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Keyboards/Piano good digital piano for kids, my 7 yold just started learning piano..

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TSGon Freaks
post Sep 27 2021, 08:21 PM, updated 3y ago

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Hi all sifus.

i just started sending my kids for a piano lesson with a personal tutor.

i am looking for a good digital piano.

the tutor suggested, flykeys lk03s. around 2.5k

i personally think that, it is a bit to early to go for such price piano.

do you think i can get a cheaper one, less than 2k?

any good suggestion?

thanks,

Appreciate your help on this.


c64
post Sep 27 2021, 08:40 PM

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There is no such thing as a digital piano for kids. A digital piano is a digital piano. RM2.5k is cheap already. If you want to be cheap, buy a keyboard, but it will not help improve piano skills. Kids education don't come cheap, been there, done that.
pipedream
post Sep 28 2021, 12:13 PM

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QUOTE(Gon Freaks @ Sep 27 2021, 08:21 PM)
Hi all sifus.

i just started sending my kids for a piano lesson with a personal tutor.

i am looking for a good digital piano.

the tutor suggested, flykeys lk03s. around 2.5k

i personally think that, it is a bit to early to go for such price piano.

do you think i can get a cheaper one, less than 2k?

any good suggestion?

thanks,

Appreciate your help on this.
*
sounds like a china brand, which you should avoid like the plague

go for japanese brands like yamaha, casio, korg and roland

yamaha and casio does produces a budget line of digital pianos but i am afraid they won't be great pianos, probably suited for grade 1-5, but if they are to go serious down the line, playing and practicing on a digital piano may introduce bad techniques if not corrected.

at grade 5 and above, players should strive to play on an acoustic, there is no *cheap* digital piano in the market that can emulate the feel of a true acoustic piano. *i say cheap because some really expensive lines are impressive, but at that price point why would i want a dp.

back to your question, i personally would buy this with your budget

https://shopee.com.my/Roland-FP-10-88-key-D...730?position=29

edit: some knowledge about keyboards and pianos, hope this can help future readers with the same dilemma (long wall of text, read if you are interested)

several types of pianos exist in the market

1. keyboard

- price range

from the most budget toy like crap you see on supermarket shelf to expensive professional lines which we call arrangers

- difference from a digital/acoustic piano

i'll talk about professional expensive keyboards and not the crappy stuff you usually see

usually, the first difference is the number of keys, with 61 keys being the most common, because the keyboard is usually used as a backing instrument, ie for a melody or bass loop during performance, they don't need the full range 88 keys, some even exist in 25 keys. that said, there are 88 keys keyboard in the market as well, but they are not too common usually.

second, keyboards has soft touch. if you are shopping around for a piano/keyboard, you will see the word "touch" being thrown around far too often. the touch is how a key feel while being pressed, keyboards usually have soft touch as opposed to a "hard" touch which is artificially added in digital pianos which we called "hammered action" or "scaled hammer action". what the "scale hammered action" does is it emulates a grand piano, which has natural resistance in the keys from the lower bass range (due to the string size) which "scales" to become lighter as it goes across the board to the lightest end at the high octaves keys.

the touch isn't important for a keyboardist whom would commonly use the keyboard as a backing instrument, but if you are playing solo, you would want the keys to be as close as possible to what a piano would feel like so your skills are transferable from one piano to the other. and its safe to say that you will pick up the wrong playing technique if you started off on a keyboard (like i did). also, they are required to be light and portable as possible, artificially adding weight is counterintuitive

another thing is the "touch response". not to be confused with the hammered action, touch response is commonly found in keyboards. touch response is also a feature emulated from pianos, when playing a key, if you play as hard as you can (fortissimo), the sound will be loud and vice-versa with pianissimo (soft). as a fortissimo and pianissimo is incredibly important to properly express a song. this feature is a must if you are shopping for keyboards.

to add up on touch response, there are "levels" that the manufacture will specify, the higher the levels the more depth and accuracy the feedback is, and of course, more expensive.

2. digital pianos (abbr dp cause i am lazy to type out)

as mentioned in the name, dp sought to closely emulate an acoustic as closely as possible.

the advantage of dp is mainly for practicing silently (as you can use headphones if needed), and its cheaper to start on compared to an acoustic (basic acoustic cost from 5-7k).

dp will commonly feature "scaled hammered action" and "touch response". *forgot to mention earlier "hammered action" refers to the resistance a key has, a dp can have the same resistance equally over all keys (i have seen one).*

however, not all manufacturer have the same action, and they have their own interpretation on how a grand piano should feel, so its really up to the player to test and see which one they prefer. *i personally hated yamaha dp because they are too light and felt cheap* and generally, a cheap dp will not feel good, which differentiates between the price point, but budget lines these days does feature the same action with their more expensive lines, make sure to compare their action e.g. roland's PHAIV or Korg NH

what really differentiates a dp from the price range is their sound. generally the sounds are playback from a sampled (recorded) key sound from an actual piano, good dp manufacturer like yamaha would often advertise their dp as sampled from a bosendorfer grand piano for example. but, the sampled sound are limited to what an actual piano could produce, for example, the manufacturer would likely only sample 3 "levels" for the touch response, but in actual pianos, the response is not a leveled one, but a linear one. so this makes playing on an acoustic piano much much more expressive than on a dp.

but these days, roland has came out with gimmicks like the supernatural sound engine which combines sampled sound with computer generated sound to fill in the gaps, it does sound great. thats why i recommended roland as first choice.

dp also subclassed into "stage pianos" which lacks a speaker (generally)

