The piano salespeople seem to love to push the floppy disc in the digital pianos. I'm confused. We are shopping to buy a family piano but it will primarily be for our 9 year old son who is in his third year of piano lessons. Chip Davis is his hero musically. That is the kind of music he loves. He also likes lots of voices in his piano. We currently have a cheap keyboard from Sam's. We are not wanting a keyboard but a nice looking digital piano.

This is a bit rambling but, what say you? Any opinions very much appreciated.

Susie

I'm guessing no one knows how to respond Susie.

I dont either, but I think the question is if a floppy disk is necessary on a keyboard? Some keyboard models do have a floppy drive to transfer data between the keyboard and a computer. Often that data is a MIDI song (and you might be transferring it in either direction). Or sometimes it is new accompaniment styles for those models that offer accompaniment. I think the data is sometimes play-along song lessons, but I'd guess that aspect wouldnt be much interest to a 3 year student.

If that data transfer is of interest to you, you surely can do it via the normal MIDI interface too, using a cable connection to the computer. I'm really hesitant to say much, because I feel sure it is a matter of personal preference, but I'd guess if you have not needed it before, you may not need it now either.

Seems to me like there are more important features to decide which keyboard, like weighted keys on a digital piano, and good sound, and you mentioned many voices, and perhaps you meant it should have nice wooden furniture too, etc.

Floppies are less popular on new computers, as they are small and wont hold much data as compared to other media. So new computers today are less likely to even have a floppy drive.

I liked having the floppy drive on my yamaha dgx-300, because it allowed me to download midi files to the dgx and play them back very slowly as an aid to figuring out how to play pieces.

When I wanted to replace the dgx with a weighted keyboard I tried to find a model with the other features and price I wanted along with the floppy drive. But I couldn't do it. I finally got a yamaha p250 and later a notebook computer. Now I can bring the notebook computer downstairs to the p250 when I need to load a midi file.