Tips on How to Buy the Right Piano

Buying a piano is not as easy as it seems, and with such a huge selection of pianos available, the task gets even more difficult. Below we share some consumer-savvy tips that will help you find the right piano that suits your style and budget. 

First, consider the reason why you are buying the piano. Do you want to learn to play just for fun, as a hobby, or you want to make a serious career out of it? If it is just for fun, you need not buy the most expensive pianos on the market (unless you have the money for it.) However, if you want to take piano playing very serious and perform for other people, then you can consider getting a professional or semi-pro piano.

Second, while buying a piano you need to consider your budget. An expensive piano will generally produce great sound, but you also need to think if you can afford it easily, or will it invite any financial trouble? Pianos can require you to invest a lot, so it's easy to spend a great deal of hard-earned. Thus, before you even go out piano shopping, decide on a budget and do not go beyond it.

Third, you also need to consider the space you have to accommodate your piano. If you have a huge living room and your budget is high, then you can go for an expensive piano. However, if you do not have enough space then you must opt for a smaller one. Remember, bigger pianos will produce louder sounds. If your room is small then the music might be too loud for you to bear. So keep in mind the available space in your home when you buy your piano.

Different Types of Pianos

Keyboards

Keyboards are light and portable, and they offer the ability to produce a wide range of cool sounds. It does not need much space and is relatively inexpensive. You can even play it with your headphones on and so you will not be disturbing anyone. However, the quality of sound produced will not be not as great as some pianos and it might not have all the 88 keys as is present in real pianos.

Digital Pianos

Digital pianos are known to be more comfortable than the common keyboard, thus making practice more enjoyable. These types of pianos generally have all the 88 keys. The keys on digital pianos are more weighted, so you will enjoy more freedom of expression while striking the keys. The down point is you will get what you pay for. So, the more you pay for the piano, the better will be your experience.

Acoustic Pianos

You need to be very careful while buying an acoustic piano. In some acoustic pianos, you might spend hours practicing, and still might not be able to produce good sound. On the other hand, some acoustic pianos are very comfortable to play and produce great sound. So, you need to play a lot of different pianos before you decide on one.

Upright Pianos

This piano produces amazing sound. It has all the 88 keys that are properly weighted thus allowing complete freedom of expression. If you want to practice for an audition, this piano will prove immensely helpful. However, this piano can be very expensive and can take lots of space in your room.

Grand Pianos

If you want to fill up your entire house with surround sound then you should get this piano. It has all 88 full weighted keys. You can easily sit for hours practicing on it. It will add to the beauty of the room and will produce beautiful sounds. It, however, is expensive to buy and expensive to move and can take up a lot of space in your room. Now that you know everything about pianos, you can easily get the best one for yourself.

Do not forget to test and try our a few different options at your local piano dealer before buying one. This will ultimately give you the best perspective as to which type of piano is ideal for you.

Kawai Digital Piano Review: CL26, ES7, & CE220 Models

Kawai pianos have become highly popular because of their intricate design, sensitive feel, and light keyboard structure. For 85 years, Kawai’s tradition and history of piano design and engineering has transformed into a dramatic range of digital pianos.

Many intricacies and features have been captured in Kawai pianos, and this includes the key weight, touch, real piano sound, and the face of the best of acoustic pianos. This assures both playing and listening pleasures without noise, maintenance and size restriction of an acoustic instrument.

There are many different models of Kawai digital pianos, such as Kawai CL26, Kawai CE220, Kawai ES7 among many other models. Below we review some of these models and the details to look-out for when investing in a quality piano.

Kawai CL26 Piano 

The Kawai CL26 piano is a popular selection in most showrooms, especially for starters who would wish to get a better taste of piano play. This is because the CL26 model is cost efficient and offers a quality tone and compact size.

It is among the cheapest digital pianos on the market that offers full springless design and grade-weighted hammers for a natural playing experience. The keys of CL26 piano are responsive and hoist the most nuanced touches, which is crucial for any kind of progress in your playing.

The CL26 model is very compact and will easily fit in the meager spaces. It also gives the sound of Kawai’s world popular EX concert grand piano, with 88 key piano sampling methods preserving the affluent harmonic character of the EX grand. Each key is carefully sampled to offer you the most in depth range of every key.

Kawai ES7 Piano 

The Kawai ES7 piano is the model you would want for a classy event or formal occasion. Aside from the key surfaces and buttons, there is no plastic in sight. The ES7 model is the 2nd generation of Kawai’s Responsive Hammer (RH) action (however it does not employ triple sensors and detect release velocity.) The white and black key surfaces have the desired texture for meticulous piano players, and it is graded to feel fantastic and less fatiguing.

The beautiful sound generated from the ES7 surpasses most piano models in all eighty eight notes. What Kawai describes as “Progressive Harmonic Imaging” apparently refers to wide-ranging multisampling to capture contrary harmonic content at diverse velocities. The sounds of this model are rich, lovely and give 8 variants from very mellow to very bright. It is hard to detect any velocity layer transitions, hence has a very sophisticated cross-fading and interpolation. Besides, it is hard to hear the usual loop points when perilously listening to sustained notes.

Splitting is quite simple with the ES7 piano. Anything you perform when holding the split button has impact on the lower part including choosing sound categories, pressing a key to set the split point, or repeatedly striking button categories to step through its patches. Layering is achieved through holding the first sound button while striking a second.

Kawai CE220 Piano 

The Kawai CE220 piano boasts the AWA PROII wooden-key action, a feature that has been found on the various award-winning Kawai instruments. With CE220 model, Kawai has added to its famous feature many other upgrades as well as new features. This include Progressive harmonic Imaging sound tech with 88 key piano sampling, thus producing more comprehensive, clear and real piano sound.

As one of the most versatile painos on the market, the Kawai CE220 comes with a fitting USB device facility. This lets you record a song piece. You can then play the song on another instrument or load it into a computer for mailing to a teacher or friends or printing score. Another notable upgrade is 192 note polyphony, which is 100 more than its predecessor.

Another striking feature the CE220 model has is a dual mode, where two sounds can be played simultaneously, and a split mode where one sound plays on right side while another plays on the left side. A singular 4 hands mode produces two matching 44 note pianos on the keyboard- ideal for duets or lessons.

This Kawai piano also has a suitable balance slider on the slider to control the balance in split or dual mode, a built-in metronome with numerous time signature, two headphone jacks, 100 built-in rhythm, 29 classic piano songs stored internally with accompanying music book, and a MIDI, Line out, Line in jacks, and additional USB jack.

Lastly, Kawai’s designers offered the CE220 a gorgeous premium satin black finish with sliding key cover, sliding bench, and three pedals which provide the same functionally as world-class acoustic grand pianos.

Kawai's 5 Year Warranty on Digital Pianos

In conclusion, all the Kawai digital pianos are made to exacting standards of the present market. Each piano is the zenith of the global-class mechanical and electrical engineering, software design and eighty five years of experience in designing and manufacturing superlative acoustic pianos.

Although only select piano dealers offer Kawai  pianos, you can rest assure knowing that each Kawai digital piano comes with a 5 year guarantee, for the final peace of mind. Whether it is a full digital grand, small portable instrument, you are guaranteed that your investment is safe.