3. acoustic piano

for how an acoustic works, please youtube it, basically key hit strings with varying tension and string reverbs producing the note

acoustic piano has several class as well and the price scales with their class (generally)

1. upright piano $
2. upright grand piano $$
3. baby grand piano $$$
4. grand piano $$$$

what differentiates these classes are the size of the soundboard. upright and baby grand has the smallest soundboard

the difference of upright and upright grands are the location of their soundboard, as it namesake, the soundboard are vertically placed as opposed to grands' horizontally placed soundboard.

shopping for acoustics is another different topic with the size of the soundboard and the wood quality etc etc

This post has been edited by pipedream: Sep 28 2021, 01:10 PM
TSGon Freaks
post Sep 28 2021, 12:19 PM

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QUOTE(pipedream @ Sep 28 2021, 12:13 PM)
sounds like a china brand, which you should avoid like the plague

go for japanese brands like yamaha, casio, korg and roland

yamaha and casio does produces a budget line of digital pianos but i am afraid they won't be great pianos, probably suited for grade 1-5, but if they are to go serious down the line, playing and practicing on a digital piano may introduce bad techniques if not corrected.

at grade 5 and above, players should strive to play on an acoustic, there is no *cheap* digital piano in the market that can emulate the feel of a true acoustic piano. *i say cheap because some really expensive lines are impressive, but at that price point why would i want a dp.

back to your question, i personally would buy this with your budget

https://shopee.com.my/Roland-FP-10-88-key-D...730?position=29
*
alright, such good comments. thank you.

so my concern now is that I think at early stage for my kids, at least till grade 3, I wouldn't want to spend a lot of the equipments/instrument because I believe at those grades they are more in terms of learning. not really experimenting. however grade 5 above is where the experimentation happens, so at that time, If my kids is able to survive, i wont mind buying him a 10k acoustic piano.

so what do you think?

is it ok if i go with less than 2k piano as this point of time. for example this.

https://www.lazada.com.my/products/master-g....3_starplus.4__

pipedream
post Sep 28 2021, 01:07 PM

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QUOTE(Gon Freaks @ Sep 28 2021, 12:19 PM)
alright, such good comments. thank you.

so my concern now is that I think at early stage for my kids, at least till grade 3, I wouldn't want to spend a lot of the equipments/instrument because I believe at those grades they are more in terms of learning. not really experimenting. however grade 5 above is where the experimentation happens, so at that time, If my kids is able to survive, i wont mind buying him a 10k acoustic piano.

so what do you think?

is it ok if i go with less than 2k piano as this point of time. for example this.

https://www.lazada.com.my/products/master-g....3_starplus.4__
*
i have revised my posts with tons of information

the key is to test it out

but i would not go for anything less than a japanese brand imo

edit: at your kids level, i would focus on getting a brand with a good action that closely resemble an acoustic as possible

This post has been edited by pipedream: Sep 28 2021, 01:13 PM
TSGon Freaks
post Sep 28 2021, 01:46 PM

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QUOTE(pipedream @ Sep 28 2021, 01:07 PM)
i have revised my posts with tons of information

the key is to test it out

but i would not go for anything less than a japanese brand imo

edit: at your kids level, i would focus on getting a brand with a good action that closely resemble an acoustic as possible
*
wow, such informative post. thank you!

so the option I gave is not good enough? or maybe the right word is, not suitable at all?
pipedream
post Sep 28 2021, 01:59 PM

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QUOTE(Gon Freaks @ Sep 28 2021, 01:46 PM)
wow, such informative post. thank you!

so the option I gave is not good enough? or maybe the right word is, not suitable at all?
*
honestly, i do not know as i don't have experience playing on that particular model

but i do know at that price for china goods, its likely to be marked up at least twice from its original price

and i have experience playing on a really cheap china made dp, and its really really bad

if your budget really don't allow pass the 2k mark, i would recommend sourcing used models from marketplace or even a good quality keyboard would be better

stay away from china made ones (including acoustic pianos like hailun)

enin5555
post Sep 28 2021, 02:15 PM

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I'll chime in. FYI, background in music, ABRSM till grade 7 practical and theory. i agree with Pipedreams comments. All are valid.

For digital piano, stick with yamaha, korg, roland, casio. These do have budget models and some are quite well made.

Personally, i use a Korg-b1sp, as it's just the right price range without all the fancy electronics that i dont need. I think the replacement model of this is the Korg-b2. ( sorry cant paste links cos still probation acc)
TSGon Freaks
post Sep 28 2021, 03:27 PM

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QUOTE(enin5555 @ Sep 28 2021, 02:15 PM)
I'll chime in. FYI, background in music, ABRSM till grade 7 practical and theory. i agree with Pipedreams comments. All are valid.

For digital piano, stick with yamaha, korg, roland, casio. These do have budget models and some are quite well made.

Personally, i use a Korg-b1sp, as it's just the right price range without all the fancy electronics that i dont need. I think the replacement model of this is the Korg-b2.  ( sorry cant paste links cos still probation acc)
*
ah nice. thank. you.

can you pm me the link?
bootmod3
post Feb 25 2022, 11:07 AM

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You should stick with known brand names like Yamaha. A must for digital piano is the ability to touch tone (sound intensity differs based on pressure applied) so that it can mimic as close as possible when playing on an actual piano.
TSGon Freaks
post Feb 25 2022, 01:06 PM

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QUOTE(bootmod3 @ Feb 25 2022, 11:07 AM)
You should stick with known brand names like Yamaha. A must for digital piano is the ability to touch tone (sound intensity differs based on pressure applied) so that it can mimic as close as possible when playing on an actual piano.
*
thank you. ive purchased a kawai brand.


 

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