Keyboards (instrument): What digital piano should a beginner buy?

Are 88 keys important? If you aren't into complex classical pieces, no. For pop, rock or even jazz and alike you will go fine with 73/76 keys. On most of the pieces you'd play rarely will go in to the highest octave. I want to buy a digital piano and learn it but it's just for fun and I don't plan to take a piano course. As a hobbyst just get a basic Yamaha P35, P95 or even better a P105 (it's on your budget as far as I know). Or get more for the buck with a Casio Privia PX150 or PX350 (nice piano and a whole lot of sounds and extra functions). Just try at least one model of each brand at  a local store just to see which sound and action fits you better. I am looking at Yamaha Piaggero NP-V60 (http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instruments/keyboards/digitalkeyboards/dk_-_piaggero/np-v60/). Is it good? Piaggero series are designed as portable pianos, in fact the NP-V60 and NP-V80 are arrangers with an stress on piano. Key touch isn't weighted or hammer action but it's quite pleasant to play if you aren't too demanding. If you go for an NP-V I'd suggest to take the NP-V80, since it's main piano sound (same as in a NP95 by example) is far better than in NP-V60 (which comes from their arranger line).

I own a Roland FP-7F and highly recommend it, or any other Roland digital piano that comes with its higher grade action (I think it's something like 3 sensors, 100 levels of touch, you do not want the 5 levels of touch one). I bought it in college so I could practice on something slightly better than the beaten up pianos sitting around campus.The good thing about buying a digital piano is that there are only a handful of meaningfully different models from each manufacturer, and there's only a handful of manufacturers to choose from. Each manufacturer has something like 2, *maybe* 3 different actions being produced at the same time, and 1 or maybe 2 different "sound engines" (the software that makes the sounds from your key pressing).As an advanced pianist, the process was extremely easy for me, I looked up what these were, walked into a few stores, identified the action and sound engine in the models, and made sure to try as many different ones as I could. I knew what the various effects each digital piano were trying to imitate, and I knew that I needed the higher grade line of actions.Unfortunately you probably don't have enough experience to tell, but if you know a more experienced pianist, kindly ask them to help you out!If that doesn't work, I'll give you a quick rundown:The main players in this space are Roland, Yamaha, and Kawai. Generally speaking, the higher grade line of pianos has a standard 100 levels of touch sensitivity and ability to emulate continuous pedaling, instead of just on and off.The Kawai pianos are considered to have the most pleasant tone, and the high end MP10/MP11 (the new one) have these nice long wooden keys that feel nice. The MP6/7 is the budget one, and is limited to something like 6 levels of touch.Yamaha pianos are good budget picks, at least last time I checked you can get their better pianos cheaper. Funnily enough, they also make the most expensive and sophisticated digital piano, the Avantgrand, which contains a full grand piano action for the most realistic touch, and costs as much as a real grand piano.Roland pianos are distinguished by their long list of various physical piano emulations. Their flagship V-Piano creates a completely synthesized sound output that doesn't use recordings. Their "SuperNatural Piano" on the cheaper products applies more digital trickery to try to make the sound...well, natural. The FP-80, FP-7F, or RD800/700NX are the ones with the higher quality action and sensors, the models with a "3" in them (and now the FP-50 apparently) only have 5 levels of touch sensitivity.I personally recommend getting one of the Rolands I mentioned because while they are obviously not quite like a real piano, they do a better job of emulating what a real piano does than Yamaha and Kawai offerings. That's extremely important if you ever want to go perform on a real piano, which will feel very alien compared to a digital piano. You want to minimize that gap as much as possible. The prices are rather high, but you may be able to snag a used FP-7F from Guitar Center or Ebay for a good deal. I bought my FP-7F for 1500, but one with scratches and dents could be under 1k now.Good luck and happy shopping!

I think Yamaha p-105/155 & Roland models are good. The Casio Privia PX-5S also sounds promising. Don't ever buy Korg DP's. They have keybed problems. Esp. SP-250/LP-350/SV-1. You can hear the issue in this video. Therez a big forum for Pianist, which is a good source for reviews. http://www.pianoworld.com/ Best of Luck.

