Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Should my new Privia PX-5S exhibit this bounciness?

Nah. The tone in an acoustic piano doesn't start anywhere, the hammer just needs to be in a throwable position. The felts (at least in my upright) simply contact the strings slightly before the keys' are at resting position, and I said that the PX-5S also kills the notes slightly before returning to resting position - just that in this case the note killing most likely marks where the first sensors are at. But, my acoustic piano can play a new note when the key is maybe halfway from resting position - giving plenty of room between "replaying the key" and "halting the note". The PX-5S doesn't give that range, and I don't understand why would they do that – the extra sensor is already there, it simply shouldn't have been as close to the first sensor as it is.

The PX-5S retails at the moment for $1k US. This is a fantastic price print for the feature set it possesses. Mainly it has found fans in gigging musicians impressed by its light weight, sound pallet, controller features, and quite playable action. It indeed checks off a lot of boxes on the road. This following has also resulted in a very active community of users that share tips and tricks, patches, and a very healthy dialogue about what they would like to see Casio offer in a PX-5S successor.

For home use, there are surely instruments with different options, particularly where light weight isn't a major selling point, that may have preferable actions for some of us.

Most big vendors in the US allow us 30 or some even 45 days to return an instrument should we find it hasn't lived up to our expectations or fulfilled our specific needs.

The hammer needs to move some amount before it strikes the key, that's what I was trying to say with where the tone starts relative to the key movement - the key needs to travel some distance from rest before the hammer has swung far enough and hit the string.

Acoustics and grands have different actions - if the Casio is trying to emulate a grand, it won't have the same response. In other words, if they were emulating an upright, they might put the sensors in different positions. I'm not sure what the differences are exactly, but I wouldn't spend too much time comparing the differences between the digital and the upright, as long as they are both playable.

It would be interesting to try a 2 vs 3 sensor Casio and see what the difference is. I had a PX100 and a PX300 and thought the action was better than a lot of other digitals I tried. There were some things I wasn't crazy about, but I had to spend $2500 to find something a little better.

The most important thing I learned is to accept that a digital will never be an acoustic. They come close in a lot of respects, but never the same. Had I come to accept this sooner I might have spent a lot less time and money trying to find the perfect digital.

Well, I haven't played a grand piano–or much acoustics that I can even remember–but I doubt a grand's key would be any less repeatable than my uptight. They have actual double escapement mechanism.

It seems to me like the midway sensor was simply placed much closer to the initial sensor, and I really wonder why would they do that. It should be their own aspiration to take advantage of the extra hardware they've put in, yet it seems like the placement they went with ended up being an understatement of what a 3-sensor action should be capable of.

I think you should be contacting Casio about this, if you actually have an issue? All pianos, digital or acoustic have certain characteristics. You just have to adjust to play them. If you are really unhappy, send it back.

You are right about the "rebound" on a digital even on my CP5, which has quite a high-end action, is more than on my cheap upright.

The Casio is perfectly playable. I used to have a PX3, which I liked when I tried it in the shop. However, after a while, I was not mad about the action, as it was a bit slow, so sold it on...

My PX 5S does not do that. My keys go straight down, without the bobble I can see on your video.

Again, how come some (or most) of the comments say it is normal, and then you say you don't experience it on your unit?

@NickMS They told me it looks fine.

I think what you are observing is normal on your Casio PX5. With the Casio action, the hammer strikes two rubber strips with a thin strip of felt glued to the rubber. There is a certain amount of bounce as the key comes back to its rest. I believe this is how they engineer the keys so they return quickly. There is also felt used on the inside of the key stops. These are directly under the plastic key. I believe this felt is used to slow down the key bounce. But invariably, the keys will exhibit some bounce. It normally does not affect playability, but some users have noted this before and have wondered about it.

Just tried mine again. No bounce or let-off feel. Just a smooth movement all the way to the bottom of the key stroke.

Weird... Seeing how most comments taut it as the normal behavior of this model, I wonder whether yours is making something "wrong". I still feel like it's more pronounced than I would have liked it to be, but these other users don't seem to think it should be completely absent.

And I'm not sure what the lef-off feel be. I read it's the slight thump when an acoustic piano's hammer disengages from the key, but I don't think what I'm feeling on my PX-5S is a simulation of that.

Can you test out another Casio in a store to see if it does the same thing? I think the problem is that your video is slow-motion. What does it look like at normal speed with normal hand posture and normal arm weight?

I bought this one online as no store had it in my country. I could probably find one with other Privia models, though.

Regarding the video, the posture might not be ideal, but the weight is not all that weak. It only seems so because the video is slowed down. It might be a bit less pronounced in "regular playing" (though you'd very often want to play lightly in actual performance, so pointing out to that regarding my video doesn't make much of a point), but it's not hard to see with the naked eye in real time. I didn't shoot at regular speed because the camera isn't as proficient at capturing these bounces, though.

You didn't answer my question, though: does the bounciness exist when playing normally?

As I said in my first response, I can have my MP11 - a better action than the PX-5S IMO - display a similar characteristic without slow motion by playing as you did in the video. If you are not proficient at piano enough to tell, then accept that what yours is doing is perfectly normal and enjoy learning to play.

PS- You could try any of the Privia models such as PX-150 that has the same action as the PS-5S for some peace of mind.

Though I'm a bit late to chime in, I've investigated my PX-5S a bit about this issue. I can notice the keys maybe go up half a millimeter, when pressed down, before going down to the lowest position for good.

Still, the wobbling is only a fraction of what your video shows. It's so subtle, that I have to have all my senses on alert to notice it, and I would most certainly not notice it when playing something in the heat of the moment.

I don't understand why you have your fingertip on the brink of the notes you're playing. Does anybody play like that? Usually people have their hands above the keybed.

Anyhow, I tried both ways, and this wobbling is hardly noticeable, as I've said. The keys wobble a bit when released to the upright position, but I think that's normal.

That was so the keys are completely visible, but again – it doesn't react all that differently with "regular playing".
Anyway, either those who say it's fine don't know what they're looking at or Casio has quite a variation in the playability of their individual units. You say it's much more subtle for you, and another said he doesn't experience any of this on his keyboard.

I will ask, how long do you have your PX-5S? Maybe the felt or whatever cushions the inside experiences some change in texture as the keyboard is played a long time.

Ah I missed that, sorry. So then perhaps you can post a video of you playing normally. I'm guessing it could just be how you are playing that's making it a problem.

I've had mine for almost three years. I've actually had long periods (many months) of inactivity pianowise, so with regular playing maybe no more than a year and a half.

I can't remember if the PX-5S was any different in the beginning, at least I haven't noticed any difference between then and now.

Edit If it's of any help, here are my oldest videos I've posted. First one only a few days after I got the instrument, and the other one was posted about three months later.

These videos of the ones I've posted, have the closest view of the keys, but still not close enough, since their purpose was to get feedback on my progress, not the instrument itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp6BbJfnXM4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKotE7zc1-g

Yeah, I can't see it in these. The video recording is obviously not as revealing, but it does seem like there's no or at least very little bounciness so it would be hard to detect.

And I could add a more standard demonstration as well, but I don't have a stand yet so it's not easy to set up at the moment.