By Hannah Beckett
Digital pianos are a somewhat polarizing topic in the acoustic piano industry. Since their inception in the 1980s, digital pianos have worked their way into various musical markets, becoming an industry standard for professionals and students. These keyboards offered musicians a host of new benefits, such as portability, a variety of sounds that complimented musical genres that previously would have had no use for pianos, and playback and recording features that allowed for a near-seamless creative music-making process. Companies like Nord, Dexibell, and Studiologic have excelled in making “stage pianos” that support artists of all genres. There’s no contesting the impact and importance of these instruments in modern music.
The controversy around digital pianos lies not in stage pianos used by professional musicians but in the home pianos that have quickly grown in popularity over the last forty years. The portability, low cost, and space-saving nature of digital pianos have attracted non-musical parents of young piano students; the growing market of people looking for a cost-effective introduction to the piano world has prompted the development of digital pianos ranging from miniature keyboards to digital grand pianos, and sales of these instruments eclipse sales of acoustic pianos by a wide margin. Some acoustic piano manufacturers recognize the market potential of these instruments and have developed their own lines of digital pianos. For Yamaha, Kawai, and Blüthner, digital pianos are a great way to introduce the sound of their concert instruments to young audiences and create an avenue for fostering brand loyalty.
But piano purists and many in the acoustic piano industry view the growing demand for digital pianos as a threat to the pure-bred acoustic experience on which their livelihoods depend. In the early days of development, the digital piano was just a keyboard: its most significant asset was its portability, and its only similarity with the piano was that it had white and black keys. Most keyboards were placeholders; strictly temporary until a “real” piano could be purchased. Today, digital pianos still serve as an excellent starting point for young pianists, and the dedication manufacturers have shown to replicating an acoustic experience makes these instruments even more appealing to younger generations who may be blocked by the unavoidable financial realities of acoustic piano ownership. But beyond the financial appeal, the rapid evolution of technology over the past forty years has moved the digital piano into its own class of instruments - appealing to piano lovers who also value the tech-driven lifestyle afforded by a digital piano.
This is where it began for Casio, a Japanese technology company that started making calculators and watches in the 1950s. Having no ties to acoustic piano manufacturing, one of the founding Kashio brothers, a musician, wanted to find a way to bring piano music into more homes. Recognizing the challenges of piano size, weight, and price, Casio developed a portable keyboard, the Casiotone 201, and has been dedicated to making their growing line of digital pianos more piano-like ever since. The Casio Celviano line introduced a new era of digital pianos in 1991. These hybrid instruments elevated the digital piano to a place of permanence in a musician’s arsenal by combining the touch and sound of an acoustic piano with digital enhancements, offering the best of both worlds.
“We are still the same company that makes portable keyboards,” says Mike Martin, a 16-year veteran at Casio and the General Manager of Marketing, “the difference is that today, some of the most experienced pianists in the world are playing our products. We make digital pianos ranging from $89 to $6,000, so wherever you are in your musical journey, there’s probably a Casio product that will suit your needs. It’s remarkable progress for a 40-year endeavor from one company.”
Much of that progress is consistent with Casio’s history as a tech company. Digital pianos are not the first example of a product they’ve developed from basic function to high-end sophistication, and while technological advancement is their strength, their strategic partnership with acoustic piano giant C. Bechstein has helped them deliver the type of touch and tone that would satisfy serious pianists. The latest Celviano GP and AP lines are the result of a ten-year cooperation between the two companies and reflect Casio’s consistency in providing an accessible pianistic experience to musicians from all walks of life.
“C. Bechstein saw the value in partnering with us,” notes Martin. “Similarly to our belief that Casio portable keyboards are creating the musicians of the future, they saw that collaboration with Casio would create the C. Bechstein owners of the future. In both cases we are inspiring future pianists. To have such a glorious instrument like the C. Bechstein with its pristine sound right at your fingertips is amazing.”
Casio is uniquely positioned to sample from a diverse collection of pianos for their main piano sounds. The latest release of the Celviano line features three major concert instruments, which they refer to as “Hamburg,” “Vienna,” and “Berlin,” all found in the GP and AP models. “Our major contribution was to the sound of the Berlin grand,” says Werner Albrecht, Technical Director at C. Bechstein. “It was a very enjoyable cooperation between both companies. Casio has such an understanding of technology, and our own digital ventures helped us understand from our side what they were looking for in the Celviano line.”
