Thanks for the detailed explanation!

Wonderful presentation! Thank you!

Great video. Thanks for sharing!

Interesting. Thank you.

Thank you for the action-packed explanation, Patrick.

This is an interesting video. It taught me a lot.

I learnt playing on a Yamaha digital piano purchased about 10 years ago and did not have any weighted keys. On a recent trip to a music store I was shocked how I couldn’t play any of the keyboards due to all of them being weighted keys. I don’t have any aspirations of playing an acoustic piano but the issue is I’m not able to find any keyboards that don’t included weighted keys anymore if I wish to find a newer upgrade to my old Yamaha

I dont get why he said stay away from semi weighted? I had a midi keyboard with semi weighted keys and loved it

I've seen like 5 different videos and like 10 pages, and NO ONE can give a consistent explanation, some confuse semi-weighted with Weighted with Synth Action. Also, the marketing is messing with the terminology. Nowadays ALL say Semi-weighted, no one says Synth Action anymore, despite of beign just a spring loaded, and even worst, some of them doesn't even have springs, is just a plastic bridge that tends to break rendering the key unusable

Best keys for me are synth action keys. The korg m3 61 korg Kronos 61 Yamaha synth action, fatar. Are great.

I watched another video you made. My mom is a piano teacher and fully weighted is necessary. One of our cousins studied under Mme. Long, in Paris and she had 3 pianos in her apartment: 1 for teaching, and Yamaha wall piano and a 1/4 grand piano. The Yamaha, she asked a technician to make the keys even heavier and she used it for practice while the 1/4th was also tweaked to reduce the key travel. Fully weighted hammer action is necessary if a student wants to learn Piano. Oh ... my mom tells me the best option is a real Piano.

I've disassembled my P-95 a couple of times. Its keyboard action looked really funny to me the first time I saw it. The key mechanism is like any other keyboard. In fact, it's just like a non-mechanical computer keyboard. The thing is each key is connected to a huge metal hook that does nothing to produce the sound, but is the sole responsible for the feel. It's simple, rather primitive -- it's an old entry level digital piano --, but fascinating nonetheless.

12:29 - what piano with the RHIII can you purchase new for less than $1,000? My ES920 was USD $1,046 + tax.

Roland wasn't mentioned. And in the middle I really didn't get what makes a keyboard which type of... Must be part of the marketing. As a technical guy I'd say they have springs or hammers. Hammer ones have different versions of reaching the acoustic piano feel vs. certain price point. Roland PHA-4 has two moving parts: the key and the hammer, but it's awesome for the price (starting from FP-10) and otherwise too. It's just on the heavy side, the acoustic pianos I've played are lighter to play.

My 61 key Roland D-5 is "synth-action" . Synth action will allow you to do more with a board that you are using for Midi-composing as you are using the board to simulate many different instruments. There is a real need and interest with many composers to find an 88key "synth-action" keyboard, but alas, I can only find Synth-action in 61key and below. Its very disappointing. : (

Fully weighted - $100-$300 Hammer action - $350-$500 Graded hammer action - $550-$800 Graded hammer action with escapement - $850-$1500 The most expensive hammer actions are graded key by key with a realistic ibony/ebony feel, double escapement, triple sensors over 350 notes of polyphony, high quality piano samples and 40 watt speakers. Just all that without any other bells or whistles can be up to $10,000. Just buy a damn acoustic piano.

You seem to look down on spring-loaded keyboards but spring-loaded / synth action keyboards are much preferred by many (including trained pianists) for playing synths.

hi thx I still have my original Rd 700 that I connected to my pc with pianoteq 8 very good i adjusted the hammer sound and like it a bit old a bit out of tune this you can't do with samples and I really feel as if i am playing a real piano .i had some in my youth

Thanks for the very clear and informative video. But how about the hybrids by Casio, the Celviano 300 and 500?

Please tell me about the new 2024 Donner DDP 80 Pro! It says “hammer action weighted” but it does not say “graded, progressive, or hybrid.” I can’t get anyone from customer service to respond to me. Is the Donner DDP 80 pro a good digital keyboard to buy for pianists looking for a product to be as similar to an acoustic piano as possible? All the sales terminology is confusing! Thanks 😊

is Roland's FP-30X and FP-90X with PHA-4 and PHA-50 action like a hybrid action? What about Korg's D1 RH3? I think probably the best you can buy is Kawai's VPC1, and then Kawai MP11SE and Yamaha CLP785... and then it is either Roland's PHA-50, PHA-4, and Korg's RH3.

