I have no doubt digital pianos will not only close the gap between acoustics - they will actually surpass the experience.

How? Certainly not with the approach of today. Current technology, even in foreseeable future can only get us so far. Though we can get close - the main problem will always be speakers and tactile feedback. Simulating the real thing, would actually require almost replicating it, and it still won't be quite the same, never mind defeating the purpose.

What can, and will happen eventually though is advancements in Virtual Reality. What's playing a piano, but a composition of sensations (hearing, touch, sight), and those in turn are nothing but electrical signals processed by your brain. If we can tap directly into brain, bypassing our traditional inputs (fingers, ears, eyes) we'll be able to simulate the real thing achieving a perfect illusion of playing the real thing. In fact you'll be simply "plugged" into a computer - and the $100,000 Grand you'll be playing will be just code. Matrix anyone? Imagine playing Vivaldi's "La Primavera", and be able to "smell" the spring air.

I say another 100 years or so, coupled with a discovery or two on the scale of a transistor, and we'll be set.

And by then we will have simulated:

wives, mistresses and girlfriends
holidays
gourmet meals

Whilst we are plugged into the computer. Imagine that. Wonderful.

Er, No.

Don't be so sure - for all you know you could be living in a simulated reality right now. Actually some people claim, that perfecting Virtual Reality technology will be the last invention, and the end of humanity. Mainly because no-one will want to leave their simulated "heaven".

LOL! Very funny.

I mean, sure, what you're saying may possibly be done in the far, far future, but it will never happen anyway.

Think of testing that must be done before it can be released as a standard. It'll take decades if not centuries of scientists saying, "Oops, we just damaged his brain. Let's try again on someone else." People might not like that.

Heck, we can't even write a web browser that is a bloated buggy POS, and all it does is 1. communicate with a server a verrry simple protocol, render output to the user. If you make the parallel of the rendering (multimedia today, neural impulses tomorrow), it's hard to imagine that even if we could do it, that in 100 years that it would take the form of something even remotely stable enough to completely depart "the real world". Limited timed periods sure, but nothing matrix like for a really long time.

Never say never. I'm sure if you told a person 100 years ago, that you can store the contents of an entire library on a chip the size of a thumbnail - they'd think you're crazy. With internet, and the way research across the globe can be instantaneously shared, one can only expect an explosion of new, improved inventions.

Besides interfacing with the nervous system, even though still crude, has already been done - artificial eyes (still baby steps - only a few pixels of resolution and monochrome), artificial limbs, that are actually controlled by brain generated impulses. A lot of it is just a matter of scale at this point.

If you are comparing the experience of a digital piano against that of an acoustic piano, the imitation will never be better than the original. The best you can hope for is that it will the same, or for a more healthy outlook, that you will prefer the digital over the acoustic.

If you have different criteria, for instance, if you want lots of different sounds from a keyboard, then digital pianos have already surpassed acoustic pianos. There are other criteria that might make one decide that a digital is better than an acoustic as well. It all depends on what you want. If you are looking for the highest note, a piccolo will surpass a tuba. It does not mean that a piccolo is better than a tuba, or that nobody need play a tuba any more because there are piccolos.

Hmmm. I'm reading your posts again and again, Eternal...

That brings me to ask this question... Are you even talking about digital pianos anymore? Or are you talking about computers?

When you say that digital pianos will surpass acoustic pianos through virtual reality and/or controlling neurons, you are talking about people being hooked up to computers.

In the second paragraph of your first post, you said that we don't have any technology in the foreseeable future to replicate acoustics. And then you jump far ahead and say what eventually will happen is the advancement of virtual reality will take place. But you totally skipped the topic of this threads title, about how digital pianos will surpass acoustics.

Let's rewind back to that part. I'd like to hear what you have to say about it.

Oh, and I see from your profile that you're an engineer.

I don't quite agree with that. Here's why. You agree that some acoustics are better than others? (better as in overall better sound, response - a multitude of factors)? Playing those better acoustics, is equivalent to having a better experience. If you create a virtual acoustic, that is entirely simulated, you will be able to control every single one of those factors, that make an acoustic good. In essence - you will be able to create a perfect instrument - an impossible feat if you were to do it in the "real" world. Consequently your virtual experience will be better than you could ever hope otherwise.

