Ranking of the best digital pianos 2021-2022

Hmm… After Casio Yamaha, being a little cheaper, it looks really pale — instead of a full-size keyboard, there are only 76 keys, and they didn’t «deliver» a hammer mechanism. However, it’s not for nothing that this compact digital piano is included in the ranking of the best?

No, not in vain. The main trump card «Yamaha» is the sound. This is where Casio really loses, and noticeably. It even becomes a pity that the company installed not the best acoustics in the piano — in high-quality headphones, the sound of the NP-32 is revealed in a new way.

The set of effects is traditional, first of all, we note the high-quality reverb and chorus. For a novice musician, the built-in looper will be especially useful — having recorded the game of one instrument in its memory, you can switch the mode and play another virtual instrument over the recording.

There is also a keyboard split mode that allows you to do the same “live” — one hand plays the part of one instrument, the other — another. There is also a MIDI interface, so you can always use the piano with any VST synthesizer on your computer.

The indisputable advantage of «Roland» is a full-fledged 88 keys, while digital pianos of this class are often «cut down» in order to reduce the price. On the other hand, the Japanese company, which, by the way, will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, has seriously pierced in terms of portability — this model weighs all 7.5 kilograms, although the official website promises us «portability that allows you to play everywhere.» No, if the musician is a man, then you can still believe in it, but a girl who is able to carry this piano “always and everywhere” can be safely sent to the double bass department.

A useful function of the piano is its synchronization via Bluetooth with a tablet or smartphone (more convenient, of course, a tablet), which can be placed on a music stand as an interactive stave. In addition, in this case, you can transfer the piano and accompaniment recorded in the smartphone’s memory to the acoustics. Of the built-in “assistants”, the piano is equipped with a metronome and a transposition setting. And, by the way, it has a USB port — the piano also works as a MIDI device in addition to Bluetooth MIDI support.

The sensitivity of the keys to touch is customizable, in three levels. The mechanics itself is semi-weighted, of course, you can’t confuse it with a “live” piano, but, nevertheless, the keys feel quite interesting when playing.

There are four built-in tones: the actual piano, electric piano, organ and «strings». For an instrument that does not pretend to be a professional level concert, the sound is very interesting, in this regard, buying a Roland will not be a disappointment. Built-in acoustics — two broadband «ovals» 15×6 cm at 10 W each: if you are going to play a lot off the mains, stock up on batteries, and not trifles — size D, and in 2-4 hours the piano will «eat» six of them (an expensive pleasure , again conflicting with the declared «portability» — personally, the author would immediately think about an external lithium-ion battery pack with balancing and a decent capacity).

The company emphasizes the compactness of this model as a virtue, positioning the GO-61P as «a digital piano that can be played anywhere.» In addition to everything, the piano received 128-note polyphony and four dozen timbres — in addition to the piano itself and the electric piano, it can also pretend to be an organ, a drum kit, and so on (16 out of forty tones are assigned to the «Other» section).
In this case, the company is not joking about “playing anywhere”: with its 4 kilograms of weight and the possibility of being powered by 6 AA batteries, you can really carry the piano with you without any problems — another thing is that on the stand there is more than a twofold difference in weight from 10- kilogram Casio causes some feeling of fragility and «plasticity».

Unfortunately, hammer mechanics was “not delivered” here — the piano feels “wrong” with the fingers, and it is still not worth considering it as an educational option: it does not convey the normal playing technique on a real instrument. It’s a pity: in the end, the direct learning opportunities are not bad, for example, by connecting to a smartphone via the “blue tooth”, you can not be limited to the built-in memory for songs, but from the smartphone you can start the accompaniment phonogram that you will play, to the same buyers Roland is offering a three-month subscription to the Skoope online learning service.

Here the keyboard is even smaller — 61 keys. But the difference in price with the «32nd» model is more than noticeable — is it really only because of this? Let’s try to figure it out.

Let’s start with the fact that the cutback of the keyboard is compensated by the built-in transposition function. Of course, if you play passages across the entire keyboard, it will be inconvenient to use transposition, but how often do you need it?

The sound here is sampled from real Yamaha instruments in the same way, in order to reduce the cost, the built-in acoustics suffered — the power was reduced, the speakers themselves sound rougher. So, we started to play, but something is missing … That’s right — the right pedal is optional, that’s another secret to lowering the price.

The keyboard suffered the most here. If in the NP-32 the basses were noticeably heavier, then here the response of the keys does not depend on the octave, and this greatly spoils the instruments in comparison. Should I consider NP-12 as an alternative? Perhaps only if the issue of price is so acute.

Ummm… It’s definitely not a synthesizer, is it? After the simple interface of inexpensive digital pianos, this question can really come to mind. But no, despite the presence of pitch and modulation knobs, this is exactly the piano. And, we note, with a magnificent bank of samples, the wealth of which can only be envied.

The keyboard is made on a solid five — moderately rough keys are pleasant under the fingers, demonstrate a sharp sensitivity to pressing, and the hammer action mechanism works in no way distinguishable from a «live» instrument. But Casio has much more opportunities — let’s mention at least the possibility of splitting the keyboard into 4 zones, a built-in looper with memory for 100 songs and a bidirectional MIDI interface (that is, the piano can not only “command” VST on a computer, but also play MIDI tracks from him).

It is curious that there is no built-in acoustics here, which clearly hints at the concert purpose of the instrument. Well, at a concert you still have to play “on the remote”, and at home you can connect your favorite speaker system.

