Top 10 Mistakes When Buying Digital Pianos

an internet search of digital keyboards will bring up thousands and thousands of results maybe even more but yet here's the top 10 mistakes that people make when purchasing hi this is ted with alamo music center in downtown san antonio texas and i'm patrick amar you can find us online at alamomusic.com if you haven't already please subscribe to our youtube channels check out our other videos like our videos sign up for notifications and leave us comments we love to interact with you guys ted really excited for this one today we have mistakes people make when purchasing a digital piano well there's lots of them too well there's lots of options and there's lots of mistakes so we we narrowed the list down for you guys to the top ten it's it's very complicated when picking the right instrument especially if you're picking for someone else if it's a gift if it's for your child if it's for yourself even you can say hey i want these options i don't want these options what do these words mean it's a different language for a lot of people especially if you're a beginner and usually a beginner is going to choose a digital piano so right off the bat i think you wanted we had we had arranged the list in a different way but right off the bat you said we should move this one to the top it was it's not an acoustic piano or i wanted an acoustic piano that's what it is so if you are looking for a digital piano to replace an acoustic piano or to be an acoustic piano it's never going to be that a lot of people are surprised because i think that a digital piano will be a lot nicer and convenient and it really is it's a great thing for a student or a professional or anyone that just wants to really you know work a lot in headphones or even just play a lot but if you're replacing an acoustic piano with a digital the sound is going to be a lot different and sometimes that's an adjustment in the household because the digital piano is always in tune it's always perfect so if you're if you're a piano player already and you've played a lot of acoustic pianos or if you're very interested in playing and you love that acoustic sound a digital piano might never answer your question of i want that acoustic piano i need the feel of acoustic piano so we want to say digital pianos right off the bat are not an acoustic piano they're not all equal and so if you are looking for an acoustic piano stop the video now and uh and look at acoustic pianos and go play an acoustic piano because digital panels will never replace that and so we have a top 10 mistakes for acoustic pianos we do have we have that video so this is so our top our top mistake is you're looking for something else looking for an acoustic piano secondly this is a very common mistake and this is why we kind of put some keyboards so we can reference them behind us you pick the wrong keys you pick the wrong action on the digital piano so right behind ted here i have a spring-loaded key action and so a lot of the times a teacher will say make sure you get weighted a weighted action keyboard or get weighted hammers or graded action there's a whole bunch of different words that basically say more like an acoustic piano here behind us we have a spring action just to show you guys what a spring action looks like it's a very on off uh feel and so ted you've played a lot of pianos before what why do you need to avoid this if you're over the age of three or four if you're over the age of three or four and you're really learning an instrument part of learning the piano requires the the muscle coordination from about the elbows down through the fingertips with the impact on the ear as an immediacy so finger patterns are learned and chord patterns are learned and it's kind of what people call a muscle memory and i've never been able to get my muscles to run a mile out of memory because you always got to put forth some effort in it but playing an instrument does seem to have some kind of muscle memory to it and so spring action keyboards are definitely the affordable option and so if it's all you can afford it's not a bad it's not a bad instrument but a lot of the times you talk to a music teacher a piano teacher a piano player and they will immediately say hey try to avoid a spring action keyboard look for a used weighted action or look for something a little bit nicer a little bit more money can get you a lot better of a keyboard response and like you said it builds it builds muscle memory and it allows for you to progress a lot farther as a player so be aware of what you're looking at be aware of is this the right action for me now spring action my preferred market for spring action are like little kids anywhere like seven eight nine and under particularly if they're five years old and under you don't know what to get a little kid with for their second or third birthday get them a keyboard that's got drums it's got piano it's got sound and just let them fool with it don't try to teach them and just let them use it as a toy they'll figure it all out it can really draw in a player so if you are looking for a gift for somebody it is a great idea and it's also if your kid is going to be a musical kid or want to be taking music lessons eventually it is something that draws them in a little bit more naturally it's a very cool cool instrument our third one on the list is going to be i spent too much money and so this is very easy to do digital pianos can be 50 they can be fifteen thousand dollars and so knowing what you're looking for in your budget can be important because if you spend too much money on something it might be a sore spot because you might be oh i spent too much on this it's no one's playing it in the house especially with digital technology and i wanted to put this in the video think about your televisions think about your computers your cell phones is anyone using a cell phone from 15 years ago very very less than one percent probably of using a phone from 15 years ago and that's because technology rapidly moves and it's always innovating and it's always changing and like we said earlier an acoustic piano and digital piano are not the same maybe in 15 years they'll be a lot closer those those strides keep happening and so if you spend too much on a digital piano and it's not the one that you love you might regret it later a lot of times it's easy to buy into options because people think that oh i would like that or i like that i like that i like that when you get done you have the top line model with a bunch of features that you're going to have to learn how to use and may not want to put the time into it and just wanted all i really wanted to do was just to practice the piano i think you're foreshadowing to one of our next ones here it's too complicated and so like you were saying if you get something with a lot of features with a lot of buttons with a lot of distractions on it a lot of the times it can seem like hey this is too much for me it's too it's not yours it's like the space shuttle when you look at it the you know the the what do they