Bada-bing, bada-boom!!!!

Yes, I'm an electrical engineer. I guess it is entirely conceivable that the information stored in the Virtual Reality computers will no longer be done so in discrete units, so the term digital will no longer apply - but for now there's no reason to assume it won't. I guess a more general term would be - "Software/Virtual pianos will be better than real acoustics", but it's just semantics at this point.

On of Edison's quotes is: "We will make electricity so cheap only the rich will burn candles".
Turns out he was right - I'm sure the Superior Virtual Pianos will be so cheap at one point, that only the rich will play Real Acoustics. (though it seems to be the case already)

Eternal, I'm hardly rich and play a vintage acoustic that I just adore. It is precisely the very imperfections that digitals correct that provide much of the appeal of "the real thing": No two key strikes produce exactly the same sound, the strings are always under pressure and slowing going out of tune. The very things deemed deficits are what provide the satisfaction of playing an acoustic. I have both an acoustic and a fully-weighted digital that sounds more piano-like than that in many of the digital recordings heard here. I almost never play the digital anymore. Speaking ONLY for myself, no matter how accurate the digitals become, they will never overcome my built-in biases toward authenticity.

Fortunately, and I think based on what you've written in the past that you will agree with this, the free market allows each individual to choose what is best for him or her. The idealist can spring for the digital, and purist can go for the real thing. It doesn't have to a "yes it is! no it isn't" type of debate.

I can come a lot closer to that on an acoustic instrument than anyone has managed with a digital instrument, as far as I know. But my point was if at some point a digital instrument is a "better" instrument than an acoustic, it cannot be a good imitation.

Perhaps in the future, acoustics and digitals will mate and form an ideal instrument.

Acoustic that is digitalizing:
http://www.boesendorfer.com/index.php?menu=64

Digital that is acousticizing:
http://kawaius.com/main_links/digital/new_cp/cp207.html

Maybe someday, there will even be a(n) bio/organic piano with it's own brain, that will be able to learn and sing out different sound voices. :p

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano

This technical advancement causes the authenticity of any piano built since to be called into question.

Virtual Reality? That is SO 80's!!! Have you seen Lawnmower Man?

To make that case (that ANY advancement nullifies authenticity) you'd have to assume that a clean-room digital - built without any knowledge of a real piano - would inevitably become its equivalent. Given the wide-open possibilities afforded by a palette of RAM, clocks, and oscillators there is no reason to believe that. Otherwise, why THAT target (remember, we are clean-room)? Why not something with a more "pure" and ideal tine like the sine-wave, aka the electrics of the 1960's?

A digital is not a piano (nor should it be shackled to piano limitations) any more than a piano is a harpsicord. The mechanisms for producing sound are vastly different. In the latter case, the sound itself is different.

I think it's safe, given the relative stability of the instrument for the last 100 years or so, to make a consensus assumption as to what a "piano" is, though if you wanted to split hairs on that I suppose you could.

Because that's totally uninteresting.

My high school trig teacher showed an entire video on sine and cosine waves. Most of the class was sleeping, but he was watching in pure bliss with a grin on his face.

It is interesting, because digital generally cannot do sine waves. At best, they can approximate them by square waves. The highest note on a piano is going to be something close to:

...... —

... —...—

— .........—..........—

................—....—

...................—

because each cycle is only sampled so many times per second. Unless you go to analog synthesis, that is the best sort of approximation you are going to get. Higher sampling rates will yield a better approximation, but it is still an approximation. Lousy speaker response will smooth a lot of that out, of course. But that just points out another problem that occurs with synthesizing sounds, the translation of the electronics into audible sound.

(I have edited the graph, replacing spaces with periods to display this properly. Ignore the dots!)

Well, I meant aurally interesting with respect to the timbre.

The human ear acts a a low pass filter and does not respond to a 22KHz square wave. Any digital artifacts you hear on current technology is due to other factors, usually compression, which has been done to save memory.

That may be the case. On the other hand, what the ear approximates the 22kHz square waves may not be to what it hears when it reacts to the notes of a piano, which are not sine waves, either.

