Best Digital Piano Keyboard – The Secret Every Pianist Should Know About

Review by Andreas Moller

 

If you are anything like me, then you probably have a strong dislike for digitals pianos for a number of reasons.

• They just don’t feel like the real thing. You simple don’t have the control with electric pianos that you get with acoustic instruments.
• The sound produced by digital pianos is quite poor. These instruments may sound okay with headphones but when you connect your electric instrument to speakers you will be undoubtedly disappointed every time. (Later in this review I will reveal my secret on how to make any digital piano sound much more organic and alive.)
• Electric pianos are usually quite unattractive.

Now let’s quickly go over the advantages of digital pianos:

• You can easily transport them to your gigs
• You can adjust their volume
• Digital instruments are much more affordable.

I think that’s it!

 

Kawai VPC1 Electric Piano – What is this?

Before you continue reading I want you to listen to this demonstration of the instrument by the amazing pianist Ruslan Sirota playing this digital instrument with these great speakers so that you’ll know if reading this long article is worth your time.

 

 

Now let’s take a look at the instrument and here it is. It is quite beautiful actually. My Kawai VPC1, which stands for ”Virtual Piano Controler”. So what is this?

This is actually just a MIDI controler but what makes this model so special, other than its clean design, are its keys. What we have here is actually something like an acoustic instrument with real hammers inside, ultimately making the instrument feel much more like a real piano.

Since this is just a MIDI keyboard we’ll also need piano samplings to produce sound. We will also cover this topic in my review.

 

 

Why Kawai VPC1 is the best digital piano

I have had many expensive, top electric piano keyboards before, such as the Roland V piano ($7,000) and the Yamaha CP1 ($5,000). So I was admittedly surprised that this ridiculously low-priced alternative was much better than these very expensive digital stage pianos. I immediately knew that this would be my preferred live performance setup for many years to come.

Most pianist prefer traditional stage pianos because they are quick and easy to set up when performing and they have real physical knobs on the keyboard itself. However, there’s one important reason why I think this MIDI keyboard is the best investment you can make…

 

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The First Evergreen Electric Piano in history

The one major problem with investing in electric pianos vs acoustic pianos is the fact they’ll soon become outdated and you’ll be forced to invest in a new expensive digital instrument within just a few years.

The big advantage of the Kawai VPC1 is the ability to change the software/sampling libraries anytime if you prefer different piano/keyboards sounds in the future.

Unless Kawai or a competitor comes up with a new MIDI controler unit with even better hammer action control I don’t see any reason why you would need to purchase another electric piano in the next 5 or 10 years.

 

Kawai VPC1 + Ravenscroft samplings = Best Result

I have tested a lot of different sampling libraries and I can safely say that the best samplings I have found is the ”Ravenscroft samplings” by VI Lab. I think they sound amazing! It doesn’t really matter if it’s for classical music, jazz or pop. If you play soft, hard, bright or mellow stuff, it simply reacts and sounds much like a real grandpiano which I will now demonstrate..

 

 

The Ravenscroft sampling libraries comes in a laptop version or as an app for tablets like iPad, iPhone, Android devices etc.

 

Ravenscroft Settings

The Ravenscroft samplings include 5 different sampling libraries:

 

• Ravenscroft 275
• Ravenscroft 275 Close
• Ravenscroft 275 Player
• Ravenscroft 275 Room
• Ravenscroft 275 Side

 

 

However, this great software provides plenty of options to alter almost any possible parameter needed. Effects, timbre, key sensitivity etc.

 

Kawai VPC with Wurlitzer and Rhodes Piano sounds

When I bought these Ravenscroft samplings I also got a few electric piano/keyboard sounds as a bonus. What this means is that if you like to play instruments like Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer you can now play such an instrument with real hammers and actually have way better control than with the original analog keyboard!

And now time for some fun, I will now create a hybrid instrument with Ravenscroft Piano samplings and Fender Rhodes samplings..

 

 

Connecting The Piano to Sampling Libraries

Connecting your Laptop and this digital instrument is a snap. You simply plug the USB cable into your computer and connect it to your audio interface via USB for best output results.

If you have an iPhone 6 you can literally keep your whole setup in your pocket (this does NOT include the digital piano itself 😉 )

 

Adjusting velocity of keys

Although you can adjust the key sensitivity (velocity) within the Ravenscroft software, I highly recommend that you also do manual adjustment with the Software that came with you Kawai VPC1 keyboard like shown in the video below for best results.

 

 

Speaker Setup – My Secret Hack

In the beginning of this review I promised to show you my own hack on how to make electric pianos sound more alive and here it is…

This is my speaker setup. I have a Genelic 8030C monitor which sounds great, especially the higher notes, and I also have my good old Roland SA-1000 stage amplifier which is the special ingredient. I’m not entire sure why this works but I believe this is like ”the wall of sound” principle when you double an instrument or vocal and get a much richer sound like they do in a recording studio or a symphony orchestra.

You might already know that if you use two cables between your keyboard and your monitor you will get a better sound even if they are only connected to the same speaker and you don’t have the real experience of stereo. But I was surprised to find during one of my gigs that I would achieve much richer sounds by using the microphone input in my amplifier. Now let me show you…

 

 

Unlike in the demo that was recorded in garage band, the sound you hear now is not that great because it’s recorded using the build-in microphone of my iPhone, but I hope you can hear the difference and imagine what it would sound like if you were in this room.

 

Final test – Gaspard de la nuit

And now it’s time for the final test for this digital MIDI keyboard.
I’m now going to play my favourite piece, which is ”Gaspard de la nuit” by Ravel. The reason I have chosen this piece is because Mr. Ravel wrote this piece with the goal to break the record and write the most difficult piece to play. In other words, you need a high end grand piano to play this piece properly (and in my case a few hundred hours to practice it 🙁 ).

 

 

Conclusion:

I think I did a good job, but I had a hard time repeating the same note in high tempos. This is a common problem with upright pianos, but not grand pianos. So the conclusion to this test is that this electric keyboard sounds like a grand piano and feels like an upright piano, which is considerably better than any other alternatives.

So here you have it, a great alternative to an acoustic grand piano that is affordable and will never be outdated by simply replacing the samplings if you find anything better in the future.

I hope you enjoyed reading this review.

Below you’ll find links to the products mentioned and I’ll try to get a discount code for my readers and post it below as well.

Kawai VPC1:

Check lowest price here

 

 

Alternatives:

In case you are looking for something slightly more affordable, more lightweight or a traditional stage piano, below I have put together a short list of other top digital pianos to consider..

 

High End Electric Pianos:

 

Yamaha Avantgrand

 

 

Yamaha CP1

 

 

Roland V-piano

 

 

Low Priced Electric Pianos :

 

Roland FP-30

Read more..

 

Yamaha P-115

Read more..

 

 

If you have any questions then please leave a comment below.

Thanks,

Andreas