digital vs acoustic piano sustain

[buffalo man]

I currently own a yamaha p90 digital piano,played around with the sustain pedal a bit and when i switched to an acoustic piano at a friend's place i realised the decay and reasonance of both is so vastly different,the DP's decay is so low that most songs i don't even need much releasing of the pedal or even not at all whereas the technique for the sustain pedal in a grand/upright piano is sooooooo different,anybody has any suggestions how i can make my piano's decay longer,will adding a reverb pedal to it and running it through speakers help?

 

[Cheez]

The effect you are hearing in a real acoustic piano is the sympathetic string resonance. When you step on the damper pedal, the damper (a sponge) on the strings are released. Then when you play a note, the hammer hits one set of strings, but the other strings also resonate. On a low-end digital piano - each note is sampled but without the resonance. Also, to save memory space, most are not sampled with complete natural decay (natural decay = sampling the 8-10s of however long it is until the note dies away naturally). Most just sample the first 3-4s - then program the decay - making it unnatural sounding. When you step on the sustain pedal, it just lets the sample ring till it decays. That's why you hear the difference.

Your options are:
1. Switch to the gold standard - sampled pianos. These produce the best piano sounds including detailed sampling of the sympathetic string resonance. Most are also sampled note by note with natural decay at different velocities.
2. Switch to higher end keyboards with sympathetic string resonance. Yamaha and Roland has these at their higher end keyboards. You won't get it in the P90.

For samples, high-detailed sampled pianos are taxing on the memory and HD specs. So you may not want to use these for all your works. While I love to use my Galaxy Vintage D piano (complete with really beautiful sympathetic string resonance), it's really taxing on my notebook specs. So I would use it in soft pieces featuring mainly the piano. In pieces where I use more instruments, the nuances of the piano sound gets masked often. So I would use a lighter, less defined piano for those (NI's pianos, for example, or Sampletekk's pianos).

 

[SilverBeast]

Hi Buffalo,

The lack you find in your P90 cannot be compensated by any means. I hope this link helps us understand the technology behind that quest to make digital pianos emulate an acoustic piano with more realism:
http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/cda/flash/dp/videoplayer/dpvideoplayer.asp

With technological advancements, digital pianos might one day fool us in believing they are acoustic ones. But for now, although I'm a big fan of digital pianos (coz I don't have the money and space to own a grand piano :-D), nothing beats hearing and playing the real thing.

Anyway, you can go to a Yamaha showroom to try out its more high end models that encompasses more technology to emulate an acoustic and then compare that feeling to what you have experienced playing the acoustic at your friend's house. Just look at CLP 470, CLP 480, CLP 370, CLP380 - the 300 series are the older generation and between the 70 and 80 models is the GH3 effect and wooden keys respectively.

All the best in your music journey!

 

[buffalo man]

alright thanks so much guys i learnt alot about the acoustic now haha it has been a lot of trial and error for me getting into keyboards but i guess i'll stick with my p90 for the time being first and wait til i get enough for another higher end one

 

[Cheez]

Buffalo man, cheaper option is to go into sampled pianos. You just need a notebook, audio interface, and you're done. The better sampled pianos (ie softsamplers) are superior to most high-end keyboards because there's no RAM/memory limitation, unlike keyboards. I keep a number sampled pianos for different uses - Yamaha C3, Steinway D, Bosendorfer 290, uprights etc. Each has a different character for different types of music. Also, each are sampled differently. For example, Native Instruments's Steinway is different from Galaxy's Steinway. They are also programmed with different CPU/RAM requirements. My largest piano - Galaxy Vintage D (a Steinway D) is the heaviest one I have and as I said, I use it carefully when I need the details and nuances recorded. I currently have Native Instrument's entire set of pianos (from Komplete), Galaxy Vintage D, Sampletekk's White Grand, Truepiano, PMI's Old Lady (Steinway D) and Emperor (Bosendorfer 290), Kirk Hunter (for use in large orchestrations) etc. I never use piano sounds from keyboards for recording - only in live band situations (when details are not key). In live solo situations, I also use sampled pianos.

If you already have a notebook, you don't need to spend too much to get an excellent sounding piano. It will become very evident in your recording. I can identify a recorded Yamaha/Roland/Korg digital piano almost immediately (even the high end ones), but a sampled piano is so close to the real thing that it's not easy to tell.

But in the end, as Silverbeast said, nothing beats the real thing. I still enjoy my Yamaha acoustic piano and use it for practicing.