I think that the acoustical and digital really are 2 different things. Whether one is the same as or better than the other will always be in the eye of the beholder.

I like this comparison.

Don't underestimate the power of approximation. It's used every day in our lives and most people don't realize (you're staring at an approximation of color right now, when you watch tv/movies, you're looking at sampled movement). At high enough sampling rates, other factors will swamp perceived performance.

I hesitate to give my opinion. It seems we 'play' the acoustic piano as an instrument that emits vibrations and responds to our ability or skill.

With a digital piano we operate an electronic device that provides sounds that copy some of the vibrations of the acoustic. But to my ears they are not pure, close, but something is lost in the imitation process.

Has anyone tried to play the famed classics on a digital I wonder ?

swingal (Alan)

This technological debate is rather funny as I've seen it happen several times thus far.

First was the introduction fo the digital compact disk vs a traditional vinyl record. It did'nt take more than a few minutes to run the frequencies of the produced sounds through an oscilliscope to determine that the purest/most accurate sounds wre achieved by the new cd format. Still, many audiofiles today rather prefer the more mellow, warmer sound of vinyl as opposed to a digital format.

After the audio method went digital, next was the video signal; specifically analog vs digital.

Remember the gigantic 'C-band' statelite dishes?. They were the size of a large space ship!. They were also relying on a strong analog signal for reception. Today, many have been replaced by digital "mini" dishes that utilize a fixed satelite location and use a far superior high definition digital signal for its reception. Still, there are numerous foreign stations that can only be reached by the analog C-band receivers.

Next on the block was the introduction of the digital camera. At first, even the most experienced photographers were very skeptical and said that a digital camera could never achieve the same results as a manually controlled and focused camera could.

While this statement is certainly debatable, not everyone has thousands of dollars for expensive lenses, light meters, etc and we are not even talking about the cost of the camera itself or the hassle of developing the film manually or even on paper.

The fact is that just about everything has gone digital with much succsess. Records, 8-tracks and tapes have turned into CD's, MP3's, and now even MP4's!. Half pipe skateboard park sized C-band analog satelite dishes have become high definition digital mini dishes. Big bulky manually focused camera's have now become lightweight tiny digital devices. (BTW, in Japan, you can get a 7mp digital camera on your cell phone!, yes "7" mp!!)

So now its finally time to take a look at applying this digital technology to musical instruments. This may be a monumental task to say the least as there are just SO many variables that are involved.

The reproduction of sound will depend not only on the quality of the equipment used (for speakers, amps, digital samples etc), but there is also the acoustics to consider.

Digitally reproducing sound is also missing a third dimension which is hard to describe. It has to do with the resonance felt by both the performer and the listening audience.

This "3rd dimension" is currently trying to be replicated in whats known as "modeling". It is a way for the performer and audience to not only hear the sounds being produced, but to feel them as well.

This aspect of digital audio reproduction is what is currently limiting a "true" digitally produced sound to exactly mimick an acoustic one.

I am not saying that digital is better than acoustic or vise versa, however, I am also not writing off the ability for a digitally produced sound to exactly replicate an acoustic one in years to come.

Time will tell.

If past history is any indication of the future, it will certainly be exciting to see what the instruments of the future will be capable of. I'm not counting anything out just yet!.

I am an electrical engineer who has been designing aircraft communication and navigational radios and audio systems.

To me the question concerns economics and physics. Every year it gets cheaper to manufacture a better digital piano vs a labor intensive acoustic piano. So for the same money a digital offers a superior electrical signal to that output jack than the acoustic could offer to a perfect microphone. The digital piano's amplification system can not yet translate a signal at it's output jack to the acoustical wave pressures that reach your ears in the same exact way as the acoustic piano. To some people that is not so important. An array of speakers may help with the wavefront issue.

Optical semiconductors, and and nano-machines are on the horizon. I wonder what a $120,000 digital piano would sound like.

Digitals are already superior for amateur recording ease, tuning, weight, cost, midi functions, silent practice, and emulation of other (acoustic and electronic) instruments.

Yet, to me they lack the "soul factor. And when the power is out, light a candle and play away.

