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

I do wonder if digital piano makers have ever considered adding an element of inconsistency in how a note will sound even if the key is struck with the exact same mechanical parameters. I wonder if that would help replicate the unmistakable organic feel of an acoustic piano?

Rubens
One VST library (obviously not a digital piano, but an add-on for one) advertises "round robins."

The blurb for it on the B&H website says in part, "Round robin sampling involves recording multiple samples per note, so that when a note is played repeatedly, it is not triggering the same sample. "

An interesting concept...

Pallas
Yes I've seen them, thanks!

Jane
Aha! Yes this is what I was talking about. I wonder if that would replicate the feeling I have on an acoustic.

I still can't find the best words to describe the feeling. It's like the sound is a paste and I'm shaping the paste. Those are the best words I can find so far, so not very good.

I think @Joseph-Fleetwood put it pretty well. Hybrids are a major improvement over digital pianos, but at the end of the day they are a compromise for people who would like an acoustic grand piano but live in an apartment, don't want to deal with piano maintenance, can't afford an acoustic grand, etc.

Context: I practiced on a P515 (digital) for years, then upgraded to a Yamaha N2 (hybrid), and get to perform on a variety of acoustic grand pianos (Steinway, Fazioli, Schimmel, Bösendorfer, Petrof) at local piano meetups.

The P515 is a nice little thing, but the technique for playing a digital piano is not the same, and that impacts your playing on an acoustic piano. The most noticeable adjustment is when playing soft/light — on a digital, you just press down, but less fast. This works very differently on a real piano action (the resistance of the key is nonlinear, there's escapement, etc.), so a lot of digital-only players have difficulty playing pp on an acoustic piano. Also, during certain fast passages (e.g. the LH octaves in Baba Yaga) I felt like the keys were recoiling against my fingers - this added additional strain to my hands (I speculate this is because of escapement, you don't have to move the full weight of the key the entire time on a real action).

I bought a used Yamaha N2 earlier this year. In many ways it is a major improvement over the digital — but also in some cases it highlights more starkly the deficiencies in my technique (e.g. fast repeated notes that were easier to get to sound on the P515). At the end of the day though it's so much better to practice on and makes me a better player when I play on an acoustic grand.

Compared to the acoustic grands I play on, I still don't love the touch on the N2. I'm not sure if it's because it uses a baby grand action (shorter sticks) or if I need to get it regulated but it's not as light and responsive as some of the concert grands I've played on — it feels like I'm working to play the piano instead of my fingers dancing weightlessly across the keys.

And this is just touch. There's no comparison obviously when it comes to sound production. Just as piped-in engine noises don't produce the same visceral sensation as a naturally aspirated flat-six, digital sound production on hybrid pianos is just a shallow facsimile. The sound will never make you cry tears of pain... but it'll also never make you cry tears of joy.

SouthPark I think I've also come across the strory that Stephen Hough keeps a digital in his home and his acoustic grands in a studio some distance away.

keff Thanks for mentioning that Keff! Online sources mention his dad was born in Australia, and he has dual nat ... british-aussie. I didn't know that before! Just saw online 5 minutes ago. Best regards.

Rubens

Digital piano makers may or may not have considered inconsistencies in sound, but Pianoteq - I know this tends to be an emotive subject, but some facts are just facts, whether you consider them relevant is another matter - has a condition slider which degrades the sound progressively to a honky tonk or worse and a number of parameters which randomly vary the sound slightly, all independently of each other. It suits some who are troubled by what can appear to be an identical machine-like sound. Please start a pro/anti Pianoteq thread if you wish, rather than derailing this thread. Thank you.

keff He is or was a Yamaha artist and he did a promotional video for them. As payment they gave him an N1, back in I think 2010. They did the same for Murray McLachlan as well.

Specifically that was Yamaha Music London, the store, that did that for them and not Yamaha Corporation or YASI New York.

As I was looking through the latest posts on this thread, the thought occurred to me, "satisfy a grand player" in what way? What is the purpose and what are the situations / limitations that need to be recognized? It might not be the same for everyone.

As a for instance, if you are playing on concert stages and traveling from place to place, your hotel rooms are not likely to have a 7' Steinway tuned and regulated to perfection for you to practice on while you're there. In that case, you may need something portable and a digital of some kind may be what you can easily manage.

What if you are living in a situation where you are mostly at home but do not have room for or a budget for a nice grand piano? Or you are in a situation where the noise of an actual piano would be a problem for the neighbors? You do the best you can. And for some people, that will be a digital piano of some type, probably a better quality one if you are a serious musician.

One size just doesn't fit all. Never did. Never will. Even the top pianists won't agree on what piano they want on a concert stage, and those who are all that and a bag of potato chips travel with their own piano and sometimes their own technician to make sure it's 100% all of the time. If you can't play the piano, it's not because you practiced on a "top end hybrid" instead of a $400,000 concert grand.