Would the yamaha p515 have a hammer action? I've heard that the yamaha p515 shares the action of some yamaha clavinova.

On the extreme low end, I think you can add the "computer keyboard membrane switch." One example is the "Carry On Foldable 88 key keyboard" with a suggested list price of $100. Spring action, but the switch part may be different than other low end keyboards.

Thank you for explaining to a n00b :)

Semi-weighted all the way!

You glossed over semi weighted really quickly, then said you don't want it, but you didn't say why. And your explanation of it being in high end organs only doesn't seem to match up with what I've seen available.

A keyboard instrument is not necessarily a piano (obviously), so a keyboard action optimized for piano playing is not necessarily the best for other instruments. A piano key is the result of several processes, one of them is the physical need to generate sound hitting a string with a "hammer" in a mechanical way. It puts a lot of constraints about how a key action can be. In particular it needs some effort to make a reasonable amount of sound, even more in lower octaves where springs are thicker and heavier. So, the strength needed to play a key and the gradual increasing in lower octaves are a physical requirement, not necessarily a virtue. Arguably, one could get more agile playing with lighter touch, specially in left hand octaves. Moreover, if you need stronger force to play a note probably you are kess capable of light nuances regulating that force. However, piano teachers and classically trained players are "trained" with the traditional piano feel so they feel strange and "bad" any other feel. It is like us with a qwerty keyboard, there are better designed keyboards but we have learned with qwerty and any other configuration tends to result very cumbersome to us. In short, not everyone and not every instrument has the "piano feel" as optimal. IMO it's wrong to identify "piano feel" as better and "not piano feel" as worse and "cheap".

The plastic golf club example That’s EXACTLY my mother I only have this really shitty spring Keyboard (better than nothing tho) And it also sounds shitty so you can’t really play a lot of songs on it and it only has 36 keys… And whenever I ask her if I can get a better one and that I would even pay a bit of it, she’s like: ,,Well you don’t line playing on this keyboard. So from where do I know that you’ll like to play on other keyboards?“ It’s honestly just annoying Like I even play on the pianos/keyboards at friends and families houses and she knows that

Is hammer action whats on acoustic pianos? If so, why the need for hybrid? I dont understand the difference. Also, what action is on a Yamaha dgt7?

Why the nord stage 3 cost 4000 dollars and have just weighted action

This video is biased towards piano players. I'm that case, hammer or weighted hammer action is preferable. But there are expensive professional keyboards with with synth action that professionals use all the time for playing synth sounds, strings, organs, brass sounds, guitars.

What about the kawai es110

I bought a p-125 because i thought it had hammer action and just realized i got scammed. thanks. It's still decent as i'm not even a year into learning piano so i'll think about upgrading into a more high-end digital or even an acoustic piano later on

Bogus, unless you’re into piano *only* playing. Synth and semi-weighted action is desirable for certain players and styles - not only for weight and convenience.

Thank You but simplify it next time. Just a suggestion. To much info.

Lots and lots of talk and it's still not clear to a newbie what is going on, is "fully weighted" same as "graded"? This is clearly MUCH simpler than it's made out to be on this video, and should require much less than 15min to clarify.

um. eh. um. eh. um.

Do NOT buy your child a spring loaded keyboard. It will PUT THEM OFF and not inspire them. Spring loaded keyboards are like plastic chocolate

Your explanation was very boring and too too long.

Nice that you discussed the different key action in piano...I just wished that all your piano review also tackle what kind of action the keyboard has and/or how stiff the key is rather then wasting time on tone or different timbre a piano has!!! At the end of he day, what a student TRULY NEED is a correctly tuned piano (surely your not selling out-of-tuned, right) and a stiff weighted Action to develop the proper hand formation. Honestly, I've watched like 2review and there's zero discussion of piano key action IT'S SOOOO FRUSTRATING TO WATCH & WAIT FOR THE INFO ONE REALLY NEED BUT NOT RECEIVED IN THE END!!!