I propose a modified Turing Test ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test ) to determine when a digital piano achieves "intelligence". If two pianos, one digital and one acoustic, are placed side by side and played by a judge who then can not reliably determine which piano is the acoustic and which is the digital, then the digital piano is said to have passed the test and is deemed "intelligent".

Personally, I don't see a digital piano (or a virtual reality digital piano experience) passing this test while still costing less than an acoustic.

The digital piano ALREADY surpasses the acoustic.
Just not in the same functional areas, is all.

You want pure piano? well, that's acoustic. by definition.

You want a kajillion sounds at the same time that morph all over the place on top of what you're playing live (which also has a kijillion sounds that morph all over the place)? You really won't get that out of an acoustic. People have tried, but that's the domain of a digital.

Digitals Rule !

Ummm...okay. And baseball bats surpass acoustic pianos at hitting baseballs. Baseball bats rule!

Digital Baseball Bats Rule !!!

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh I got a good laugh from that!!

Acoustics always look cooler to play on so they'll win.

Wooden or Aluminum?

This morning I listened to all 52 pieces of the ABF's Recital VII, without having looked to see who recorded what on which piano. Then I checked to see which I guessed as accoustic versus digital. I didn't get a single one wrong. While some of the digitals sound quite nice, they are simply not the same. And I'm not saying I thought *all* the accoustics sounded superior. Not all did. But I still find the digital sound rather synthetic and easily detectable. Reminds me of the difference between an old well-engineered piece of vinyl with sounds captured well outside the 20-20,000 htz range versus a CD. Something of the essential texture of the sound is missing. "Is it live or Memorex?" I think I can tell.

An "acoustic" baseball bat must be swung in the traditional manner by the batter while with a "digital" baseball bat, the batter simply holds the bat over the plate as the ball approaches. An electromagnetic field generated by the digital bats "sweet spot" will ensure that the approaching ball hits the best part of the bat every time. Once contact is made between the ball and bat, an opposing electronic force is released thereby sending the ball in the opposite direction. The angle in which the batter holds the bat will determine the direction of the ball...i.e grounder to third, high fly to center field, etc.

It is only a matter of time until this technology is used in just about everything we do... [Digital golf, digital bowling,etc).

Many Police depts have already gone to "digital guns" in the form of a Tazer, (now your really laughing right because this is actually true!!); and I am currently working on developing a form of "digital fishing" that does not utilize a conventional fishing pole and lure, but rather an extension cord and a portable power source!.

What a great experiment, ChickGrand! Wish I had thought to do that. Maybe next recital.

And very impressive that you were able to tell, given the primitive recording setups most of us were using. Or, maybe the fact that you were able to do so with such high accuracy DESPITE the primitive recording setups etc. suggests that the gap between digital and acoustic is still pretty high.

[Edit: Or perhaps it is the primitive recording setups that are the give-away; perhaps you were picking up more on microphone hiss, ambient room noise, etc. on the acoustic recordings, whereas the digitals are going to lack all that extraneous noise given how they're recorded? ]

The more of this discussion I read, the more I am leaning toward the conclusion that digitals and acoustics are simply different beasts, with much to offer for different purposes.

But maybe the *real* question is whether the acoustic piano will survive as a viable instrument vs. being relegated to a status as interesting historical oddity. I hope not, but I can envision a future where only concert halls and music conservatories have acoustic grands and everybody else is playing digitals.

I quite liked mr-super-hunky's comments about resonance. It "echos" the reason my 8 year-old daughter recently gave for playing her violin: "because I love the vibrations it makes!"

Heya,

I'm not sure digitals will every really replace acoustic pianos! I've been going round searching for a digital (space, noise etc). I'm still young though - if I ever own a house with the space - it'll definitely be an acoustic piano.

Theres just something about them! Maybe knowing you can open the lid and see the hammer hit the strings... can't do that with the DP;s . Might just be my nature , but I quite value that.

Simon

Here's a little comparison test I recorded for a friend in the piano sampling business a few years ago:

http://www.sampletekk.com/proddemos/tso/Creeks%20of%20Missouri-TBO1.mp3

http://www.sampletekk.com/proddemos/tso/RR-demo.mp3

I think these are better than digital baseball bats. On a good day I can play either with one click of my mouse.

