hello!
this is my first post here, so please be gentle :p

My budget is around £4000 GBP, but i can spend more, if needs be (preferably not, lol)
i went to a local piano shop, and i managed to have a go on a few digital (and real grand pianos)pianos. So basically, i'm after a good quality digital piano/keyboard, with connectivity as i like to write/compose and would love to slam some stuff on my pc (for instance, if i wrote a piece, i could put a guitar voice and piano voice onto the pc, and play around with it)

the digital pianos i played at the shop where:
Roland KR-115M and a yamaha modus. Now, the roland was very expensive, but seemed to have SO much stuff to do along with great sound. However i've done a little research and i've heard the yamaha's (CVP 309, 309-GP series) Are actually ALOT better bang for buck, can anyone comment on this? I've also seen the Roland KR 111 on the internet, and that's around £5000 (although, i imagine if i look hard i'll find it cheaper, as with most things)

But, I've also been thinking about work stations, with a pair of high quality monitors. so, any recomendations for a good work station and speakers? (my idea is, £2-2500 for work station and £300 per monitor? is this a big enough budget?)

i've heard there is software (Synthogy Ivory) that can make some really good voices - i don't know the details really.

so, Which do you think is best? i mean the digital grands etc look awesome, but do they have the functionality im after (will i need to buy monitors aswell?)

And, one last thing, is due to a disability, i can't hit keys terribly hard (so i found the modus a little hard to get a loud sound out of, but the roland i could change how hard i needed to hit the keys) So it's important i can try before i buy, and that the keys arn't crazily hard to press, (i only use a keyboard to practice on atm)

Sorry i've rambled on so much, i'm just quite confused lol

thanks for your time

andy

don't know about Roland, but i heard good things about CVP309(GP). in fact, a member (an advanced pianist) from this forum bought it (309GP) not long ago and was very happy with its action and sound.

i'd suggest you find both to try and see which one you actually like the best.

for software piano, you might check out those sites (and you need a good computer or sound card etc. to run any of those):

ivory: http://www.synthogy.com/
pianoteq: http://www.pianoteq.com/
truepiano: http://www.truepianos.com/

Ivory is quite good. Really good in fact. A word of warning, make sure your PC meets their recommended setup, not just their 'minimum'.

Thanks for the replies!

Is the CVP, what i would be after if i want to hook it up to my pc and create full songs etc? and use it for other instruments, etc?

thanks again

andy

on most DPs right now there's at least 1 USB port or more which can be connected to PC with the relevent USB driver (downloadable from the maker site), whether you just want to use PC recording software, transfer midi files or use piano sample lib (such as Ivory) or piano modelling software (such as Pianoteq) etc.

i wouldn't worry about using any software yet if i were to buy a grand digital. in that price range, the digital itself would sound good. if you're really into better sound, you could always do it later.

If you are thinking about cvp 309,
perhaps better to go for the new generation
cvp 407/409, now 309 is already obsolete,
and the 409 is very new, so for a couple of years at least there will be no newer cvp.
409 has a better piano sound than 309
and it has those other instruments from Tyros 2
with super articulation: saxs, strings, trumpets, etc.
There is no super-articulation in cpv 309 yet, only megavoices.
Also the keyboard action in 407 is as good as in 309 (better than in 307), and 409 even has synthetic ivory on its wooden keys for incredible feel.

Speaking about software piano sounds, you may try also TruePianos and Pianoteq, they do not require much computer resources, especially TruePianos sound great and run without problems even on an older PC, unlike Ivory.
But neither Ivory nor TruePianos have sympathetic string resonance.

The best piano sounds may well be GEM with DRAKE technology. You may buy a GEM digital piano
from 800/700 series or just their piano sound module in addition to another piano.
I am pretty sure that you can find some GEM to try in UK: GRP 800 (grand piano), RP 800, PRP 700 or PRP 800, or Promega 3/2

ok, so many more options - LOL

are gems any good? i mean, i've found one for 2500 GBP and, thats half the price of the cvp 309 and a third of the price of the roland.

If i got this, would you reccomend getting monitors, to listen through? If i spend £2500 on a gem for instance, maybe £500 on a pair of monitors, a few hundred on software, and its still cheaper than a cvp 309!

can anyone else comment on this (I'll try it and try out the cvp 309/409)

any others to throw into the mix?

thanks again for your responses and time, it really is appreciated

andy

I believe GEM has the best piano sounds and is the most playable and expressive, as to the keyboard action, the newest GEM RP-910 may have the best action among GEMs yet.
There are two new models RP-810 and RP-910,
they have more piano sounds added to the 2 main sounds, and the piano sound modelling is even more improved, or so they say.
RP-810 - 1700 euros
RP-910 - 2300 euros

RP-910 has wooden keys like top-of-the-line CVPs or Kawais

When you say "you found one GEM", what kind of GEM?
We are speaking about GEMs with DRAKE processors only, not earlier models,
that is, only:
Promega 3
Promega 2
grand piano GRP-800
piano RP-910, RP-810, RP-800
portable piano PRP-800, PRP-700(without speakers)

Any other GEM pianos are older ones with different sounds.
Progema 3 and Promega 2 have Fatar action,
PRP 800/700, RP-810/910 - newer GEM actions,
RP-800, GRP-800 - not sure, but also graded hammer action.

sorry i didnt say the model, i'm an idiot sometimes lol. The model i saw was the GRP 800 for £2500 GBP. Would it be a good idea to get some monitor speakers to add them to the mix?

thanks

andy

scoped1888.

