Digital piano advice

[Hugh_Jazz]

Folks,

My New Year's resolution is to learn to play a bit of piano. Never played one in my life, so consequently I know nothing about the subject. Inevitably, I need to buy something to play, and am planning on buying a digital piano since I've no room for a proper one.....budget 400-500.

Any recommendations on what to go for, or what to avoid?

Cheers

Neil

[HairyScaryMark]

Weird time to be posting by me. Just got back from pub.

A number of choices but for the price you mention I would recommend Roland RD170 (~450). High quality digital piano that a number of local musicians on here use with great sucess. Piano sound and feel is much better than anything i've tried in pre 1000 category.

If you want to spend less you could investigate the M-Audio pro-keys 88 or Yamaha P series but they aren't as good.

Casio privia is not meant to be bad but if you have the money, go for the Roland as it wont feel inferior.

Also, good luck with learning piano. Want any help, just ask. Not that I am a great piano player but I can offer some advice.

[spellchecker]

i have an m-audio prokeys 88 and it is not bad - good value for money i would say. i bought mine from thomann however it developed a fault (the blue leds began to fail one by one) and i have had to send it back. the playing action is nice and has some nice layer and split functions.

i probably would have bought the roland if i was a better player and thought i could justify it - however the prokeys more than meets my needs. i found reviews on the web to be mostly accurate - the grand piano sound is great at the bottom and a bit twinkly towards the high end, though playing with the reverb can rectify this to some extent.

as always it is best to play before you buy. note also that the prokeys has no onboard speakers so you have to use headphones or plug in the analog outs into a soundcard / speakers / hi-fi or something.

[HairyScaryMark]

Probably best avoiding keyboards with onboard speakers as a general rule as they tend aimed at the 'home' market and generally less flexible. For example, I came across a yamaha digital piano that had fairly good onboard sounds but lacked a midi out. It also refused to sit on a 'normal' keyboard stand properly.

A lot of musicians have something lying around that they could plug into until a set of studio monitors, PA speakers or keyboard amplifier can be afforded.

[Hugh_Jazz]

Probably best avoiding keyboards with onboard speakers as a general rule as they tend aimed at the 'home' market and generally less flexible. For example, I came across a yamaha digital piano that had fairly good onboard sounds but lacked a midi out. It also refused to sit on a 'normal' keyboard stand properly.

A lot of musicians have something lying around that they could plug into until a set of studio monitors, PA speakers or keyboard amplifier can be afforded.

Thanks for the comments so far. I came across this piano which seemed to tick all the right boxes and looks like a decent deal:

Korg SP-250

Any comments?

[HairyScaryMark]

Korg have never really specialised in digital pianos and are not really that well respected for them. The ones available today are better than the older ones. In saying that, I have never actually played a Korg digital piano but own a number of their other keyboard products.

It appears the Roland RD170 is no longer in production but instead you could get EP - 880, FP - 4 or RP 101 by them. I think the FP - 4 is the most similar to the RD170 but is 700. I suspect this deliberate to adjust the price range their pianos fit in. Their EP - 880 is a bit chepaer at around 500

You could still search ebay however there has generally not been a huge number of Roland digital pianos on there when I have looked prevously. The RD100 is ok but not nearly as good as RD170. RD150 however is meant to be nearly as good.

Also look at Yamaha P90(secondhand as it is out of prodcution, i think), P70, P140 and CP300.