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Do you guys think digital pianos should come with a Hard mode to mimic acoustic pianos ?

In this mode

It sounds kind of bad

The sustain gets distorted very quickly with more than a few notes

The dampers lift and close on uneven intervals.

The dynamic range is narrow such that it basically only responds with midi value 60 and above with a very hit or miss RNG minimum velocity.

Because otherwise digital pianos sound too good and responds so well that it ruins the player forever.

I noticed this when I was recently shopping, finally settling on an es520, that I could not control the soft tones on the store's flagship Steinway anywhere near as well as on the most budget digital.

Don't forget, it will go out of tune every few months until you sign up for a subscription "tuning service" for a tech to come by and hit a reset button.

And as you play, every few minutes the sound of someone coughing will come from the speakers.

Piaoteq's "Condition" slider does some of what you want. And some players prefer the sound when it' s set slightly off "Perfect".

Funny you say this, because I always find pieces much easier to play on my teacher's grand than on my digital piano+VST setup! I'm only an early intermediate player but the main things I notice are that it's much easier to play into the keys because of the pivot length and I find the escapement helps me calibrate very quiet playing.

I have noticed some of what you say but for me at least I already feel the digital piano is kind of like hard mode.

I think part of it has to do with what volume you're playing at. When I'm playing with the digital at a low to 'normal' volume soft tones seen rather easy. But if I actually set my piano to be as loud as an acoustic then the difference in volume between notes and lack of velocity 'resolution' at quiet dynamics becomes more obvious. So I try to always spend at least a few minutes with the digital roughly as loud as an acoustic to make sure my ears and touch are calibrated correctly.

Lol I appreciate all the conveniences of digital but I think have a point. I play my N1X in tune but tweaking the settings in Smart Pianist, I found it somehow more familiar and even a little soothing when I intentionally moved the pitch slightly out of tune.

at chickenbro, people do not perceive color exactly the same way, trichromacy targets fail all the time across audiences. It's probably even less uniform with sound.


calibration is an interesting idea, but I wonder if it is really scientific to target an acoustic's loudness. I know I never listen to piano cds as loud as an acoustic piano.


that subscription service would motivate me to practice more before paying for the reset.

the system may also drop notes randomly because on real pianos if you hit the key at an angle, sometimes the friction in the rail pin is so much higher that it doesn't make a sound at all compared to going straight down.

In my case I think it's less perception (subjective) and more associated characteristics. Acoustic pianos I've played or listened to others play on have tended to be slightly out of tune so when I replicate this effect on my digital, it sounds familiar even though I can perceive it's out of tune. I don't leave it out of tune but I'm only noting the pitch felt familiar when I played with it slightly off. The effect is probably a poor man's version of how some audiophiles prefer listening to music on vinyl vs. digital because it sounds more authentic and not "too perfect."

Just to be clear, I mean calibrated in a metaphorical sense, as opposed to a velocity curve, although that matters too!

That said, as someone who has studied a fair bit of acoustics (and knows more about acoustics than actually playing piano =]) I really think it's crucial to occasionally practice a digital at acoustic-piano levels, even if that's through headphones.

I care a lot about protecting my hearing, so I'd avoid doing it for too long, but a crucial aspect oft forgotten when comparing the touch of a digital piano touch to that of an acoustic piano is that our sensitivity to different frequencies changes with volume, especially in the bass. (Equal loudness contours).

What that means in practice is that if you are practicing at a low-to-comfortable volume on a digital piano you can get away with hitting bass notes *much* harder before it is perceived as muddy or boomy independent of the way the digital piano was recorded or calibrated. Play the same exact velocities at twice the speaker or headphone volume and it's like to sound significantly muddier.

That's a psychoacoustic phenomenon built into our brains, and that's before factoring in the fact that many digital piano speakers and some headphones don't extend down to the lowest frequencies linearly.

The volume you listen to a CD is different. For one, many mix/master engineers will take into account the fact that most people don't listen at reference SPL to at least some degree (in movies it is more common, but got music people tend to listen a fair bit quieter). For another it's different making something sound good in playback vs making something sound and feel good while you're playing.

Just some food for thought =]

Yep. There's just no way that pressing a button is gonna accurately mimic the response of a hammer being thrown at strings. Even Kawai's GF and Casio/Bechstein's hybrid are ultimately just pushing a button.

Yep. Just like there's no way a computer program can beat a man playing chess, or checkers, or Go. (I just heard the story of the Go program, which made a move that most people thought must have been a software glitch, but which won a crucial game. No meat-brain had ever thought about it hard enough.)

what if I never play my acoustic again, they can't make me, digital is just so versatile and responsive in a way that no acoustic pianos can approach. and like you've said, I'm saving my ears for other important things.

If you have no intention of playing acoustic, then don't sweat it. Pianoteq allows you to do some wild things.

I feel similar about guitar amp sims. They strive to be realistic, but it'd be cool to have some purposely unrealistic amps too. lol