I am thinking about getting a digital piano and am currently leaning towards a Yamaha CLP 320. I have also tried out the Roland HP 201 and the RP 101 and found that both of these had a much lighter action than the Yamaha.

From browsing this forum, it seems like this difference in touch between Yamaha digital pianos and Rolands is well established, but what is not clear to me is what difference it actually makes. In particular, what are the dangers of playing a digital piano with a light action? I have heard some talk of it being limiting or possibly damaging to your technique, particularly if you tried playing another piano after getting used to the light action. If I chose a piano with a light touch, which seems appealing at first, would I later regret it?

Thanks

I think the most important thing is that you like the action yourself. If you will only play a digital piano, it shouldn't matter that much. I prefer heavy action because it resembles a true piano, but there is of course a factor that the weight on acoustic pianos will differ. Some are heavier, some are lighter.

I have read on these forums, that people have different oppinions about how the action should be. Some want it as heavy as possible, some want it to be barely weighted. Personally, I found that both Roland HP203, and Yamaha CLP 320 and 330 would be something I could live with. In my oppinion (but very limited experience), they don't differ THAT much. So over time, the playstyle should adapt. The only thing I would really advice against is choosing something that is not weighted, or barely weighted.

I am currently planning to buy the CLP 330 myself (Ruled out the Roland due to price), but need to make sure that it's completely satisfying first. I deffinantly wouldn't want a heavier action, and in fact I'm not totally sure if it's perhaps a tad too heavy. But that is something a long testplay will reveal. I also was going for the 320, but the salesman convinced me that in the long run, a 330 would be better, and in a few years the difference in price wouldn't matter (but the different in spesifications will).

Conclusion: go for the action that YOU find most suitable for yourself.

I'll quote myself from some earlier threads:

"Also I'd like to share my Mum's (Russian conservatory educated pianist) answer to my question about heavier action being better for classical technique development - "not true". "Light action (within reason - not synth-like) is not a problem at all. Provided I continue to play Cherni's School of Velocity and School of Dexterity and the like, the quick fingers and supple wrists/elbows will be there. I will simply enjoy my journey a lot more, as opposed to struggle through heavy action (like digital yamaha)". "Professional pianists do not play with heavy action". Such thinking is in line with a member of these forums- Aidan, who stated that his "light action" FP4 is heavier than his Steinway grand's.

And again, talking about Roland fp4,one of the lighter (in touch) digital pianos:
"Some were arguing that it's action is "too light", but really it has about the same resistance as a nice grand. I think it was Jazz+ who said that fp4 has resistance of 72 grams - which is just like an average Steinway. Apparently Horowitz had his grand tuned at 55 grams pressure resistance".

Finally, I'll add (after owning the aforementioned FP4 for six months) that I find that lighter action tends to disguise the "digitalness" of the piano a lot better as stiffer actions tend to be "springy" (pushing back on your fingers) and "marshmallowy". I am grade 8 by the way, so I believe I kinda understand what Im talking about.

PS and off topic FP4+ Pianoteq (with modern grand custom settings file) gives by far the most enjoyable digital piano that I have played. Sample libraries (I 've tried to like Ivory VERY-very hard, but to no avail) are too step like and too DEAD...

None of the hammer-weighted digital pianos should "harm" your hand or technique. As long as that digital piano is responsive, and behaves relatively close to how a real piano behaves, then you'll be OK.

As you travel from piano to piano, digital or real, you'll find actions that don't feel like yours. In my experience, a few solid minutes worth of scales, and your fingers will mostly have learned the new actions' quirks. Which mainly manifest themselves as an inability to be even at first. To me, anyway.

The main thing for feel is to have a hammer-weighted keyboard. No springs.

While we may rant and rave and draw blood over actions here, let's not forget that a nice digital piano with hammer-weighted keyboard will likely feel a lot smoother than a barely broken-in and un-regulated new mechanical piano. It'll likely feel more even, end to end, too.

More important than keyboard weight alone, I think, is dynamic range. Can the piano do really, really quiet stuff? Can you slllllowly press down a key, and that key not sound? That's what you're looking for. Any piano can do loud. You should be able to make the piano do the barest of almost inaudible whispers, all the way to "Oh **** he's gonna break a hammer!!" loud.

I think you'll be fine whatever you get.

