Can even the top end hybrids really satisfy a grand player?

Thank you Taushi, making things very clear.

SouthPark

Actually, nothing in my most recent post was a revisiting of the tangent you inserted around “what constitutes a real piano”. My most recent post was just sharing the “conventional definition” of a hybrid piano.

I’ve already been very clear on the differences between real acoustic pianos and approximative digital pianos. As much of what you’re saying is highly subjective and rooted in your own personal ideology more than in the conventional wisdom on the subject, It’s not a discussion I will be revisiting

SouthPark

I don’t agree. I’ve been very clear on that. I am not revisiting the discussion. I have detailed my opinion and provided supporting facts and data. My opinion has not changed, and won’t be changed by your argument.

You’re entitled to your opinion, but you need to realize that it will not be shared by many. Repeating your views ad nauseam, across threads and forums, won’t change anyone’s mind, especially when your views are not rooted in fact or conventional wisdom, but are highly subjective and reflect your own personal ideology and mantras. It should be enough to you that you believe what you believe.

I don’t think there’s anything else for us to discuss, so I’ll disconnect from this interaction.

KawaiJames However, these days (at least within Kawai Japan), the "Hybrid" term is more commonly used to refer to acoustic instruments that incorporate digital technologies (such as the ATX and AURES models), or digital instruments that incorporate acoustic piano keyboard action/pedal mechanisms (NOVUS models):

KawaiJames I don't disagree that the Kawai America website refers to the CA97 as a "hybrid piano". However, to my knowledge, Kawai Japan did not use this terminology to refer to the product.

The CA97 was discontinued in late 2017, however the product page is still online on the Kawai Global website for archival purposes: https://www.kawai-global.com/product/ca97/

You'll note that "hybrid" is not mentioned on the above page. Moreover, the CAx7 brochure from that generation also does not refer to "hybrid": https://www.kawai-global.com/data/catalogue/CAx7_brochure_EN_300dpi.pdf

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
James
x

Thank you for these points of clarification. This is what matters.

And it’s not only true of Kawai, but also Yamaha. The conventional popular definition of a “hybrid” has settled into being a digital piano with a true acoustic action inside.

And neither the CA series by Kawai nor the GP series by Casio meet that definitions.

Now, that said, both the CA series by Kawai and the GP series by Casio are superb instruments. As I’ve said, I actually prefer the Casio-GP I now own to the Yamaha N1X hybrid I previously owned and many have extolled the virtues of the CA series.

So for the purposes of this forum can we refer to hybrids as those digital pianos which have an acoustic action inside them? Realizing that the AvantGrand and Novus pianos don't have an exact acoustic action inside them, they are enough of an acoustic action as to not feel markedly different to a grand or upright piano. We could for the sake of argument include the Casio Celviano as it has many of the components of the grand action but it is not a true grand action. In theory you could swap the hammers out of the AvantGrand or Novus and use it in a grand piano (aside from strike point issues....) which you couldn't do with the Casio.

I believe that the Roland pianos are not Hybrids, because they don't contain any acoustic piano components. They're great pianos and I've always really enjoyed playing them, but they're not true hybrids in that sense. The Kawai CA-series are acoustically hybrids because of the soundboards, but it's a bit confusing to use the name hybrid for an entirely different product. Again, they have really beautiful actions and they sound lovely, and are great for practicing on but they're not hybrids.

My two grand pianos and my upright all have entirely different actions in them. Going from the Blüthner Patent to the double repetition to the upright requires about the same level of adapting in my technique as it does going from any one of them to my P515. In the practice rooms in Glasgow I'd go from a Yamaha C3L with a bright sound and fairly light touch to the teaching room with a very mellow Hamburg Steinway A with a more robust action, and that required a level of adapting in the touch as well. Playing the CFIIIS was very different to playing the Steinway D, which is different to playing a Shigeru Kawai, which is different to a Blüthner Model 1 or a Bösendorfer 280VC, and they're all different to the Imperial.

You can only cut your coat according to your cloth - and I don't know you might have unlimited cloth but my point is that these days, a lot of the trouble that people have with digital pianos is actually emotional. Clavinova, Roland, Kawai, Casio, and all the hybrids are all good pianos for learning notes. It's a little bit harder on them to hear in full resolution what you're trying to do artistically so things like pedaling, articulation, legato, are all going to require some time on an acoustic piano.

Two fabulous pianists I know from Moscow practice on Clavinovas on a regular basis. One of my teachers, who was Goldenweiser's student, prepared for a Wigmore Hall recital in the late 1980s on a Clavinova, it was a CLP-560 or something, not a great piano by today's standards at all. I asked her how that affected her performance and she said it made no difference. She said that the real sound was in her inner ear all the time. Now, I don't like that idea of the real sound being in the inner ear, and only in the inner ear, because obviously you have to react to the instrument and the surroundings, but I also think she was making a good point that it comes from within.