call the dashboard and a lot of the keyboards have moved towards simplifying that dashboard effect by putting those screens with an app and i think that was one of the the best moves that digital keyboards may made was going to the touchscreen however the technology hasn't moved where you get a great touch screen action into a little spring-loaded keyboard so it makes it simple to use so there's still a lot of buttons on a lot of things and it's actually interesting because a lot of manufacturers with the invention of the ipad and iphones and this touch screen technology have innovated and say hey instead of us building out a whole screen which is very cost prohibitive let's make an app let's have it so it plugs into this keyboard and i can control the whole keyboard from a touch screen where a lot of us are comfortable with that technology before it was all laid out in buttons there still is a whole bunch of options with a lot of buttons on it so we did want to say complication can be a deterrent to playing the instrument so we have it's not an acoustic instrument we have the action is wrong we have its price too high we have it's too complicated what about price too low ted that can happen a lot too uh you know someone says hey let's go get this guy a digital piano and so he's thinking in his mind maybe a nice hybrid or something that's even not even in the discussion and they're thinking a couple of hundred dollars well you're talking about something that's over ten thousand to something that's under three hundred dollars so there's different disparities like what you imagine and what you get um are always two different things and it's important to realize the right instrument for today might not be the right instrument for two or three years down the road and if you're making the investment for today and saying hey this is good for me right now i'm i'm learning to play i just want to get something that plays a tone plays in tune don't have to mess with that might be the right instrument today but if you are really saying i want to commit to this i want to be playing piano in two or three years it's important to say hey i need to get an instrument that will keep up with me for these two or three years so i don't have to buy something in six months or have to buy something in a year's time a lot of times the keyboard purchaser that's coming in that does spend too little is someone whose primary instrument is something other than piano so you may have a violin soloist or a trumpet player a sax player that needs to get some keyboard skills along with their music studies what they don't realize is if they spend a little bit more they could actually just program a little jam session and they're with key changes and they could actually have a band instead of just listening to the scale and playing and so you can get a little bit more by really not spending a whole lot it's interesting we've we're in 2020 covet hit us quarantine hit us schools are trying to get we're here in the fall schools are trying to get back in the flow of things but music majors have really been impacted by this and we work with some of our local universities here in san antonio and they were trying to figure out that budget instrument that works for their music majors and originally they were like what's the most affordable thing you have that has that they can learn their scales with and then the teachers came in the professors came in and they all tried these very low priced ones like well what if we give them the option that they can upgrade for rental fee to get the weighted key ones and what and they started talking about these options so it's important to realize that the best value and the cheapest sometimes is not the best value sorry the cheapest is not the best value sometimes and sometimes you need to spend a little bit extra to get those features and it really improves the the experience playing that yes it does and so number five they spent too little i know it's hard sometimes to budget but if you're taking lessons and you're paying a monthly thing for lessons realize how much you're spending in a year's time and an instrument needs to at least be equal to that value you're investing so much time into yourself into your student the instrument is a very important tool it's the tool you're using for that so that's number five they spent too little number six ted i bought a synthesizer instead of a keyboard or i bought a workstation wrong application absolutely wrong application but it looks like a keyboard it does look like a keyboard and workstations usually have a compression that's going to make those prices go up and so someone's going to ask why does it cost so much or at least they should and a workstation is great for someone and this is where a lot of times people buy them ahead of time they are an aspiring producer they hear a finished song and they're wanting to learn how to play a scale on a piano a workstation is probably in their future but is it their best application for right now and and it's important to realize these items are going to look very similar so if you see something online and you're like oh on craigslist or on ebay this is a great price for this maybe it's not the right thing you're looking for if you're looking to practice piano or buy your first digital keyboard a synthesizer and a workstation are not the same thing a lot of times they go home and they turn it on and there's no speakers that's our next one okay so speakers if you're missing speakers on the unit and there's a lot of different applications for this workstations synthesizers but also stage pianos the stage piano will look exactly like a lot of these 88 key practice pianos i have one behind me this is the casio version 88 keys has speakers on it but it's very narrow so it looks like it doesn't and a lot of stage pianos are going to be built very heavy duty a little bit heavier they're going to be expensive they're going to be oh this is a quality instrument i'm spending a thousand dollars on it it's highly reviewed it's a great instrument click and buy oh wait it doesn't have any speakers on it what am i going to use this how i either need headphones or i need speakers reference monitors studio monitors and so be aware of what you're buying the next one on our list was no speakers are on the instrument and there's a lot of options out there thousands of options where they don't have speakers and that's for some people that's the right application they they're going to take it to a gig and they're going to plug into the sound system they're taking it to church they're going to plug it into the sound system a stage piano is a great instrument but it might not be the right one for you and we've seen this mistake happen a lot right so that's number seven on our list no speakers on the instrument number eight kind of fits in line with these two portability portability if you have to get to the gig or you have to move it around and it is really surprising the number of people that come in and buy a digital piano or a digital keyboard and they