HI, you have a very good common question, an answer to it depends on what manufacture you prefer, Yamaha or Casio, if Yamaha then it must be Yamaha P35, if you prefer Casio, as me, then you should take Casio PX850. Here are samples of them: Yamaha P35: Casio PX850: If you want, you can check my full review of them http://digitalpianojudge.com/best-digital-piano-under-1000/ If you have an questions, please feel free to ask, will be glad to answer :)

I’m going to suggest that what you really want is a Akai Professional MPK88 MIDI controller (http://www.akaipro.com/product/mpk88) and the Synthogy Ivory II American Grand sampled piano (http://synthogy.com/index.php/products/software-products/ivory-2-american-concert-d) for your computer. I’ve heard great things about the weighted hammer feel on the Akai (although I have not played one, so on this item I am speaking second-hand. I am blessed to own an old Kurzweil Midiboard; it’s scary nice, but way out of production. If you can find a nicely treated one of these, buy it). The Synthogy, however, I do own. It is far and away the nicest sampled piano I believe you will find. Many consider it the gold standard in computerized pianos. I’m assuming here that you own a computer with decent audio monitors, of course. If you choose this, the option to get into sequenced music will be standing before you as a beautiful horizon and you will able to interface with any standard DAW (like Sonar or Logic) seamlessly and expand with other sounds across many genres.Is there a downside to what I’m suggesting? There are potentially two: 1) the learning will likely be a shade steeper than a simple digital piano, and 2) if you want to take the keyboard somewhere, you will probably want to install Ivory on a laptop.Some might comment on the required computer audio monitors. I consider that to be a wash as I have never heard digital pianos with really nice speakers anyway; I’ve always found the need to connect the digital piano outputs to external speakers as the internal speakers are fairly cheap sounding.This is something to consider at any rate. Good luck in your endeavor.

Try to decide if you really want to learn piano or keyboards (which includes piano).If you want to learn piano, the 88 keys and the weighted action are very important. This is because piano pieces will require the full range of the instrument, so smaller range keyboards will not suffice. Also, the weighted keys will emulate the feel and response of a true piano. A piano has a hammer mechanism which strikes the strings when you press a key, and the difference in the speed and force of attack can change the sound. Knowing how this feels is essential to creating sounds in the piano. Granted, that this is dependent on the software, so you can’t just buy any weighted 88 key keyboard, you want to buy either a digital piano or a controller hooked up to a computer that has piano software.If you’re okay with just playing keyboards, which can include piano sounds, electric pianos (different from digital pianos; these are Rhodes, Wurlitzers, Clavinets, etc.), synthesizers, and samplers, 61 keys may be enough as this is where most of the action happens. You lose the low registers, but where keyboards are concerned, they’re usually found in a band context, so your bassist will cover that range. If playing piano-like pieces, weighted keys are a good option but not required. For synth, organ, and electronic piano pieces, weighted keys are not necessary and even discouraged (because synths and organs need more direct response especially with modern techniques).

Pointers to buy keyboard Keyboard should have number of keys greater than or equal to 61. Keyboard should have touch sensitivity. If you are planning to buy a keyboard under Rs 10000, then you can go for http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00PFRGG7E?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00PFRGG7E&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21 or http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00CIRUL98?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00CIRUL98&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21. Both http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00PFRGG7E?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00PFRGG7E&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21 and http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00CIRUL98?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00CIRUL98&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21 offers 61 keys and touch sensitivity. If you go for any keyboard lesser than http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00PFRGG7E?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00PFRGG7E&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21 or http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00CIRUL98?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00CIRUL98&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21, then you will feel like playing a toy. If you have a higher budget then you can go for http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00DG1G6TE?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00DG1G6TE&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21 or http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00K81SL84?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creativeASIN=B00K81SL84&linkCode=xm2&tag=httpssiddarth-21 as they offer Indian tones.

Try the Casio Celivano series.  The features to price are impressive and it sounds fantastic.