Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards How close is a hybrid to the real thing?

May I politely ask what is the relevance of 'Lara6683' in this conversation? I hear you mentioning this person in your posts everywhere. On youtube she strikes me as a perfectly capable but hardly remarkable keyboard player.

Thanks for your post PG. Excellent post. And totally agree with your views too. Thanks for sharing the information about the choices taken, and this pathway that allows you to handle the situation, and still able to enjoy playing the piano. Hoping the inflammation condition improves with more treatment. All the best PG!

May I ask you politely in return if you're much more capable than her in piano skills? Sure, I can answer you. The point is ..... she plays the piano extremely well. She has particular talents. Gifted. And she demonstrates remarkable piano playing and musical skills ..... and she makes one of her pianos ... a P-255 ... really shine. So basically ..... the point is ... one absolutely does not require an 'acoustic' piano key mechanism or mechanical hammers or acoustic piano sound to make awesome and beautiful music. But this is about one piano type versus another.

Specifically though this thread is about hybrid pianos and their closeness to an acoustic. She does not play a hybrid so again, not sure she has particular relevance to this subject matter.

It is also about the words 'real thing' ..... referring to the title. As can be seen from the examples of Lara6683 and other people like her ...... acoustic 'action' ..... unnecessary for great music.

But ..... already mentioned ... just in case, once again ..... whatever somebody chooses to buy ... that is fine. As long as they're fine with it, then that's great. Although, it's ok to point out that you don't actually require acoustic 'action' for a heap of piano music playing. That's about it really.

Will ... just replying to your comment in the 'next' post. It's not deleted. The reference was merely an example for you to take in.

I see that your last post has been deleted SouthPark.

May I politely suggest that if you want to talk about 'Lara6683', you create a thread specifically about her? So that hybrid owners and potential hybrid buyers can discuss the subject matter. Thank you.

I see this pop in other domains...and I'm not the OP but I would suggest not reading too much or too metaphorically into "real thing." It doesn't mean digital pianos are incapable of making music or that the people who play them are not real musicians.

The fact is, a digital piano (including hybrids) have a mission, to emulate an acoustic piano as closely as possible. Their sound engines, their keys, their action and pedals, speaker placement, everything is based on, aimed to, measured against, compared to, marketed as, and in the case of hybrids even taken directly from, acoustic pianos. I don't think it's derogatory in the thread title to refer to acoustic pianos as "the real thing," in the sense that this is what the hybrid is striving to emulate.


Pardon the aside, but I've never seen Lara with a P255. I think she plays a P-155 (not that it makes any difference)? Talented artists can make any instrument shine. Again, nobody is saying you need a hybrid or acoustic in order to play virtuosically, or to take advantage of aphasia, perfect pitch or a gift to play by ear.

I disagree and would be a lot more tolerant. As Gombessa says, the thread title is unlikely meant in a derogatory way, but on the other hand it isn't strange either that someone highlights that not only acoustic pianos are real. Especially not on a digital forum, with lots of people playing music on digital pianos.

Why would only hybrid owners and potential hybrid buyers allowed to say something in a thread like this? I welcome opinions especially if they are motivated. Isn't interesting to see how many people would advice *not* to buy a hybrid as a grand piano replacement and for what reasons? Or why hybrids exist at all? The OP can always decide to weigh in this info or not. I don't see the point of telling people who have an honest opinion/contribution to go away. If this line of thinking was prevalent I would read almost no threads.

Just double-checked. It is the P-155 that she uses. I put in 255 .... but should be 155. The 155 model came before the 255. It's true. My responses were about the 'real thing' words in the title. And also adding. I know that you and I could make the 155 sound great. Although ..... I definitely haven't got absolute pitch and that particular mental music processing power.

On hybrid pianos vs, acoustic pianos...

OP, our experience is that the hybrid does provide a step closer to the realism of an acoustic, but not to the extent that a hybrid can be considered a flawless substitute for a real acoustic.

Sensors at the end of a real action is a great compromise but won't give an identical experience to an acoustic in terms of connection to the instrument.

Same with pedals, same with the sound reproduction.

Hybrids are absolutely a worthy consideration though providing you try them first (if you can) and have realistic expectations.

pianogabe - I am not trying to be difficult. It's simply that I have been following various recent posts from users and prospective buyers, and references from this user on this particular youtuber appear to crop up on all of them, where really it isn't adding anything in furthering the conversation.

There are other threads more suitable for sharing videos of people we like without leading topics off course, is all.

