Is 64 Polyphony really needed? Digital Piano

J

jnoobiam

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I plan on buying a home digital piano soon. Right now I'm looking at the Casio PX700 and the Yamaha YDP213. I'm really liking the PX700 because it's the best looking digital piano around that price range(I know some of yall might not care about looks but looks are important too me also) but the problem is it only has 32 polyphony while the Yamaha YDP213 has 64 BUT has GHS action(supposedly these aren't as nice, compared to the Graded Hammer Effect and they feel lighter?)

I don't plan on using this piano for any music production, just for me and my sister to learn on... So would 32 Polyphony be enough?
 
Sure, if you're just using this to learn notation and how to play, this would do fine.

If you were to make music, then I'd have my qualms about it, but it would still work.
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Casio looks really nice, and professional, and has that "feel" of the traditional piano, but doesn't look too portable, if that was something you might want to consider.

It looks good though, and its lighter by 10 lbs.

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The Yamaha actually looks really nice too, but is on the heavier side. I love Yamaha products, so I may be a slight bias when I say this, but I find Yamaha makes really great products, strong, and the sound design is impeccable.

I'd say go for the Yamaha, if you can afford the extra weight, you'll probably be happier with the sounds.

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On second thought, go to your nearest Guitar Centre or music store and test them if you can.

That's really the only way you'll find which one suits you.

They both have MIDI, so you could use them in a studio if you one day wish to.

Both look good on the spec sheets.
 
"Sure, if you're just using this to learn notation and how to play, this would do fine.

If you were to make music, then I'd have my qualms about it, but it would still work."

Thank you for your quick reply PhobikONE. From reading your other posts you seem to be very experienced and know what your talking about and I want to take your word but I'm STILL sorta unsure wether too get a 32 or 64 poly... I know you say it's okay to get a 32 for learning but say someone experienced(maby has played the piano for 10 years?) plays on a 32 poly digital piano, what problems would he have? Would he have hard time playing a difficult or complicated piece? Could you give me some examples of situations that would require 64 polyphony?

Also would you know anything about the key action of the Grand Hammer Stander Vs. the Grand Hammer Effect?
 
All the polyphony stuff is is how many sounds can play at once.

Basically, everything is limited to how many sounds can play, from hardware synths to computers, computers are infinite, dependant upon the setup, CPU/RAM/BUS.

Basically, "32 Polyphony" litterally means "32 voices at one moment," which is to say you can hit 32 keys on the dpiano at once and hear each note.

I doubt anyone would have any difficulty, even a 10 year pianist, playing a 32 polyphony dpiano. I'm not a formal musician, so I can't garauntee that, but I highly doubt it would be a problem.

I know absolutely nothing of the GHS vs GHE, sorry!

The only example I can think of needing 64 polyphonic piano, is if you had 64 different parts to a piece that need to play at once during any given section of a music piece.

Say you were doing an orchestral piece, and you had 8 violins, 8 cellos, 8 different drums (tympani, etc.), & 8 woodwinds, on each side, each panned differently, and playing slightly different ranges.

If you were doing something of that nature, wher the crescendo needs all 64 voices at once, you'd need at least something capable of playing 64 sounds at the same time.

It highly unlikely you'd need to do this, but if you wanted to, you could do it, but it would take you a while to even phathom the principles in programming that much into one passage, at least it does to me.

I hope this helps.
 
The issue with polyphony is rarely as simple as "how many notes can you play at once"

Depending on how a particular piano is voiced on a sampler, a single "note" may take 2 or more voices of polyphony, for instance. This is becasue of multiple samples being involved per note played due to crossfading, key release samples, etc.

It's not just whatever notes you have played at the moment, it's also the decay of notes that are holding because of using the sustain or damper pedal, samples used for string resonance, etc.

So, in any kind of decent sampled piano ... your "32 voice polyphony" can easily translate into a real-world "16 or 8 note polyphony". That's a serious limitation, depending on what you intend to play.

Even on something like a FantomX or MotifES, (which each have 128-voice polyphony) you can easily "run out of notes" if you play a piano piece of a given level of complexity.

When it comes to polyphony - especially when it concerns piano - more is always better.
 
Of course more is better.

I guess my wording was a bit confusing and I didn't mention anything of the likes of stereo notes ( didn't even come to my mind they might have stereo delayed notes) but I was trying to word the sustained notes as well as I could, but I couldn't think, thank you for making that clear.

I was also forgetting accompaniment abilities of the digital pianos too, would limit, if you use those, as well as any on board effects, such as delays, reverbs, etc would create less and less usable voices.

Sorry dansgold, and thank you for helping me out on this one.

Any info you have on the GHS vs GHE would be nice as well, as I'm totally clueless on those.
 
I'm no keyboard expert, but personally I would go for the Yamaha out of those 2 options.

You'd be wise to try them both out if at all possible, to see which feels right for you.

--edit--

Heres a little snippet of info I found about Graded Hammer technology:
graded hammer technology, a mechanical system of small metal hammers, weighted to be similar to those of a real pianoforte, which hit a digital pressure sensor that then translates into sound. This patented technology has contributed to the success of the Clavinova as an affordable substitute for a real piano.
Click to expand...
 
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Jnoobiam,

Dansgold is a little off.
It is true in synthesizers that the polyphony will change from voice to voice, but in electronic keyboards and pianos, you will normally get the advertised polyphony.
Interestingly, several scenarios were brought up that would test the polyphony, but the most common was missing.
Music for piano will often call for arpeggios with the damper pedal pressed. This causes all the notes to play until the sample has completely played out. However, even playing 6 notes per octave (a ninth chord, for example) played over 5 octaves will only use 30 notes, so I think you'll be fine.
Just a note, assuming the price is competitive, Yamaha will *usually* offer better quality samples, while Casio offers more features. The value of those features will depend on what you want from your piano.
Good luck!
 
Good post yamex5, though I'm sure dansgold was going for the be safe rather than sorry approach.

Thanks for the info, and Casio = features vs Yamaha = sound quality is dead on.
 
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