On DPs, the feeling of action to be light or heavy is, kind of, influenced by the volume (and the power of the speakers) as well (which can not be the case for an acoustic of course).
I have read somewhere that concert pianists prefer heavy action over light action as it gives them more control. They are very well trained, they can be powerful even with heavy action and play them for hours. But it is not my case.
Still I consider the action of the U1 at my teacher's place to be light compared to my C3.
Back to the DPs: I owned a Yamaha P-120 which had 4 settings: Full power (the sound comes out the same if you hit softly or hard - useless in my opinion), Heavy (it takes a lot of strengh to get the maximum power out of the piano - practicing with this setting might hurt your hands) - Medium (which is supposed to be like an average acoustic action) and light(which allows to get full power without having to hit the keys that hard - uncontrollable for me).
So after trying the different settings, I kept it on Medium, full volume when playing throught the speakers (way lower when using headphones - th volume will depend on the headphones).
I now have a PX-320 and I don't get why people say that its action is heavy. I actually consider it with the default settings to be lighter than the Yamaha P-120, but heavier than our teacher's U1.
Anyway the right action is the one that allows you to get the volume you need when and how you expect it. That requires training which requires to spend a significant amount of time on your instrument.
The style of music you play also has an influence on what works better for you too.
I play classical music essentially.

most digital actions always feel different from acoustic ones, no matter it's lighter or heavier, because of the mechanical difference you would feel on an acoustic (feel of string or vibration of string). i don't think either light or heavy action you choose would harm you technically in any way, as long as it has proper weight. different acoustic pianos feel differently as well, some lighter and some heavier. also, each person has preference on how heavy the action would be in order to play comfortably. my teacher once told me that on the scale of 1-10 (10 as heaviest), he likes it as 7. so, choose the one you feel more comfortable or the one more resemble to the acoustic you have access to.

@ ERE -- that's pretty much my take on actions as well.

The roland 201 I have, on the bass end of things, has about a 80g touch, and about 70-75 elsewhere, all of this measured with a very high-tech assembly of 12 nickles wrapped in tape (that's 60 grams there) and the rest in loose nickles and dimes. My margin of error is huge, so take it for what it's worth.

@ VincentL: Horowitz liked it really light, and in the "PIANO" book (Barron), the Steinway folks mentioned that predilection of his for really light and snappy, and what it meant to them as a maker.. lots of hard, hard work.

Now, on Horowitz: 50 grams? That's almost half of my Roland's touch weight ^.^ Thanks for that nugget of trivia, ERE!

It's all relative. It even changes day to day and hour to hour. When I start a practice day the keyboard's impossibly light, when i'm done 2 or 3 hrs later, the thing feels heavy.

All three of the pianos you mentioned are
fully-weighted hammer-action digitals. I
think what you may be confused about, if
you're new to digital pianos, is a quick action
vs. a light action. There's a big difference.
A quick action is one where the keys go down
fast and come up fast when you press them--
a fully-weighted hammer-action digital piano
might have a quick action, and this is
generally a sign of a superior action design.
A "light" action would typically mean that you
do not have a fully-weighted hammer-action
design, that is, you have something like
a semi-weighted action, which is obsolete
on today's 88-key digital pianos. Almost all
88-key digital pianos today are fully-weighted
hammer-action designs.

Since all three dp's you mentioned are fully-
weighted hammer-actions, I think what
you were responding to was the quickness
of the action, rather than "lightness."
The Rolands apparently have a quicker
action than the Yamaha, not a "lighter"
one. You cannot damage your technique
by playing any of the three, because they
are all modeled on a grand piano action
and are fully-weighted.

Thanks Gyro, interesting distinction between the "quickness" and "lightness" of piano action. And true, it's hard to go wrong with a fully weighted DP action (again, no springs). I prefer a heavier action, since I find it easier to go from that to a lighter action, than the reverse. But once you've played any piano for a while, your fingers learn to adjust.

My own - admittedly imperfect! - way to measure piano actions is to stack quarters on a black key (middle C#), and see how many it takes to make a sound. I do find that the results correlate pretty well with the subjective "feel" of the piano.

Below are several random pianos I've tried and their respective numbers of quarters. There's a lot of variation, even among otherwise similar acoustics, but digitals of a particular make/model tend to be quite consistent.