I snorted. Maybe YOU can! But I would probably make a Borgata Grand Prix beg for the junkyard after 2 pathetic minutes 🤣

I would love to see an objective Bosendorfer D214VC ENPro comparsion P-155 review by you Gombessa!

hahaha! Such modesty! Thumbs up!


haha PG! There's golng to be too much bias in that review. But jokes aside. It is really nice in that everybody is enjoying the piano playing with the variety of absolutely wonderful instruments out there.

+101

Nobody has to be offended or take it for the truth, if I say when I did look upwards the nv10 showed the n1x it’s tail.

Your “ There is no need at all to work towards acoustic action. ” also applies for grand action versus upright action.

However I see room for a lighter upright touch, with modified mechanics, accommodating some nv10 candidates. ‘NU3X’

+100. There is room indeed for that. It's awesome how the design teams work toward providing instruments that accommodate everybody.

Also ... for the NU1X ... yamaha came up with a nice firmware fix for the surprise 'loud' note issue that surfaced sometimes, which wasn't really acceptable. You probably know about that one already. They got a solid fix for it which is nice. Maybe nobody knows that the history is about that issue (although non-issue now, as there's the fix for it) ------ but would be extremely interesting if anybody from the 'rigorous' testing department actually encountered that issue during the rigorous testing phase for that particular hybrid piano.

For my P-515 (non hybrid) - I was actually surprised with one unsatisfactory behaviour, where the one-button push recording mode really does start recording our playing once we begin to play (which beings in the automatic paused recording mode). But the note (sound) from the very first key strike is very noticeably delayed, while all succeeding keys pushed there-after is all fine. So a 'slightly' poor effort from the 'rigorous' testing department. Not a major issue though, as a work-around is to just hit one more button to start recording in 'unpaused' mode. So no real drama overall. Maybe yamaha will have an update sometime in the future (nobody knows for sure though for a fix). But at least they really put out a software fix for the previously unacceptable issue with the NU1X hybrid.

I think the answer to that is clearly yes, during testing of the NU1X, during testing of the prior generation NU1, and even years before the NU1 was ever released, or even conceived.

The NU1 and NU1X manual expressly call out the loud note issue, saying that:



And way, way before the development of the NU1, in fact back in 1997, Yamaha's own patent for an optical hammer sensor calls out the limitations that begat this feature:


As discovered by former member Cybergene a few years back.

Yamaha was well aware of the limitations of a key-only sensor system from the beginning. And they actually have an upright hammer sensor....they just....don't use it on their upright hybrid???

I used the fixed firmware for the NU1, and can confirm that it doesn't 100% fix the loud note issue (it's impossible that it could do so). A 100% fix requires using a hammer sensor.

Thanks gombessa. Excellent post and most excellent information!

I’ve seen the same thing, and I’ve felt the same way. Having seen some of her Youtube videos upon recommendation, I would not consider her a remarkable keyboard player or even a remarkably gifted musician. There are many on Youtube and in real life who do what she does & do it better. She’s had the good sense to market herself to the Twitch & Youtube audience that likes her aesthetic & are willing to pay to see her play/hear her renditions of pop songs & video game/anime/tv/movie/cartoon songs. If you like that, wonderful, and she deserves kudos for her branding & advertising ability. However, I certainly wouldn’t lift her as a standard if the conversation is whether or not people can use digitals the same way they use acoustics, simply because she doesn’t possess the best technique or musical talent in her field/genre, & complexity of performance is the defining factor that separates acoustics from digitals. Popularity doesn’t always translate to the measure of one’s talent. Unless a person has an extremely virtuosic technique & high level of musicianship and prefers digitals, then they shouldn’t be lifted as a response to the claim that digitals don’t allow for the complexity that acoustics do.

- And just in general:

I must also say that I don’t understand the vitriol to this topic, & the resulting unnecessary crusade by people who prefer digitals to acoustics. Pretending offense at the suggestion that acoustics are “the real thing” is an illogical stance. The bottom line is that, at this point, hybrid pianos & digital pianos are still built to emulate the acoustic instrument. When you look at how Yamaha, Kawai, Casio, & Roland build & even advertise their digitals, it is based on their ability to replicate the experience of a real acoustic instrument, e.g. GrandTouch, GrandFeel, hybrid actions, samples of top-tier acoustics, and even emulation of the look of acoustics. To pretend that they are not modeled after acoustics, and to act as if acoustics aren’t, thus, “the real thing” is an odd hill. (And digital pianos/hybrids are different from stage pianos, synthesizers, etc.)