After all that rambling though, I side with those who believe a Hybrid is a piano with a full acoustic action, be it slightly modified or not. I would include the Casio Grand Hybrid in that although it's not quite the same, but I wouldn't include the Kawai CA97 or Roland LX series in that - even though they're great pianos.

If I may contribute with my input...
While I do prefer the sound of acoustics in general, I think maybe digital piano makers have not been focusing on the right thing. So far I think the focus has been mostly to replicate the sound of acoustics as realistically as possible, and maybe that will always be a losing proposition. So I've been wondering, instead of merely emulating the sound of acoustics, why not try to surpass it in some aspects? For example, there are parameters of timbre that most people find to be pleasant, such as warmth, sustain, clarity, brilliance without being overly percussive, and so on. Digital pianos can boost those select parameters, maybe to levels that acoustics cannot match. Of course it will sound artificial, but that is not the point. Think of how animation movies can feature characters and landscapes that look more enchanting, colorful or expressive (when it comes to characters) than anything in real life. (I'm thinking about the concept of the superstimulus here.) Usually when those movies are remade in live action versions people don't like them as much as the animation versions. Could a similar phenomenon happen in the world of digital piano sounds? Would those enhanced albeit artificial sounds be good enough to compensate for the lack of realism and maybe even satisfy grand piano players? Has this already been attempted? Frankly I don't know enough about DP's so I'm just hypothesizing here.

To some extent, there are some that do that.

The “felt piano” VSTs come to mind with their super exaggerated felt sounds, soft attacks, dreamy sonic ambience, and even added synth sounds. There’s been a number of these which have become super popular, and, may be a even better choice than an acoustic piano for certain genres of music, like “Lo-fi”, New Age, Meditation, and Modern Classical.

I actually consider keyboards and synths to be the keyboard equivalent of electric guitars, in how they’re based around many of the characteristics of pianos, but take things in a different direction that can actually seem authentic in a way that emulative sampling hasn’t.

Even Pianoteq seems to really win when it’s creating “new” or capturing lesser-known piano tones/timbres instead of attempting to capture name brand/well-known timbres.

_

Also, I think that while no digital piano has a sound set that matches an acoustic, there are a lot of VSTs that come quite close. And I still don’t think there’s a VST out there that fully captures what VSTs are capable of.

I’d still love to see a company like VSL sample a more general piano, like a Steinway or Yamaha, in an acoustically treated room (to avoid room ambience and truly capture every aspect of an instrument’s sound), and sample both sustain and una corda with the same level of comprehensiveness with which they’ve done their previous pianos. I think that could be THEE VST that creates a new level of authenticity and immersion. And it’s possible now that we have the computers, processors and drives that could handle something like that, the microphones that could capture it, and the coding that the best VSTs makers use is pretty excellent now.

I’d also love to see digitals finally start using better sampling that what they come with, as that would help the close the gap much more. Instead of using four and five layer samples recorded in medium fidelity, they could do much better in terms of their sampling and really take digitals to a new level.

I’d love to see a digital running a native VST-level sound set. It doesn’t have to be VSL level, but it could be better than what it is.

TheBoringPianist

I don't agree with that. I think this idea is maybe nice as an additional instrument for people who already have a nice acoustic instrument. But there are also people who can't afford a good acoustic piano, or people who live in a small house and have to play with headphones because other familymembers are watching tv 4 meters away from the piano.

I want to play the piano, not another instrument. And I want it to sound like a piano.

Josephine I don't think we actually disagree. I'm one of those people that can't afford the acoustic grand that I want and lives in an apartment. I like hybrid pianos for their touch qualities and would like it if their sound production qualities were closer to acoustic pianos. But I do think there should also be more exploration in piano-like digital instruments that take advantage of, well, being digital.

Taushi in addition to the sampling/modeling element, it feels like another limiting factor when trying to approximate acoustic piano sounds is the quality of the actual sound production mechanism, i.e. speakers. I haven't looked enough into it to know if it's a frequency range thing or something else, but there's always something missing even in listening to a high quality recording through good speakers vs. live on a good instrument.

TheBoringPianist

As long as they don't stop trying to replicate the sound and touch of an acoustic piano I agree. But it's a different instrument, and not something I'm looking for per se.

TheBoringPianist Very true. It’s interesting how many of the best digitals seem to skimp on the overall quality of the speakers/speaker system used. Even if they had superb samples inside, the speaker system wouldn’t maintain the quality of the samples.

The best speaker system I’ve seen thus far was on the Yamaha CLP-785. Good speakers inside the piano part, and the base was also full of speakers and transducers.

That and the Kawai CA-series with the soundboard seem to do the best overall job.

I think Roland has one or two with some great speakers, too.

But I’d really love to see an overall improvement with the speakers in the upper level digitals.