Demo of repetitions on a single key on a CP33 Yamaha Stage Piano

Hard work, but can be done!

I think one thing, that all digital pianos failed, is about powerfull strikes. Not just for classic and refined music... but the crazy one that jump in the piano and start to play as a mad, with rhythm and a lot of energy.

Let's be honest, digital piano keyboards, even the bests, have a limited dynamic range. If you play too hardy it's not the same thing.
The sympathetic effects somehow deeply affect the sound in real pinaos even, for pop music.

The speakers can't reproduce a real piano sound when for explosive strikes.

Maybe I'm exagerating a bit, and I never tried a digital piano in shape of a grand, with speakers around the piano body and where would be the soundboard.

But all youtube video I ever saw, showing someone playing a digital piano, are far to be like, someone playing a real piano.  The speakers, room accoustik reflection from the piano body sound...,  or whatever.. just make the sound different.

Even when modelled catchnevery aspect of true pianos, like woodnes, clear natural timbre, there will be need for better speakers systems.

One thing is match a recording, and other thing is match the live sound./
Evem when it's on a stage with sound system a a huge audience, there is a significative difference. A real grand sound good and while the best stage pianos sound always as a digital stage piano. Don't know exactly why that happned, if the real thing and the digital are connected to a sound sytem.
I really dislike to see Elton John and Ray Charles playing in digital pianos.

Why do you dislike Kawai's so much? The action? The sound?

Well, that was a careless thing to say; but I did say  "given the choice"! I once worked on a show that had as its set two Steinway concert grands, both tuned by a Steinway engineer, and I spent most of my time playing them. Or rather one of them; one was an American Steinway, one was a German Steinway... The thing I remember about the experience was that it was as if I'd been practicing solidly for three months; suddenly passages that had been problematic fell under my hands with ease. A few pianos have given me something close to that experience since, but none of them have been a Kawai, which in comparison to the Bosendorfers and Bechsteins that I've tried before and since have felt like just another piano, and crucially haven't given me as much pleasure as my trusty Danemann upright. So I suppose what I meant is if someone offered to exchange my upright for a Kawai grand I'd probably say no. And I think that in the end it's the action that I don't like, but I'm afraid I wasn't terribly analytical about it at the time.

Put it on any real grand piano action and off you go.

Midi is a very open standard (I wrote a functional parser for use in a video game in about two days), hook up a potentiometer or some type of optical sensors and then comes the tweaking. Shouldn't be too difficult. (famous last words, I know...)

http://www.petrof.com/midi-grand-piano-all.html

Ugly, but somehow nice. As far as I can see though its a midi controller.

I have to go now, I am being called to make coffee.. I'll read the rest of your post tomorrow - looks interesting..ah well.

Anyway would be a good idea to develope a midi controller with real grand action, for pianoteq.

I was thinking...  How works the sensor of a good Hammer Action digital piano ?  They are much cheaper than the expensive retrofit sensor system selled apart.
Perhaps could be possible use the nor so expansive standart sensor of digital pianos, in a project of real grand action copntroller, making it affordable.

Does Anybody here have a schematic, blue print or something, that shows the sensors in a typical quality progressive hammer action digital piano ?

There is a piano factory on Brazil, Fritz Dobert, and they also resell grand pianos form Kawai, real and digital models, and of course their own brands.
I once tought about suggest this idea, but my email got no reurn.

I hope you think that was 6-8 weeks trialling well spent from thinking about buying one and actually buying one. I hope you are pleased with your purchase.

If you remember I identified with your initial posts because I am going down a similar path but on a different budget..

Well, since then my budget plans have changed (I am going to save up a lot more money than I originally planned) because I haven't been happy with any digital pianos/ keyboards I have tried except for one - Yamaha's Avantgrand. No, I am not going to buy one of those, why would anyone really?? But the predecessor to that piano, the GT2, has the same action: an action which I really liked when sitting at the Avantgrand N2 they have in Chappell's on Wardour Street, its a real grand's action. The next best was the Mp8 II, but a GT2 can be had second hand for about the same as a new Kawai, plus it has pedals (soft and sustain capable of continuous detection) a nice cabinited and some proper amplification. Makes it ideal for hooking up to Pianoteq.

Oh I wish Modartt's fellows would commission some manufacturer like Kawai or Yamaha to produce something like the GT2 (not that Petrof madness someone posted about a while back, ugly brute of a thing that is) but without any internal sounds and 4 pedals so we can really utilise the harmonics pedal..? Perhaps with a sound module built in and Pianoteq preloaded, I know, I am being silly. I'll shut up now.