Replacing the Piano Voice on the Casio CDP-S350

The best Piano voice on the Casio CDP-S350 is the very first patch = Stage Piano.

The Yamaha P45 and the Roland FP-30X both have better Piano voices.

The Casio PX-S3000 has a slightly better Piano voice than the CDP-S350 but still falls short of the Yamaha P45 and the Roland FP-30X.

The lack of a good Piano voice can be addressed by using a good VST Plug-in.

Here are some notable ones:

Pianoteq 7 Standard Virtual Piano Plug-In $275

This is based on physical modeling. The download is just 37MB.


Garritan Abbey Road CFX Concert Grand $159

The full installation requires 133GB of hard disk space!


Vienna Symphonic Library Yamaha CFX $278


Spectrasonics Keyscape Collector Keyboards $379


Stu Harrison has done an excellent audio comparison of the best Piano VST Plugins.

Mr. Harrison is one of best unbiased reviewers of digital and acoustics pianos on YouTube. He has dozens of comparison videos on his Channel:


Merriam Music


James Shawcross is yet another passionate Piano enthusiast who is classically trained. You can view all his comparison videos on various digital and acoustic pianos on his YouTube Channel:


ThePianoforever


James owns a Steinway Model D. Why does he even bother with digital pianos? James explained that he uses the digital pianos for long practice sessions so as not to wear out the Steinway D.


Out of curiosity I downloaded the Pianotek 7 Standard Trial version.

Yes, the NY Steinway D Classical preset does sound a lot better than the Stage Piano preset on the Casio.

Listen to Nathan LaMotte play Edelweiss featuring Pianoteq 7.

However, even after installing the ASIO4ALL driver, I could not completely get rid of the latency.

The price of the Casio CDP-S350 Digital Piano plus the Pianotek 7 Standard VST Plug-in is $549 + $275 = $824.

It would be ridiculous to pay this amount when you can get the Yamaha DGX-670 for $800.

The Yamaha DGX-670 is a far more capable device with a good 88-key graded hammer action keybed and decent piano samples. Plus you never have to worry about latency issues. At this $800 price point the Yamaha DGX-670 rules. It is the best 88-key arranger keyboard for a beginner.

Later the user can add the Yamaha PSR-SX900 to access a wider collection of Style and Voices while still taking advantage of the 88 keys on the DGX-670. One can think of the PSR-SX900 as the younger brother of the GENOS at less than half the price.

It should be noted that none of these digital pianos and the VST Plug-ins sound as good as a real acoustic concert grand.

An enormous amount of engineering, craftsmanship and effort goes into making an Acoustic Concert Grand Piano.


Here is an interesting documentary on the making of a New York Factory Steinway Model D.

It takes 1 year to build one.

Steinway makes about 2000 a year while other companies mass produce 100 pianos a day.

Listen to this comparison video of the rich tones of the Bösendorfer Imperial 290, Steinway D-274 and Yamaha CFX.

Listen to the delicate sounds from the Yamaha CFX Grand and Steinway Model D-274 used in the 18th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition

Digital pianos cannot convey this level of emotion and fluidity, refinement and richness.

Then again, a Steinway Model D-274 costs $175,000. I have nothing to complain about my $2000 Roland RD-700GX