Howard

I don't think it was the recording quality that gives it away at all, as that varies enormously without regard to accoustic versus digital. I've listened to all the pieces amid all the 7 recitals and never had any problem knowing. Actually only one piece I've ever heard had me fooled on *first* listen, but not on a second closer listen.

For me, it's like comparing pointilistic painting (digitals) to photography (accoustic). The sound wave is simply *not* the same. That's why I likened it to CDs versus LP. There *is* more information in an LP, i.e., higher *resolution*. I'd wager that even the most sophisticated giga-sampled digitals would *still* fall short of replicating some of the fine interplay of sounds that emanate from an actual accoustic piano (well, except for something like one of those Winter spinets that sounds like a rubber band on a washtub always).

Actually, I was disappointed overall in the recital because and only because of that overwhelming predominance of digitals. I think they're far more forgiving and rather easier to make sound "musical" and therefore not as good a gauge of a person's actual technique. An accoustic piano gives away every fault in technique. But it also shows up every bit of wonderful understanding. Listening to the digitals, I felt I may just as well have been listening to midi-controllers connected to fair-to-middling sample providers. Among my many pianos, I have a high-end Kawai stage digital. Guess which one is the only one that never gets played? (Though that might change if I ever get around to hooking up that big Crown amp to the Magneplanar speakers and get into that pipe-organ voice.)

It isn't that they don't sound "good" or "musical". They just don't sound like a *piano* to these ears. They sound just like what they are--electronically generated waveforms.

And I am not arguing any of that. You'll see that I pointed out, there is no way we'll be able to exactly reproduce acoustics with current digital technology. There's plenty of threads on that already - and I fully agree with those - especially lack of feedback from pressing the key, and 2-point speaker limitations.

But it is bound to happen one day, with "virtual pianos" (which in a way will be distant grand-children of DPs of today). All the necessary "inaccuracies" of the acoustics will be modeled as well, to the point where you will have an exact replica in virtual world. I think it's pretty safe to say, that IF our technology advances far enough where we can produce Matrix style virtual reality - modeling a wooden box, with some wire in it won't be much of an issue.

Why would anyone chose to play that ideal replica, rather than the real thing? For one thing - it'll be cheaper (like the DPs of today). And also - it will offer you things you can't do with acoustics. You could for example, eliminate all external noise (including your breathing), and hear just the piano.

I just finished reading all of the comments, and noticed this thread got a little off-track, and some people confuse current Digitals, with my hypothetical Virtual Reality pianos. I'm not arguing the Digital Pianos as we know them will surpass acoustics. At the very best they'll become 99.999% approximation.

On the other hand, Virtual Pianos by interfacing directly with the brain, will be able to fool us 100%, and do much more.

Of course, this is all hypothetical, as Virtual Reality is still decades if not centuries away, but we'll get there sooner or later.

I changed the title of the thread to "Virtual" instead of "Digital" to eliminate some of the confusion.

As I see it, the art of the piano is the player. You create the music. With electronic devices you program the music and the electronics perfect the process.

I have both instruments, but I feel a cheat operating a digital instrument. Yes electronics can create art forms but surely that is a contradiction in terms.

I just wish the acoustic piano was as easy to play as the digital thing. I know this is controversial.

Alan (swingal)

This is not true. The noise floor of CD is many decibels (maybe up to 30dB or so) *below* an LP, and the bandwidth is significantly greater. It follows that the information content is greater. Forget thinking about the 'squareness' of digitised waveforms, they don't look like this when the squares are 96dBs down. Therefore any LP sound is perfectly reproducable at CD sample rates.

As far as DPs are concerned, the hurdle as mentioned by mr_super_hunky above is due to the lack of, erm, spacialness. There needs to be a speaker for every string, or some kind of 2-dimensional soundboard. The current setup of a couple of big speakers with some peripheral tweakers here and there is never going to compete with a real instrument, no matter how good the quality of the voice.

On the other hand, physically (as opposed to electronically) I can't see how DPs like the Yamaha CLPs can improve the action now they've incorporated the whole acoustic mechanism into the keys.