** Acoustic **
Steinway M Grand: 13
Steinway S Grand: 14
Steinway B Grand (1): 14
Yamaha Grand (1): 16
Steinway B Grand (2): 17
Yamaha Grand (2): 18
Yamaha Upright: 18

** Digital **
Kawai CP-117: 11
Kawai CA-91: 13
Roland FP-7: 14
Korg SP-250: 14
Yamaha P-85: 14-15
Yamaha P-140: 15
Yamaha CLP-220,-240,or -280: 15
Roland HP-107: 15
Roland HP-207: 16

-Eric

^ gotta love hard empirical data. ^.^

(1 US quarter dollar = 5.5g, for those who wish to convert to grams)


thanks for that list, ejohn.

Interesting responses, let me add this. While it is true that the "heaviness" of an action is really personal preference, there is one additional consideration when choosing between a heavier/lighter action. If this piano is pretty much the only piano you will ever play, then it's a non issue, pick the one that you like. However, if you are on the competition/performance circuit, there is something to be said about going with a heavier action to practice with, that way when you are forced to play a piano with a heavier action, you won't run into the issue of finger/hand fatigue if you're used to a lighter action.

Many thanks for all the replies, which are very interesting. I think I will have to go back to the showroom and work out which action I prefer.

I have been playing an upright acoustic piano for the past 10 years or so but apart from that have spent almost no time playing any other piano. my judgements of the weights of digital piano actions are therefore relative to only my piano. eJohn's figures seem to suggest that the weight of Roland digital pianos is very similar to many acoustic pianos - is that right? So if you had the same lightness/quickness of touch on an acoustic piano as you do on the Roland DPs then that acoustic piano would not be considered particularly light? And would it be correct to say that grand pianos generally have lighter actions than uprights?

As I said, I have very little experience of playing any other piano than my own so it would be good to know from people who have played many different pianos about how they think the weight of Roland's DP actions compare to acoustic pianos. It seems that the answer is that since acoustic pianos come differently weighted, the Rolands are not at all abnormal?

In my experience, the variance in weight amongst the acousticals is much much larger than amongst current digitals. I've played much more acoustical pianos (many of than extremely crappy) than digitals, so my sampling might be a bit biased...

I haven't noticed the weighting in grand pianos being lighter than the uprights. As an example, both the Steinway grands that I played extensively were indeed specially light, but the Grotrian-Steinweg grand in the hall of my music school was infamously heavy, having inhabited the nightmares of many students who had to audition on it.

So, I don't think that weight is the factor that the reveals the "fakeness" of any modern digital. The realism of the action dynamics and how it modulates the sound, that's where the hard work goes into. In that respect, either Yamaha, Roland or Kawai did a great job in their top models. We're just short of that beautiful physical sensation of swinging the hammers. There's much room for improvement in sound too. In weight, not really.

OK, we've beat the action into a pulp.

How about we toss about a few thoughts on the little things that make a piano? The Deeeevilllll, after all, is in the details.. some are flaws, some are side-effects, some are just physics, but if you want a "real" piano you gotta have 'em.

Someone mentioned the vibrations of the strings. And I wholly agree. A real piano shakes rattles and rrrrolls! It talks to you. It yells at you. Some digital makers now put speakers under the keybed to approximate the tactile effects of strings doing their thing. I wonder how many makers do this? Mine has it, and I know some yamahas do too. I just wonder, how many noticed...?

Similarly, those speakers can also be used to send sound up through the keyboard. Now you feel it, and you also *see* each string. Sit on a real piano, close your eyes, hit a note, and I wager you'll "see" it. A digipiano with this duplicates that effect, quite convincingly. Trivially, actually. But note, this is not the sound the audience would hear. They hear the "main" speakers. The player hears both. I find this feature to be so, so nice. I love playing dark, and being able to see each string -- well, people shell out big, big bucks to improve that effect in hi-fi. Mad money man. Again.. I wonder how many noticed, or even know what i'm yapping about. (It's all about setup and geometry, not silver cables braided by elves in germany in the pale moonlight ;o)

There's a lot more "little things."

Like.... ??

Let's hear 'em! No one talks about the fun stuff here o.O

Actually, I'm sure that's also been beaten into a fine pulp, but WTH, it's gotta beat talking weight, weight, weight ^.^;

Don't forget the smell of an acoustic piano. The wood, the varnish, the metal. And they are strong enough for private audience members to lean against. And they hold a tip jar fairly well.