Topic by houston

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  • houston
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  • Registered: 28-04-2015
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Topic: Keyboard Touchweight

Recently I started taking lessons with my kids' music teacher. The very heavy action on the vintage upright there soon had me shopping for a new DP keyboard, to replace my SL-990 which suddenly felt far too light.

Then I learned how "touchweight" is a real thing, measured on acoustic pianos with the damper up, and that 55g is considered about the standard for static touchweight. Also that it can be measured fairly reliably by a novice with modern coins as weights.

So I took the biggest stack of coinage I could conveniently put together: 95.8g according to google and excel. It barely deflected the keys at all, other than in the top 2 octaves. The weight conquered those fairly easily, which then became obvious when playing.

Fatar fortunately publishes touchweights of the keybeds. (It's really unfortunate that the retail brands don't!) The TP/40 comes in several flavors: Light (75g), Medium (85g), Hard (95g), and GH (which apparently is even more, other than the top range).

95g suddenly seems like a lot. I wonder how different a DP should be, since there's no mechanical damper to release? Or, what should an AP touchweight be with the damper in place?

Also I wonder if others here have performed similar tests? My keyboard is a bit older, but I'm curious to gather a few more coins to see if I can get reasonably accurate weights for the various regions. Perhaps good for reference, since the manufacturers don't seem too interested in publishing this important spec.

Reply by MeDorian

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  • MeDorian
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  • Registered: 28-06-2015
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Re: Keyboard Touchweight

houston wrote:

Recently I started taking lessons with my kids' music teacher. The very heavy action on the vintage upright there soon had me shopping for a new DP keyboard, to replace my SL-990 which suddenly felt far too light.

Then I learned how "touchweight" is a real thing, measured on acoustic pianos with the damper up, and that 55g is considered about the standard for static touchweight. Also that it can be measured fairly reliably by a novice with modern coins as weights.

So I took the biggest stack of coinage I could conveniently put together: 95.8g according to google and excel. It barely deflected the keys at all, other than in the top 2 octaves. The weight conquered those fairly easily, which then became obvious when playing.

Fatar fortunately publishes touchweights of the keybeds. (It's really unfortunate that the retail brands don't!) The TP/40 comes in several flavors: Light (75g), Medium (85g), Hard (95g), and GH (which apparently is even more, other than the top range).

95g suddenly seems like a lot. I wonder how different a DP should be, since there's no mechanical damper to release? Or, what should an AP touchweight be with the damper in place?

Also I wonder if others here have performed similar tests? My keyboard is a bit older, but I'm curious to gather a few more coins to see if I can get reasonably accurate weights for the various regions. Perhaps good for reference, since the manufacturers don't seem too interested in publishing this important spec.

One thing to consider here, which I'm sure you have is the actions weight on a real piano becoming lighter when using the sustain pedal. This weight on most (not sure if some very high end?) digital pianos and midi master keyboards remains unchanged so the player is effectively lumbered with this extra weight throughout playing. Manufacturers of these keyboards possibly see this lighter weight as a compromise for playing both with or without pedaling? Again you did mention that there's 'no mechanical damper to release' so sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious here.