With all due respect twitchy, no DPs (except perhaps the Yam GTs or the Bosie) have incorporated the whole acoustic mechanism into the keys. They have incorporated mere subterfuges of most aspects of it into their keyboards and, IMHO, CLPs are far from offering the best in that department, so there is room for lots of improvement...

Regards,

Claude

Ah, OK, I stand corrected. I was under the impression that the Yamaha GH3 contained the full mechanical implementation of an acoustic action up to the hammer hitting a sensor.

If this is not the case then I agree there is room for improvement.

Kawai is closing in on the "Feel and Vibration"
aspect of Digital vs acoustic.

Kawai DP-1
TOUCH
Continuing the advancements of its multi-award winning predecessor, the KAWAI AWA Grand PRO II, 88 wooden-key action, closely reproduces characteristics of the acclaimed EX Concert Grand Piano. Its graduated action, with decreasing weight from bass to treble, offers the dynamic feeling of an EX grand, and is widely regarded as one of the best digital piano actions in the world.
Moreover, the DP1 features an innovative Key Vibration System, allowing the musician to feel delicate responses from each note. The intensity of key vibration can be adjusted and stored for every sound, providing a uniquely authentic playing experience.(Let's see if an acoustic
piano do that!)


SOUND
The authentic sound of KAWAI Digital Pianos began with the world renowned KAWAI EX concert grand piano. Placed inside an anechoic chamber, free of audio reflections, the rich sound of this world class grand piano could be perfectly analysed and recorded. From this recording, our Master Piano Artisans recreated a tone of supreme clarity, establishing a new standard in the art of digital piano design.
The DP1 employs a revolutionary sound generation system: samples without loops, string resonance samples, key-release samples, hammer striking samples and countless other audio subtleties combine to provide a richly authentic tone. Beyond the impressive selection of piano voices, the DP1 also offers a range of Electric Piano, String and Bass sounds suitable for various musical occasions.
Adopting a 5.1 surround sound system, the 10 loudspeakers integrated within the DP1 provide an unsurpassed level of acoustic reproduction, allowing adjustments to ambience, reverberation and position for a simply breathtaking experience.

I'm pleased to read that as I also have a Kawai ES4 digital it may sound quite good, though not I guess as good as the Kawai EX mentioned above.

It is really the ease of playing that makes me feel I am better than I really am. So cheating myself.

Nor do the digitals suffer with big humidity changes as we are having currently.

Swingal

virtual pianos WILL surpass acoustics

hahahahahahah! that's EXACTLY what they said 40 years ago;)

I suppose they'll surpass Stradivari, Guarnari, and Amati instruments as well then?

lol this has got to be the funniest thread I've ever seen

That Piano Turing Test idea sounds good....blindfold a pianist and put him in a room with an acoustic and a digital. He plays on both, then identifies them. When he isn't able to tell the difference, then technology has caught up with the acoustic piano.

I don't think that will happen for a long, long time.

I think the topic of this thread is fundamentally wrong. It is based on an idea that a virtual reality will be better than actual reality. That is why people take drugs. And I see this virtual world as no more than that, an escape from reality.
I suppose it would follow from your logic that in this virtual world we would also have virtual people who would surpass real people.
The whole idea is really sick. And I blame it on science fiction, video games, and youth.

Of course virtual reality will be better than actual reality, or else what would be the point of inventing it?

Why do you think people read books if its not to escape? Do you think books are bad too?

Too many video games I agree are probably not too healthy though, but hey, its better than kids running round stabbing people...(oh, they probably do that when they've finished playing)

Interesting conversation

Just one point about comparing the acoustic recordings to the digital ones in the recent recital. I may be wrong but I am pretty sure that every acoustic piano was mic'd or recorded through a zoom adding all the acoustics of the room into the recording and every digital was recorded line-in to a computer giving a very clean recording (which IMHO made it more or less childs play to spot the difference )

I was just wondering if someone had mic'd a digital whether it would be quite so easy to spot?


Lee

when i video record my playing on my digital, that's mic'd through the camcorder's mic. the sound result actually is not bad at all, but not that clean as line-in recording, with some noises and even my finger nail clashing with key sound.

I'm quite interested what the result is of a blindfolded test.

Perhaps somebody can do it and send it to youtube; would be nice.

I'm looking forward to it.

Best regards,

Johan B