size big enough to capture the sheer beauty of those high end concert grands.

The next best thing - of course - is a real instrument.

[kzrdude]

I see. For laymen it's hard to understand: there are many price levels of DPs and even the most expensive ones don't have big enough samples.

My recent trip to a big piano store probably resonates with you. They had all the DPs I wanted to try out, fantastic.

Before I went there: convinced the most expensive are the best but trying to find my compromise point.

When I was there, it was hard to differentiate between all the DPs. I'll need more time. At the end, the store people encouraged me to look at their multiple storeys of acoustics before I'd leave. I'm not used to acoustics and the ones I encounter are sometimes sluggish or hard to play for me, but now I found a Kawai K300 Aures which was amazing, a whole other beast.

My conclusion was that no DP is close to the acoustics, and this is probably going to lower the price point I'm willing to pay. Why pay for a CA99 when it's digital, going obsolete at some point, and still not even halfway there? :)

I'll find a compromise DP for convenience I think. The plan is to get access to acoustics maybe through a music school or friends, and look forward to an acoustic if/when I move to a house.

[Johanx64]

> I see. For laymen it's hard to understand: there are many price levels of DPs and even the most expensive ones don't have big enough samples.

Yes, most of the time.

There are some rare exceptions to this, like Korg Kronos 1/2 (more like a music workstation), which has a built in Intel Atom x86 processor and an 30 GB/62 GB internal SSD. It has full length grand piano samples (with 8/12 velocity layers) without looping, and the piano samples themselves in this rare occasion is in gigabytes :) (~3-4 gigs per piano sample if I recall, which is very rare in DPs)

So it should sound pretty good for a sample based piano. However the piano action on it is... somewhat basic. Then there's Korg Grandstage (has ~19gig total sample size, I believe it uses the same piano samples as Korg Kronos (Kronos just has a whole lot of other instruments too)).

That taken into account I just focus on getting great action, and then hook it up to PC with low latency audio drivers.

Honestly that Kawai K-300 Aures sounds like a good deal, an actual acoustic piano, as well as optical sensors to read velocity of hammers and get MIDI output. I'd probably try to get the Kawai K-500 Aures, the slightly taller model if possible.

Yamaha u3/u5 uprights, properly tuned and well looked after, with front and top panels wooden panels removed can sound fantastic.

>I'm not used to acoustics and the ones I encounter are sometimes sluggish or hard to play for me

Usually long-time DP players struggle with pedaling once they hop on a real acoustic.

This is because DPs are generally speaking very forgiving in terms of sustain pedal use - you can kind of be pretty sloppy with it and just kind of hold it down for extended periods of time with it rarely if ever getting muddy.

That's enabled by most DPs having a very short decay sound, plus each note is kind of thin/narrowband and isolated, with minimal string resonance (compared to a real instrument).

On a real instrument you kind of get audibly punished for being sloppy with pedalling. :)

And it takes takes a bit of time to re-learn proper sustain pedal use on a real acoustic.

Either way, good luck!