Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards What's the closest to an acoustic piano you've found?

Hi Mizaru (haha I just typed your name and IOS auto-corrected it to Mozart :-)

I have a powerful computer and have never managed to get Pianoteq to work without lag. It’s possible I’m not patient enough but I’ve spent hours messing with the sample rate, bit rate etc and never managed minimal-enough lag that it doesn’t affect my playing. You could download it for free (trial version), plug your laptop into some cheap keyboard, and see if it works for you. The other one to have a look at (listen to?) is the Galaxy Vintage D (http://www.galaxy-instruments.com/vintage-d.html) - someone posted a recording in the Members Recording forum recently and the sound is the best I’ve heard, if I didn’t already own pianoteq I would go with this.

Good luck!
Cathryn

Pianoteq definitely works for me without even a smidgen of lag. You should contact Pianoteq technical support and get that solved. Having any lag makes the product unusable. On a different technical issue, they responded and solved my issue in only 12 hours. From a timezone perspective, note that their tech support is based in Europe.

Me too! I only have an old cheap lappie from 2008, but the settings work without lag and give great reliable results for the stage version. If anyone wants these settings send me a pm.

Would you say that the Grand Feel key action is still worth it when the GF2 action is already out? Since the GF2 is not (yet?) available in slab form pianos.

No.

Although I'm quite impressed with the results PW member John Lewis Grant gets. First off, he's a great Bach player ! I'm under the impression his recordings are with software pianos. His recordings sound almost indiscernible from the real thing over my system - Neumann KH 120 and Benchmark DAC 3.
http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/users/26755/johnlewisgrant.html

If you can't afford the AvantGrand and want to stay under 5K- I don't think you'll get an argument that the MP11se has the best action in a stage piano. Not at all gig friendly. Like the other poster said, I prefer the MP11 action over the VPC-1.

I'm at 4 years, 8 months with my CP4. In my 51 years of gigging , I've never had a better playing or sounding electronic keyboard. But when you get into live stuff, half the battle are your speakers. I use the RCF TT08As with a studio grade preamp/di-- JMK Audio JM-110. That could be considered part of the "budget" if you don't want to play with phones all the time. Personally I'm at the point where it's hard for me to get past the 10 minute mark wearing them.

Or you could budget $3000 for a pair of studio monitors and don't worry about the live sound that much since it sounds like you would be gigging infrequently. The TT08As are detailed and hi-fi sounding enough to pull double duty btw. And can be had lower then the advertised internet pricing if you know where to shop.

If I had to choose a stage piano after the CP4 and needed to stay at or under my self-imposed 40 lbs., it would probably be the Nord Piano 4. Haven't played the NP4 but the NP3 while being pretty good, still wasn't up to the Yamaha action. What I've heard of it, I like the newer Nord Royal Grand sample quite a bit.

I'm primarily a Jazz player but do practice Classical on my piano at home. I never practice Classical on either digital piano though.

The two must-try's are Kawai's MP11SE and Yamaha's P515. The Yamaha is very new and hot, so may be hard to find.

cathryn999: You should check out this thread about reducing lag in Pianoteq by installing ASIO4ALL, setting buffer size, and turning off any CPU throttling on your PC.