Digital piano for choir practice

[rjdurkee]

My church has a junky old console piano that is used for choir practice. We would like to replace it with a digital piano and we wondering how a digital piano works in a practice room where an even sound must be transmitted to all.
With an acoustic piano the sound seems to radiate from the whole piano and seems to carry well throughout the room.
With a digital piano the sound only comes from the speakers resulting in uneven sound and sound that will probably not carry within the room.
We were wondering what experiences other have had and what you did to resolve sound problems.
We were thinking of getting a low end piano such as the CVP103 or 105 or 203 or 205 as we do not need all the sounds and features of the higher models. However we would like a piano that stays in tune, can transpose notes up or down and can be easily moved, so a digital seems to be the best choice.
Rich Durkee

[Ian J. Evans]

Any recent digital piano will have AUX OUT connections where you can connect additional speakers and distribute them anywhere in the room to suit the conditions.

Hope this helps.

Ian

[rjdurkee]

I realize that you can hook speakers up to a digital piano, but has anybody done it on a scale larger than to provide better sound for yourself as you play in your living room? Have you tried it for a large group? Were's the best place to put the speakers so that one area is not too loud and another too soft. What technical problems have been seen?
Rich

[Ian J. Evans]

Sorry,I did not mean to talk down to you, but it was not obvious from your original post that you had experience with digital pianos.

However, i haven't had any out of home experience, so can not advise on sound systems for a large room.

For what it is worth, I bought my first Clavinova on the recommendation of a professional musician who always rented a digital if he had a gig in a venue that did not have a decent acoustical. He amplified the digital to suit the venue.

I think you may get your best advice either from a working musician or a dealer that sells and or rents sound systems. Maybe you can arrange to try before you buy. If you are in a large city I am sure that there are people in the sound business that could give "sound" advice... :D

The best I can do, and it may also be obvious, but at least you got a reply.

Ian

[r_d_wilson_47714]

At my church we replaced the acoustic piano in our Choir Room (that we just couldn't keep in tune) with the Yamaha P-120, as we could not afford even the lowest CLP model. It is rather basic, but is an absolutely fantastic instrument!

It needs to be electronically amplified for best sound, as the amp in it is just 25 watts total--the only drawback. Wonderful sounds, transposer, on-board metronome, 3-song sequencer (6 songs possible though, I think), [no auto-accompaniment unit], digital effects possible, several touch response settings, several reverbs possible, layers and split sounds, plus all kinds of other parameters available with the function key. It has the 50 built-in songs, which I turn on in random play mode when I am working in the Choir Room for great background music.

The touch is weighted action and super-responsive. For $1200-$1300 (with stand) it is the best instrument for the money. I couldn't find any instrument that could even compete with it in any other brand.

Yamaha has done it again!

[niangao]

hmm... my church uses the clavinova for the service..

apparently, the problem which i face is that the worship leader cannot hear the keyboard very well..

The clavinova was connected to a professional amp (with the sound mixer{able to mix mikes, guitars, audio tapes, CDs and all) and projected out through 2 BOSE speakers placed at each side of the hall.

One thing's for sure.. When I play during practice (no connection to the amplifier), the piano is fantastic, but when the sound is transmitted through the speakers, i can't hear myself playing..

[r_d_wilson_47714]

In addition to the P-120 in our Choir Room I use my CVP-207 during contemporary worship in the auditorium (seats around 280). When we started I ran the audio output into a "direct box" (converts the audio signal into a mic. level signal). I never knew what kind of sound I was going to get through the church sound system, as it varied greatly depending on the settings at the soundboard. This was never good; sometimes I just gave up playing the Clavinova and went to the grand.

Finally I hit upon the idea of running the Clavinova audio output into a stereo receiver/amplifier and then into the speakers of our Allen organ system through a Niles Audio "A/B switch" (switches the speakers back and forth between the Clavinova and the organ)." Unbelievable, fantastic sound!:D

This way I have complete control over every aspect of the Clavinova sound, which can be heard by everyone. Way cool!

Get yourself an audio amp. and some big speakers (or patch into the organ speakers) and run your own sound!

[niangao]

thanks for the info... will go and relook into the connections..

juz for info, my service hall seats about 120-150 people...

it's a small hall, and we replaced the upright acoustic piano with the clavinova after renovations in 1997....

They are using the CVP95 or 105 i think....

One thing i like about this gadget is that it can play midi files downloaded from the net... and the effects are great, for prelude and postlude intermission....

[fredsmith99]

I have my Clavinova in a family room (about 20x24) and have an amplified speaker as part of my toys.

I've had several functions where there are about 50 people in the room. I've played the Clavinova both with and without the amplified speaker.

In an indoor setting, I prefer the Clavinova alone. I use the speaker when I'm outdoors on the patio. With the speaker indoors, we couldn't hear any improvement, and I found it hard to control the volume. While playing, I wasn't able to determine a comfortable volume setting the way I was with the Clavinova's speakers. (But outdoors, I love the external speaker, because when you want volume, you get it.)

With regard to not being able to hear the keyboard with external speakers, I've agree. One option, (on the CVP209 at least), is to set the Speaker (in Config 2) to ON. That way, you'll get sound through both the headphones and the external speaker. You have to wear headphones to hear the keyboard, but it's better than no feedback.

[niangao]

thanks for the feedback..

well.. i can't use the headphones, otherwise, i cannot hear the worship leader....

[oceanfront]

How about hooking up some standard speakers/hifi equipment to the headphone jack and have them pointed towards you and the worship leader?

[niangao]

well, if u hooked the headphone jacks to speakers, the sound won't come out from the auxilary jacks at the back of the piano.. at least, that's what i encountered... anyway, i've no complains as i try to play the notes correctly, and the best thing is that... when i play the wrong note, i won't notice it.. haa....