Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum (Guess the) Grand, upright, clunker or digital!

Good for you Dad!

Monica, listen to the very first note of sample #1. If that's a digital then forget the notion that digitals never need tuning.

Mike

Wrong notion Mike. It's not that they don't need tuning - they are often enough out of tune but they can't be tuned.

Going out on a limb here:

1. Clunker
2. Digital
3. Grand
4. Upright

So I gotta ask you, Supply; which piano do think is the digital? [nervously waits for answer]

Hmm, should I just a post a list, or describe my choices, increasing the embarrassment in the case I'm wrong? Well, I'll go ahead:

1) Upright - It sounded like the ones I've played on, and nothing bad enough to be a "clunker".

2) Digital - The tone seemed a bit dull at times, which is my experience with digitals.

3) Grand - but it wasn't an immediate recognition or anything. I think it sounded nicer overall.

4) "Clunker" - By process of elimination, though I'm still not sure whether 1 or 4 is the "clunker" since they both sound okay to me. None of the examples sounded horrible to me. I've played on horrible pianos, I know their sound, and there was nothing too bad in these samples.

Nothing here was exceptionally better in my opinion to anything else.

After 1st listen I'm thinking

1 Schimmel
2 Digital
3 Grand
4 Klunk

I don't think 1 is the digital, as I seem to recall having heard a couple bobbling hammers. I'll see if my mind changes after having another listen.

2 is digital
3 is grand

I'm quite positive # 1 is a real piano.

It's a toss-up between 1 and 4, but I'd have to say 1 is the clunker. Which would of course leave 4 to be the upright.

I'd go with :

1) Clunker
2) Digital
3) Grand
4) Schimmel

I, as a few others apparently, hesitaded a lot between 1 and 4, but I'm now pretty confident in my choice... At least if I'm completely wrong I won't be alone

1 - digital
2 - grand
3 - upright
4 - clunker

Clunker
Digital
Grand
Upright

1. Schimmel upright
2. Digital piano
3. Wilh. Steinberg grand
4. Knight upright

Clunker
Digital
Grand
Upright

1 Clunker
2 Digital
3 Grand
4 Schimmel

The recordings are so compressed though that it is hard to really judge. I thought that the digital and grand were easily recognizable. The differences between 1 and 4 were harder to discern but they were definitely uprights.

Of course depending on how they were recorded (mic placement) it could fake us all out here.

1 - Schimmel
2 - Digital
3 - Grand
4 - Clunker

try this again after you've tuned them next month and i think it will be much more interesting...

1)Clunker
2)Grand piano
3)Digital
4)newer Upright

I made my selection before reading through all the other guesses. I feel secure in the fact that my choices are not far off from very "reputable" contributors.

- CMajor13

Just saw this thread. Here's my stab at this, prior to seeing the other replies:

1)Upright
2)Grand
3)Digital
4)Clunker

1. Digital
2. Schimmel
3. Grand
4. Clunker

1. Clunker--that's one nasty sounding piano.
2. Digital--unbalanced--the bass is weak--like a cheap digital piano.
3. Grand--it simply sounds the best and the playing is better too.
4. Upright--ok sounding, but could use a tuning.

OK. Stop torturing us. Tell everybody that i'm right!

1)Knight--Least savory of the bunch, but not so bad, brittleness gave it away, harsh at times.
2)DP. Fairly neutral and in tune, not much ringing. I liked it, crisp, and thought it was grand originally.
3)I'll call the small grand. The runs seemed cleaner and lighter, more simply played.
4)Schimmel, but, at first, thought it was the grand before hearing infamous Schimmell box ringing. Unless that was the phone. Tough test. Some passages closely run and thought test was crooked at first. But after a few listenings . . .

OK, sorry for the wait.

Here are the results!

1 - Clunker. As some said, not too bad. It does sound a little better when tuned but at the end of the day it is a £600 piano.

2 - Digital. The only one in tune which gives it away a bit. Interesting that quite a few got this mixed up with the grand. I suppose it is sampled from a grand.

3 - Grand. Phew! I am so glad that most of you got this. So I didn't waste all that money after all. Only one person thought it was the clunker. I know who you are, where you live and I will be coming for you

4 - Schimmel upright. Okay, so maybe I wasted my money on this . Trust me, it sounds much better in the flesh. I had to convert the recordings to mp3 in order to upload them (wav files were too large). It's easy to see why you would mix up no. 1 and 4. I would like to know more about the 'infamous box ringing' though.

And so the winner is....

MORODIENE

Not only did she nail it within an hour of my post but she gave accurate reasons for each choice. I thought it was game over right from the start! Well, after the terrible week you have had I guess you could use some good news (however small)

Well done to all those who got it right.

Merry Christmas.