think oh it's just so i can play at home well generally within a couple of months people find out that they're playing piano and they've returned to having music and it's like could you play at our bridge club could you play here so you have people that are starting to want to bring their instruments someplace else and they already purchased what they're playing on at home so it's not portable and they never bought it for portability but now they need it to be portable so for shopping for portability or if you're someone who's gonna be moving a lot and we have this in san antonio where military city usa and a lot of people don't know where they're gonna be in three years right but their kids are like playing piano and they need something that's portable that they can move they have to be under a certain weight limit also if you're in your house and you're you just want to move it to the back room because you're having a company over and it's a little small keyboard make sure that you're looking up weight dimensions and you're looking up how easy it would be for two people to pick it up even on some of these bigger ones this kawhi here it's the ca59 it's still accessible to pick up the phones we picked it up here and moved it into the studio it's not it's not crazy to move you can move this upstairs if you needed to but portability sometimes with those hybrid instruments when they get more expensive the speaker systems get bigger get heavier it's harder to move and so just be aware of what you're purchasing and the portability of it and then that leads us to ergonomics accessories so accessories this is you bought the wrong accessories or you're looking at the instrument with wrong accessories and it affects the ergonomics of how you're playing ted had a great story about this yeah we had a number of times someone come in and they're returning a keyboard that kind of looks like that just real thin on a neck stand with an x bench and they had pedals attached to it and she said don't worry i'm going to get something else it's just this is not working for me and she walked over and looked around a couple of things sat down and started playing immediately said now this is what i want this piano is all set up it's got a stand it's got this in it and i said that is the exact same thing that you're bringing back except it has the manufacturer suggested accessory of the stand and bench to go with it instead of fill in the blank kind of accessories it's it's important to realize that there are a lot of options so we have these on x stands here in the studio the kawhi behind us has the manufactured stand because of the ca series it comes with that stand and it's installed piece that's actually a keyboard basically on the top with an installed uh frame on it and so it's important to realize some of these keyboards do especially the more expensive ones do come with an option sometimes for the manufacturer's stand there's also different types of x stands there's a double brace deck stand there's a single brace that adds stability there's also a z-shaped one so if you're sitting at a bench and your knees jut out and you don't want them to hit the x stand it's important like sitting at a piano and same with benches they're adjustable benches there's piano benches there's keyboard benches and there's quality levels all in between and it's important to realize not all of them are the same and it can adjust the playability of the instrument because you're not comfortable or you're not adjusted to the right height and so that's very very important and it's a top mistake we see all the time different keyboards have different access to accessories too so like some of the the very lightweight springboard like an entry line it's going to be hard to get that to sound really great in concert through the little sound that that it has it's not really a concert type of keyboard so there are some things that aren't limited some keyboards won't take all three pedals like like a classical piano does so look at the accessories because that leads to how much can you expand after the purchase does it have midi capabilities can you go into learning computer programming and learning software for notation as well so those accessories are really important and access to accessories so ergonomics is our number nine on the list very important to realize which accessories you are going to be purchasing or which ones you're going to be looking for which brings us to number 10 ted number 10 on a long list so we hope you guys are still here with us wrong number of keys oh that's an interesting one because uh they make usually these are what 61 notes and uh a regular piano can be 88 or what 92 on the bows and doors 96 very rarely rarely cc over 88 so 88 is the preferred measurement of keys but again it might be that you're looking for something that's a little bit more portable like we had said and a smaller keyboard would be the right one for you but just be aware that these do come in different sizes not all keyboards are created equal correct and so you have you can buy a 30 note keyboard you can buy a small synthesizer that has 20 keys 24 keys but really the most commonly look for keyboard is going to be 88 keys 88 weighted keys preferably and that's really getting you towards playing a piano and it gives you access to the high notes and the low notes when you're doing runs when you're doing dynamics and when you're adding octaves octaves it's really important to have those because then you run out of key at the end especially on the 61 you you're playing along and it's like i'm not going to use more than 60 keys it just repeats after a while doesn't it but it's very important to realize that you have the right number of keys on the instrument that needs your specification so ted that was our top 10 list lots of mistakes you can make these are our most common that we do see again we're ted barcelo patrick mar with animal music thank you guys again for watching if you have any questions please head over to our website alamomusic.com we can help you guys out we have a chat there and we can help you and chat with you and find the right digital piano for you or answer any questions that you might have please leave us comments if you have any more suggestions or any questions that you'd like us to address again you can find us on youtube here we have multiple channels and we'd love for you guys to subscribe and like our videos thanks for watching you

Channel: Alamo Music Center - Pianos and Keyboards

Views: 190,944

Keywords: piano, digital, digital piano, best digital piano, best digital piano for beginners, yamaha digital piano, digital piano (musical instrument), best digital pianos, piano buying guide, best digital piano under 1000, top digital piano, 10 mistakes when buying a piano, buying a piano, best digital pianos 2019, top digital pianos, beginning piano mistakes, best digital pianos under 500, mistakes buying a piano, beginner piano, best keyboards, digital piano buyer's guide

Id: 9W-xtHJzU4o

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020