I suggest at this point our US, members might like to know the rough exchange rate dollar/pound.

I take a rough estimate as $/US double the amount of GB £,s. That makes some of these aforementioned digitals very expensive here.

Also, I find that prices in the U.S are often lower than ours. Either due to larger overall selling market (size of Country). And other factors that I don't like here.

Alan.

ah, i should have mentioned the Pound to dollar ratio. I know the Roland Kr-115 is around £8000 GBP or $16,000 USD (but, thats alot more than i was hoping to spend lol)

would i need software like ivory, if i got a Grp 800 or a Cvp 309-409?

thanks,

andy

(any other opinions on the gems?)

"Monitors" are usually used in studios. They're set at approximately ear level and the listener should be seated at the point of a triangle. There are powered speakers which are not monitors. In general the included speakers will do a good job on the mids and highs, and you'd want to look at external speakers which would reproduce the lowest notes accurately.

IMHO the best accessory for any digital is a set of studio-quality headphones, such as Sennheiser's HD 580's or their new HD 600's. Great 'phones will let you hear the included sounds at their best and can be used for silent practice.

Try to make multiple auditions of as many digitals as you can. Some included sounds have reverberation. That makes them sound rich, but may not be to your liking over the long term. AJB recently bought a digital, to complement his acoustic grand. He posted that Roland's sounds were impressive upon first hearing, but he came to prefer the dryer sounds of a Yammy CLP 280. What do your ears prefer?

Touch settings can be tricky. With Yammies - and, I think, with others - there is no difference at all in the actual touch pressure. What happens is that the higher settings cut off the lower numbered MIDI control messages, so you have to press harder to get any sound at all. At the highest setting, you end up with a limited volume range. When auditioning you may want to be sure that touch is set to its lowest setting, so that you can hear the included sounds to their best advantage. (Default is usually Medium or 2.)

Any of the digitals in your price range will have jacks which can be used to connect to a computer. Using third party sounds introduces another layer of complication. If appearance is highly important, you may want to keep in mind that there will be at least one cable running to the computer.

You may also want to think thru whether you want to do any recording or whether you just want to hear better piano samples. If you just want to play great piano samples, you'll want to be certain that whatever you buy will work in "standalone" mode.

Patience and persistence.

I beleave that there is nothing better than GRP 800, forget cvp 409 etc.
And no, you will not need Ivory, it itself sounds better than Ivory - significantly better because it is alive and Ivory is not.
Ivory has beautiful sounds (so does GRP 800) but Ivory still does not feel like playing a real piano.
You will see that GRP 800 does.

On the other hand, you cannot rule out that in the future software pianos will appear that will be worth having.
GRP 800 can be used in combination - it has audio input, not just midi input, so its acoustic system can be used for alternate/additional instruments from your computer.


RP-910 is very new, but I see that it is already offered well bellow the 2300 euros I mentioned.
Here, 1850 euros (but it is in Germany):
http://www.musik-schmidt.de/osc-schmidt/catalog/gemrp910schwarzhochglanz-p-21821.html

But I still cannot find its detailed specs.
I understand that more piano sounds are added to it compared to GRP 800. But they are probably secondary sounds like in Promega 3, the main two sounds are the same.
I probably would go with GRP 800

I somehow doubtful if internal speakers in any such pianos are enough, although GRP probably should have much better acoustics if constructed properly.
Perhaps you can test how it sounds.
I read very positive reviews from somebody who bought it, no mentioning that external speakers were needed. In fact, it sounded in a store better than a an acoustic grand next to it.

On paper both RP and GRP have 2x40W speakers
but one expects that the grand piano cabinet is designed to enhance acoustics.

While it's true that you don't need Ivory to play any digital piano, I can't agree with the second part of your statement. Can you explain exactly what do you mean by saying that GEM is alive and Ivory is not? You do realize that both GEM and Ivory are sampled pianos? In fact Ivory is probably of higher quality (I seriously doubt GEM has 40 GB of sampled piano sounds - Ivory does). Also - I went through GEM brochures, and they don't mention if all of the keys were sampled (which probably means they weren't, and they used interpolation instead). Ivory on the other hand sampled every single key. The Gem does seem to have an advantage of sympathetic string resonance, and if your PC is not up to recommended specs you will enjoy it better than Ivory.

Also - I couldn't find any reviews online regarding the GEM pianos, looks like they're mostly sold in Europe (especially Italy). I did find a comparison of major brands on this website though:

http://ideamarketers.com/library/article.cfm?articleid=61012&from=PROFILE

Eternal... you just in a trolling mood? 3 out of 10? That's below the belt...

I like the GEMs. Have you watched the videos? The drake is just the sound 'effects' processing module that does things like the filter and acoustic resonance.

I'm not sure traditional sample technology nor ROM size apply to GEMs, either, since I think the sound is physically modeled (synthesized) and then pumped through the drake module to enhance the effect.

Then you have roland, which trys to have you believe they don't know which piano they sampled for their RD series. Bull. Gee, I just can't remember... was it a Yamaha? Steinway? Bosendorfer? Who knows? Right. The engineers lost their notes I guess.

hmm, so is the gem good or not? Now i'm majorly confused lol.

does anyone else have experience with this piano?

If i'm recording alot of music, should i maybe look at the roland Fp-5/7? or something like that,

thanks

andy

You mean FP4 and FP7

yeah sorry, typo there ><.

the one's ive heard of are, FP4, FP7, the motif and tyros.

Are these comparible to the gem and cvp series?

Would they be better suited for creating music?

thanks

andy