One thing I would suggest, though, regardless of what you practice on, play on something else regularly. Even if what you practice on is the most highly regulated and tuned concert grand, someday, someone will sit you down in front of a crappy Winter spinet that was tooned by the janitor in 1975 and expect you to play it. Yeah, an extreme example. But unless you are top 1% already, you'll be playing the less than ideal pianos presented to you on stage anyway. Best if you can do well with less than great pianos.

Bellyman yeah I was definitely in a ornery mood when I posted earlier, there's a lot of good to be said for hybrid pianos. A former studiomate of mine tours the country with a hybrid piano in a van performing in various public places (try doing that with an acoustic piano without also carrying around a tuner/technician!) and her performances certainly don't suffer for it.

My thoughts on the subject echo what Joseph and TheBoringPianist said, and especially what HeartKeys said about “satisfied” versus “same thing”.

From an action point of view, the top hybrids do a superb job of emulating the grand piano experience to build and maintain technique, because, for all intents and purposes, what you find in a hybrid is exactly what you will find in an acoustic. The only main difference is the hammers are replaced with weight-appropriate stoppers, and, in the case of Yamaha, the weight from the damper is missing - and the impact of those things is calculated for and of minimal influence overall.

Overall, though, it’s fairly identical in terms of action.

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Where the issues crop in is the sound. There isn’t a digital on the market that has a sound that matches an acoustic piano. Period. And that’s because all digitals use sounds that are a mere snapshot of an acoustic. Some are powered by a very simplistic sampling processes which just record 3 or 4 velocities per note (an absurd limitation of a piano’s capability and tonal/timbral variation which may not even capture the entire dynamic range), are not recorded in highest fidelity, and are haphazardly assisted by mediocre sound effects. Others use an extremely, extremely throttled version of “modeling” which may not even actually be modeling because true modeling requires a level of computing power that no digital has. Now, A.) for styles of music that stay in a very “present” and straight-forward tonal/timbral range, B.) for musicians who don’t need extreme nuance for their playing style/performing style/tastes, C.) for simpler styles of music and arrangements, and D.) for beginner/intermediate students of styles that do require nuance - for these use cases, the extremely nuanced and infinite-within-its-physical-range-of-capability sonic responsiveness of an acoustic isn’t necessary and/or may not even be desired. But for styles of music or pianists who require the near infinite nuance of an acoustic - there isn’t one digital that matches what an acoustic piano can produce.

That said, the use of VSTs help mitigate this because they solve that problem by contain a more complete and nuanced capturing of what an acoustic piano can do.

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Now there are still some issues.

RE THE EXPERIENCE OF PLAYING: None of them contain the action you’d find in a concert piano - both Yamaha and Kawai are using actions that would be from 5-foot/6-foot (Yamaha) or larger 6-foot (Kawai) pianos. Thus, the super fine responsiveness that comes from the very long keysticks and specialized regulation on a concert piano will never be present on the current hybrids. So, even if your VST sounds like a 9-footer, your hybrid will never truly play like one.

Also, not all hybrids are created alike. Some prefer Yamaha Avantgrands, some prefer Kawai Novus. Reasons and differences presented vary from person to person.

Also, in my experience, and in the testimony of at least two others, I’ve seen reports about hybrids having a bit of difficulty creating the very lowest dynamics - this may be due to how the optical sensors work or are calibrated.

RE LIFESPAN AND REGULATION: Typical regulation is pretty much impossible as they can’t be lubricated normally (lubricant would disturb the optical sensors) nor can the hammers be altered (unless you willing to shave/shape/drill-tiny-holes-through metal/plastic). Most technicians won’t touch them for that reason and those that will are still limited in what they can do. You’re pretty much stuck with factory regulation, which basically doesn’t exist. The shelf life is also a fraction of an acoustics: while the acoustic action inside of it could last for decades - the digital/electric aspects will not - eventually the optical sensors, motherboard, circuitry, computer inside will stop working, replacing the parts will become more and more expensive out of warranty, and then impossible when production stops. An acoustic has no such issues, and can last for centuries so long as you take care of it, maintain it, and refurbish it when necessary.

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I think HeartKeys made a very good point about “satisfy” versus “the same”.

For some uses cases, a hybrid without a VST may well satisfy, but it won’t be the same as an acoustic or equal what an acoustic can do - for these use cases, this may not matter or even be detectable.

For other use cases, ONLY a hybrid without a VST probably won’t satisfy. Partner them together, and you can almost fool yourself into believing you’re playing a $200,000 grand. And it will suffice as a practice instrument, and maybe even a performance/recording instrument. Almost.