There also seems to be this glaring straw man response. People are acting as if those of us who point out that acoustics are superior *for certain genres* are somehow suggesting that you can’t make “amazing” & “beautiful” music on a digital, and using that intentional misrepresentation & glaring distortion of our position as some rallying cry to push digitals as equal in all capacities. But the discussion was never about the ability to create “amazing” or “beautiful” music. The statement was that acoustics are *superior for certain genres*. Those points are not the same. The fact is there are some genres of music for which digitals do not surpass acoustics at matching the musical intent of a performer. And erasing/ignoring that by saying “ oh well it works for what I like so that means it’s perfect” is fallacious.

If the actions in a digital suffice for the genre of music you like, but *don’t* suffice for all genres, then it is still imperfect, because it doesn’t work for everything, whereas an acoustic does. And if even with the assistance of virtual instruments that offer hundreds of velocity layers, highest quality sound, and GBs upon GBs of data, the sound quality of a digital still doesn’t surpass that of an acoustic *in certain genres*, then it is still imperfect. Anything you can do on a digital piano (hybrid or otherwise) you can do on an acoustic, but the same simply is not true in reverse. On an acoustic, you can play anything from the prohibitively complex classical works of Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Beethoven, Alkan, Scriabin, & Prokofiev & the finger-busting virtuoso classic jazz arrangements of Art Tatum & Thelonious Monk to the triads, powerchords, & floating harmonies of modern music. You cannot exceptionally play extraordinarily complex music of *any* genre on a digital, with the same sonic quality and ease of performance that you can get on an acoustic. And erasing the experiences of people who perform genres of music for which digitals are not sufficient in an attempt to push the point that digitals are equal is false logic. Lara on Youtube may be able to do the genre of music she does on a digital, but those who play music with more complex technical requirements or more complex musical requirements still recognize that digitals can only approximate an acoustic, ***IF YOUR GOAL IS AN AUTHENTIC PIANO SOUND***.

These glaring omissions of fact, straw man misinterpretations/distortions, & the imagined insult simply by highlighting the realities of acoustics vs. digitals are odd. The highlighting of the perceived weaknesses of acoustics and the glossing over of the weaknesses of digitals is odd. The minimization of people’s experiences, even going as far as to deny people’s ability to differentiate between digitals & acoustics, despite what they say, is odd. And the forceful steering of the topic toward digital supremacy, when the OP was very clear in their feeling, their preference, and their question is odd. So I’m not quite sure that it is those who hold acoustics as the standard who’ve been “intolerant”, thus far, in this thread.

Not sure if this is in response to my post, but since I asked for more tolerance: that had nothing to do with opinions on acoustics vs digitals vs hybrids. This was about who can participate in the thread.

On the topic itself: in my opinion if your goal is to get an authentic piano sound, which you mention, my answer is that DPs and hybrids are "not very close". The sound is less close than that of good VSTs, and the difference between the best VSTs and acoustic sound is also still substantial.

The OP's question was how close it "feels", and then it depends on what you mean with "feel". Touch (as in force on your fingers) is identical for a hybrid because the action is an acoustic action. However, it has been pointed out that you can't fully separate that component of feeling with the component of hearing. The brain mixes different modalities in one experience. And so the sound produced has an effect on how an action feels.

Of further relevance, but not often mentioned, is that the latency between key press movement and sound generation on a hybrid (and DP) may be different than on an acoustic, and thus influences how the action feels. I quantified this on my upright silent piano, which you can see as a hybrid NV5 with only headphone output and an acoustic K300 in one piano. It turns out that the hybrid part has overall a shorter key movement-sound latency than the acoustic part. Also, latency does not scale in the same way with key velocity. On the acoustic component latency scales more strongly with key velocity than is the case on the hybrid component.

Whether or not this leads to a feeling that is close enough is subjective. Personally I think a hybrid is a perfect solution for people who want an acoustic action for whatever reason, but who can almost never play acoustically because of neighbors etc. But I would not buy it as a replacement for an acoustic grand because you can't find a suitable grand on the current market. I would be more patient and wait until you do find a nice grand piano.

My post wasn't really intolerant, though, was it? I was merely pointing out that a user has been posting the same thing on several different threads with links to a keyboard player whose output bears absolutely no relevance to the points being discussed, and that perhaps there are more suitable places to talk about and promote her.

I don't know what the rules are on this forum, but do know that on many that would be considered 'spam' and the user would be asked to stick to the topic. This has nothing to do with tolerance or intolerance.