Digital piano

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Digital piano" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

A digital piano is a type of electronic keyboard instrument designed to serve primarily as an alternative to the traditional acoustic piano, both in how it feels to play and in the sound it produces. Digital pianos use either synthesized emulation or recorded samples of an acoustic piano, which are played through one or more internal loudspeakers. They also incorporate weighted keys, which recreate the feel of an acoustic piano. Some digital pianos are designed to also look like an upright or grand piano. Others may be very simple, without a stand.

While digital pianos may sometimes fall short of acoustic ones in feel and sound, their advantages include being smaller, weighing much less, and costing less than an acoustic piano. In addition, they do not need to be tuned, and their tuning can be modified to match the tuning of another instrument (e.g. a pipe organ). Like other electronic musical instruments, they can be connected to an amplifier or a PA system to produce a sound loud enough for a large venue or, at the other extreme, may be heard through headphones only. Some digital pianos can emulate other sounds besides the piano, the most common ones being pipe organ, electric piano, Hammond organ, and harpsichord. Digital pianos are often used in music schools and music studios as a replacement for traditional instruments.^[1]