But it will never full equal or replace the experience of playing on a finely regulated concert instrument. You may be SATISFIED. But it will never be a replacement, and when you sit down at the real thing, if you have the demands/ear/experience, you will notice.

For most, the hybrid is a compromise. They want the most realistic action, but can’t have a loud acoustic in their living space, so they get a hybrid as their main instrument or their practice instrument. Or they don’t have space for an acoustic. Or they can’t afford an acoustic or find a suitable one in their budget range.

For my own use case, I live in a shared space where the walls are made of paper, so an acoustic piano is completely undoable - my neighbors would be after me with pitchforks. Moreover, the type of piano I’d want is out of my budget - I’m an independent artist surviving off grants and fellowships - my budget is strict and I live a rather spartan life and budget months in advance to afford nice things for my arts ventures. So even if I had space for an acoustic, I couldn’t afford anything but a bad used one at best, unless I got really lucky.

Hence hybrids being a solution for me (although I’ve since moved back to a digital that is somewhere in between a hybrid and a regular - the Casio GP series).

But if I had the money and the living arrangement - psh, I’d have an acoustic. And quite frankly, I think most who have a hybrid would agree. It’s the compromise we make based on our circumstance.

And it’s a superb compromise one. And even a willing one. But, I think most of us were all aware that it was a compromise regardless, and that in exchange for having most of our needs met, we’d sacrifice the most demanding of them.

SouthPark
1.) The question was not whether an acoustic piano can satisfy a user of digital/computer/electronic technologies. The question was whether a hybrid piano can satisfy a grand user. Nobody who plays a grand piano AND is looking for a digital version of a grand piano (as the OP’s question presents) would want “pitch bend” or any other such effects. Moreover, if anybody wanted any of those effects, a hybrid would not necessarily be the best choice - a workstation keyboard would.

2.) What you have linked to is ONE study done by an organization that clearly has an agenda and an interest in this technology (25th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects) that surveyed a tiny group of 52 people (only 29 of whom actually play the instrument at levels and genres that aren’t disclosed and many of whom may not even be capable of differentiation). They played different random samples of 99 potential tracks, two real and two modeled - which means that not all of the surveyed people were listening to the same tracks. There’s no data to support whether it was truly random or not, no control group, no retests to confirm the results, no disclosure of whether it was double-blind or not. There’s no way to confirm this data. This is extremely unscientific and holds almost no merit. (And interestingly, they, too, also use the word “real” as a differentiator).

3.) I think at this point, whether based on what you’ve posted here, or what you’ve historically shared for those of us who are familiar with your posts: we are very, very, very clear on your opinion.

4.) That said, I disagree. They’re not all real pianos. It’s not “digital piano” and “acoustic piano”. It’s “digital piano” and “acoustic piano”. Notice the bolding. The “acoustic piano” is a piano, full stop, and the only reason we now put “acoustic” in front of it is because of the arrival of electronic versions, which necessitated differentiation. A “digital piano” is an instrument that functions as an electronic and computerized approximation (and sometimes a superb one) of a real piano. They are not the same.

You’ve shared in the past that you believe that a piano is called that simply because it is an instrument that can be soft or loud and have a keyboard layout. That is untrue. A piano has a very specific definition, that is about more than it’s dynamic abilities and keyboard layout, and can be gleaned from the original name and invention descriptor the inventor gave it: Un Arpicembalo di Bartolomeo Cristofori di nuova inventione, che fa' il piano, e il forte, a due registri principali unisoni, con fondo di cipresso senza rosa, or “An arpicembalo/harp-harpsichord by Bartolomeo Cristofori, of new invention, which plays soft and loud, with two unison principal registers (two sets of unison pitch strings), and a bottom/foundation (soundboard) made of cypress without rose”.

It was never just the dynamic capabilities of the piano that make it a piano, as a clavichord, which existed before the piano, was capable of dynamic variation also. Not was it the keyboard layout used on pianos, as that layout was used two centuries before the piano even existed on the harpsichord and spinetta. Cristofori’s own definition of his invention gives us insight into what makes a piano.

A piano, whether in it’s original form or the modern version of it, is an instrument made of metals, woods, and nowadays, plastic and carbon, that has 88 keys which trigger a complex system of levers, joints, and connect parts to cause a hammer to strike a string, and amplifies that sound with a bridge and other elements of the body, which can be horizontal or vertical. A digital piano is a computerized and electronic instrument which uses different technologies to emulate the full-stop piano.*

At present, there isn’t a digital that is better at being a piano than a real piano. However there are many that are able to approximate it at superb levels, although requiring help to accomplish that goal. And as musical instruments, they are excellent, can even be better for certain use cases, and can also present other options and effects that an acoustic piano cannot. However, they are not better at simply being a piano than a piano.