I went through this purchasing decision 3 years ago, for precisely the
same reasons. I ended up with a Yamaha Clavinova. The models have
changed so I won't tell you the exact one, but it was at the high end
of their product line. I investigated all the same brands you did.
Here's why I chose Yamaha.
* Best keyboard feel by far. Feels like the best of their acoustic
pianos, and their acoustic pianos have a great touch. To get the
weighted hammer action keyboards you need to be near the top of their
line. Here's another reason to buy at the top:
* Sound quality. Simply put, the high end Clavinovas sound like great
acoustic pianos. They should, since they're priced like the real
thing. And when you're playing with a good set of headphones the sound
is so clean and the ambience so uncannily like a genuine piano that
you'll find yourself pulling off the headphones to make sure you
aren't waking up the rest of the family.
* Incidentally, it may or may not be obvious to you that these pianos
never need to be tuned. Their sounds are samples of the best
real-world pianos, so you get the best of both worlds: good sound and
low maintenance.
* Another reason to get a high end Clavinova is that you need the
high-end amp. I'm normally not a more-is-necessarily-better kind of
guy, but I bought a couple models from the top thinking that the sound
was enough. Wrong. A real piano generates a tremendous amount of
sound, and the weaker amps are not sufficient to push out the same
decibel level as an acoustic. If you play mostly using headphones, not
to worry. A Clavinova near the high end has such good sound when
playing without headphones that it cannot be distinguished from a real
piano.
Now about your questions.
* 64 voices is probably enough. It sounds like overkill, but here's
why that's not true. When you press the sustain pedal and hit, say, 10
notes, then hit another 10, the first ten are still decaying, and
therefore consuming 10 voices, so you have 20 altogether. If you're
playing some insane Liszt piece and using the sustain, you can use up
those voices pretty fast. What happens next is that the first voices
you used are recycled for the newer notes. For a beginner or
intermediate player, then, 64 voices is plenty. But it ain't enough
for a Horowitz-type player.
* Recording is much tricker than playing back. Once you can record,
you want to edit what you recorded. That requires an external computer
and a whole new skill set, but a MIDI port is plenty. (Yes, the
recorder built in to most of these pianos can edit, but they're so
hard to use and have such terrible user interfaces that they're only
for the hardiest and most masochistic of souls.) For playback any
mechanism is fine, but MIDI is always preferred because it's a
universal standard.
* The Clavinovas and most similar high-end pianos have the
record/playback feature you want.
* They all have headphone jacks. The Clavinova has 2. Incredibly
useful.
* They all have metronomes.
* Attached CD player/burner is fine. MIDI is better because it gives
you more flexibility.
* Is Yamaha better than Roland? If you're not picky, they're both okay
for quality of piano sound. I'm picky, so the Yamaha wins. This from
someone with a dozen Roland synthesizers.
* Yamaha, Korg, and Roland all have general-purpose synthesizers you
can find in musical instrument stores such as guitar center. Due to
memory restrictions, these almost never have good piano sounds. The
88-key models are becoming more common, and the action is getting
better on these models, but go to a piano store for the sturdiest,
most piano-like digital pianos.
* Do not buy a used model unless you're on a tight budget. They
improve greatly each year, so in general the later the better. this is
different from, say, violins or guitars. If you do buy a used one,
make sure it's no more than 5 years old. It's only recently that
affordable digital pianos could be created. Piano samples take a vast
quantity of memory, always one of the most expensive components of a
computer (these digital pianos are computers in disguise).
* Where to buy: I found that the best-sounding digital pianos were to
be found in piano stores, not musical instrument stores such as Guitar
Center. Also rock musicians care less about keyboard feel than do real
pianists for the most part.
I strongly recommend you pay some serious bucks for a Clavinova if you
want a good-feeling, great-sounding piano, but of course go into the
stores and try them all (bring your favorite headphones). If you're
willing to put up with a somewhat flimsier keyboard and a worse piano
sound in exchange for incredible varieties of other instrument sounds,
go with a Korg Triton, Korg Karma, Roland Fantom, roland JV-5080, or
Yamaha Motif. Less like a real piano, but with astonishingly good and
varied synth sounds.
Good luck. |