There are certain constraints in the process of digitizing an acoustic instrument with which digital piano makers are constantly at war. Tonally, digital pianos behave somewhat like light switches: sound on, sound off. But an acoustic experience is very different. The resonance of wood and oscillating strings does not lend itself to clean on/off sounds. On an acoustic piano, when a key returns to its resting position, there’s a lingering whisper of activity in the piano, a swoosh that can give you the sense of aliveness in an acoustic instrument long after your fingers have left the keys.
The process of recording the sound for digital pianos (known as sampling) is complex and labor-intensive. The sound an acoustic piano creates with one note consists of several phases; it is not a linear projection. In the technical world, the terms for these sonic phases include attack (the initial sound produced when the hammer makes contact with the strings), bloom (the swelling sound of the tone as it picks up frequencies from other strings), sustain (the amount of time the string will generate sound), and decay (the gradual end of the string’s vibration). Getting a recording of a single note that represents the acoustic piano’s distinct color and tone during all phases is no easy task. Typically, a brief recording is made and then looped to provide more technological control and a smaller data imprint. For C. Bechstein’s sound, it was important for them to record all phases of the sound in one recording.
“The C. Bechstein sound is a very colorful, orchestral sound,” says Albrecht. “We focus on creating a distinct melody line - similar to what you would hear in an orchestra when a flute or other instrument really sticks out because of its tonal characteristics. There are two ways to bring out a melody line: You can simply play the notes at a higher volume, or you can add color change so the note pronounces itself differently. We like to focus on the color change over volume. The thicker the sound gets, the more volume the sound has. This makes it difficult to accentuate melody lines because they are covered in a cloud of sound. So, we tend to have a little less thick sound in the lower to mid-section, allowing the pianist to make the melody line shine and sing. We want as much color change as possible from the lowest dynamic range to the highest. This is one of our main contributions to Casio’s work on the Celvianos.”
Incorporating C. Bechstein’s signature sound required advanced sampling technologies, including Casio’s lossless audio compression and string resonance simulation. The richness of a piano’s tone comes in large part from the harmonic interaction of the strings with each other, and has historically been a major challenge for digital piano manufacturers to replicate. Casio has not compromised the importance of the auditory experience, and the resulting audio quality is a feature that brings a particular sense of aliveness to the Celvianos.
C. Bechstein also contributed to the touch of the Celvianos. The keyboard mechanism is one of the distinct markers of hybrid instruments, and the incorporation of an acoustic piano design is of major appeal to fluent piano players. Casio’s Natural Grand Hammer Action Keyboard replicates the weight, pivot points, and movement of the acoustic hammer, and is available on both the Celviano GP and AP lines. Modeled after the C. Bechstein keyboard, the Celviano GP sports a full-length wooden keystick made of Austrian spruce and keytops using the same surface material. For the discerning pianist, the difference in touch between the wooden key on the GP line and the plastic key on the Celviano APs is well worth the additional cost. The balance and density of the wooden keystick simulates a similar spring that you might find on an acoustic piano.
I spent time with the Celviano GP and AP models at the PianoCraft dealership and rebuilding shop in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Having been immersed in the acoustic world for the entirety of my career, it felt strange to sit with a digital piano in a dealership primarily populated by high-end brands from around the world. But it was exactly the experience that Casio and C. Bechstein foresaw: Surrounded by gorgeous pianos that were completely out of my financial range, I dreamed of an elite acoustic piano in my future, and found myself captivated by the experience of these unattainable pianos in a digital piano that I could take home the same day.
“The collaboration between Casio and C. Bechstein is a success story for both companies,” says Ralf Dewor, CSO of C. Bechstein. “There is a strategy and master plan behind everything Casio does. Digital pianos complement acoustic pianos, and every piano dealership should have them. Both instruments work together to create pianists.”
It’s one thing to talk about design, sound, materials, and the technology behind today's digital pianos, but it’s far more important to experience the development for yourself - especially if you haven’t played a digital piano in the last decade or two. Mike Martin’s challenge to me was to “just go put your hands on one,” and I’ll gladly extend that challenge to the rest of the piano-loving population. Thankfully, our musical world is large enough that acoustic and digital pianos can peacefully coexist, and considering how far digital pianos have come in the last decade, we can only guess what role they will continue to play in the future of our industry.
Futher Reading: For an in-depth look at the making of digital pianos, see Digital Piano Basics, Part 1: Imitating the Acoustic Piano.
Hannah Beckett is Piano Buyer's current Publisher and Editor. She was formerly a member of the editorial staff of the Piano Technicians Journal. Beckett now operates ProPTN, an online educational resource for piano technicians in the field, and services pianos in the northern Virginia and D.C. areas. She can be reached at hannah@pianobuyer.com.