Of the minuses, we point out the monstrous interface — it’s more likely that not a pianist, but a lover of puzzles will be able to figure out the settings menu. On the other hand, all the most frequently needed functions are always «at hand» here.

Continues our review of the best CASIO PX-S1000 digital pianos. The late 2019 model is quite curious, especially considering how prices have risen for all models since then. Purely outwardly, the digital piano is already interesting — on a glossy surface (we will be grouchy: you won’t have to wipe it often, but very often if you take a model in black) there is only one “physical” power button, all other buttons are touch-sensitive. The volume control is analog, its large “twist” is hard to miss.

The case is extremely compact — in terms of dimensions and weight, the PX-S1000 managed to be made almost the same as the «younger» CDP-S100. And because of this, it was necessary to equip the hammer-action keys with only two sensors — but with the technology for tracking the incomplete release of the keys, so that they work in fact in exactly the same way as the “three-touch” ones. Moreover, it is believed that as a result, key control has become even more accurate than that of Casio models with three sensors — at least the previous generation. The keys are configured curiously: in the lower octaves they are heavier than in the upper ones, five levels of sensitivity are available in the settings. The hammers are also adjustable — well, Casio managed to achieve decent realism of the game tactilely.

And the sound of the piano is also worthy: 192-note polyphony with software processing of string resonance makes the sound very “alive”: just turn on the instrument right on the first Steinway bank to feel it. A separate plus for realism is the study of extraneous sounds: yes, an electronic piano can make noise with dampers just like a real one.

The built-in VIDI-recorder is rather weak in terms of built-in memory: it allows you to store only one two-track composition. Fortunately, this is not a problem: it provides for saving tracks to a flash drive, so in fact the amount of data saved is not limited (even a small 2-4 gigabyte flash drive by today’s standards will be filled with “mids” by few people).

Casio assembles its AP-270 model according to the classic three-sensor scheme with a decent range of sensitivity settings. For complete realism, perhaps there are not enough acoustic effects of the keystroke — but there is an imitation of the mutual influence of the strings, and «damper noise», and an imitation of the rebound of the hammer. The built-in sound banks offer 22 timbres (of which 9 are grand piano timbres, and numbering, of course, begins with New York Steinway). The polyphony is 192-voices, like that of the CASIO PX-S1000: with a large external difference, the built-in electronics are very similar. Even the memory of the recorder here is exactly the same designed for only one two-track recording … but there is no USB connector for saving additional tracks on a flash drive, like a compact «brother» has. More precisely, there is a USB port itself, but it is designed to connect only to a host device: a smartphone with OTG support, on which you need to install the proprietary Chordana Play application.

With it, by the way, the piano gets excellent opportunities for learning: when you start the tutorial, the keys begin to be highlighted, allowing the beginner not to get confused in the keyboard, which was not the case in the previous AP-260 model (it, in fact, did not know how to “be friends” with smartphones at all) . On the whole, despite some sensations of budgetary touch and reduced functionality, this model turned out to be a very interesting version of a cabinet digital piano at a relatively affordable price.

The updated line of Yamaha cabinet modern pianos began to be sold in Russia in the spring of the year before last, and the “one hundred and forty-fourth” model occupies the “lowest” place in it: this is the simplest and most affordable instrument. Alas, with a dual-sensor system and rather slippery keys: in principle, in the 14x series this is the norm, for something big you should look towards 16x or immediately CLP.

But, nevertheless, the company is not marking time, limiting updates only to numbers in the model index. Let’s start with the sound — yes, there are still 192 polyphonic voices with damper resonance, but the sound of the Yamaha CFX grand piano (which now costs under 12 million in Yamaha branded stores, note) was included in the number of timbres. New oval speakers with increased power work out the sound noticeably “tastier”, this is especially noticeable in the lower registers. Eh, here would be another string resonance …

Starting with this model, Yamaha no longer discriminates against owners of Android smartphones – if the previous series required the use of an application available only for “apple” gadgets, then the new Smart Pianist is available both in the AppStore and Google Play.

The F-701 «recipe base» is a combination of a PHA-4 Standard keyboard with a SuperNATURAL sound engine (no, the series of the same name has nothing to do with it). Keyboard sensors with 100 levels of touch sensitivity settings and 10 hammer response options (against the backdrop of Yamaha, this is a devastating advantage, it’s another matter that it’s worth delving into these levels only with serious playing experience) allow the musician to work with articulation as naturally as possible, and the information processed by the digital circuit makes the piano sound in response exactly the way a “live” instrument should have done.

The presence of a rich selection of «training» melodies allows you to use the piano as a «school desk» with great potential for the future — and we immediately advise you to buy good low-impedance monitor headphones for it. No, not in order to escape the wrath of the neighbors, although the author, who lived through the wall from the neighbor’s piano for several years, can understand such an idea — it’s just that the sound is felt as voluminously as possible in headphones. Although this is not binaural sound, as in the top Yamahas (where the sound of piano samples is recorded by two microphones at the level of the pianist’s ears, resulting in the same microscopic channel-by-channel delays and differences in tone that make the sound as realistic as possible), but with the technology turned on Headphones 3D Ambience game is really getting interesting decently.

Well, thanks to Bluetooth support and a proprietary application, you can play with maximum convenience — a «live» stave gives a huge advantage in terms of learning melodies and working on your technique.